The Suffering Servant in Every Age
In our first reading from the book of the prophet Isaiah, the prophet describes the Suffering Servant of God, the Messiah, the one who will take on the sins of others to liberate God’s people.
Jesus, the Messiah did just that. He conquered sin and death so that we can do the same. But Jesus did not put us in heaven. He set the model. It is up to us to cooperate. Jesus’ model of life emphasized the building of the Kingdom of God on earth, recognizing that it would be perfected in heaven by all who have learned how to love. For heaven is indeed the Kingdom of God perfected, and we must be perfected in love to get there.
The Old Testament prophets like Isaiah taught that it was not enough to simply call oneself a Jew. One had to live one’s faith, one had to build the Kingdom of God. Jesus extended a similar requirement to his followers. For us it not enough to simply call oneself a Christian or a Catholic. We must live our faith. Our second reading from the letter of St. James makes this crystal clear. A faith without works, St. James says, is dead.
The principles of the Kingdom of God can be found in the latter chapters of the book of the prophet Isaiah from which our first reading is drawn. They are the principles that, Jesus tells his apostles in our Gospel reading from Mark, for which he will die.
The concepts of the Kingdom of God include a rather clear concept of justice. It is a Kingdom that rejected the economics of inequality that was inherent in slavery. It was a call for ALL to be able to enjoy the fruits of God’s creation and a rejection of oppression and exploitation. It was a rejection of religious and political leaders who sought to be God’s ventriloquist, warping God’s message into one that favored some, like them and their Roman masters, at the expense of others.
The principles of the Kingdom of God bothered many comfortable Jews of Jesus’ day. For the Kingdom of God rejects the economics of inequality, oppression and exploitation that were clearly present in Jesus’ time. It rejects a timid faith of dusty, arid rules and regulations that did not offend the oppressors of the time but added to the burdens of ordinary people. Small wonder the political establishment of Jesus’ time wanted to kill him.
But Jesus never lacked for courage. He would say many things that would offend the ruling religious classes of his day, so much so that they would eventually find a way to kill Him. But his message would not die out with his earthly life. The loving covenant of God was extended to all people. A billion of them now call themselves Christians.
Fortunately, the teachings of Jesus, passed down to us through our Church give us an understanding of what needs to be done as we pick up our cross and follow Him. Jesus and His Church have given us some important principles in which to build the Kingdom of God. They include:
the promotion of human dignity at all stages of human life;
the promotion of the community and the common good of the society in which we live, a fundamental right to life and a right to the things required for human decency (food, shelter, clothing, employment, health care, and education) as well as personal responsibility for ourselves, our families, and society;
a preferential option for the poor and vulnerable in our society;
the right and responsibility of all, not just some, to participate in the economic, political, and cultural life of society;
the promotion of the dignity of work and rights of workers, including the right to productive work, decent and fair wages, safe working conditions, and the right to organize and join unions;
the holding of God’s material creation in common, with the right to private property but not excessive wealth when others lack the basic necessities of life;
protective stewardship of God’s creation, caring for and preserving it for future generations;
solidarity with the entire human family and its needs, not just one or another nation;
a constructive not oppressive role for government in promoting human dignity, protecting human rights, and building the common good; and
the promotion of peace through mutual respect and confidence between peoples and nations tempered by legitimate measures of self-defense.
These are the principles of the Kingdom of God. If you don’t believe me, I suggest you visit the web page of the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops, www.usccb. org. The principles of the Kingdom of God are the principles of a just Catholic faith to which Jesus calls us, no less now than in the time of Jesus.
In all times and places, one can expect that the call for such a new loving covenant, a new Kingdom, will encounter opposition. In speaking about the Church’s message about carrying out the Kingdom of God, a Latin American bishop once noted, “when they see me feeding a poor person they call me a Christian; when I ask why people are hungry, they call me a communist.”
Some in this parish from time to time have called me a communist. As you can see, they can’t call me late for dinner. But I am here to preach faithfully about the teachings of the Church, whether they encounter opposition or not. And my travails are trivial compared to many others who have fought for Christian social justice, who have been Suffering Servants in the model of Jesus. Many have died believing in the Kingdom of God and fighting for its carrying out on this earth.
We remember, for example, how some of the victims of the 9/11 attacks gave their lives to save others by forcing the terrorists to crash a plan in rural Pennsylvania rather than at the U.S. Capitol. At the cost of their own human lives but certainly not their human dignity, they saved the human lives of so many others who they never even met.
By contrast, there are those who lack courage and honesty and try to make up for it with their hostility. We see this in the current debate about health care. The Catholic Church supports universal health care as a right not a privilege. It has not endorsed any single proposal to do this, and there are a lot of different ways to get there. And this right is not morally acceptable if it is not accompanied by the protection of human life at all of its stages.
So in the health care debate, on one end are those who don’t like Catholic teaching on abortion and don’t like the Catholic position that supports universal health care, but not if our tax dollars are used to increase the use of abortion.
On the other hand, we can see in town hall meetings across the country this summer, fear tactics, as those who seek to carry out the Catholic teaching for universal health care as a basic human right are called Nazis and supporters of death committees, even though the Catholic Church itself, indeed our own Archdiocese, supports end-of-life counseling.
Our political leaders are threatened with assassination. Many of us find ourselves shouted down and ridiculed. But the ultimate death panel, brothers and sisters, is the use of slander and deceit to kill efforts to bring about universal health care. This all to real death panel kills 20,000 people are year, because people can’t get insurance or face the cruel irony of losing it because they got sick. 17,000 people lose their insurance every day.
Opponents of the Kingdom of God, whatever their motivations, have learned the lessons of the Pharisees well. Scare people and they will believe anything. Inject fear and people will cling to what they have, even as they are losing it.
But there is nothing new about this. Catholics will never be fully popular with some when we promote the Kingdom of God and its covenant, be it opposition to abortion, support for universal health care, the free practice of our faith, or anything else. We may not even be popular with some sitting in our very pews. But let us pray brothers and sisters that we utilize the Holy Spirit’s gift of courage in promoting God’s covenant, the Kingdom of God, no matter how unpopular. For living that covenant, building the Kingdom of God, is the joy of being a Christian, the challenge of being Suffering Servants and the only real path to salvation.