In
the classic novel, The Screwtape Letters,
by C.S. Lewis, the worldly-wise old demon named Screwtape writes letters of advice
to his nephew, a novice demon named Wormwood.
Wormwood is charged with securing the damnation of a particular young
man’s soul. In one letter, Screwtape
warns his nephew that the Satan’s cause is never more in danger than when a
human, who no longer has the desire to do God’s will, still obeys God even when
he finds no trace of God in the universe. This perseverance in faith that’s so
frightening to Screwtape, is exactly what Jesus is calling us to do in today’s
readings.
Today’s
readings are tough. Wars, earthquakes,
famine, plagues – these signs mentioned by Jesus have been observed in every
age since Jesus walked the earth. We
even see people carrying signs demanding our repentance because the end is
near. But Jesus was right: all of these things have occurred, but the
end hasn’t come yet. It was tempting to
come up here and give a fire and brimstone homily, but that would miss the point
entirely. Jesus’ message isn’t about damnation and death; it’s about salvation
and life.
In
our Gospel, we find Jesus in the Temple for the last time. It’s the end of his teaching ministry. He has spent the last three years preaching
about the Father’s Kingdom, and teaching us, by word and example, how to live
the Kingdom here and now. And his last
lesson, the words we hear today, is to persevere no matter what. Jesus isn’t trying to frighten us – he’s
warning us of events, some of them horrific, that might distract us from living
the way he taught us to live. He’s
encouraging our unyielding faith by assuring us of two things: first, that he will be with us throughout the trying times; and second, that salvation
is the reward for our perseverance in faith.
All we have to do is live in faith to the end.
A
few months ago we were reminded of a wonderful example of this unyielding faith
with the canonization Saint Teresa of Calcutta.
Mother Teresa was hailed in her lifetime as a “living saint” for her tireless
charitable work for the poor and the dying.
But only after her death did we begin to learn exactly how difficult her
life was. She was very ill through much
of her adult life. She was harshly
criticized for the conditions of the hospitals and orphanages she ran and for
not using enough of the money she raised to improve their conditions. She was even criticized for baptizing the
dying. And in recent years, we’ve learned
that for some 30 to 40 years, she suffered the “dark night of the soul”– she experienced
a spiritual emptiness, a feeling that God had abandoned her. Not long after she heard the voice of God
calling her to her ministry of charity, not long after she experienced the
ecstatic joy of having found her true vocation, Mother Teresa sank into a world
from which God had appeared to have vanished. She even questioned the existence of God.
This
spiritual darkness, this profound sense of absence, continued for the rest of
her life. For forty years she felt like
God had abandoned her. So what did she
do? She pursued her new calling anyway. She kept on ministering to the poor and to
the dying. She built hospitals, hospices
and orphanages. She lived the life that
Jesus taught us to live. In her time of
emptiness, faced with squalid conditions, extreme poverty and harsh criticism,
she persevered in faith when she had no sense that there was anything to have
faith in. By doing so, she became the
greatest threat to Satan’s cause, and she made the world a little better.
I
admit that I struggle with today’s readings.
Life can be very difficult, and it’s easy to give up under the weight of
life’s tragedies and the emptiness we all feel from time to time. I also know that our brutal election cycle
has left many people feeling bitter, frightened and anxious about the future of
our country and the world. But our
response to these challenges shouldn’t be to retreat into our own sullenness,
to gloat or to lash out at others and certainly not to incite violence against
our neighbor. What good does any of that do? Our
response should be to persevere in faith.
If we truly want a better world, if we want to experience the Kingdom of
God here on earth, we have to push through the tough times and live as Jesus
taught us: we need to live each moment
as if the Kingdom of God were at hand. We
should greet our neighbors with a smile and a helping hand, without regard to their
immigration status or for whom they voted.
We
should clothe the naked feed the poor, give shelter to the homeless, and visit
the sick and imprisoned. We
should respect and honor the God-given dignity of every human being, even when
their opinions differ from ours. Sound
familiar? That’s Jesus’ message in a
nutshell.
Now
I’ll be the first to acknowledge that I’m no Mother Teresa, but she didn’t
think she was either, and look what she accomplished. Just
think of the good we all can achieve if we simply persevere in faith. If we live our lives in faith to the end, we will make the world kinder, gentler and
safer. More importantly we’ll earn the
gift of everlasting life. If we
persevere in faith, we’ll be Screwtape’s worst nightmare.
