No "pay For Play" In God's Economy

Twelfth Sunday in Course 2023

The words of Jeremiah today sound very much like a political candidate’s lament over the words of an enemy: Here’s what my opponent is plotting: “Denounce him. . .perhaps he can be deceived, then we can overcome him. . .” But really, those of us who have been around the block more than once can probably look back in our life and see that even a person with no notoriety will have a history with some kind of cruel opposition. Maybe even going back to grade school. But what distinguishes Jeremiah’s lament is his confidence that the LORD “is with me as a fearsome warrior,” and that God will cause persecutors to stumble and be disgraced. What begins with a grievance ends with a “Glory be”!

You’ll notice that there is no idea of “tit for tat” in the words of Scripture. This is not a kind of “pay for play” political football game, because neither God nor Jeremiah is into politics. Jeremiah is into faith and God is into fidelity. That's why if we deny Jesus and die, He is bound to deny us. We must be faithful if we want eternal life.

Let’s listen to some wisdom about that:

Pope Benedict has written, “The major religions of the world are familiar with the grand idea that man exists for the purpose of worship, but this idea is then deformed by the belief that in the act of worship, man is giving to the gods something they need. It is thought that the deity needs human beings to provide this service and that, in this way, cult sustains the world. . .This idea of “do ut des”–where each one gives to the other because they need each other–opens the door to speculation about power, and the thought of power corrupts the notion of love.”

God simply is. He is sufficient unto Himself, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He creates us out of infinite love, and makes us dependent on Himself. He made a covenant with the Hebrew people, descendants of Abraham, entirely out of love, and kept that covenant despite their repeated violations of the twin commandment to love God above all things and love your neighbor as yourself. To bring the world back into right worship and right living, the Father sent the Son–His Word–to live among us, teach us, heal us and die for us so that He might rise from the dead and, through the ministry of the Church, bring us into His Mystical Body. It is as that Body that we come together each Sunday for right worship, and care for each other and His world during the week.

In other words, to enter into St. Paul’s discussion with the Romans, Adam and Eve screwed up the original relationship by disobedience; the new Adam and Eve, Jesus Christ and with Him, the Blessed Virgin Mary, by their obedience, put us back together with God, each other, and the world. Mary teaches us to say to God: be it done to me according to Thy Word.

As followers and imitators of Jesus and Mary, then, we can have the same confidence as Jeremiah. If our persecutors are temporarily triumphant, and even if they kill us in the body, God will take us to Himself and raise us up permanently pleased to be in the kingdom of God with all the saints. And, in the meantime, our witness will stand before the world as a testimony to the triumph of goodness. That’s really a win-win in the long run, and the long run–our eternal destiny-- is all that really matters.