Fr Christopher Dillon OSB
Out of the clear blue sky, comes this bombshell of challenge from Jesus to those who were and are following him. What were they, what are we, to think?!
What has happened to that “peace on earth, to people of good will”, of which the angels in St Luke’s gospel sang? All is now division and implicit conflict, reminiscent of the subsequent prophecy of Simeon to Mary and Joseph, also in Luke’s gospel, when he said of Jesus, “This child is destined for the rising and falling of many in Israel…to be a sign that is rejected.”
In St Luke’s account of the Gospel, from which this passage is taken, Jesus is on the point of heading for Jerusalem, where he is to suffer his passion. It is the point of decision and crisis for him, when he will be rejected definitively by the Jewish authorities and by his own follower, Judas Iscariot.
We are being told, on this glorious summer’s day, that we too, every one of us, have to decide one way or the other; either we are for Jesus, as the Way, the Truth and the Life, or we are against him, in favour of accommodation with the spirit of the world and compromise with convenience at the expense of goodness and justice. And let’s face it, for centuries of its history, the Church compromised with and was compromised by its association with the powers that rule in civil society. A great part of the novelty of secularism for Christians, today, is the discovery that, all of a sudden, we are on our own. Civil society is not only not influenced by the Church; it is increasingly that the case that it opposes and rejects the Church.
In a manner which is relatively new for us, in our society, here in Ireland, the Church is having to begin again. It is an exciting time, but it is challenging. Increasingly, Christians among us are having to think as Christians, as opposed to being merely members of our society. We are very much at that point of decision, where the disciples found themselves, when Jesus was snatched away from them, and they had to decide whether or not they would stand against their religious establishment and start afresh on their own, with the spirit of Jesus for guide; the stone rejected becoming their corner stone.
While we calculate our options, on the way to Jerusalem, along with Peter and the other disciples who will stand by and watch, if they don’t run away, Jesus, standing by his decision, is wrenched up on the gibbet of the cross, to hang from those nails and slowly suffocate. He does this, in order to bear definitive witness to Goodness and Truth, on behalf of humankind, so that we, deciding to stand with him, may associate ourselves with his gift of himself to the Father of Goodness and Truth.
This has been the plan of Father, Son and Spirit, from the very beginning, to salvage humankind and all creation from the consequences of Adam’s sin and the Fall. And it is the Good News of Christianity that that plan has been accomplished, by means of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. If we find this convincing, we must make the decision to go with it, whatever the ensuing division in our everyday life. But then, it is true that, for all the pain of division, there is ultimate peace in the decision for the life of Goodness and Truth which is uniquely in Jesus Christ. This is the peace that Christ leaves with us, that he gives us; not as the world gives peace. Is this, perhaps, the peace of which the angels were singing? So, how do you decide?