33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time C
This Gospel comes around every three years after election time and I always like to compare the promises of Jesus to those of the lofty ones of the candidates. Jesus promises if you follow him you will be seized, persecuted, put on trial, betrayed by family and killed. Yeah! Vote for Jesus.
You see Jesus’ problem is that he just can’t lie. He knows that if we really follow him we will have to endure what he endured. And what he had to go through was remarkable. He knew the sting of rejection of his hometown. He would share the full revelation of his religion only to be hunted by the leaders of his faith. He preached a message of perfect love and found himself hated for it. Besides, Jesus is now in Jerusalem and upon the horizon there are trials darker still. He is about to face unjust arrest, torture and even crucifixion.
Incredibly, he chose all this. He could have made one definitive, selfish miracle to convince all he was the Son of God, but that would rob of us our freedom. At every step of the way of the cross, he could have summoned a host of angels to attack those bringing him to his death, and they would have succumbed, but that would not prove his love, only his power.
When I think of it, Jesus was tough. That is not a character trait of Jesus I speak of enough. Toughness does not negate the other qualities of mercy, healing and love, but underlies all those traits. They would be impossible without Jesus’ internal fortitude. When you realize all that he endured out of love for us you realize our Lord was one tough dude.
With him at our side, we can be tough too. We have known disappointment, hurt and loss. We too have had to endure divisions in our family and rejection. We are all too aware that forgiveness and peacemaking is not easy. And what Jesus predicted of those who follow him did come true and continues today for people are still being persecuted because of his name. Today, people decided to come to mass as we did, but they risked their lives to do so. And this week, at least a dozen people were killed for believing in Christ.
There is a very telling instruction that Jesus gives his listeners. He says, “Remember, you are not to prepare your defense beforehand, for I myself shall give you a wisdom in speaking that all your adversaries will be powerless to resist or refute.” (Yes, I can hear the groans of lawyers throughout the congregation.) He insists that if we are totally reliant on him that will be enough for us.
Last week we had our priest convocation led by Fr. John O’Grady, as scripture scholar and priest of the diocese. He was discussing the word “Gospel,” usually thought of as “good news” but he gave a different tint to it. The word derives from when a king was seeking good news following a battle. So gospel also means victory. We tossed the thought around and decided the ultimate promise is that each of us will have enough victory in our lives. Let’s be clear about the promise of Jesus Christ. It is not that everything will go perfectly once you are baptized. It is not that the more you give to the collection, the more blessings you will receive despite what you might hear in other quarters. It is that we will have enough of the sinewy toughness of Christ to prevail over whatever challenges us.
Jesus speaks of perseverance. The word more commonly used these days is resiliency – the ability to rise up after you have been knocked down, the gift of never giving up. There is nothing I wish I could pray more into our young people or anyone more than resiliency. And Jesus says it is ours for the asking for he will not leave us orphaned, we will always have enough victory to love, bless and forgive. The more we open ourselves to his love, the more we will withstand and overcome that which threatens us, that which haunts us. After all, we follow one tough dude.