Homily 30 August, Matthew 23:27-32

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Please read the Scripture passage before the homily.

Monuments are ambiguous.  They can demand our respect, but they can also accuse us or demand action of us.  We tend to mark graves so that we can avoid walking over them.  We do this out of respect or out of fear of falling in.  We, like the peoples of ancient cultures, do not like dealing with dead bodies.  If you are a whitewashed tomb, we know what is inside of you.  Tombs declare the death of people and warn us of our own coming death.

We build monuments over dead heroes.  Even our military cemeteries are monuments.  When we honor the monuments of the dead, are we in that act giving consent to the wars and conflicts that caused their deaths?  Do our national monuments only call upon us to honor those whom we love, but also call us to work even harder towards a peace that will end all wars?

Jesus accused the people of consenting to the killing of people by their building of monuments.  Jesus was calling them out of opposition to him into faithfully following him.  Ought not our monuments do the same thing, call us to follow Christ faithfully?

When we see monuments, we should be thinking that our ancestors were warriors, but we should be peacemakers.