No easy peace
Is there anyone of sound mind who doesn’t want peace? Jesus promised: “I leave you peace; my peace I give you,” and he meant it. Yet today we hear him say: “I am here to bring you not peace but rather division.” Is there not a contradiction here? No, for he simply wants to say: My peace and your peace must not be a guilty peace of compromises with evil. It is a peace that allows itself to be disturbed by injustice and wrongdoing that contradicts our faith. We are here together with the Lord who gave up his own peace to accept even death so that we might be free and happy.
It would have been easy for Jeremiah the prophet to keep silent. But the Spirit made him speak up to the leaders and tell them that they were wrong and that they made him suffer for it.
Faith brings to the disciple of Jesus not an easy peace, but struggle, tension and contradiction, for the disciple has to follow the master on the way of the cross.
First Reading: Jeremiah 38:4-6,8-10
These officials told the king, “Please, kill this man. He’s got to go! He’s ruining the resolve of the soldiers who are still left in the city, as well as the people themselves, by spreading these words. This man isn’t looking after the good of this people. He’s trying to ruin us!”
King Zedekiah caved in: “If you say so. Go ahead, handle it your way. You’re too much for me.”
So they took Jeremiah and threw him into the cistern of Malkijah the king’s son that was in the courtyard of the palace guard. They lowered him down with ropes. There wasn’t any water in the cistern, only mud. Jeremiah sank into the mud.
While the king was holding court in the Benjamin Gate, Ebed-melek went immediately from the palace to the king and said, “My master, O king—these men are committing a great crime in what they’re doing, throwing Jeremiah the prophet into the cistern and leaving him there to starve. He’s as good as dead. There isn’t a scrap of bread left in the city.”
So the king ordered Ebed-melek the Ethiopian, “Get three men and pull Jeremiah the prophet out of the cistern before he dies.”
Second Reading: Hebrews 12:1-4
Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!
In this all-out match against sin, others have suffered far worse than you, to say nothing of what Jesus went through—all that bloodshed!
Gospel: Luke 12:49-53
Jesus said to his disciples, “I’ve come to start a fire on this earth—how I wish it were blazing right now! I’ve come to change everything, turn everything rightside up—how I long for it to be finished! Do you think I came to smooth things over and make everything nice? Not so. I’ve come to disrupt and confront! From now on, when you find five in a house, it will be—
Three against two,
and two against three;
Father against son,
and son against father;
Mother against daughter,
and daughter against mother;
Mother-in-law against bride,
and bride against mother-in-law.”
Prayer
God our Father,
by his life and death your Son showed us
the stony road that leads us to life and love.
Let the fire of his Spirit burn in us,
that we may reject easy compromises with evil,
with guilty, uncommitted peace,
and silent complicity in iniquity.
Make us honest and straightforward like Jesus,
so that with him we may put your will and love
above everything else.
We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Video available at: bibleclaret.org
