Friday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 465

Yes, it is near, a day of darkness and of gloom,
    a day of clouds and somberness!
Like dawn spreading over the mountains,
    a people numerous and mighty!
Their like has not been from of old,
    nor will it be after them,
    even to the years of distant generations.

Human life on a dynamic planet continually faces challenges from the earth's fluid environment. Unlike other animals, we seem more susceptible to disease. They also erupt out of our frequent mistakes, miscalculations, misunderstandings, and suspicions of one another. Finally, our frequent conflicts and war challenge our existence.

But we are so familiar with war that we often use military analogies and metaphors to address all the other troubles. And so we "make war" on poverty or illiteracy as if these human failings are invading armies. And we compare germs to enemy troops and we try to outsmart whichever general or admiral is directing these invasive viruses and microbes. Even our political discussions are conducted with campaigns, and citizens are told to fight for their rights. ("Literally!" but not literally.)  

And, as we find in the Book of Joel, we've been using these militaristic metaphors for a very long time. In today's first reading,the "people numerous and mighty who are spreading like dawn over the mountains" are locusts. 

Saint John's Book of Revelation will explode the metaphor into an apocalyptic event: 

The appearance of the locusts was like that of horses ready for battle. On their heads they wore what looked like crowns of gold; their faces were like human faces, and they had hair like women’s hair. Their teeth were like lions’ teeth, and they had chests like iron breastplates. The sound of their wings was like the sound of many horse-drawn chariots racing into battle. They had tails like scorpions, with stingers; with their tails they had power to harm people for five months. They had as their king the angel of the abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon and in Greek Apollyon.

A skeptic of the twenty-first century will ask, "Do you really think that God punishes our sins with locusts, earthquakes, hurricanes, forest fires, epidemics and pandemics?" 

My reply, "And is there some reason God should not punish us with severe warnings?" 

Today's skeptic doesn't believe that God exists. Or they might agree with the existential philosophy of, Jean Paul Sartre, "If God exists, he shouldn't!" Because there is no God, there is neither a God to sin against nor a God to forgive our sins. Nor can a Son of God atone for our sins. So they argue that human life is plagued only by its inability to cope, and not by any consequence for sin. 

The Bible calls us back to faith and reason, and teaches us to recognize our responsibility before God for the earth and its plagues. Yes, we have brought them upon ourselves. Yes, sickness and death are the consequences of sin, and not simply nature's way of thinning the herd by natural selection. 

And yes, God is the judge. 

The LORD then answered Job and said:

Will one who argues with the Almighty be corrected?

Let him who would instruct God give answer!

Then Job answered the LORD and said:

Look, I am of little account; what can I answer you?

I put my hand over my mouth.

I have spoken once, I will not reply;

twice, but I will do so no more.

Because Jesus and his disciples recognize sins and plead for God's saving mercy, we are granted time to live on this beautiful earth and love another.