Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time, November 8, 2020Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â
Bonds of love
Wisdom is readily perceived by those who love her, found by those who seek. She hastens to make herself known in anticipation of their desire. Whoever watches for her at dawn shall not be disappointed for he shall find her sitting by his gate. She makes her own rounds, and whoever for her sake keeps vigil shall quickly be free from care.
When I was nineteen (that would be 1968), I did not watch for wisdom at dawn because I was pretty sure I had found her late last night. Instead, after spending a week in Chicago at a violent political convention where Mayor Daley could be seen cursing his opponents (that would include me), I came back to Lincoln, Illinois and wrote a letter to the editor.
Because I’d spent a summer working for the daily paper in Lincoln, the editor Ken Goodrich quickly published what I wrote. It was like gas on a fire. In my letter I decried casual patriotism and tried to display my more earnest variety. That didn’t go over well. And no wonder. Even today, my self-righteousness oozes out of the 40 year old newsprint.
Nothing much has changed in Lincoln: last week visiting my 98 year old mama I drove by an array of red Trump 2020 flags in the spot where fireworks are usually sold. I recalled, in 2008 when Mom still drove, when she pasted a bumper sticker on the back of her car that read, “Republicans for Obama.” I didn’t stop last week to ask if there was a Biden sticker for sale in the red tent. She isn’t driving anymore anyway.
Can we get past all this? I hope so. Michael Gerson, one of my favorite columnists hopes so too. Here’s what he thinks:
It is important to the cohesion of our society that people keep a portion of their deepest selves off limits to politics entirely — the place where kindness, decency and hospitality dwell … the person screaming in your face is equal in value and dignity to you or anyone in your tribe. Real justice implies mercy and compassion, because that is what we hope our own dignity would merit from others … In a divided nation, Americans need to defend a space in their lives where cable news does not reach, where social media does not incite, and where the basic, natural tendency is to treat other people like human beings. This offers not just the prospect of greater tolerance, but the hope of healing.
But, as he also says, “this is not to argue for any lessening of political intensity. The pursuit of justice requires passion and commitment.”
My soul thirsts for you, O God. It is you that I seek. My flesh pines, my soul thirsts, I gaze toward you and glorify you. I will bless you while I live, lift up my hands and call upon your name. My mouth shall praise you. I will remember you and meditate on you.
Look back a decade, a century, a millennium … look back to the days of Jeremiah, disagreement about politics and religion always seems to go too far. But neither side must ever abandon its pursuit of justice. In his commentary on Jeremiah, Exile and Homecoming, Walter Brueggemann (quoting Adam Welch) writes about politics and religion in the land where Jeremiah struggled to be heard. In those dark days Jeremiah was a lone voice in the wilderness speaking for Yahweh. Both priests and kings had diluted the faith to make it easier to swallow.
The grace which gave much asked much; it demanded self-surrender. And without self-surrender on the part of those who received it, grace became an empty word. No other nation changed its god, non-entity though that was. The reason for the constancy was that it all meant so little. There was no cause to forsake such gods, because it involved so little to follow them. Israel forsook Yahweh, because the relation to Him was full of ethical content.
It is difficult in our culture, too, to sacrifice ourselves to this kind of grace. I have forsaken martyrdom for the most part, choosing a comfortable path far too often, even amid the never-ending promises of God.
 My soul shall be satisfied, and in the shadow of your wings I shout for joy.
Brueggemann cuts to the chase, speaking of the religion of Yahweh:
Yahwism had this iron core in it. The iron core was that Israel could only have Yahweh on His own terms … this was no colorless faith which was simply the expression of the people’s pride in itself and its destiny. It laid a curb on men, it had a yoke and bounds. The bonds were those of love, but love’s bonds are the most enduring and the most exacting (p. 36).
God is waiting for us, as he did for his people in Jeremiah’s day, to seek his bonds of love and share what we have with each other. Paul extends these bonds from God to the dead to those of us who still call ourselves alive.
As for those who have fallen asleep, the dead in Christ shall rise first. With the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God, the Lord himself will come down from heaven. And we who are alive will be caught up together with the dead in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air. And thus, we shall always be with the Lord. Console one another with these words.
But Jesus reminds us of our unfortunate humanity with his story of the virgins. Shouldn’t they share with each other, in spite of both their wisdom and foolishness? Well, they didn’t.
The foolish said to the wise, “Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.” But the wise replied, “No, there may not be enough.”
Jesus didn’t correct either the wise or the foolish. He simply said we should keep our eyes open, and do the best we can. Keep vigil, and watch for signs of wisdom.
Stay awake and be ready. For you do not know on what day your Lord will come.
(Wisdom 6, Psalm 63, 1 Thessalonians 4, Matthew 24, Matthew 25)
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