Saturday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time Year 2 2024

Title

Fascination and Hate

Outline

Our readings are parallel

Both Jeremiah and John the Baptist speak the word of the Lord, in one case a prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem if there is no repentance and in the other the implied threat of judgment on the king due to his having broken the Torah.

Both prophets threaten the a class of leaders, in the one case the the “priests and prophets” claim he is undermining the political stability of the people and in the other Herodias realizes that John has undermined the legitimacy of the Herodian rule and especially threatened her position.

In both cases there are those fascinated with the prophet who provide a limited protection because they sense truth in the prophet. The “princes” and “Ahikam son of Shaphan” and later Zedekiah in the case of Jeremiah and Herod himself in the case of John.

In neither case does the prophet attack or doom his persecutors.

Yet finally both suffer. While Jeremiah after several brushes with death survives the fall of Jerusalem he ends up being carried captive to Egypt where he dies. Herodias, whether by plan or by seizing an opportunity, is able to trap Herod between his honor and precipitously executing John whom he apparently respects and Herod chooses security and honor.

We recognize that the same story could be told about Jesus

Of course, Jesus is not a servant but the son, not just a man, but God become man, but he also has believers, disciples, and also those in authority who protect him as well as those who seek to kill him and ultimately succeed partly by putting Pilate in a political dilemma.

The difference is that with Jesus we know the end of the story, his resurrection, ascension, and present rule, and we know that he knew that. Neither Jeremiah nor John the Baptist knew how Jesus’ life would turn out and therefore that those who die with Christ will also live with Christ.

We do know that end of the story and also have the encouragement of Paul to identify with Jesus both in life and death.

This becomes most practical in our present age

We do need a prudence that knows when to keep silent as well as when to speak, a prudence that seems in short supply in this call-out culture.

But if we are close to the Lord we will hear when it is time to speak “the word of the Lord” and when it is time to act in the love of the Lord. Either may, as in the case of Jeremiah and John and any number of others in scripture and church history, lead to severe repercussions with a similar mixture of those interested and even protecting us and those many out to get us.

In the USA in particular and in the West as a whole we are caught with no influential party we can agree with (we may agree on individual issues, but usually for different reasons) and likely the collapse of the whole liberal project, i.e. in our case, our constitution, as Bp Robert Barron and Dr. Patrick Deneen discussed on the Word on Fire Show podcast. But do not worry. Jeremiah and John could be faithful without knowing the full story of Jesus. We know, as Paul did, that people can only shame and kill us, but that will only bring us closer to Jesus, not just in his death, but also in his rising from the dead, so we can be be loving and compassionate to those who hate us, knowing that it is they, not we who are suffering with Jesus, who need that compassion.

And the Lord be with you.