What difference does being a Christian make in the way we face the current evils in the world? As our first readings this week move to New Testament epistles, we have some guidance. Yesterday and today we have readings from 2 Thessalonians. The advice is, “Stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught.”
2 Thessalonians was written to Christians under persecution. 1 Thessalonians focused on the end of time when Jesus would return to pronounce just judgment on the world. Then, apparently persecution broke out, and the Thessalonians’ faith was under siege. It seems the community was then barraged with advice and predictions. I can imagine scenes in the village square or around the table at the house churches of Thessalonika. People who didn’t know much were talking as if they did—like commentators on the local news today. Everybody guesses. Nobody knows. Doesn’t matter. People still talk, listen, worry, and hypothesize.
Whether it is someone predicting the end of life as we know it if one political candidate (or the other!) wins the next election or comments about the future of the Church, the advice in 2 Thessalonians today is good: “Stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught.”
The Gospel today can also shed light on this topic. Jesus speaks to the scribes and Pharisees. He tells them to focus on what is important: “judgment, mercy, and fidelity” instead of putting a lot of attention on just exactly how to tithe the smallest of herbs. Jesus does NOT say attending to details is unimportant. He says, “These [details] you should have done, without neglecting the others [judgment, mercy, fidelity].” He’s pointed in his observation and correction: “Blind guides, who strain out the gnat and swallow the camel! Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You cleanse the outside of cup and dish, but inside they are full of plunder and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may be clean.”
How does this translate for us today? There is the obvious matter of judgment: How prepared would I be if I were to die tonight or the end of the world were to come tomorrow? St. Ignatius of Loyola created Spiritual Exercises which begin with a consideration of the 4 last things: death, judgment, heaven, and hell. They are worth doing. Such considerations are good chiropractic adjustments for the soul.
Then there is mercy and fidelity.
Fidelity first. I think we have to put our primary love and trust in God FIRST. Fidelity to God includes recognizing His Truth and His Justice, as well as His Love. It includes living by God’s standards. It means recognition we are His creatures and owe Him obedience and submission.
To face evil effectively, as Christians we stand up to evil by proclaiming and living by God’s standards. In effect, that’s what Jesus was doing when he said to the Pharisees “the weightier things of the law” and “cleanse first the inside of the cup.”
Mercy. On Saturday I heard a definition of mercy attributed to Fr. James Keenan: “Mercy is the willingness to enter into the chaos of others.” I like that definition because it implies a solidarity characteristic of Jesus’ practice of mercy.
Yet even this definition leaves something to be desired, because I do not have to be a Christian to “enter into another’s chaos.” Humanists do that, too.
My years as a humanist taught me that humanists actually see themselves as often superior to Christians because their primary values of non-judgment and tolerance incline them to both enter others’ chaos through empathy and provide acceptance through unmerited favors of tolerance.
But humanism, though compassionate, is both contrary to our faith and to God’s rule because it neglects to attribute goodness to God, the creator; it attributes goodness to people, the created. That is a disorder that cannot stand up to powerful expressions of evil which are increasingly evident around us.
But what does stand up?
For the past week I chewed and chewed and chewed in prayer on something my pastor said the Sunday before as he talked about Jesus’ comments that He came “not to bring peace, but division.” Father talked about St. Augustine’s comment that peace in the City of God [Kingdom of God] is “the order of God.”
That concept of Augustine is actually the foundation of contemporary just war teachings of the Church—which are worth looking at as a stance for us to take to actively counter evil.
For today, however, I have considered it in a more general sense: the order of God is God’s integration of mercy and justice in light of the fact that we know He will be faithful. We must simply follow His standards. His standards, if followed, create an order, a stability, a peace, because they balance the good of all.
That, it now seems to me, is true mercy. My new definition is: Mercy is the choice to enter into another’s chaos to touch it with the order of God.
Humanists can’t do that. Those who would impose their order through violence can’t do that.
But we can do that. I can do that.
Countering evil with awareness of my own tendency to sin AND with the remedy of mercy enables me to maintain fidelity to God, even in the midst of evil.
That was Jesus message to the Pharisees, “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” As He said it, “Don’t strain at a gnat and swallow a camel.” Focus on becoming filled with goodness. Like the dew falls. But be faithful to God’s standards, “the weightier things of the law.”
This balance was also the message to Thessalonika, “To this end he has called you through our Gospel to possess the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught, either by an oral statement or by a letter of ours.”
Remembering our own judgment. Mercy. Fidelity. Seeking the order of God.
Stand firm.
That is how this Christian can face evil today. How about you?
Prayer:
Lord, today help me to stand firm. Faithful to You. Faithful like You. Merciful like you. Help me look to myself and not let myself get caught up by evil when I mean to stand firm against it. Help me to remember I have been called to “possess the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.” That glory overcame evil on a cross.
Link to readings 2 Thessalonians 2: 1-3a, 14-17; from Psalm 96; Matthew 23: 23-26.
