Today’s first reading questioned me, “Mary, are you a false prophet? Even in the middle of current chaos and trouble, you speak courage, resilience, and hope. Are you giving false hope?”
Let me say first that it is good for Scripture to question us and for us to question Scripture. It creates a dialogue within our hearts and minds where God has an opportunity to speak. It is what the lectio divina form of prayer is made of.
Let me say second that I have NO sense of being or functioning as a prophet beyond the normal role of all Christians to be prophet (speak truth in my life), priest (offer sacrifice through my life), and king (serve the people in my life). The gifts and calls God gives me are in teaching, understanding, and hospitality.
But, once a week, I write for A Catholic Moment, and people can be influenced by what I write. I do not want in my writing to lead anyone into a false security in these crazy times. So I take this question seriously. I doubt that I am done with it, but this is where prayer and thought have led me this week.
Jeremiah & the Backstory
Jeremiah prophesied before the first fall of Jerusalem (597 BCE) and between that fall and the second fall in 587 BCE. The selection about the loincloth last Monday was written before the first fall. Today’s description of conflict with Hananiah takes place between the first and second falls. Tomorrow Jeremiah will take on at attitude of hope, not about historical safety, but about the eventual conversion of the Hebrew people and a restoration to living with righteousness. Today he is preaching doom and gloom. He tells the king and the people they must accept the rule of Nebuchadnezzar.
Backstory is that a year or two after the first fall of Jerusalem Nebuchadnezzar was attacked closer to home on the east side of Babylon. There was then some political intrigue in Judah to take the opportunity of Babylon’s war on the eastern front to rebel. There were false prophets who were predicting God would give this rebellion victory. In Jeremiah 27, the chapter before today’s reading, God tells Jeremiah to fasten a wooden yoke around his neck. It would stand for God’s telling people they must accept the rule of the Babylonians. He then tells Jeremiah to prophesy:
Now I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, my servant; even the wild animals I have given him to serve him. All nations shall serve him and his son and his grandson, until the time comes for him and his land; then many nations and great kings will enslave him. Meanwhile, the nation or the kingdom that will not serve him, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, or bend its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, I will punish that nation with sword, famine, and pestilence—oracle of the LORD—until I finish them by his hand.
You, however, must not listen to your prophets, to your diviners and dreamers, to your soothsayers and sorcerers, who say to you, “Do not serve the king of Babylon.” For they prophesy lies to you, so as to drive you far from your land, making me banish you so that you perish. The people that bends the neck to the yoke of the king of Babylon to serve him, I will leave in peace on its own land—oracle of the LORD—to cultivate it and dwell on it. (Jeremiah 27: 6-11)
Hananiah, one of the false prophets, in front of the king and court, broke the wooden yoke that Jeremiah was wearing as a symbol that the people must peaceably agree to the rule of Babylon for a time. Jeremiah was surprised, took his time to reply, but called Hananiah out for his false prophecy.
Jesus and the Gospel Today
It is such an interesting beginning, the way today’s Gospel begins, “Jesus made the disciples get into a boat and precede him to the other side of the sea, while he dismissed the crowds.”
As Fr. Obilor pointed out on Sunday, Jesus was likely feeling a need to retreat to spend some time with the Father and process the death of John the Baptist. He also had been preaching the Kingdom, but people were more interested in miracles than in hearing that his teaching is to be seed…that will not all fall on fertile ground…that will grow over time…but with weeds mixed in with it. Not exciting like a military coup.
Nonetheless, more than 5000 people found Jesus. He did not send them away. He healed and taught all day, then performed a miracle to feed them all before they left. He “had compassion on them.” That was Sunday’s Gospel.
But enough was enough, even for Jesus. He was 100% human as well as 100% divine, and human Jesus needed to do some self-care. He wasn’t up to answering the disciples’ questions just then. He sent them off in a boat so he could finally get some time to rest, think, and pray.
But he sent them off into a storm. During the “fourth watch of the night” (between 3 and 6 am) Jesus saw his disciples tossed about in their boat. He had had his rest and prayer. He now had compassion on them. He walked through the middle of the storm to be with them and calm the waves.
Applications
These readings hit me too close to home to be finished with them. The message of the moment is to stay the course. God is the God of history. Whether contemporary civilization is falling like Rome did or the whole world is meant to be on a long, long retreat, or God is working something we don’t yet understand, I don’t know. I know there are rumors and opinions all around—as was true with Jeremiah. I know there is great storm—as was true for the disciples in the boat. I know there is much to ponder—as was true for Jesus.
And I know I am only an ordinary citizen who can do what ordinary citizens can do: wear a mask, social distance, keep the faith, pray, review the news and act with critical thinking skill, practice citizenship and general compassion, and live as a disciple, an adopted daughter of God.
That doesn’t seem like much. I want to get out of the boat and walk on water like Peter. I want to be very busy making the current troubles go away—as did both Hananiah and Jeremiah. But I can’t even walk with a grandchild across the rocks in our shallow creek without turning my ankle.
The place prayer and study leads me to today is to “stability of heart.” Stability of heart is something I’ve been taught as a Benedictine Oblate. Stability of heart means to stay the course, to remain joyfully serving where I am. That was what Jeremiah preached. It is what Jesus did. It is what his Presence enabled his disciples to do.
Prayer
Lord, it seems the whole world is in a storm. Give us stability of heart in it. Come to us. Calm the sea or bid us walk in the waves, but let us perceive your Presence. You are the God of history. Be with us. Be with me. Lead me, guide me, Lord. Show me my place. Give me whatever it takes to remain faithful in my place as long as I need to stay here. Make me satisfied to be and do whatever you give me to be and do for as long as you want.
