Mass readings for the 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time:
Wisdom 18.6-9 Psalm 33.1 & 12, 18-19, 20 & 22 Hebrews 11.1-2, 8-19 Luke 12.32-48
Jesus tells us to not be afraid – as “sheep” we are naturally fearful when we hear the growls in the forest, the howling in the distance. Jesus knows this; and that’s why he invites you into his kingdom, a place of spiritual safety – the Kingdom of God is yours, if you’ve the courage, the conviction, but above all the faith, to work for it. Faith gives us knowledge of the kingdom. It’s by faith that we’re here, it’s by faith we listen to Jesus and believe him when he tells us of its coming, of it, in many ways, already being here. As the Book of Wisdom relates, the deliverance of the Hebrew slaves from bondage in Egypt was known before it happened; and in the joy of that realization, they celebrated the first Passover being, in one sense already free – freed from the oppressive fear of Pharoah. Yes, bad things were still bound to happen to them at the Pharoah’s command, but the success of their escape and journey to the Promised Land was assured. The power of God, witnessed in the plagues that Moses declared first and then saw happen, told them that this prophet knew what he was talking about. They could have confidence in what must have been a fearsome idea – to leave Egypt, even if it were a place of miserable bondage, was a leap into a terrifying unknown, perhaps even into a horrible death in the desert, but for the promise God made them.
We celebrate the Eucharist in like manner in light of the knowledge, by faith, that the kingdom of God is both among us now, but also coming in its fullness in the future; at Christ’s second coming. We are freed from fear of the powers of this world that try to dominate us, pry us away from Christ and make us dependent upon them. They will employ reward and punishment, pleasure and fear, flattery and lies to get us to forget the promises of Christ and stay put under their authority, and to work for them and not for the Lord.
Last week I spoke about the horrible mental trap set for us in unhealthy media consumption; the new trend of “doomscrolling” through news that discourages us, and will defeat us if we’re not careful to pull back from its depressive influence. I also said that there is a lot of “bad” news that we must acknowledge, but then respond to as faithful followers of Christ – which means not in despair and defeat.
It’s so telling that what vanquishes the Egyptian Pharoah in the end is the faith of the Hebrew slaves. He can’t break it, for all the political, economic and military power he had, the Hebrews knew it was nothing compared to God’s power. And the plagues gave evidence of God’s might. The Passover, the night of death in Egypt from which they were miraculously delivered, this cemented their convictions that it didn’t matter what Pharaoh wanted, commanded, demanded, only God has true authority over human beings.
Some of the imagery of Jesus’ teaching today is of night and the temptation to sleep instead of being about our work as we wait for our Lord’s return. We might recall again from last week that I spoke of our earnest and sincere prayer as a coming to consciousness of God, a waking up to the reality of the divine. We are apt to sleep. Again, when we consider the state of things, how our national and local communities have changed so rapidly, and not for the better, how the finances of every level of government are strained, how so many, both as private individuals, and as corporate entities are oppressed by record levels of debt, we just don’t want to think about it anymore.
In my ministry to people struggling with mental health issues, with anxiety, depression, but also in my personal experience of mood disorders, one of the most common tactics for dealing with the worry that so exhausts someone is to simply go to sleep. It’s cliché. I’m sure we’ve all been there at one point, or had to help someone who is going through a rough time, to get out of bed or off a sofa where they’ve slept for days, to get in the shower, get dressed, and get moving again. It’s so comfortable in one way, to stay curled up in the blankets, and to bury one’s head in the pillows, to escape into the darkness, the void of unconsciousness, perhaps to dream of something pleasant. It’s somewhat better than using drugs or getting drunk, I suppose. Getting high has that in common with sleep, it’s a temporary respite from reality, but it doesn’t make the world go away.
And Jesus knows this. I’ve spoken often of the political and social situation prevailing at the time of Christ’s coming in the flesh, that many Jews had a sense of things coming to an end. Now it wasn’t, as it turned out the final end, the apocalyptic end we read of in a book like Revelations, but it was an end to the project of the kingdom of Israel in ancient times. The kingdom had been divided, shattered and its pieces absorbed by others; and attempts to resurrect it had been at best partially successful, but ultimately ending in failure.
The grand experiment that our elites launched, that was really leaned into in the past decade, an effort to transform our society away from what we were as people of faith and tradition, of family and local community, of distinct and definite culture grounded in Christianity and the legacy of Christendom, is in the process of unraveling with consequences that go beyond the political. But it won’t be abandoned without a struggle.
We already see the authorities at every level of governance, in our institutions, attempting to curate the information we receive, and to manage the public discourse around the problems that have fast arisen and are so distressing and damaging to the social fabric. There will be no admission of responsibility by the powerful for what has happened. Rather, they’ll be looking for scapegoats, and as Christians we’ve already experienced the attempt to distract the public by making the Church the villain in Canadian history. That will continue. There’s talk again of revoking the tax-exemption for churches; the “promotion of religion” no longer to be seen as a charitable and so, worthy, enterprise. Instead, religion is caricatured as irrational, bigoted, and so, not conducive to the progressive regime we’ve been living under for so long. The Church, as quiet as she is for the most part, in simply being, gives silent witness to the truth of things. That’s why she must be made to go away, either figuratively or quite literally. What’s been happening of late I would say is akin to the plagues sent against Egypt and its Pharoah: our problems are a consequence of a turning away from God; indeed, the result of our defiance of God. Live apart from Truth; redefine Love as something other than what Christ taught; make Justice discretionary according to political consideration and not the absolute that it is. Well, there will be harsh consequences.
So, we need to get to work, here and wherever a parish exists, to rebuild what has been allowed to fall apart: community centred on God known in Jesus Christ, and guided by the Holy Spirit. And this isn’t an attempt to return to the past, we shouldn’t idealize what was especially as it had its deficiencies with respect to what a Christian society should be. However, that shouldn’t have resulted in abandoning the Kingdom of God.
As with ancient Israel’s demise, the Jews of the first century kept trying to rebuild Israel as it had been. And Jesus told them that wasn’t going to work. We as Christians lost Christendom with the coming of modernity, and we’ve tried by political means to reconstitute it with little or no success. That’s not going to work. It will come, however, by our persistence in listening to the whole of Christ’s word, and following it; in making among us a place where the Kingdom is manifest. To paraphrase St. Paul from today’s epistle: we desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. And for that we will work, and not sleep, in anticipation of our Master’s coming.
Amen.