I Never Promised You a Rose Garden
Nearly 40 years ago, the popular ballad singer Lynn Anderson had a big hit song entitled “I Never Promised You a Rose Garden.” As I examined the readings for the Masses this weekend, this song came into my head. For it does seem, at least on first impulse, to accurately describe our readings for this the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time.
In all three readings today, God calls three individuals to preach His loving covenant, a covenant he established first with the Israelites, and then with all of us. All three agree to do so. The result in the short-term is persecution and death. Ezekiel in our first reading is called to bring rebellious Israelites back to the faith. He is persecuted and ridiculed for his trouble.
Paul gives us up a life of relative ease to preach the new Christian faith throughout the Middle East and southern Europe. For his trouble he endures hardship, imprisonment, and finally execution. And the human Jesus in our Gospel according to Mark finds that his very own relatives are suspicious and hateful of Him for ruining their quiet lives with a message of love of God and others. He is creating trouble for them that is all too inconvenient and dangerous. And eventually as we know, Jesus would pay the ultimate price, an excruciating death, for living and teaching the faith of God.
So yes indeed, God never promised Ezekiel, Paul, and even God’s Son a rose garden on this earth. And this fact can seem a little overwhelming to us as well. For if individuals of such powerful intellect and personal grace were persecuted for the faith of God, how are we going to avoid it? Why should we want such a faith?
To follow God, the path of Jesus Christ is to encounter opposition, disappointment, even death. But as Christians we are called to understand that there is simply no better way to live than God’s powerful way of life: a life of loving God and others. Such a life is never easy. History is full of Christians who gave up everything to follow Jesus. Sometimes they were killed for their beliefs. Sometimes they suffered persecution. Some were strong and were great leaders, bringing new people to the faith and the Christian way of life. Some were weak and sick, yet devoted their lives to God in prayer and service to others. Some were tall; some were tiny. Some were fat; some were skinny. Some were quite attractive physically; others had faces only a mother could love.
But all shared one thing in common. They all understood God is love and God created us for love based on different kind of service to God and others. All these Christians understood that we are put on this earth to learn how to love. And there is no better way to learn how to love than to follow the life of Jesus Christ. When we follow Christ, we give in order to receive. We come to understand that the joy we feel when we do for others is always stronger than when we do for ourselves. When we come to accept the reality that everything we have comes from God, then no matter what is taken from us in a material sense is not as important as the reality that God can never be taken from us. The fact that our suffering, no matter how great, is joined to that of Jesus and is ultimately overcome just as Jesus’ was is the great consolation of Christian truth.
And when our time on this earth is over, Lynn Anderson’s song loses its truth. For God does indeed promise a rose garden in the next life if we live through the challenges of a life of service-based love in this life. For it is through this process that we receive the mind and heart of Jesus. We enter a loving relationship with God where there is no more suffering, no more tears, no more death. Just the intimacy that truly living the Christian life has brought us.
On this weekend when we celebrate our country’s independence, we also rejoice because we have seen and can see Americans who have lived the Gospel life. The many that give of themselves to build the Kingdom of God here on earth through their commitment to social service and economic and social justice. The many who comfort the poor and afflicted, feed the hungry and remember the dead. Those who put aside personal gain to do what is right for the larger community. Those who have fought and died for American independence, for the righteousness that rejects totalitarian values, political repression and violence. Those who work in and have built hospitals and created medicines that cure the sick and demonstrate God’s mercy. We treasure the remarkable story of Catholic education, which has shown and taught our faith to tens of millions, a faith of clean heart and invincible love. We remember the many times America has served as peacemaker, in the Middle East, in the Balkans, and many other places around the world. We also commemorate those who, despite persecution, helped overcome discrimination and inequality, making America a better and more just place for all people.
To be sure our country and we have a long way to go. We often fall short. But even as we strive to improve our country and ourselves, brothers and sisters, enjoy the true freedom of the sons and daughters of God. We may be rejected. We may suffer. We may be weak not strong. And we will die to this life sooner or later. Understanding all of this can be very difficult things for us to accept. But the human Jesus suffered these things too. He asks us for right motives and a believing heart. He asks us to do our best. For then Jesus can do His best. And this brothers and sisters, is the sweet scent of the ultimate and best rose garden of all.