Tuesday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 402

Have you cast Judah off completely?
Is Zion loathsome to you?
Why have you struck us a blow
that cannot be healed?
We wait for peace, to no avail;
for a time of healing, but terror comes instead.
We recognize, O LORD, our wickedness,
the guilt of our fathers;
that we have sinned against you.
For your name’s sake spurn us not,
disgrace not the throne of your glory;
remember your covenant with us, and break it not.

Some people, when confronted with their own bad behavior, will admit they have done wrong. The evidence is clear; the verdict is certain. “Okay, I’m sorry.” they say, “Can we get on with it?” They suppose a moment of contrition should deal with the problem and “Now we can forget about it.” If they're Catholic they might even say, "So I'll go to confession, say three Hail Marys and be done with it! 

I am hearing remarks like that following the Me Too and Black Lives Matter movements. One fellow said to me on Facebook, “This bs needs to stop now!” 

The Prophet Jeremiah, speaking for his people, wrote with better style, “Have you cast Judah off completely? Is Zion loathsome to you? Why have you struck us a blow that cannot be healed?”

Chaplains keep a ready supply of donated Bibles on hand and patients often ask for them. Do you suppose these Veterans are eager to read about how we continually disappoint our God, fail our missions, and eviscerate our potential? 

You want a proof of God's existence? How about the persistent popularity of the Bible? When the word sin nearly disappears from our conversation, communications, and lexicon, the Bible remains to accuse us. By its persistent presence in our lives, the Word of God reminds us that every human act is historical. It is intractible and irreversible. When the authors, editors, redacters, and copiers lauded God's Mighty Works, of necessity they also recorded the sins of God's people, both Jewish and Christian. 

That authentic record shows that our misdeeds do not go away because we're ready to think about something else. God's mercy is God's justice. The crooked way will be made straight despite our best efforts to keep things as they are. If we cannot imagine how America, for instance, might atone for our history of slavery, the extermination of indigenous peoples, the exploitation of newer immigrants, and wasting our natural resources, that only demonstrates our lack of imagination. It does not say it cannot be done. 

A fellow recently said to me, "God's gonna have a lot to answer for when I get to heaven!" A few days later, thanking God for his healing, he had forgotten his complaint. The miracle had occurred again. As the gentle Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote, 

...And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

And, as another great poet wrote to his Roman friends: 

We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now; and not only that, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, we also groan within ourselves as we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that sees for itself is not hope. For who hopes for what one sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait with endurance.