Monday of the Sixth Week of Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 291

I have told you this so that you may not fall away. They will expel you from the synagogues; in fact, the hour is coming when everyone who kills you will think he is offering worship to God. They will do this because they have not known either the Father or me. I have told you this so that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you.”

We're often reminded that we live in an historical moment without precedent. Even our youngest members tell of technological advances that occurred within their brief memory; older folks can hardly name them all. Not to mention the social and political developments. Every discipline, it seems, would rename this era by their new insights; is it the atomic age, the computer age, the social media age, the Anthropocene age, or what? 

But, amid these developments, we hear the Lord's reassuring word, "I have told you this so that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you." In fact we have seen other polarized ages when differences were irreconcilable and violence became a way of life. Our memories of pleasantly homogenized times when everyone got along, and peace and justice reigned were illusions. Every age is violent although some of us didn't know it since the mayhem was out of sight, out of mind, and directed elsewhere.

The Lord who inspired the Scriptures is entirely comfortable with controversy and polarization. Our trinitarian religion recognizes the otherness of God as the Father is not the Son and the Son is not the Father. Created in God's image, we meet that otherness whenever we meet another human being, and we feel: "This person is like me but is not like me. OMG, we're not the same!" Encountered in human affairs, otherness generates tensions that can be resolved only by the Holy Spirit.  

Governed and directed by the Spirit, disciples know a kind of certainty despite the chaotic environment. They might say, "I am where I need to be. I was sent here. I was born for this moment." 

As they "sailed from Troas, making a straight run for Samothrace, and on the next day to Neapolis, and from there to Philippi" the band of missionaries (Paul, Timothy, Luke and their companions) had complete assurance of their purpose, if not their destination. When their friendliest reception came from laundresses down by the river, they announced the Gospel to them. When Lydia, a wealthy merchant, welcomed them to her home, they went. But, a few days later, when the city elders asked them to leave, they left. Somehow they knew they were in God's hands and went as the Lord directed. 

What did it mean? Where this was leading? They did not know. They were sure only that the Lord did. 

Many of us would love to think this present tension between liberals and conservatives -- meaningless words assigned arbitrarily -- will be resolved peacefully and we'll get back to normal. But if we learned anything from the Covid Pandemic, it's that the pre-2019 normal is lost forever, as is the normal of the 1950's, sixties, and seventies. 

Only the Lord knows where this is going or when we'll arrive. If we needed to know, we'd be told. But we have been reassured, "I have told you this so that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you.”

In the meanwhile we hear another word from Scripture,

"Be still and know that I am God!
I am exalted among the nations,
exalted on the earth.”
The LORD of hosts is with us;
our stronghold is the God of Jacob. (Psalm 46:11)