Fr. Henry O’Shea:
My eyes are spent with weeping; my stomach churns;
my bile is poured out to the ground
because of the destruction of the daughter of my people,
because infants and babies faint in the streets of the city. Lamentations 2:11
Even people who are not well versed in Scripture, are aware that the prophet Jeremiah was not a fun person. And, indeed, in Jewish tradition he is called the ‘Weeping Prophet’ – as evidenced by our opening quotation from the book of Lamentations, which some scholars believe was also written by Jeremiah..
In today’s first reading we hear of Jeremiah being literally stuck in the mud. Having offended the political and military establishment, he is thrown into a drained cistern to wallow in the slime. But, so-called stick-in-the-muds are not always wrong.
Interesting how nothing changes under the sun. It seems to be a universal and eternal practice that those who point out uncomfortable truths or prospects or those who dispute currently unfashionable opinions are sidelined, are ‘othered’, sometimes even eliminated. Think of our media with their various agendas and distortions. Think of the varied understandings and uses of the terms ‘facts’, ‘true facts’, ‘alternative facts’. Fake news.
Jeremiah’s king, Zedekiah, is not the first political, religious or, indeed, family leader to claim helplessness. Claiming helplessness while hanging on until they recognise what is of greater advantage to themselves and seize the opportunity.
Those who prefer their Jesus to be gentle, meek, mild, amenable, undemanding, may be unsettled by the Jesus of today’s gospel. He makes it very clear that he has not come to bring peace on earth but, rather, fire and division. Does this mean that he favours war? Does this mean that he dismisses peace? The answer is no on both counts – even if many times in the last two millennia, Christians have used this gospel passage to justify war, persecution, exploitation and exclusion.
The sword that Jesus brings is the sword of his living word that, we are told in the Letter to the Hebrews, is alive and active, sharper than any double-edged sword. It penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. The warfare Jesus is talking about is a battle for minds and hearts, a battle within minds and hearts. And, as Jesus notes, that battle can even be within families. Within and between one’s own mind and heart.
Jesus has little time for a peace that is the comfortable, or better, the ‘comfy’ peace of material security, well-regulated predictability with the occasional thrill thrown in to reassure ourselves that we have what is often a self-deceiving freedom. Bad things happen, but happen, we pray O Lord, to other people and if possible in other far-away places. We all have our Munichs and Alaskas. We all have our Gazas and our Omaghs.
The author of today’s second reading provides a perspective, that is in and beyond time, but also now and the future, for those singed by the fire of Christ. Uncompromisingly, we are told that our only true horizon exists and consists in Jesus, who leads us in our faith and brings it to perfection. Jesus has gone before us and stays with us on and in this focus on finality. He has gone before us in the battle for minds and hearts by enduing the cross. Enduring the cross for a joy that was still in the future. He stays with us encouraging and supporting us, making everything possible for us, in our battle, sometimes fierce, sometimes half-hearted, our battle with the distractions, the waverings, the false promises of sin.
In Chapter 4 of his Rule, St Benedict admonishes monks not to make a false peace. Jesus goes before us and stays with us in our efforts not to settle for mindless, self-centered, imagined peace.
The same book of Lamentations with which we began also tells:
Because of the loving devotion of the Lord
we are not consumed,
for His mercies never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is his faithfulness!
“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in Him.”
The Lord is good to those who wait for Him,
to the soul who seeks Him. Lamentations 3:22-26