The Church’s first scripture for today’s Mass is an excerpt taken from the Old Testament book of the prophet Jeremiah.
The prophet Jeremiah proclaimed the Lord’s word of truth during a dark time, the enemies of the Israelites were poised for war and an invasion of Jerusalem was imminent. In 587 BC the Kingdom of David would fall and the devastation that would follow would be horrific. Jeremiah foresaw all this coming and sent out word of warning. Yet, his interventions went unheeded.
The people would not trust the word of the Lord, but they would trust the words of men and this would bring the Israelites to utter ruin.
True prophets, authentic prophets, do not proclaim themselves or their opinions, they speak the word of God, bearing that word into real, human situations. The prophet is not concerned with polls or politicos, consultations or the commentariat.
Instead, the prophet presents a God’s eye view of human realities, and for the most part, that view insists on our conversion, identifying the real problem, the origination for all our woes is our own egoism, the elevation of ourselves to the status of God and the failure to come to terms with God’s commandments as non-negotiable necessities for human flourishing.
For Jeremiah, the real enemy of the Israelites was not just the enemy outside the gates, but the enemy within each person, that part of ourselves that thinks that we know better than God and acts as if God does not matter.
For the person who trusts in God, their vision of themselves and the world is radically changed. This vision imparts wisdom and understanding about the world and the role God wants us to play in his creation. This vision inspires purpose and imparts meaning. Bishop Barron speaks of authentic Christian spirituality as “a way of seeing” and this is an important insight.
Spirituality, Christian spirituality, should not be reduced to pious practices. Spirituality is a participation in the God’s eye view of oneself and the world.
This is the viewpoint of the prophet, but more than this, it should be the viewpoint of the Christian, not just in matters of piety, but in terms of all human endeavors.
An apt spiritual question for us Christians is this- in the midst of the particular circumstances of life, in relation to reality, to all the raw facts of human experience, am I willing to give priority to God? And further- as I survey the realities of life have a learned that what God sees is of far greater importance than my own perceptions and opinions, indeed of far greater importance than the perceptions and opinions of others.
The apostle Paul reminds us in his first letter to the Christians of the city of Corinth of the centrality and significance of the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus.
Denial of the Resurrection, with all its implications, is anti-Christ and anti-Christian- and this includes the diminishment of its reality for our own lives- meaning how we understand our lives right now and in the life that is yet to come.
What does the resurrection reveal to us?
Our lives are not limited to the here and now. What begins in this world for us does not end in a grave. This world is not all that there is and there is a greater power, a power greater than even death, that is not just a power, but a person, a divine person, who wants to share a relationship with us, share communion with us, and invites us to become his friends. This divine person has given us his name and even given us his life. His relationship with us is personal- in this life and in the life to come.
If you believe this you are a Christian, and if your faith is in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus you see and understand your own life and death differently. Both life and death unfold their meaning and purpose in relation to Christ and in terms of Christ’s relationship with you. There are many systems of conviction (ways of understanding) about life and death, but for the Christian, whatever truth might be gleaned from these systems is always positioned by priority of the Resurrection of Christ.
In his Gospel, the Lord Jesus delivers to us blessings and woes- he has words of encouragement and words of warning.
He imparts blessing to those who are poor, hungry, mourning and reviled.
He imparts woes for those who are rich, comfortable, satisfied, content, and honored.
In other words, he overturns our expectations for what blessings really are.
What does this mean?
In one respect, God in Christ is telling us forthrightly who he identifies as being important to him- those who are in most need of him and if we want to be in relationship to him we should place ourselves in relationship to those whom God deems to be most important, not to us, but to God.
In another respect he is warning us about our inclination to see worldly success and accomplishment as somehow indicative of divine favor or of virtue. This not always the case, and in many instances, worldly success is accomplished by using the appearance of virtue to mask immorality and selfishness. For this reason, it would be better living bereft of worldly satisfactions, for if they come at the price of our own integrity, of our own soul, they are just not worth it.
In the end, when we all face the Lord, we come to him stripped of all our accomplishments, in the words of the author Flannery O’Connor, “even our virtues are burned away”. What will matter then is not the “blessings” we have received, but the “blessings” that we have imparted. The mercy that we plead for will be met by the measure of mercy that we ourselves offered to others.
Did we live in such a way that we sought, as God in Christ does, to alleviate the sufferings of the world, or did we, out of our own desires, for things like wealth, comfort, security, honor- or worse- out of self-righteousness, personal entitlement and moral indignation, increase the sufferings of the world?
This question demands our answer. It’s best to contend with question now rather than defer it to that moment when the possibility of changing our answer is no longer possible.
Father Steve Grunow 