07 March 2008

No true prophet...


4th Week of Lent (F): Wisdom 2.1, 12-22 and John 7.1-2, 10, 25-30
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St Albert
the Great Priory and Church of the Incarnation


Jesus travels to Jerusalem, moving slowly toward the center of his world as a faithful Jew. As those who travel with him, we stand behind him and peer over his shoulder at the steadily rising tide of opposition and violence against his Good Word. His approaching presence exerts a holy pressure against the Wicked of the world, pushing them back against one another, crowding them into one another, condensing them into smaller and smaller but stronger and stronger enclaves of surprisingly creative rebellion. From behind his shoulder, what do you see as Jerusalem comes into focus over the hill? What waits there, who waits there to cheer or jeer our Lord and his motley band of preachers? The Book of Wisdom gives us a prophetic picture, a picture of what waits and a prophecy for those who are waiting. But let’s ask this question: are you tempted to place yourself among the wicked, or do you fancy yourself as the “just one”?

The second chapter of the Book of Wisdom opens with this cheery scene: “The wicked said among themselves, thinking not aright: ‘Let us beset the just one, because he is obnoxious to us…’” Our book on the wisdom of the Lord prominently features the foolishness of the wicked. What are they worried about? The foolish and the wicked are feeling increasingly anxious about a holy man among them who stands as a living rebuke to their folly. The foolish wisely call him “just,” but because of this he is judged to be “obnoxious.” We have to wonder what he is doing to be so obnoxious! According to the wicked, he reproaches them and charges them with violations of the law; he claims to know the Lord and calls himself a child of God; his very presence is felt as a rebuke, censure; the wicked say of him, “…merely to see him is a hardship for us!” And their carefully considered response to this horrible man is predictable: they will test his claims to holiness with “revilement and torture;” they will give him a shameful death to test his claim that God will help him: “For if the just one be the son of God, he will defend him and deliver him…”

We know the wicked aren’t thinking clearly here…St. Thomas says (in more philosophical terms than these): sin makes you stupid. Scripture says, “…they erred; for their wickedness blinded them…” Rightly, the author of Wisdom comes down on the side of the righteous man. But since we are still in our Lenten wilderness, our temptations are especially fresh and vivid. Are you then tempted to place yourself among the wicked, or do you fancy yourself the righteous yet persecuted child of God? If you place yourself among the wicked, you are admitting your foolishness and in so doing you have very likely seen the light. If you fancy yourself the Just Yet Persecuted One, you will likely find yourself wallowing in folly by Easter. Remember: for the devil, temptations are just convenient means to a much bigger end. If he can tempt you to anoint yourself a prophet contra ecclesia or tempt you to die a martyr’s death for nothing more than your vanity, then he has proven the wicked right—more often than not underneath the most highly polished plate of righteousness is a self-righteous heart just waiting, just hoping to be martyred for its favorite cause.

You may object here by pointing out that I’ve set up a false dichotomy with no good result for the earnest seeker and no way out. I’ve pointed out the obvious temptations of both the wicked and the righteous. Here’s the way out; Jesus says to the residents of Jerusalem, “You know me…I did not come on my own, but the one who sent me, whom you do not know, is true.” No true prophet, priest, or king is self-anointed. No true martyr or saint runs after death for the sake of ego. You are sent out, or you go out on your own. The difference rests in the hand of God.

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