Sermon of prior provinical of the English Dominicans, Allan White

Navigating around the web there is some interesting information on the chapter of the Dominican Order taking place at present in Colombia. Here is a sermon preached in the last few days by the provincial of the English province, Allan White, who is actually a Cork man. He talks about not being saved by institutions. He also refers to a mission of transparency.
Interesting words.

The Pharisees took counsel together to destroy Jesus. They call a general chapter to decide how to deal with this threat to their survival. Like many who are involved in such meetings they concentrate so much on the detail in the picture that they risk failing to see the background. What is the background to Jesus? Matthew gives it to us quite plainly. He makes a long quotation from the Suffering Servant songs in Isaiah. In these songs Isaiah proclaims to the defeated and demoralized exiles in Babylon that their exile is ending and that they will return home. They have been chosen as God´s servant to be a light to the nations. They are to live this vocation not by imitating the imperial ruthlessness of Persia and Babylon; they are not to adopt the way of earthly powers to subjugate and oppress human beings, their mission will bring light and justice but not with destructive force and military might; they will carry out this task with gentle care.

There is a contrast between this general chapter of the Pharisees and the response of Jesus to threat it poses. They intend to use the full force of the law to compel submission, but submission is not obedience. You cannot change consciences by making law. The Pharisees are proactive in their legal righteousness.

The contrast is with Jesus. Matthew emphasises what he does not do. “He will not contend or cry out, nor will anyone here his voice in the streets, he will not break the bruised reed or quench a Smoldering reed. He dies not attempt to impose himself or his ministry by force. Faced with oblivion or with the threat of extinction he does not as many of us would do draw attention to himself, enter into controversy, gather allies or raise a faction, using the law, bending the system to ensure that we do not fall into the annihilation of invisibility. He withdraws rather than confronting those who reject him. Why so? So that all that he says or does may be more transparent to the presence of God which rests on him.

Jesus encourages his disciples into this same withdrawal. They too are called to the way of transparency. Sometimes religious institutions can imitate too closely the ways of state and empires. In their fear of extinction they forget that their mission is to mercy and that the laws they live by are simply commentaries on the Gospel. Many of us are bruised reeds and smoldering wicks, not to be crushed or quenched but summoned to the abandonment of all that prevents us from being transparent to the grace of Christ. We are not engaging in Chapter like that of the Pharisees motivated by fear, designed to eradicate threats and compel submission to law rather than encourage obedience to the Gospel. We know we shall not be saved by our institutions, our projects our priorities or our frontiers, but only by sheer naked commitment to Christ, the Word which we bear and in whose name we glory. All we have to offer is the Word and the name. People may expect more of us or demand more spectacularly visible triumphs, but they are doomed to disappointment.

We are called to follow Jesus on the way to the transparency. "Philip: the one that has seen me, has seen the Father". as well as Jesus was transparent with the One who sent him, this way, when people see us, they should only see Jesus. When Peter, in the Acts of the Apostles was going through the the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, a poor man asked alms . The man simply asked to be healed, which Peter was able to do. However, he gives the poor man much more. Peter asked him just to look on him and then he said: "Silver and gold I have not; but what I have, this I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk". Pedro asked the man to gaze at him, to see through him. Our task is not that people know to the Order of Preachers but taking people to know Jesus. That is the mission of all preachers: a transparency mission.