Fighting Spiritual Battles

Eleventh Sunday in Course 2024

The Word of the Lord endures forever. However, the language it is expressed in can differ by the time and place it is written. Remember that it has three meanings. The meaning intended by the human author is inspired by God. The meaning understood by the people of the time is subject to their own understandings and biases. The meaning for each person in this congregation, and foe me, will vary by person and that person’s background. It may or may not overlap with the meaning Our Lord intends for each of us right now.

Today’s Scripture readings remind us that Old Testament Israel was geographically situated in the Levant, in an area that had been on the coast settled by a seafaring people, the Philistines. Hence it has been called from time to time “Palestine.” Much of the area is very hilly, and there are not a great deal of valuable minerals to mine. So Israel was (and still is to an extent) an agricultural society dependent on the plants and animals that grew there. We see in the reading from Ezekiel, the psalm, and the Gospel of Mark lots of evidence that the people both prophets spoke to understood their connection to the soil, and to the plants that their lives depended on.

Ezekiel pictures God as a gardener. He prunes a cedar sprig and plants it on “a high and lofty mountain.” Now I haven’t done a lot with rooting sprigs like that, and the soils of mountains are usually very thin at the peaks, so we can infer that Israel is not a good place to do this, and only the power of God can make it sprout and become nourishment and shade for all kinds of birds and animals. That’s the way it was for the people of Israel. When they took matters into their own hands, especially by running after false gods and political alliances, they pretty much always failed to prosper. The Lord, and only He, gives prosperity of mind, heart and spirit, but only when we follow His commands in right worship and righteous living.

Notice here the sense in which this reading, and the psalm and Gospel pericopes, too, seem set in an ideal time and place. The Israelite who read about trees flourishing in the soil of a mountain height would think something like “wouldn’t that be perfect? I have enough trouble getting a crop out of rich sandy loam.” We are so stuck in a place and time of limitations, high inflation (and just wait for next year!) wars, threatened plagues and looming taxes that we tend to forget this is not the end for which we exist. In fact, when we read Pope Francis, we might do well to remember he is writing in the same spirit as Ezekiel, Paul and Mark. This is what God wants us to hear because this is an analogy of our real end, eternal life in the embrace of God and company of all the saints, where nothing will go wrong. It will be a new heavens and a new earth.

This week, perhaps the best response we can make to God’s Word can be derived from St. Paul’s advice to the Church in Corinth. Be courageous. We are at present in a battle, a spiritual battle. We are fighting spiritual powers that want only to devour souls. We gather God’s weapons to fight in this war, in daily prayer and weekly sacrament, in meditation and group discussion, in our Bible study and prayer groups. We are careful in political discussions and Internet chats to avoid allowing ourselves to fear, and to endeavor to treat everyone else with charity. In other words, in our weekday work and interactions, we try to bring to this life what we want in Christ in the life to come.