True Civilization
The world renowned anthropologist Margaret Mead was asked the question about her work, “What was the first sign of civilization for me? Was it the axe-head? Or was it the arrowhead or was it a fish hook? Or maybe it was something more sophisticated like a musical instrument, or a colored ceramic bowl?
She paused gently and returned an answer that was a surprise to her inquisitor. She said, “The first sign of civilization for me was the discovery of a broken leg bone, the healed femur bone of a human being.” The inquirer was somewhat confused. It was not an artifact or something made by humans; it was the human bone itself that demonstrated civilization. It was somebody who had walked along the earth; somebody who had been wounded and who had been healed. That, for Margaret Meade, was the sign of true civilization.
Dr. Margaret Meade went on to explain
that for her the true sign of civilization
was that broken bone that had healed
because the law of the land that reigned supreme
was “the survival of the fittest.”
And a broken femur, leg bone,
was the sure sign of death
because that person was unable to hunt; unable to walk.
For a bone to be healed,
Margaret Meade maintained
another human being had to care
for that person until the bone healed.
Somebody else would have had to hunt;
somebody else would have had to gather;
somebody else would have had to protect.
Someone else had to care for the person
while the femur healed.
In other words, for Margaret Meade,
compassion was the first sign of civilization.
In today’s gospel, we hear from
the beginning of the Gospel of Luke and
then the beginning of Jesus’ own ministry
—his words, from the prophet Isaiah,
are a mission statement for him.
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring glad tidings to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.”
He will heal the sick and reach out to the oppressed;
and we are all called to do those very things.
We who call ourselves in his name
are called to that same civilization of compassion.
In a way, Christ came to bring a little of the citizenship of heaven to the citizenship of the world and called us forth into what Margaret Meade would call the first sign of civilization ––to care, to have compassion for others. In today’s second reading Paul tells the Corinthians we are all members of that same part of the body and that if one part of us is hurt, then we all hurt. Today, we come to ask the question how do we know when to reach out to others who are hurting? All of us would know surely first hand when someone from our immediate family is hurt; we know we are affected immediately by that reality. We all have to do a little more around the house while that person heals and gets better. And if it is somebody in the office or at school, we know we all have to do a little bit more work around the office place while that person regains their strength.
But for others beyond our immediate experience something has to break into our world, for us to truly know. For example, last weekend, after having seeing the horrific damage and horrendous affect of the earthquake in Haiti, the world poured out its heart and we, too, gave an incredible offering to them. Because the world news broke into us it became clear to us that a people were hurting and so we rightly reached out to them.
But how do we normally go about reaching out to others? We rely on agencies like the Catholic Charities, Catholic Relief Services and other such agencies. We also rely on our local church to know how to reach out. It is true that the Catholic Church does the most reaching out and that is what we are about as church. We do not exist for ourselves. We exist for the world and so we should reach to others.
Today marks the beginning of
our Annual Diocesan Appeal
and we talk about the wider church,
not just us here at Holy Spirit Parish in Almaden
but the wider church in the Diocese of San Jose
so that we can continue our work in the world.
Today, I want to close the homily
with a video of our bishop
and then have Steve Barroni give a short talk.
First I want to show a video from the Bishop,
explaining what it is that we do as church
so that our hearts can continue to be opened,
so that somebody can reach into our world.
We must let those words come into us so we can care;
we can care for the other parts of the body;
we can care for others who are in need;
so that we can care and bring
the citizenship of heaven to earth;
so that we can give the signs of compassion;
so that we can give the signs of true civilization.
