Sunday 28 (C) Oct. 10 2010
It was a large and lively family, well known in the locality and even further afield. They were circus performers , earning their living as brave and beautiful acrobats, amazing the crowds with their grace and team work. At first there were sons, and then came daughters, and the parents brought them up to be proud of their tradition and loyal to their siblings. They trained hard, learning their different parts with discipline, trust and even love.
Family business called the parents away, and they left the older children in charge. They were proud of the tradition, and were determined to excite the crowds. They brought in animals, clowning, more danger, more thrills. The show became increasingly competitive, even rather edgy. There were arguments about who had top billing, rivalries between older and younger, tensions between brothers and sisters. There were more ‘accidents’ on the high wire, more ‘fights’ among the clowns. Look at me – they would announce themselves – get back in your box – they would denounce the others.
In the midst of all this, one of the sisters began to talk during practices, about how the circus could be, about life outside the tent, about her parents returning. Some of the family loved to listen, but most didn’t like these interruptions, these challenges. They tried to ridicule her, to silence her, to remove her. ‘You’re dividing the family’ they said. She smiled: ‘it’s already divided- you clowns, you sad, brutal clowns. Remember you’re acrobats. What happened to grace, to beauty, to trust?’ They’d had enough. They planned it all, the routine that went wrong, the net that wasn’t there and even the cold morgue they thought was secure, until they found it empty and the body gone.
Are you optimistic or pessimistic? Is the glass half full or half empty - or smashed and coming towards your face? Do you think to yourself, what a wonderful world? Or do you see a world capable of crucifying its saviour? The Christian faith says we are created good, that this goodness has been distorted and disfigured, that this goodness can be re-formed and renewed. It is both pessimistic and optimistic. Every Mass we celebrate a death. How strange to put a death at the centre - a body given, a blood poured out! How strange and how accurate, when we see around us, and sometimes within us, the presence of sad and brutal clowns and their sibling hatreds. Every Mass we celebrate a resurrection. How strange to claim that death is not the end – an empty tomb, a living power. How strange and how accurate, when we see around us, and sometimes within us, the defiant hope that beauty has the final word, that we can be acrobats after all.
Today’s first reading gave us ‘a saying that you can rely on: If we have died with Christ, then we shall live with Christ.’ Dying with Christ means the death of the clown, the death of the ‘look at me’, the death of the hatreds and rivalries that distort and disfigure. Living with Christ means the life of the acrobat, the life of the trust and teamwork that re-form and renew.
To die and to live in this way is not ‘nice’, it is not comfortable. It is painful. It is a share in the cross. The Cross is not an object for your walls, it is a model for your lives. Every day you make the sign of the cross. Imagine that cross within you, the framework for your life. It is part of you, rooted in you, because you are created good through the power of God the Father. Now it must come to life, a cross that burns away all the dross, all the rubbish through the power of God the Son. And then, amazingly, it can flower and produce fruit, a tree of life, through the power of God the Spirit.
May the Cross be rooted in you, may it burn in you, may it flower in you. Be acrobats, not clowns. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Fr Chad Boulton