The Halftime Speech of the New Testament: 20th Sunday OT

Pope Gregory the Great wrote about one of the difficulties in preaching: you’ve got people with very different situations and challenges and you have to address all of them as best you can. Maybe somebody on the left side has become what we call “scrupulous,” obsessing over everything, living in fear that he hasn’t earned God’s mercy. “Bless me Father, for I have sinned. I thought about doing a slow roll through a stop sign. I didn’t do it but I thought about it and now I’ve lost all hope of salvation.” This person needs a sermon about God’s mercy, about relaxing a little and trusting God to make up for your weakness. If you throw fire and brimstone at this guy, you’re going to aggravate his problem. 

Trouble is, someone across the aisle has the opposite problem. He’s been getting really lax about Christian life. This guy won’t be seen anywhere near a confessional, but if he was, he’d be saying “Bless me Father, for I have... well, ‘sinned’ is such a negative word... but anyway I’m having an affair but I have really good reasons and I’m actually a really fantastically wonderful person.” This guy needs a little fire, a little spiritual kick in the pants. Preach to him about relaxing and trusting God’s mercy, and you’re probably making his problem worse.

So what’s a preacher to do? Even Gregory the Great didn’t really know. Try your best and try to kind of balance things out.

Yeah, that's rough... good luck bro.

One of these balances we need to strike in the spiritual life is between joyfulness and seriousness. Now these things are not opposites. You can be both. You must be both! But in our confused humanity we can easily let one do away with the other. You can be a joyful person but not approach your life with any seriousness; we might call that person frivolous. You can approach your life ever so seriously but have no joy; call that person a sourpuss. Neither of these approaches are fitting for a disciple of Jesus Christ.

Nobody can accuse Christ of being a frivolous person. But neither can he be called a sourpuss. He is a person of complete seriousness and complete joy. And his closest disciples, the Saints, though they are wildly diverse, all have this in common with him.

If I’m diagnosing our society as a whole, I think it’s safe to say that we suffer more from frivolity than joylessness, more from laxity than scrupulosity. That’s speaking only generally. I think our tendency now, by and large, is to let our trust in God (which is very good) slide into presumption (which is very bad). We’re tempted to excuse our sins by saying “well, I’m trying” or “God knows I’m doing my best” or “I’m pretty good for the most part.” And those things may all be true, but we’ve gone dangerously wrong when we forget what these sins of ours cost Christ. We are right to trust that our sins can be forgiven... but we’re very wrong when we think that, therefore, our sins are no big deal. See the difference?

So, still speaking only generally, I think we face the temptation to turn Christianity into nothing more than a big smiley face. What we want from Church is to be told that everything’s great, that we are especially great, and that if there’s anything wrong with us at all it’s that we should have even more self-esteem. There’s a tendency to think that everything about religion should be so-called ‘positive,’ upbeat. There’s the famous story about the Christian church that was debating whether to have a Cross in the sanctuary because it seemed insufficiently upbeat. That really happened! They were, unintentionally, exemplifying a common problem we face: Christianity without the Cross.

Why can’t everything be upbeat? Why can’t everything be positive? The biggest problem with that is that it’s a failure of charity. It’s a failure of love. We have brothers and sisters who suffer grievously, terribly, next door and around the world. There are evils in the world too monstrous to be mentioned in this holy place with children present. And it would be monstrous of us not to be bothered by that. It would be monstrous to not be bothered by the suffering of others. And Church should reflect that. If your life is going amazingly well, you are welcome here and you are part of the family. If your life is extraordinarily painful, you are welcome and part of the family too. And we lift all of our hearts to God together. They become the one heart of Christ, both full of joy and pierced with a lance.

These reflections are prompted by all of our readings this Sunday. Anyone who thinks following Christ is going to be easy, that if you follow the rules your life will be charmed, that all you have to do is ‘name it and claim it’ and your life will be nothing but full of win, please see the Prophet Jeremiah about that. He’s been given God’s Word to speak to people who want none of it. Why? Because it’s too downbeat! They want a smiley-face and he gives them fire and brimstone. They want to pretend everything’s just spiffy and fine, but it isn’t. It’s rotten and corrupt and the Prophet of God is sent to call them to repentance and conversion. They react the same way people react today, and Jeremiah finds himself deeply unpopular - so unpopular that they toss him into the muddy bottom of a well and leave him sinking there. Jesus said, “woe to you when all speak well of you, for they treated the false prophets the same way.” We must never, never assume that any opposition we face is only because we’re so faithful and prophetic. It might be because we’re being jerks. But the fact remains that God’s truth is not always the path to popularity.

In this passage from the twelfth chapter of Luke’s Gospel, Jesus throws down heavy. “Do you suppose that I am here to bring peace on earth?” Well, yes, Jesus, that’s exactly what we suppose. That’s your job. “I have come to bring not peace but division.” Say again? I don’t think I heard you right. But it’s true. He’s come to set a fire and he longs to see it blaze. Jesus brings division because he demands a decision. With or against. To encounter Jesus is to encounter perfect Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and Love - in a word, to encounter God. There’s no more sitting on the fence once that happens. We long for a world with no evil, and that’s what he is accomplishing. At some point that means separating the good from the evil. We call that the Judgment, and it’s good news. Unless you’re going to insist on chaining yourself to evil.

The letter to the Hebrews brings it heavy, too. I love this last line: “consider that in the fight against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood.” That’s hardcore. It’s the Scriptural equivalent of my favorite Arnold Schwarzenegger moment: “STOP WHINING.” So you’re facing some temptation and it’s just so, so very difficult? St. Bartholomew, whose statues often show him holding the skin they removed while he was still alive, is not impressed. So you think the third or fourth or sixth Commandments are just too hard? St. Sebastian, whom you’ve seen painted with about fifty arrows sticking out of him, thinks that’s cute.

Please, tell me more about how you can't be expected to live out Catholic teaching.

But I wanted to save Hebrews for last because it also sets such a perfect tone, that perfect balance we want to strike, serious but joyful. It's the halftime speech of the New Testament, like something Vince Lombardi would say. These are the words of a spiritual warrior, but they are the words of a happy warrior. You and I might moan and whine sometimes, but at the end of the day we want to be in this fight. Think about it: would you really want, on your deathbed, to be able to look back at your life and think “well, that was easy?” I wouldn’t. There would be something very sad about that. Was there nothing worth fighting for? Nothing worth sacrificing for? Was there nothing that pushed you to your limit? How tragic! Where are your scars? Remember, that’s how the Resurrected Jesus identified himself to Thomas. He showed off his scars.

[The above video isn't 100% relevant, but that which is, is astounding. Lombardi was a daily Mass-goer. The quotes about "a man's finest hour" and "a man worth his salt" mean the world to me.]

Life is serious stuff. The struggle with sin is a big deal. It isn’t supposed to be easy. It isn’t supposed to be something we accomplish without blood, sweat, and tears. You and I weren’t made for a cozy bedtime story where everything is safe and pretty. We were made for the high epic drama of God’s salvation. We were made to conquer the fires of Hell by a love that burns even hotter. We have our good days and bad days, but we remember that God is merciful and, hey, we haven’t even shed blood yet.

We’re happy warriors because the victory is Christ’s, and that’s the end of the story. It’s not so much about our strength, our success, but His. Our focus should be on staying in the fight and staying on the right side. Staying at his side. A side that was hugging children one day, and pierced with a lance the next, and risen in glory soon after that. Be serious, little flock, be in the fight, but be not troubled. It has pleased the Father to give you His Kingdom. Never fear the fires of Hell, for the Father’s love burns far hotter.