Monday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 323

Yet all these, though approved because of their faith, did not receive what had been promised. God had foreseen something better for us, so that without us they should not be made perfect.

In today's Gospel, Jesus restores an unfortunate outcast to his family and village. The madman is no longer possessed by a legion of demons and resumes his place among his people. In response, the townsfolk beg him to leave the district. Hello? What happened?

Beyond healing the demoniac Jesus's mercy has seriously disrupted the local economy. I suppose their systems had even fewer safeguards than ours and would not easily recover from the loss of two thousand swine. It was worse than bird flu in the United States, and the destruction of 52.7 million chickens. 

Jesus seemed to be killing the region with kindness and they begged him to go away, please! They preferred to put off any further healing, reconciliation, atonement, and restoration of original harmony. "We've had enough for now thanks!" they might have said. 

As we read the Gospel of Saint John we hear the Lord pray "that all may be one." That atonement ("at-one-ment") will certainly come for Jesus has prayed for it. But it will not be like the sudden restoration that comes at the end of many novels, movies, and TV shows. That ancient Greek device is called "deux ex machina."  When a comedy had become hopelessly entangled and there seems no possible resolution, a god appears from Olympus in a blaze of glory and sets every thing aright. This male or female deity appears on the stage, perhaps lowered to the surface by a crane, that is, a machine. 

But human life is not like that and the Bible, which is ever faithful to reality, never resorts to contrivance. For instance, The Book of Tobit presents the problems of two very unhappy persons. They are unrelated to one another and are hundreds of miles apart. But their prayers arrive in the hand of Raphael before The Almighty, who dispatches the courtier to work something out. And the solution is both plausible and brilliant. 

Christians are sometimes mocked for their apparent belief in "pie in the sky." Is Heaven the place where God imposes order on the mess we have made, a mess which we would certainly bring with us into Paradise? 

Rather than deus ex machina, I believe in the grace which works with our human nature in human history and time. It sometimes demands that we set things right now! Sooner than we prefer! Or it may be more patient than our wretched cries for justice. Healing and reconciliation sometimes comes quickly, as when a child knocks his head on the table and, a minute later, is distracted by Mommy's kiss and Daddy's Tootsie Roll. But adults are not so easily mollified. We require time, sometimes much time, to restore faith and trust to injured relationships. 

For instance, we believe that God's grace working through human history in a seemingly endless process will end racism in the United States, and antisemitism in the world. Also, our polluted water, soil, and atmosphere will be purified in time, and with much devotion by the dedicated zeal of millions of people and the enforcement of many laws and regulations. If extinct species cannot be restored, many imperiled animals will be given new opportunities. In any case, cleaning up the mess we've made since 1750 will take longer than 273 years. 

If there are no guarantees that any of this might happen, there is the promise of grace and the Word of God. Saint Paul announced as much when he wrote to the Romans: 

For creation awaits with eager expectation the revelation of the children of God; for creation was made subject to futility, not of its own accord but because of the one who subjected it, in hope that creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now; and not only that, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, we also groan within ourselves as we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. 

And we Amen his belief with, "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done."