At War with the World

At War with the World September 23, 2018    25th Sunday in Ordinary Time - B
by Dcn. Bob Bonomi

Who or what are you at war with today?  Hardly a day goes by that we aren’t in conflict with something or someone – it may be within our family, our job or our communities.  It may be with a single person or with a group.  It may be that we’re battling financial issues, job issues, health issues or addictions.  It may be that we’re just at war with ourselves – our worries, our anxieties, our fears.  Or maybe it’s just our frustration that we are not the person we want to be.  Any one of these things show that we are at constant war with the world in one form or another, even when it seems that there is a “truce” or uneasy peace at a particular moment in our lives.

We spend much of our time battling these conflicts in our lives, to the point that it seems that conflict is inevitable.  Why is that?  According to St. James, it’s because we allow ourselves to be controlled by our earthly desires instead of staying focused on God.  “Is it not from your passions that make war within your members?”

We place ourselves in conflict with ourselves and those around us when we want what we don’t have, and it disturbs us when others have something – health, wealth, power – that we don’t.  We’re frustrated when we think we’re doing everything right and we still don’t get what we think we deserve. 

Even when we ask that God take away the trials we face, to intervene and take our side in our daily conflicts – we usually do so from a self-centered viewpoint.  We can’t help it.  We are raised and indoctrinated by society to seek “the good life” here on earth, and like the Jews of Jesus’ day, we think that any evil that befalls us, any time our prayers appear to go unanswered, it’s because we’ve done something wrong or we aren’t trying hard enough.

It is hard to see the big picture from God’s perspective.  We often can’t understand His will for us, or we don’t want to.  And how often do we just ignore something that we don’t understand?

Today’s Gospel opens with Jesus continuing to teach his disciples about the Kingdom of God and trying to prepare them for the days ahead that they were going to face.  They’ve been witnesses to many wonderful signs and miracles over the last several weeks and from an earthly perspective, who could blame them for feeling excitement that comes from the many displays of power and wisdom which Jesus has shown?  Now Jesus is again throwing a wet blanket on all of their dreams, just like he did after the Transfiguration.  For the second time, Jesus is teaching them that he had to die and be raised from the dead. 

We might say that he was trying to “bring them down to earth”.  Actually, he’s trying to break them of their earthly thoughts – to raise them to a greater awareness of God’s plans and just how different they are from what others think.

And they don’t get it.  They probably don’t want to.  All of the classic Jewish literature of their time – their scriptures – always talked about the glory and majesty of God’s Kingdom and the earthly rewards that awaited those who are His followers.  The death of Jesus would be totally contradictory to what they’ve been taught to believe, and so it would be easier to ignore the dire predictions or to think of them as remote possibilities at best, not likely to come true.  After all, Jesus was the Messiah, the Savior, and the Savior had to be one who wielded great power and authority, right?  And as his chosen ones, they would share in that power and authority.  No wonder they were arguing about who would be in charge of what. 

Jesus is blunt.  He tells them that in order to be in charge they would have to be servants, and the one who would be the greatest would have to be the servant of all the rest.  To reinforce that thought, he takes a small child and places it in the middle of the group. 
Now in Jewish society, a child was pretty much to be seen and not heard – definitely not a sign of authority.  Yet a child represents something far more important than earthly greatness – a child represents future hope and is a sign of love, a sign of innocence and trust.

That is God’s message to us as well.  In the midst of the conflicts of our lives, we are called to be Children of God.  That doesn’t mean that the conflict will leave us, only that our response to it should be to entrust it to God Himself. 

We too need to change how we think.  Instead of going to war with those around us over those things that we disagree on, those things that threaten our health or well-being, we need to seek the Wisdom that brings us peace.  We do not have to hide from or ignore those conflicts that we face in our lives.  We need to bring them to Jesus, and let Him fight the battle with us. 

In Ecclesiastes we hear: There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens. …  A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace. … God has made everything appropriate to its time, but has put the timeless into their hearts so they cannot find out, from beginning to end, the work which God has done. I recognized that there is nothing better than to rejoice and to do well during life.”

There will be wars in the world and conflict within our hearts; there will be battles with those we encounter and there will be struggles within ourselves. Yet as St. Paul said in his letter to the Romans: “What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? … No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Even in our pettiness and struggles, God still loves us.  Let us go forth in our mission to serve others.