Third Sunday after Epiphany
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Perhaps it’s just a guy thing, but I guess that at least the men here, and possible the women here, have had a time in their lives when someone said that they had a problem that needed to be fixed. It could be a big problem or a small problem, but somehow something is not working. And while the person may have worked on the issue for a while, the new person says, “Lemme take a look at it,” and goes to whatever is malfunctioning. Maybe the person looks at it, maybe taps a few buttons, or maybe even tries some real troubleshooting. Not always, but at least sometimes, the second person looking at it is just as lost as the first, and says something like, “Yeah, I can’t really figure out why it’s not working.”
Our world is, in many cases, broken. But we can’t fix it. No matter how many times we take a look at it, or how many times we tap here, kick there, re-read the manual, and press buttons, the healing of the world cannot be accomplished by human effort alone. It needs Christ. But how many times are we like the proverbial man, wanting our chance to take a look at it and fix the broken appliance?
Instead, the Lord invites us to have the faith of the centurion, and to trust that He can fix it, even without taking a second look, because He is the manufacturer, and knows exactly what is needed. We are often closet-Pelagians: we figure if we simply do the right things, teach the right things, fast on the right days, then we will be saints. We leave no room for God to fix us, and then wonder why we keep ending up broken. We lack faith in God’s ability to heal and save. And when we lack that faith, then like in Capernaum where people didn’t have faith in their local friend, Jesus, He’s not able to do many miracles.
How many times do we think that if we just did something ourselves, or if something within human control changed, then the world would be better? We can go from the macro to the micro scale: if we had a different president; if we had different politicians; if we had a different pope; if we had a different bishop; if we had a different pastor; if we had a different spouse; if we had better-behaved kids. All these different scenarios are where we are the agents of change and healing. The Church survived and survives persecutions and bad governments; the Church survived bad popes, bishops, and priests; family holiness comes with the family we have, not the mythical family where everything seems perfect. And all that is possible, not because the people were so great, but because God is, and the people relied on God for fixing the world.
This is not to say, of course, that we shouldn’t do our best to elect politicians who promote what we know are universal goods; that we shouldn’t expect our pontiff to speak clearly and charitably about the unchanging truths of the faith; that bishops and priests shouldn’t be models of holiness and sound preaching; that families shouldn’t do all they can to respond to God’s grace and live in harmony and charity with each other. Of course all those things are good. But there has never been a time when everything was perfect in the Church, not even when our Lord walked the earth. And the biggest changes came simply from individuals deciding to open themselves up to God’s grace and respond by doing their best to follow God’s will rather than their own.
This also impacts what happens when others harm us. St. Paul reminds us not to take revenge into our own hands, but to do good to those who wrong us. Revenge belongs to God, because God is the only one who can effectively change the world for the better at its root. When we decide to be agents of vengeance, we do not mete out perfect justice, but add at least a little bit of injustice to the equation, to try to convince the other not to wrong us again. But that only leads to a vicious cycle where the other person, not truly aggrieved, takes revenge on us, giving us a little more than what justice demands, etc., etc. Again, revenge is the Pelagian tendency in us that says that I have to be the one to fix the world, and hopefully God will bless my efforts. Instead, St. Paul tells us to overcome evil with God, which will be its own revenge upon a person who does us wrong.
On this last Sunday before the -gesima Sundays, God invites us to have faith in Him and how He works, to trust in His timing and His ways over our own. Yes, we should still cooperate with God’s grace, and achieve whatever good we can, but not as if we’re going to fix the world. The good we do will be a response to God’s grace, which is the only thing that can fix the world. Whenever we try to take God’s place, we do a very poor job of it. Let God be God, who with the Son and the Holy Spirit live and reign for ever and ever. Amen.
