‘Faith is always supposed to make it harder, not easier, to ignore the plight of our sisters and brothers. (Robin R. Meyers Saving Jesus from the Church: How to Stop Worshiping Christ and Start Following Jesus, p. 165)’. Again, the scriptures reinforce God’s partiality toward ‘the oppressed...orphan...widow and the lowly.’

Again, a figure from the peripheries of society offers a lesson. She finds her voice and speaks up for herself. She is prepared to say what ‘she wanted whether she got it or not, because saying it was how she remembered who she was. It was how she remembered the shape of her heart…’ (Barbara Brown Taylor ‘Bothering God’ in Home by Another Way).

In Mark’s gospel, Jesus is in a hurry. In John, he seems to be in control.  In Matthew’s gospel, he does parables. In Luke, Jesus is forever crossing borders and finds himself in liminal places – always on the threshold having gone beyond the first step but not yet at the next one, and in the middle of things. Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem to meet his fate. He is ‘between Samaria and Galilee’ where there is nothing. It is a fancy way of saying that Jesus is at the border. And it is in this space that Jesus meets people. Jesus seems to be all about crossing boundaries, both physical and theoretical and will cross another to heal these men as we will see.

Romans 12:2ff: ‘Don’t change yourselves to be like the people of this world, but let God change you inside with a new way of thinking……….’ We can and must rearrange our priorities….

How do we want to remember ANZAC or any war? To suggest changes in the way we think about Anzac is dangerous territory.

Faced with so much to say about Oscar Romero and Paul Vll, I turned to St Teresa. It seemed she was saying: keep it short and focus on what made their hearts burn as for the disciples today in the hope that our hearts would also burn when confronted with the word of God. We cannot relegate the lessons of any hero to the abstract or superficial. In lieu of platitudes, and avoid domestication, we need to make a living, active tribute to such peacemakers, whistle-blowers and prophetic voices who call for peace and justice, sound governance and responsible use of power. In both Oscar Romero and Paul Vl – there is a clear message: solidarity with the ‘poor’ must take centre stage.