Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

Courage! What makes a king out of a slave? Courage! What makes the flag on the mast to wave? Courage! What makes the elephant charge his tusk in the misty mist, or the dusky dusk? What makes the muskrat guard his musk? Courage! What makes the sphinx the seventh wonder? Courage! What makes the dawn come up like thunder? Courage! What makes the Hottentot so hot? What puts the "ape" in apricot? What have they got that I ain't got? 
All: Courage! 
Cowardly Lion: You can say that again! 

When the ancient Egyptians buried their dead they imagined a difficult journey the soul must make from this world to eternal peace. From what I’ve heard of it, it sounded like a near-impossible trek through abysmal gloom, treacherous swamps, fiery furnaces and snake-infested pits. It resembled something like the Temple of Doom that Indiana Jones survived; and not many would survive!

When we pray for our dead we usually think they’ve had enough adventures already; we wish them eternal rest.

But what if the next life will also require courage as the Egyptians supposed?

I think about that. If this life is a preparation for the next, will we not need the courage that’s so often required of us here?

The American Dream, having attained an oversized house with an oversized mortgage, several disintegrating luxury cars in an overcrowded garage, and a second, third and fourth vacation home, promises a life of leisure. And what will we do with all that leisure? Study? Travel? Fish? Drink dry martinis on the 19^th hole with selected friends and family?

But can you be human without courage? How long could you endure such a life? Certainly, as we travel in this world there is no end of challenges. From the chores of childhood to the discipline of education to the multiple obstacles of early adulthood, with its demands of family and career and citizenship, to the crises of midlife to the health issues of aging, we are always beginning again. Pull up your socks! Gird your loins! Pray for the persistence of courage. And ignore the mocking sirens that Odysseus passed as he approached the strait of Scylla and Charybdis.

I hear those challenges in today’s readings. First of all we hear the scandalized questions of Habakkuk:

How long, O Lord? I cry for help
but you do not listen!
I cry out to you, "Violence!"
but you do not intervene.
Why do you let me see ruin;
why must I look at misery?

Anyone familiar with history – the history of ancient Israel or the Church or the United States – finds plenty to cause scandal. There are so many stories of cowardice, foolishness, jealousy and greed; how did we make it this far? History confirms the fact that life has never been easy for any one at any time; we’ve always had our back to the wall, and – if you care to believe it – only the grace of God has got us through so far.

In today’s New Testament reading, Saint Paul speaks to us of courage:

For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice
but rather of power and love and self-control.
So do not be ashamed of your testimony to our Lord,

He doesn’t seem to expect a life of ease or luxury, and we know in the end he was decapitated for all his trouble.

Finally, in today’s gospel, Jesus seems to mock our sense of entitlement:

Say only we are unprofitable servants. We have done what was obliged of us.

Our lives are good, they are very good, in so far as we have courage. Without it, we lose all joy, all pleasure, all satisfaction, and all hope.

Our gospel also tells us of God’s courage. There is, in the dynamic life of the Holy Trinity, a reckless, continual self-gift of love of the Father to the Son and the Holy Spirit, and a satisfying, commensurate self-giving of Jesus and the Holy Spirit to God the Father.

In the end the Cowardly Lion rushed into the castle of the wicked witch to save his beloved Dorothy and her feisty Toto. His story is funny and his adventure is fun, as is our lives, because we have the courage to laugh at our fears.