Fire-eaters, Cool It!!
Many compare the political age in which we live today as comparable to the 1850’s in USA history because of the bad feelings and polarization that our nation is experiencing. 1850 was the year in which three of the Senate greats in USA history departed from the scene, viz, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster and John C Calhoun. Though they were from different parts of the nation and had different agendas, they were able to work together to represent their regions in moving the nation forward. After their departure from the scene, a new breed started to get elected who were unable to compromise, let alone reach a consensus. This group was called, “the Fire-eaters”. Many see our nation heading in that direction today.
Unfortunately, the same scenario is facing the Catholic Church as well. Many long for the “good old days”, which many were too young to have remembered or experienced. Others feel that the Spirit- filled Vatican Council II whose fiftieth anniversary is approaching in October has been scuttled in recent years.
Divisions in the nation and the church are obvious. However, one thing that Catholics do rely upon is the Indwelling Holy Spirit. Our church has seen better times, but we have also experienced worse times as well as we still move into the future. Fr Andrew Greeley said many years ago, that the one thing American Catholicism could never be mistaken for was a wake. Rather, Fr Greeley suggested that we were at a baby shower, expecting transformation of life in the Spirit.
It is curious in today’s reading from St Paul that the author (either St Paul himself or a disciple) encouraged the Jesus Movement at Ephesus, in western Turkey, to make some adjustments in their deportment toward one another. The very fact that he tells them to eliminate bitterness, anger, fury, rage, and shouting as well as malice indicates that sadly, in some house churches at the time and/or community of house churches, such scandals were happening.
Rather, he suggests that characteristic behavior for the Jesus Movement should be kindness, forgiveness and compassion, one toward the other. (This is the romanticized picture that we today might like to have about the good old days.) However, apparently they did not last for long, whether in the first century or the pre-Vatican II days, seen by many as the “golden age.”
Every institution is a body politic of individuals, who have individual baggage. Institutions have collective baggage, just as each individual has one’s personal baggage. Catholics call it original sin and it affects both individuals and our institutions as well.
Enemies of the Catholics Jesus Movement like to point out what our baggage is. If, indeed, their observations are correct, then, we try to make the necessary adjustments, conscious always that the Spirit of God is with us. As the scriptures say in several places in the New Testament, the Gospel will not be stopped.
In an earlier part of the letter to the Ephesians, the inspired author quotes the word of a hymn that the Jesus Movement in Ephesus would have known (and sung, hopefully!) “God chose us in Christ Jesus before the world began to be holy (people of integrity) and blameless in God’s Sight. Such was Gods will and pleasure that all might praise the glorious favor He has bestowed on us in Christ Jesus.”
But sin happened. (Pardon the pun!)Something went wrong. One would not have to tell people to stop shouting if they weren't shouting.
Sadly, in contemporary US society, we are slow to admit our collective shadow. We still experience, at times, soft-core and hard-core racism, economic injustice and favoritism. (One raconteur calls it the preferential option for the rich.) We get angered when someone suggests otherwise.
In 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote Democracy in America in which he said that Americans bragged about how free our speech was. Yet when someone suggested that the US was not perfect, he or she would be condemned. 1831??
The citizens of our nation have to make some serious adjustments to avoid what the Fire-eaters led us into in 1860. There is no guarantee of the Indwelling Presence in our USA political, social, economic, cultural institutions, especially if they are not always what we say they are.
We face the same in the Jesus Movement. We are a text in travail, a mass of contradictions, a book still being written. However, the Jesus Movement has the guarantee of the Spirit of God. We know that in the future, things will be different. We need to face up to the bitterness, anger, rage, fury, shouting, malice. Still, we need to try even harder in Christ Jesus with one another to adopt kindness, forgiveness and compassion as ordinary operating procedure.
Our nation needs us to be an example. The rest of the world needs us to be an example as well. There is something wrong when we are just like the rest of the world. It may be one thing to believe in Jesus. As Pope Benedict said, it is another to believe Him. Please God, the Catholic Jesus Movement do both, both when we gather for our Mass-meal weekly and more importantly, when we leave here to live our lives as well the other 167 hours of the week with a sense that Jesus expects our modus operandi to be kindness, forgiveness and compassion. Take the Christ Particle seriously when you leave here to be Christ in space and time in the week ahead. Your church needs you. Your nation needs you. Your world needs you. Keep our eyes on Christ Jesus and, in His Spirit, dare to be different!
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