Our reluctance to cause division or dispute can lead to a ‘conspiracy of silence’, writes Fr Martin Delaney
There is an old Turkish proverb which says: “Whoever speaks the truth will be chased out of nine villages.”
A few weeks ago we had a rather unusual Gospel read at Mass. (Luke 12:49-53) Jesus spoke of bringing division rather than unity. He spoke of fathers against sons and mothers against daughters not to mention daughters-in-law! On the face of it a rather strange passage from someone who so often talks of peace, compassion, forgiveness and healing.
What Jesus is saying here is that before you can have real peace, real compassion, real forgiveness and healing there must first be TRUTH. However, as Jesus noted in the Gospel this would precisely be the problem. The world we are all part of does not receive truth very well and so becomes divided. Nevertheless when it comes to Jesus’ expectations of us, high up there on the list is that he expects us to be speakers of TRUTH.
This is a very difficult challenge for most people because our preferred default setting is ‘to keep the peace’. We don’t want to cause division, we don’t want to rock the boat. This can however lead to a conspiracy of silence which is ultimately not healthy. How many families have been faced with the reality of one member’s drinking or gambling habit and they pretend it’s not really a problem until it’s too late and then everyone says “how did we not see there was a problem and none of us spoke up or did anything about it”.
Abuse
I remember some years ago a teacher told me about a young girl in her class revealing to her that a much loved older relative had abused her. These were the days before specific procedures for reporting were in place so together with the chair of the Board of Management the teacher approached the father of the child to tell him what she had revealed.
The father, who was closely related to the alleged abuser, was shocked but had no problem believing the child’s account of what had happened. However, the very next day the father came back to the teacher and the chair of the board pleading with them ‘not to do anything about it’ as it ‘would completely divide their family’.
That attitude has led to so much heartbreak for so many individuals, families and communities over the years.
In to that conspiracy of silence and ‘don’t rock the boat’ attitude, Jesus comes and challenges each one of us, who claim to be his followers, to speak up and challenge the prevailing culture and status quo. To those who will say that their lone voice won’t make a difference let me finish with the following piece of Truth from fairly recent history:
When Communist rule fell in the former Soviet Union, Russian leader Boris Yeltsin was asked what inspired him to lead the change. His answer was Lech Walesa in Poland, a shipyard labourer who rose to drive a revolution. When Walesa was asked who had inspired him… he noted that it was the teachings of Martin Luther King Jr.
And who did Martin Luther King Jr. credit for his inspiration?
He pointed to Rosa Parks, a small woman with huge courage, who refused to give up her seat on a bus…and was determined to make a difference.
Is it too much of a stretch to say that Rosa Parks started the ripples which helped to bring down communism?
A brush with the Almighty
Jock, the painter, often would thin his paint so it would go further. So when the Church decided to do some deferred maintenance, Jock was able to put in the low bid, and got the job. As always, he thinned his paint way down with turpentine. One day while he was up on the scaffolding – the job almost finished – he heard a horrendous clap of thunder, and the sky opened.
The downpour washed the thinned paint off the church and knocked Jock off his scaffold and onto the lawn among the gravestones and puddles of thinned and worthless paint.
Jock knew this was a warning from the Almighty, so he got on his knees and cried: “Oh, God! Forgive me! What should I do?”
And from the thunder, a mighty voice: “REPAINT! REPAINT! AND THIN NO MORE!”