FIFTEENTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR
15 July 2018
Homily
In the film, Jakob the Liar (based on the novel by Jurek Becker),
Robin Williams portrays Jakob Heym, a café owner in Nazi occupied Poland in 1944.
Jakob and his Jewish neighbors have been herded into a rat infested ghetto to await
transport to the death camps.
One night, taken into custody for breaking curfew Jakob accidently overhears
a radio transmission at German headquarters that Russian troops will soon be liberating Poland.
When Jakob is released he shares the news with his two closest friends swearing them to secrecy.
It did no good by the next morning the news is all over camp.
Poland will be liberated and Jakob has a radio.
Of course neither rumor is true.
However Jakob sees how people’s spirit’s are lifted by the rumors,
so he continues to fabricate stories of imminent deliverance.
The Nazi’s eventually learn of the nonexistent radio and the rumors of deliverance.
They pick up Jakob and torture him and eventually put him to death.
Despite it all he will not admit it’s a fabrication.
As one of his neighbors says:
“We have learned to live without firewood, Without potatoes, Without decent clothing,
But no one can live without a future.”
Jakob gave his neighbors a future.
In the gospel today Jesus sends out the disciples, two by two.
The Marcan author wants us to know that they go with only one thing–the future Jesus promises,
The kingdom coming.
They can live without a second tunic,
They can live without money in their belts,
They can live without food.
But they can’t live, they can’t be who they are, without that future which Jesus promises.
We live on so much, we can forget that we live for is the future God promises,
And in the end, that’s all we’ll have–
Not a closet full of clothes, Not a bank full of money, Not a fridge full of food,
All our future is, in God.