Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
There’s a temptation that can creep into any believer’s life, that if we just do the right things, then everything in our life is going to go well. Maybe it comes from a desire for justice, for everyone getting what is owed them, but we can easily think that if we follow God, if we live our life according to what the Church teaches, then life should be easy for us. We should be rewarded for good behavior, just like bad behavior should be punished. There are even those who claim to preach the Gospel (they are really just perverting it) who say that if we follow God’s laws and if we give 10% to the Church, then God is going to make us rich and give us every earthly pleasure that is holy that we could desire. We call that the Gospel of Prosperity (note that it’s not the Gospel of Jesus Christ).
This perhaps also betrays a certain tendency in our human nature to want comfort, which is especially prevalent today among the young. We want the good life, where we don’t have to struggle, don’t have to put forth effort, but we still get the rewards that would come from struggle and effort. In one sense, we might say that this is built in to us because we were created for prelapsarian life, the life before the Fall in the Garden of Eden. But we are living in postlapsarian times, the time after the Fall, where we earn our living by the sweat of our brow. Furthermore, as Pope Benedict XVI reminded us, “The world promises you comfort, but you were not made for comfort. You were made for greatness.” Greatness takes work. Works means struggle. Struggle means pain. And it even applies for those who follow God.
Take Jeremiah in our first reading. God appointed him a prophet. In fact, God says that He appointed Jeremiah a prophet even while Jeremiah was in his mother’s womb. And yet, Jeremiah has a tough life, so much so, that God says, “gird your loins; […] Be not crushed on their account.” Jeremiah is the prophet who immediately prophesies the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of God’s people to Babylon. As you might imagine, no one liked hearing this dire message. But even as God tells Jeremiah that he will undergo a lot, he also promises that he has “made you a fortified city, a pillar of iron, a wall of brass…They will fight against you but not prevail over you, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.”
But besides the fact that God does not promise that those who follow Him and speak for Him will have it easy, Jesus also reminds us that sometimes those who don’t follow God get blessings. The widow in Zarephath to whom Elijah was sent was not a Jew, and yet God took care of her. Naaman the Syrian was a foreign general, a general of an army that was constantly threatening to destroy the Jews, and yet God, through the Prophet Elisha, cured him of leprosy. Those who don’t follow God can still receive His blessings and healing.
And, if we look at Jesus, the co-eternal Son of God, He was perfect. He never sinned, never did anything wrong. He followed God’s will perfectly, and extended healing to many, both Jew and Gentile alike. And what did Jesus get for perfectly doing the will of God and healing those who were ill? He was led to the cross do die for our sins. He suffered the most painful and embarrassing way to die as nails pierced his hands and feet and he hung naked outside the walls of Jerusalem.
But just in case you thought that being a disciple of Jesus means that life is going to be quite painful and horrible, that’s not the truth either. Yes, our life on earth, in the vale of tears, may have a lot of suffering, but faithfulness to God always leads to eternal life in heaven. Jesus shows us that in the most perfect way in His Resurrection. Yes, following God’s will led Jesus to the cross, but the cross led to the Resurrection. Yes, Jeremiah was treated poorly for speaking a difficult word from God, but he was received into heaven when Christ opened the gates of Paradise. We long for the ease of Eden, but God promises, after our trials and tribulations on earth, a paradise and a comfort that exceeds anything that earth can offer to an infinite degree. To tweak Pope Benedict’s words slightly, we were not made for comfort on this earth, but we were made for eternal joy in heaven.
And what guides us amid the joys and sorrows of life? Love. True love, which means the type of love that is patient, kind, not jealous, not pompous, not rude, not quick-tempered, not brooding, rejoicing in the truth. Love guides us to our eternal joy because perfect love is eternal joy in heaven, where God, who is Love itself, shows us himself face to face.
It would be nice if everything came to us without effort; if following Jesus did not require sacrifice and struggle. But because we are fallen, following Jesus does not mean that we will get everything we want and life will not always be easy. But, if we stay faithful to Christ, especially when it requires sacrifice and struggle, we know that we have a treasure, not made by hands, eternal in heaven, waiting for us, and fulfilling beyond measure the desire we have on earth for true joy.