The Vain Aspiration For Utopia

Homily

Let’s take a moment to do a thought experiment. We do that a lot in the physical sciences to make our hypotheses and plan our real experiments. So let’s do that with society. (After all, politicians experiment with society all the time, don’t they, even if the thought behind it is totally unrealistic.)

Let’s design the perfect society, an utopia. But remember, when St. Thomas More wrote his great work Utopia, he knew that the Greek translation of “utopia” was “no place.” We all have ideas about what would be needed for utopia, and what we would not need. But I think if we look carefully, the one thing we poor, weak, sinful human beings would eliminate is “pain.”

We learn early in life to avoid pain. As a baby, we might get stomach aches, or clog up our Eustachian tubes and have an ear ache. As parents, we know that babies in pain have ways to encourage us to take the pain away, and we learn that the most frustrating part of being a new parent is that we sometimes can’t figure out what the child is complaining about. It sometimes brings us to tears to see and hear a crying baby and be unable to help. We long to comfort our child, and our child wonders why we don’t comfort her.

Yes, pain is the first thing we would eliminate from our theoretically perfect society.

But then we hear St. Paul’s words and contemplate Jesus, beaten with whips, crowned with thorns, nailed to a cross. And Paul is telling us that this torture is what he glories in. “Far be it from me to glory in anything except the cross of our Lord, Jesus Christ.” Why? How? Because by this cross, the world is crucified, put to death, to him, and he is as well to the world.

The death of Jesus Christ was the worst thing that mankind could do to God, because Christ was both Son of God and son of man. But it was also the best thing that God could do for mankind. In baptism, we die sacramentally to sin and the power of death, and come to new life in Christ. We are freely given grace in our baptism, and this new Christian life, when preserved, endures through our own passing (Paul calls it “falling asleep”) into eternal life. The pain we endure in life is our participation in the suffering of Jesus. So we can see that this is something to glory in, about which we should make a joyful noise unto God.

But we can’t keep this good news to ourselves. Christ sends us ahead of Himself into our world, a world that is torn apart by sinful actions, sinful thoughts, sinful systems, a world that needs to hear about the saving power and will of God. There are dozens of ways to speak to the world. Primarily, we need to listen. Listen to the people you encounter; don’t blow them off when they share a problem or misgiving with you. Help them know you care about them, and at least will pray for them. If they are open, invite them to a church service–Mass or bible study or another community gathering. Because you may be the only one on earth who can walk with them and for them on their journey toward the Father, who is blessed forever, Amen.