Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
I am convinced that at some point in the future, the Lions will make it to the Super Bowl. It will be the fourth quarter, and the Lions will be losing by 1 point. They’ll be on the opponent’s 20 yard line, ready to kick the game-winning field goal, with 1 second left on the clock. The kicker will kick the ball, and it will go straight, ready to pass through the uprights, and just as it’s about to pass through, and the refs are about to raise their hands, Jesus Christ will return in glory, and the Lions will forever be the team that never won a Super Bowl.
As Lions fans we are used to disappointment. There are other bad teams, but only the Lions seem to find new and exciting ways to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. So perhaps we can sympathize with Job from our first reading and say “I have been assigned months of misery, and troubled nights have been allotted to me.” In case you’re unfamiliar with Job, it’s a beautiful book of the Bible. It may be more of a parable than a literal story, but it tells the story of a man who is faithful to God, but then undergoes great trials. His first trial is that his oxen and donkeys were grazing, and were stolen by Sabeans, who killed all the herdsmen, save one. Lightening struck all his sheep and shepherds and killed all but one shepherd. Chaldeans came and stole all of Job’s camels, and killed all their caretakers, save one. His seven sons and three daughters were all killed when their house collapsed during a party, and only one servant survived. To this Job says: “‘The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.’” Quite the ordeal!
But then, Job is struck by severe boils “from the soles of his feet to the crown of the head.” Life is so bad that his wife, obviously a loving and caring woman, tells Job, “‘Curse God and die.’” The Book of Job makes clear that Job has done nothing wrong, and yet he suffers greatly. This story of Job is an attempt to understand why bad things happen to good people. I encourage you to read the rest of the book (we only hear a part of chapter 7 today) to see how it ends.
Suffering is a part of life, not just for Lions’ fans. There are moral evils that we have to suffer with (crimes, betrayals, loneliness from others’ rejection of us); there are also natural evils that make us suffer (natural disasters, illnesses, pandemics). People of all faiths and none struggle with this question, sometimes called Theodicy, of why bad things happen to good people, and why there is evil in the world. In case you’re wondering, there is no easy answer.
Jesus, as He so often does, turns the question on its head. What does He do? He heals; He grants wholeness; He saves. Our Gospel today relates healings that Jesus did, exorcisms, and preaching. Jesus shows us that He enters into our evils, some of our own making, some that we have no control over, and He brings healing. The very word for savior in Latin, Salvator, is connected to another word, salus, meaning health. The Salvator is the one who brings salus.
But Jesus, our Savior, doesn’t do so extrinsically, outside of all our sufferings. He doesn’t watch from afar and offer us health while social distancing. He enters into our pain, our suffering, our illness, and brings us delight, wholeness, and health. And that’s part of the beautiful message of the Gospel: Jesus defeats sin and death through His Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension; but we still see it happening, until Jesus returns and ushers in the fullness of His Kingdom. Until then, Jesus suffers with and in us; He does not abandon us. And while suffering is not good, it always helps to know that we are not alone, that our suffering has not separated us from the One who loves us above all, as suffering often does make us feel segregated.
I think this is so clear from our pandemic. I’m not here to argue against science and taking necessary precautions to protect one’s health. But one of the greatest evils in this pandemic, whether physically necessary or not, is that we are being disconnected from each other. Whether we have symptoms, are asymptomatic, or are virus-free, COVID has sought to divide us from each other. The age-old wounds of sin and division, that were always just below the surface, have come to the top and are festering. And because we lack a physical unity with each other, that spiritual and emotional unity has also been stretched, or even torn.
In the midst of that division, Jesus continues to heal and make whole. There are stories of heroic Catholics–priests, deacons, and lay faithful–who have refused to let people die alone, even if they had COVID. The Church has continued to feed the poor, shelter the homeless, educate adults and children, because that is Jesus’ work, and that work does not stop just because there’s a pandemic. My mind is drawn, by way of an earlier example, to St. Damian of Molokai, whose Belgian blood I share, who gave up his own life to bring Jesus and His healing, especially spiritual healing, to the leper colony in the Hawaiian islands.
But even today, through the Sacrament of Penance (confession) and the Eucharist, Jesus continues to heal, and continues to walk with us through our suffering. He has defeated it, and suffering will end when Christ is all in all. But until then, Jesus does not leave us orphans; He does not leave us to suffer alone, but suffers with and in us, so that we can bear our burden with Him.
In the times when you feel most alone, most abandoned, most bereft of human interaction, turn to Jesus in prayer. Come to the church and spend time in front of the Blessed Sacrament. Look to the crucifix, and lay all your trials on that cross. If you do, life, victory, and wholeness will be yours in Christ Jesus our Lord.