When We Forget Our Primary Duty

Saturday of 29th Week in Course 2022

Jesus always paid attention to the local news, wherever He might have been ministering. Today’s Gospel actually gives us two situations in which Jesus gets to comment on something happening in Jerusalem, something that these days would make at least page two of the newspaper, and might even lead on a TV news show. Anyone who has worked in journalism for any period of time knows the phrase “if it bleeds, it leads.”

So the local talk that day was about the Roman procurator, a fellow named Pontius Pilatus, who had his soldiers take retribution on a group of Galileans, probably associated with a Galilean rebel. As they were offering the Passover sacrifice in the Temple, the legionaries waded into them with swords and cut them down, so that their blood mingled with the blood of the offered lamb. Jesus added another recent event–the collapse of a tower nearby, perhaps after an earthquake, that killed eighteen victims. He turns both events into a sermon. Popular opinion had it, and still does, that if something bad happens to you, it’s because you did something bad. That’s the “karma” theory.

Jesus expands our understanding, as always. He asks if any of those people, Galilean or Jerusalemite or whoever, was a worse sinner than everyone who did not die tragically. And the answer is stark: “no, and without repentance, you all will also die.” The people of Galilee and Judea generally refused to repent of their sins and believe in Jesus, even after His death and resurrection. Only a minority followed Him and became baptized members of His Church. Then when they had enough of Roman oppression, they rebelled, killed a bunch of Romans, and then were systematically butchered or sold into slavery by Vespasian and Titus around the year 70 AD. The Christians, warned a generation earlier by Jesus in speeches like this, mostly escaped that Jewish war and fled east before the siege of Jerusalem.

Humans become like those rebels when they forget that their primary mission in life is to live and die in love with God and neighbor, so they can be with the Blessed Trinity after falling asleep in Christ. We tend to get all messed up with pride and lust and greed and all the other deadly sins, focusing on our own pleasure and power and honor instead of serving others. If we do follow Christ, then He can pour out His gifts on us, prophecy and teaching and leadership, so we can build up His Mystical Body on earth and become mature humans, like Jesus and Mary. But it must start with speaking and hearing the truth in love. That is the path to true joy for all eternity.