Cars and Jerusalem

Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  While this is my eighth year living in Vehicle City, I will admit that I’m not a car guy.  That is to say, I don’t get cars and how they work.  I know how to use them, but if I were to pop the hood, I wouldn’t know how everything is supposed to work together.  I know there are things like spark plugs, carburetors, belts, fans, etc., but how they are all supposed work together is beyond me.  My grandfather, who worked tool and die at Fisher Body in Lansing for most of his adult life, probably would just shake his head at my ignorance, if he were alive today.
    But when we don’t understand how something is supposed to go together or function properly, we can easily miss when something is amiss.  We might have a sense that something is wrong (is my car supposed to sound like that?), but we couldn’t really tell you if something was really wrong, or what it might be.  

Church of Dominus Flevit

   That’s sort of what Christ bemoans in the Gospel today.  This is the time when the Lord weeps over Jerusalem because she does not realize the time of His visitation, the presence of the long-awaited Messiah, the Prince of Peace.  There is a beautiful church just outside the old city of Jerusalem called Dominus Flevit, Latin for the Lord Wept, that recalls this Gospel passage and could have been the place where the Lord wept over Jerusalem, because you can see much of the old city from this elevated point outside.  There is a chapel that has an iron grate, which stands between the viewer and the old city, and the grate has both a chalice with a host, as well as a cross seemingly overlaid over the landscape of modern Jerusalem.  
    Jerusalem had a particular destiny, as the king’s city, to welcome the Messiah when he came.  But because of the hardness of their hearts, most did not recognize the Lord as their long-awaited Messiah, and they missed the opportunity to welcome the Prince of Peace into His city.  So, because Jerusalem rejected peace, the Redeemer prophesied that war would come the city and stone would not be left upon stone, a prophecy that was fulfilled some forty years later when the Romans sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the ancient city, and took away many of the treasures that were there.
    We, too, are meant to recognize the Messiah when He comes.  Of course, we recognize that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, as far as the macro scale goes.  We know we’re not waiting for His first advent, but His second advent, His return in glory.  But do we recognize His third advent, how he comes to us each day, month, and year?  Do we recognize what God is trying to do in our life?
    If we don’t, we might still arrive at the destination the Lord desires for us: heaven.  But it will be much harder than it has to be.  A blind man may reach his destination by wandering around and bumping into obstacles.  But it helps if he has a guide to make sure he doesn’t fall into holes, or lose his sense of direction and start walking towards a destination he doesn’t desire.  So, too, for our salvation: if we are not attentive to God, we might still make our way to Him.  But it will be much easier and less dangerous if we attend to how God communicates.  How does God communicate?
    First, we can look to the Scriptures.  St. Jerome famously said, “Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.”  By reading the Bible, whether as a whole or in a guided Bible study or at least the more prosaic parts (I know the genealogies of the Old Testament can be tough to get through), we come to see how God works.  We see His special love for the poor, the widow, and the orphan.  We see how He often chooses those whom the world considers losers or worthless to accomplish His mighty deeds.  We see how He calls people to follow His will, and gently (and sometimes not-so-gently) reminds them to come back if they have wandered away.  
    Secondly, we can look to the Church.  The Church takes all the Scriptures and reads it in the light of Christ and salvation.  Our Holy Mother Church teaches us what we need to know about how to be saved, which is really just teaching us how to follow Christ.  She helps us to recognize, through saints and reflection on God’s revelation, how God is working, and how His voice sounds, as opposed to the voice of the world, which can often sound more enticing.
    Thirdly, we can look to prayer.  A daily habit of prayer doesn’t meant that life will go smoothly for us.  But it does mean that through the ups and downs of life, we can better see what God is doing because we’re asking Him on a regular basis, “What are you doing, Lord?”  In prayer we should take time to bring our joys and sorrows, our understanding and our questions to God.  But we should also make time to listen, silencing our minds as best we can to allow God to speak to us and enlighten us with His plan, which, as God said to the prophet Samuel, is not always what we would do.  
    When we come to know God’s will, we can have peace.  Not simply a peace that means we are not struggling, but a peace knowing how the struggle will work out, or at least that it will in some way work out in a way that God has directed for our salvation and the salvation of the world.  The saints show us this peace time and time again, even in the midst of violent persecutions, because they know that whatever God allows will somehow give us the opportunity to grow closer to Him, even to the point of shedding our blood, if necessary.
    Throughout life, we might not understand how everything fits together and works out.  It might seem as foreign to you as the inner workings of a car seems to me.  But if we are attentive to Christ’s presence in our life and in the world, we are more likely to understand, and cooperate with God’s will, rather than working to frustrate it or simply wandering around in the dark.  Lord, through your word in the Scriptures, through your Bride, the Church, and through our daily commitment to prayer, help us to know your will, to love your will, and to embrace your will.  In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.