Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time (October 18th, 2020)

The Church’s first reading likely passes without a word from most preachers.  It is unintelligible without historical background and that background is complicated. Catholic preachers are constricted by the dogma of keeping things short and simple and so it ends up being passed over in silence.

Pity. Whatever is gained in brevity and simplicity we lose in the narrowing of our vision.  This is sad, because as the Apostle Paul notes today in his letter to the Thessalonians, the scriptures should come to us in power, in the Holy Spirit, and with conviction. This should be the case be the message long or short!

Today’s scripture from the Prophet Isaiah makes reference to Cyrus, called the “great” who forged in conquest one of the world’s greatest empires- the empire of Persia.  He was born in the year 600 BC and died in the year 530 BC. He proved to be a force to be reckoned with.

One by one the great powers of the world fell before this empire and Cyrus, who was not only great because of how much territory he conquered, but because of the manner in which he ruled- with proper measures of benevolence and force, is considered one of the great men of history, a maker of civilization.

Cyrus is acclaimed by the prophet Isaiah as an instrument of God’s providence. In fact, the prophet goes so far to describe Cyrus in terms which were reserved for the Israelite messiah.  That’s saying much coming from an Israelites. Cyrus was a foreigner and unbeliever. He was also not of the House of David, and yet his rule is recognized by Isaiah as ordained by God!

 What is the reason for the prophet’s high esteem (of Cyrus)

The reason takes us back to the terrors of 587 BC when the last remnant of the Kingdom of Israel was conquered by the Babylonian Empire. The Israelites lands were laid waste and the population was scattered, enslaved and taken into exile.

In 539 BC, Cyrus conquered Babylon and then, surprising everyone, basically re-founded the Israelite nation and told the Israelites to return to their ancestral lands, even contributing funds for the restoration of the city of Jerusalem and the rebuilding of the temple.

It is for this reason that the prophet Isaiah praises Cyrus and holds him in such esteem that he describes him as like unto the messiah.

What are we to make of this?

Is this an example of ancient propaganda? Yes and no.

The Bible is best understood as a text in travail, a story that is trying to understand the word of the Lord spoken in the midst of the real and raw circumstances of life- in all worldly things, politics, economics, culture.  In all things the word of the Lord has something to say.

The word of the Lord in this particular text is not, “Cyrus is Great” but that Cyrus is an instrument of God through which his will and purposes are being accomplished.  And God’s will and purposes are to bring the Israelites home.

The end of the exile in Babylon is understood by the Bible as not just a political event, but a theological event- which means it is really about God.  That God did not abandon his people (though it seemed that way); and that the path towards setting things right is not something easy, but it takes purification and penance (which is what the exile of the Israelites was all about); and that God acts in the world through secondary causes, through people, events, circumstances, and does so in ways that surprise us (such as using a foreign unbeliever to bring the Israelites home).

In all these ways, Isaiah believes that God is showing forth his power, revealing that it in an ultimate sense, it is not the great men and women of history that are in charge, but the Lord himself and most often, the great men and women of history, who are so self-assured in their egoism,  don’t even know how God is using them to accomplish his will and purposes.

There is also an insight here that is worth considering. For much of human history the gods and goddesses that people worshipped were confined in their influence to particular places and to particular people.  Over time, the Israelites came to realize that their God, was universal in his authority and power. He was not just a God of their nation, but all nations and not just a God of their territory, but of all creation. 

When Isaiah speaks of the authority and power of God over Cyrus, he is making this point.  It is not the great men and women of the world, or their political, economic, or cultural systems that are moving history- it is God (even when circumstances seem to indicate quite the contrary is true).

This is the act of faith the Christian is called to make.  

Let’s move forward to the Lord’s Gospel for today.

In today’s Gospel passage from St. Matthew, the opponents of the Lord Jesus are seeking to entrap him so as to have something to accuse him of. They connive a scheme in which they will ask him a question that if he answers one way will make him seem an enemy of the Israelites and if answered the other way will make him seem an enemy of Rome.

Either way, they muse, they win- they can accuse him of being a traitor to his people or a revolutionary against Rome.

The question is posed in regard to taxation, and whether or not a righteous Israelite should pay taxes to the foreign power that demanded tribute from the Israelites- that power was Caesar, the emperor of Rome. Caesar ruled the Israelite lands through client kings from the family of Herod (the evil tyrant who had tried to kill the infant Jesus) who were in collusion with the religious authorities and elites of Israelite society.  Thus, the hypocrisy of the opponents of the Lord Jesus, they were the traitors to their people and collaborators with Caesar!  The very thing they want to accuse the Lord Jesus of is what they really and truly are!

Christ creatively circumvents the question by insisting that what belongs to Caesar is Caesar’s and what belongs to God is God.  What does this mean?

Many insist that Christ separates here temporal and spiritual authority, the state and God, government and religion.  This is true as far as it goes- but it doesn’t go far enough.

The deeper point is discerned in reference to our first scripture and its meaning- what the prophet Isaiah articulated about Cyrus, and how he was actually the servant of God’s will and purposes, even though he thought he was in charge.

Christ’s insights is actually this: Caesar doesn’t have anything that isn’t God’s and what Caesar has is actually owed to God.

This scripture is not just about the separation of worldly and spiritual power, God and the state. This scripture is about their proper relationship- and our proper relationship to both worldly power and God’s power. 

Remember: In the end, all that Caesar has, indeed all that we have, belongs to and is owed to God.

The first generations of Christians would face persecution because of this conviction. They understood that what Christ said meant they did not belong to Caesar and further that any difference between them and Caesar was relative when it came to how God related to his creation. 

In the end, Caesar, indeed all the great men and women who govern or rule, are in the same relationship with God that characterizes everyone else- all are creatures, all are under judgement, all are finite, all our sinners, all are accountable, all are obliged by the law of God, all are redeemed in Christ.  As such, the workings of governments are meant to serve God’s purposes, not those of Caesar, or other elites, or even our own will. 

When we render (or give our lives) only to Caesar or when we give to Caesar what belongs to God- that is what causes a society to decay and disintegrate.

This teaching of the Lord Jesus should never cease to stun us in its radicality or in its demand. 

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Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time (October 4th, 2020)

Today’s scriptures present two recurring biblical themes that are off-putting to many (to say the least).  These themes are judgement and wrath.

In our first scripture, from the Old Testament book of the Prophet Isaiah, Israel is likened to a lush and verdant vineyard that has been ruined by those given care of its fruits.  In response, the God of the Israelites, promises to bring forth the vineyard’s destruction.

In Christ’s Gospel for today, the Lord Jesus references this text from Isaiah, but raises the stakes.  The wickedness of the custodians of the vineyard goes beyond mere mismanagement of resources, but displays itself in cruelty, violence and murder. Christ testifies that the Lord’s justice will bring these evildoers to a frightening end.

Many preachers stir uncomfortably when called to proclaim and interpret these kinds of scriptures.  But if a preacher is authentic in his proclamation of the biblical witness, they are unavoidable.  Judgement and wrath are woven inextricably throughout the Bible.  Excise these categories and the Bible becomes unintelligible.  Preachers may not like to proclaim these themes and the people may not want to hear them, but to give in to those preferences is to live in denial.

Our aversion to hearing about these categories might originate in bad preaching and misunderstanding the meaning of the biblical themes of judgement and wrath.

Bad preaching weaponizes the categories so as to “own” an enemy or as a means of using threats to maintain control through fear.  Nothing good comes from this kind of manipulation of the biblical witness.  Further, many people have created a caricature of God as capricious and emotionally unstable, exploding into a rage at the slightest moral infraction.  When this caricature prevails, God’s judgement and wrath cannot be understood.

The other misunderstanding of the themes of judgement and wrath comes from an inability to accept that these realities are meant for us, the hearer or reader of the sacred text, rather than projecting them on someone else.  We don’t like to accept the message as being for myself because who wants to be told what you don’t want to hear or admit?  Keeping these themes at a distance and preferring, let’s say, themes of affirmation and inclusion, is a means by which we try to create a safe space for ourselves, a safe space where we can live in self righteousness and exemption from responsibility for our own contributions to the sin of the world.

Setting aside the influence of all these distortions is important.

What is judgement?

Simply put, God’s judgement is the revelation of our truth and because it is a revelation from God, that truth is irresistible.  There can be no equivocation or rationalization out of the truth that is presented to us.  Denying this revelation is denying reality.

As such, in regard to our scriptures for today, the Lord presents a truth to his people that is undeniable. They have not only misused his gifts, or taken them for granted, or used them for selfish and sinful purposes, but have in their pride sought to do violence to the giver of the gifts- God himself.

This is not a revelation for a people long ago, but for the Church right now, as we are the custodians of the gifts of God in Christ for the world.  The gifts of the Church are “for us” only inasmuch as we make of them a gift for the world.  The vineyard is the Church, whose produce, whose fruit, is meant as a means of sanctification for the world.  If we, the custodians of the vineyard (and that’s all the baptized folks) make a mess of the vineyard- the truth of the situation (God’s judgement) is for us to bear.

And what about wrath? 

Think of the wrath of God as consequences.  There is nothing arbitrary or capricious about it. The created order, even while it is subverted by sin, still belongs to God and he has set within creation an arc that tends toward the fulfillment of his justice.

We can resist God’s justice for only so long and finally the consequences are ours to bear.  And listen to this, wrath is not, in the biblical sense, an end in itself, but a means by which injustice is corrected.  There is the opportunity, indeed a pain-filled one, of setting right what went so horribly wrong, but the consequences of our actions cannot be avoided and must be dealt with.  The only way forward is through the crucible of setting right what went wrong, as painful as that can be.

What I have just described is what the biblical concept of “wrath” is all about.  It is what happens when as a result of our choices, our decisions, we seek to destroy what the Lord has given us, an in reference to the vineyard in the scriptures, what the Lord has given us is Christ and his Church.

This is a frightening message for all of us.  Truth and consequences, judgement and wrath, what we have done and what we have failed to do, all this bring us to a place where we are placed before the Lord as sinners in need of a salvation, a redemption, that we cannot create for ourselves.  We cannot shield ourselves in excuses or project the blame upon others.  The vineyard, the Church, was given to us to care for, to bring to its proper purpose, and through our own actions or indifference, well, just look at it.

Quite frankly, this would all be unbearable if not for today’s second scripture that is placed between the Old Testament reading from Isaiah and Christ’s Gospel.

In an excerpt from St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians, the apostle insists that we not be overcome by anxiety and fear- why?  Because in this very moment we can choose, we can decide, we can make decisions that rectify wrongs and accomplish what is good.  The vineyard can be restored and renewed, if we repent and instead of ordering our actions in accord with self-interest, we act in accord with God’s will.

The world imposes a judgement and wrath upon us that is always wholly destructive.  But this is the judgement and wrath of the world, not that of God.  The judgement and wrath of God are a crucible in which our sincerity as disciples is tested.  It is through this crucible that every Christian must pass in every age of the Church’s life.

The vineyard, which is the Church, is not our own to do with whatever we want.  The Church is a gift that is meant for others so that they can know Christ and share in the gifts that he wants to give.  The Church is not a means that we are to use to accomplish our own ends- be they personal, ideological, political, economic or cultural.

The Church is intended by God in Christ a way of life, embodied in what is true, what is honorable, what is just, what is pure, what is lovely and gracious, excellent and worthy of praise.  Act in accord with the attainment of these things and the vineyard will flourish.

Act against the attainment of these things and there will be no exemption from the judgement that will be revealed or the wrath that will come.   

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