I will make with them a covenant of peace; it
shall be an everlasting covenant with them, and I will multiply them, and put
my sanctuary among them forever. My dwelling shall be with them; I will be
their God, and they shall be my people. Thus the nations shall know that it is
I, the LORD, who make Israel holy, when my sanctuary shall be set up among them
forever.
Ezekiel 37:27-28
Many of the Jews who had come to Mary and
seen what Jesus had done began to believe in him. But some of them went to the
Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. So the chief priests and the
Pharisees convened the Sanhedrin and said, "What are we going to do?” John 11:45-47
Piety
LORD, my heart is not proud;
nor are my eyes haughty.
I do not busy myself with great matters,
with things too sublime for me.
Rather, I have stilled my soul,
Like a weaned child to its mother,
weaned is my soul.
Israel, hope in the LORD,
now and forever. Psalm 131
Study
The
utopian covenant is at risk. God has held out the promise of a unifying ruler
for all of Israel and promises that when he delivers the prince of peace, all
will be set right in our relationship with the Lord and with each other. The
tense of the reading from Ezekiel is the future. If only we hold up our end of
the covenant. However, even the Lord God knows that is not going to happen.
I will
make…
It
shall be…
I will
multiple…
My
dwelling shall be…
If only
we did the same.
Just as
Ezekiel describes Israel and Judah as two sticks which must be joined together.
Unfortunately, even with Jesus dwelling in their midst, some will follow the
new covenant and others will not. Many came to believe but others went to the
Pharisees with their complaints.
The
tense of the reading from Ezekiel is the future. The tense of the reading from
John is the present. If only we hold up
our end of the covenant, all will be at peace. However, even the Lord God knows
that is not going to happen.
Action
What
are we going to do? Will we be in the group of believers who fulfill the
covenant or will we be in the group of betrayers?
Words
from Dorothy Day: "It is not just Vietnam, it is South Africa, it is
Nigeria, the Congo, Indonesia, all of Latin America. It is not just the
pictures of all the women and children who have been burnt alive in Vietnam, or
the men who have been tortured, and died. It is not just the headless victims
of the war in Colombia. It is not just the words of Cardinal Spellman[i]
and Archbishop Hannan[ii].
It is the fact that whether we -- like it or not -- we are Americans. It is
indeed our country, right or wrong, as the Cardinal
said in another context. We are warm and fed and secure (aside from occasional
muggings and murders amongst us). We are the nation the most powerful, the most
armed and we are supplying arms and money to the rest of the world where we are
not ourselves fighting. We are eating while there is famine in the world.
Scripture
tells us that the picture of judgment presented to us by Jesus is of Dives
sitting and feasting with his friends while Lazarus sat hungry at the gate, the
dogs, the scavengers of the East, licking his sores. We are the Dives. Woe to
the rich! We are the rich. The works of mercy are the opposite of the works of
war, feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, nursing the sick, visiting
the prisoner. But we are destroying crops, setting fire to entire villages and
to the people in them. We are not performing the works of mercy but the works
of war. We cannot repeat this enough."
It is
gassed citizens in Syria. It is flooded citizens in Peru buried under
mudslides. It is dead shoppers at a mall in Stockholm or Paris or Berlin or
London. It is nightclub revelers in Orlando. It is school children in Sandy
Hook or Columbine. “It is the fact that whether we -- like it or not -- we are
Americans. It is indeed our country, right or
wrong.”
What are we going to do? We have had five weeks of Lent
to reflect. Now it is time to decide. Shall we move forward as believers or
betrayers. Will you be coming to the feast or to the trial?
Carl McColman, on his “A Contemplative Faith” website,
suggests that our prayer journey to come to the answer can progress right
through the steps in Psalm 131:
- Begin with humility,
letting go of the temptation to relate to God through clever thoughts or
complicated ideas;
- Move into silence,
finding calmness and rest in God like a baby finds resting on its mother’s
breast;
- Finally embrace hope, that in the down-to-earth quiet of contemplative prayer we learn to fully trust God.[iii]
[i] Francis
Joseph Spellman was an American bishop and cardinal of the Catholic Church.
From 1939 until his death in 1967, he served as the sixth Archbishop of New
York.
[ii] Philip
Matthew Hannan was an American Roman Catholic Archbishop. Archbishop
Hannan, in his episcopal career, served as Auxiliary Bishop of the Roman
Catholic Archdiocese of Washington and later as the Eleventh Archbishop of the Roman
Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans from September 29, 1965 to December 6,
1988.
No comments:
Post a Comment