Why would anyone
believe anything I say? Here I stand
before you, preaching Jesus Christ and Him crucified, announcing the coming of
the Kingdom and calling people to repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, and
for all I know it may as well be just another blog post easily categorized
according to type and political category.
This has been
bothering me lately. I read all sorts of
writings every week; articles, blog posts, speeches, and even books. I am not a big watcher of video anything,
news or otherwise, but I do listen to the radio a bit. So I encounter all sorts of propositions for
explanations of what is going on, and what is important. I assume you do, too; in fact, I figure most
people cannot avoid this process, even if they try.
And I cannot get over
the impression that for reasons that are too broad to enumerate here, most
people, who willingly accept as credible what is proposed them by this or that
paper, website, or program, will level a skeptical eye at me, at the Church,
and at Jesus Christ Himself and demand some proof or perfection before granting
consideration.
In recent days, I
have been engaged in a number of conversations – good, healthy, personal
conversations – that have come around to the point where what I offer the other
person also brings a challenge, and calls for some change, or even new
effort. Suddenly, the warmth and
openness yields to a certain type of response: Oh, yeah? Well what about this?
What follows is
invariably a point where the Church or some prominent person associated with it
has failed to measure up to some standard.
Oh yeah, well what about the
Spanish Inquisition? Or maybe, Oh
yeah, well what about that time when Pope So-and-so didn’t do anything to stop
this or that horrible injustice? The
real standout among them? Oh yeah, well
what about my friend, who is gay? Sometimes
it is more personal, like: Oh yeah, well
what about that time you didn’t give my child what I know you obviously should
have given her?
In this time when so
much ammunition is being directed at candidates and potential candidates in
hopes that one shot fired will be the silver bullet that destroys all
possibility of election, when the search is on for the incriminating instance
that eliminates all eligibility, we are subjected to all sorts of episodes of
human frailty, but also an amazing array of expectations completely
unreasonable, unattainable, and, most often, undesirable. But that is to be expected of the political
process.
To bring that same
attitude to your Lord and Savior, that same sense of skeptically vetting a
candidate for your vote of confidence, is understandable only in the context of
recognizing how hard it is to break a habit that is bad to begin with.
This is the revealed
Son of God, who did not campaign for your affections, but offered Himself up
for death on the Cross. He promises no
program or platform, but a commandment: Love
one another, as I have loved you. He
founded no earthly kingdom, much less party or PAC; but he clearly did
institute the Church. He left no
writings at all, much less an agenda or a set of rules. But we hold as sacred the writings that
foretold and promised Him, in the Old Testament; that described Him and life
with Him, by those who knew Him best, in the Gospels; and were written about,
to, and for His Church, in the Acts of the Apostles, and the New Testament
epistles.
As political
campaigns go, this one is a failure from the start. The proposition that you are doomed to death by your own attachment to sin is not going
to flatter anybody into offering support.
Is it irony that every candidate ever, by actions in and out of office,
gives testimony to the truth of this proposition? But there is no lack of evidence that this is
no political campaign. So, for the love
of God, stop treating Him like a candidate!
Monsignor
Smith
