The Roots of Pope Francis' Preaching

This posting from the issue of Liturgy dealing with “Pastoral Liturgy and Pope Francis,” guest-edited by Katharine Harmon, looks at Pope Francis’ approach to his ministry as a preacher.

In the Sistine Chapel on March 13, 2013, when Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires was elected bishop of Rome, his friend Cardinal Claudio Hummes—a Franciscan friar from Brazil—turned to the new pope to say, “Don’t forget the poor.” Moments later, Bergoglio chose, as his papal name and inspiration, Saint Francis of Assisi. 

 Six months later, Pope Francis made a pilgrimage north from Rome to Assisi, a city on a hill from which for centuries pilgrims have come upon the breathtaking panorama of the Umbrian countryside. There, on the Feast of Saint Francis, the pope preached:

Today, I too have come, like countless other pilgrims, to give thanks to the Father for all that he wished to reveal to one of the “little ones” mentioned in today’s Gospel: Francis, the son of a wealthy merchant of Assisi. His encounter with Jesus led him to strip himself of an easy and carefree life in order to espouse “Lady Poverty” and to live as a true son of our heavenly Father. This decision of Saint Francis was a radical way of imitating Christ: he clothed himself anew, putting on Christ, who, though he was rich, became poor in order to make us rich by his poverty (cf. 2 Cor. 8:9). In all of Francis’ life, love for the poor and the imitation of Christ in his poverty were inseparably united, like the two sides of the same coin.

 . . . The point of [Saint] Francis’s discipleship is not so much that he chose a life of material poverty. . . [but rather] that [he] recognized the image and likeness of Christ in God’s creation and in each person—and most particularly in the faces of the poor. More than anything, Francis made of his life a fundamental option for relationship with the poor. . .

Early in his papacy, Pope Francis taught that growth in the Christian life requires an “‘art of accompaniment’ which teaches us to remove our sandals before the sacred ground of the other (cf. Exod. 3:5).” [See Evangelii Gaudium, ¶169, http://www.vatican.va]

As in the liturgy, Christian life is a performance in both word and action that acknowledges the presence of the Risen Jesus in our midst. Each of us, according to our calling, is in some way a performer and preacher of the Gospel. 

. . . By the time he became auxiliary bishop of Buenos Aires in 1992, Jorge Bergoglio had embraced the church’s preferential option of the poor. When he became pope in 2013, he was prepared by experience to be consistently on message about action for justice and the Gospel option for the poor—to which he often speaks by way of the counter-cultural expression of “going to the peripheries.”

[This phrase is found in the Pope’s Evangelii Gaudium, ¶ 20:] “Each Christian and every community must discern the path that the Lord points out, but all of us are asked to obey his call to go forth from our own comfort zone in order to reach all the ‘peripheries’ in need of the light of the Gospel.”

Heille’s full essay is available in Liturgy 33, no. 2 available by personal subscription and through many libraries. For more, see Gregory Heille, O.P., The Preaching of Pope Francis: Missionary Discipleship and the Ministry of the Word (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2015).

Gregory Heille, O.P., “Pope Francis: Preacher,” Liturgy 33, no. 2 (2018): 3-10.

Looking Honestly at What Harms Us - 11 March 2018 - Fourth Sunday in Lent

Parallels and paradox abound in these passages: the source of harm becomes the source of healing, those who see the darkness are brought to the light. What is exposed offers a route toward wholeness despite––and even because of––brokenness.

The preacher today may focus on the call in Lent to look squarely at the roots of self-deception and dishonesty. Looking at what harms us is the beginning of life abundant.

John 3:14-21

While nearly everyone is familiar with John 3:16 and the verses that immediately follow it, most readers are probably unaware of the verses that immediately precede it, included in today's reading. “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. . .” refers to an oft-overlooked incident during the Israelites’ wandering in the wilderness (see below).

Just as Moses turned the serpent, something that was originally the cause of suffering, into a means of saving lives, the gospel writers made the cross, originally a symbol of shame and suffering, into a symbol of eternal life. . . .

While most readers are familiar with John 3:16, many may overlook the inherent tension between inclusivity and exclusivity in [the passage as a whole]. . . “God so loved the world” suggests the possibility of inclusion (whereas many places in the Bible speak of God's exclusive love for the chosen people), but “everyone who believes in him” limits the reward of eternal life to believers. The next verses increase this tension, since unbelievers are condemned on the assumption that they've had the opportunity to believe and have chosen not to. . .

While many readers have accepted this exclusivity. . . we must consider the audience to whom this gospel is speaking. Some have suggested that the Johannine community felt so beleaguered by “enemies,” not only the synagogues from which they'd been expelled, but the followers of John the Baptist as well as other early variants of Christianity, that they needed encouragement that they had made the right choice. From this perspective then, the exclusivity may be less important than the emphasis on belief in and loyalty to Jesus. –– Jonathan Lawrence

Numbers 21:4-9

This passage provides the background to the cryptic statement that precedes John 3:16. As they often do, the Israelites complain against God and Moses. . . [but] unlike the other times when they complained and God provided food or water, this time God sent poisonous serpents among them and many people died.

When the people realize their sin in criticizing God and Moses, they repent and God instructs Moses to place a bronze serpent on a pole so that anyone who was bitten by the serpents could look at it and live. . .  The concept is of God providing a way to rescue the people from the situation they found themselves in due to their sin, offering a logical parallel for the gospel of John. –– Jonathan Lawrence

Ephesians 2:1-10

Whereas John described Jesus as a signpost of hope to which people could look and be saved by belief, the writer of Ephesians sees the problem not so much as unbelief as the sins they have committed under the influence of the “ruler of the power of the air.” No longer under the sway of their fleshly passions, the Ephesians have been “raised” up and seated with Christ in the “heavenly places.” As in John, they are saved through faith, but there are also echoes of Psalm 107 in the references to God's help and healing. –– Jonathan Lawrence

Jonathan D. Lawrence, an American Baptist Church ordained minister, teaches Religious Studies and Theology at Canisius College, Buffalo, New York.

Homily Service 39, no. 4 (2006): 44-52.

Jesus Sets a Boundary - 4 March 2018 - Third Sunday in Lent

In each of the readings for today –– Jesus’ purging the Temple of self-serving commerce, the giving of the Law, and the foolishness of our faith proclamation –– we are invited more deeply into the Lenten disciplines: almsgiving, prayer, and fasting. The disciplines are meant to remind us at visceral levels what it means to live counter to the values of a world that venerates wealth, power, success, and taking care of oneself.

What does it mean to turn over the tables of those things we worship in favor of trusting in the Lord? How is it possible to embrace foolishness when everything in our society urges us to be savvy? How can we re-define the terms of our lives? These are Lenten questions.

John 2:13-22

All four gospels recount Jesus' confrontation with the moneychangers in the temple. However, John's account is distinct from the Synoptics in several important ways. First, John places this encounter near the beginning of Jesus' ministry, as the start of continual antagonism between Jesus and the [religious] leaders, rather than at the very end of his life, after his triumphal entry into Jerusalem as in the Synoptics.

Mark and Luke reflect the antagonism of the [Temple] leaders, but use this incident as their reason for wanting Jesus killed. (See Matthew 21:12–13, Mark 11:15–19, and Luke 19:45–48 for the parallel accounts.) Second, the synoptic parallels contain no references to sheep and cattle or to Jesus' violent act of using a whip to drive out the moneychangers. Third, the Synoptics have him citing scripture. . .

Finally, the synoptic parallels lack the reference to Psalm 69:9, “Zeal for your house will consume me,” or his discussion of tearing down the temple and rebuilding it in three days, which his disciples came to understand as a reference to his death and resurrection. . .

Some of the differences from the Synoptics may be minor, but the overall effect is to emphasize John's concern for the demonstration of Jesus' nature, his performance of signs, and his connection to other scriptural teachings. –– Jonathan D. Lawrence

Exodus 20:1-17

In previous weeks there have been readings on the covenants with Noah and Abraham. This week's reading from Exodus contains the Ten Commandments, in one sense the core of the covenant with Moses given at Mount Sinai.

. . . Most of these regulations are pronounced succinctly with little explanation or detail. Unlike some of the biblical legislation that goes into extensive detail and is case-specific, these laws are presented as absolute principles, leaving the exact implementation to later interpreters and readers. Except for the commands to honor parents and keep the Sabbath, which offer specific justifications for the rule, the rest of the commandments give no background.

It should be noted that the justification for the Sabbath law in Exodus is that God rested on the Sabbath, while Deuteronomy 5:15 reminds the Israelites that they were once slaves so now that they are in power they should give their slaves the kind of rest they themselves never had. Some readers have tried to divide the commandments into two groups, outlining obligations to God and to humanity. While this is convenient shorthand, its symmetry can depend on the numbering of the commandments, which varies by religious community. –– Jonathan D. Lawrence

1 Corinthians 1:18-25

Paul contrasts the message and power of the cross with the way it is perceived by the rest of the world. . . What the world thinks is wise is foolish and what is considered foolish becomes wise and important. Unlike the psalmist who said that God's law makes “wise the simple,” Paul sees wisdom not in the law, but in God's “foolishness” in crucifying Christ, as he says, “For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength.” –– Jonathan D. Lawrence

Jonathan D. Lawrence, an American Baptist Church ordained minister, teaches Religious Studies and Theology at Canisius College, Buffalo, New York.

Homily Service 39, no. 4 (2006): 33-43.