I spent a good part of Valentine’s Day in
prison. You can’t say I’m not a fun date! There are two prisons within the territorial
boundaries of our parish, and I was blessed with the opportunity to visit both
prisons on Ash Wednesday, which, as you know, fell on Valentine’s Day this year. I say that I was blessed because I always
find wonderful examples of deep faith in prison. These women and men have faced the darkest of
the demons we encounter in this world, in themselves and in others, but they
still keep fighting the battle between good and evil, they still cling to “the
better angels of [their] nature.” We all fight that battle. Our readings teach us the only way to win it.
This morning’s readings are all about steadfast faith
in the face of evil. In our first
reading from Genesis, we hear of God’s irrevocable covenant with Noah. While God is always faithful to his covenants,
we mere mortals aren’t that consistent.
That’s why our Psalm reminds us that God “shows sinners the way” of love
and truth through Jesus Christ, who, Saint Peter tells us in our second
reading, “suffered so that he might lead [us] to God.” How does he lead us to God? By his good example of steadfast faith. Faced with evil and temptation in our Gospel,
Jesus sided with the angels ministering to him; he trusted that God would be
faithful to his promises, and he spread the Good News that our Father in Heaven
delivers us from every evil.
Since the fall
of Adam and Eve, “[t]he human condition has always been . . . haunted by sin
and by goodness.” We’re caught in the middle of a cosmic
struggle between good and evil. Within
our very nature, Satan and the demons actively seek to alienate us from God and
divide us among ourselves, while Jesus actively seeks to unite us with God and with
each other. These efforts are irreconcilable. One must win, and one must lose. We have to choose sides. Fortunately, we’re not left to fight the
battle alone. Like Jesus in the desert,
God is with us, sending his angels to minister to us among the wild
beasts. It’s up to us to cling to the
better angels of our nature. How do we
do that? We repent and believe.
Let’s start with repentance. Repentance certainly involves acknowledging
our faults before God and making amends for them, but the Greek word here
translated as repent, metanoeite (µετανοείτε), is deeper than that.
It’s better understood as “be converted”, or “turn around.” In this sense, repent also means change our
ways. Repentance, or metanoia, begins with taking a good look
at ourselves and turning away from everything about us that’s not good. But “[a]s difficult as it is, turning away by
itself does not make the kingdom of God arrive.
Turning away must be complemented by turning toward, by believing in the
‘good news.’” We must repent and believe.
From the desert, to Calvary, to the tomb, Jesus believed
that God would be faithful to his covenants; and God delivered. Jesus urges us to believe, too. “To believe in the good news simply means to
take Jesus at his word, to believe that God is the kind of God that Jesus . . .
told us about, to believe that God so loves the world that he will make any
sacrifice to bring us back to himself, to believe that what sounds too good to
be true really is.” The only way to stand against temptation, to cling
to the better angels of our nature, and emerge victorious from the battle
between good and evil is to repent and believe in the gospel. I can think of no better time than right now,
and not just because it’s the beginning of Lent.
On Valentine’s
Day, a day we dedicate to acts of love and kindness, we again came face to face
with unspeakable evil in the form of another school shooting. I fear that all of the violence in the world today
is leading us into a tremendous crisis of faith at a time when we need faith the
most. Many now even claim that our prayers
aren’t enough. I beg to differ. Prayer is the lifting of the mind and heart
to God, an act of faith and spiritual communion with God and with each
other. Through prayer we fill ourselves
with God’s eternal love and share it with others. Through prayer, we repent and believe. Without prayer, we will never find a lasting solution
to this horrific problem. So if we really
want to end the senseless violence in our schools and communities, let’s get
down on our knees and pray that we may
- Repent of
our prejudices, fears and ignorance, and believe
that the dignity of every person rests in our creation in the image and
likeness of God;
-
Repent of
pointing fingers at each other, and believe
that we love God by loving our neighbors, especially those who are hurt, broken
and ill; and
-
Repent of
the petty ideological barriers that we allow to divide us, and believe that God’s love, truth and
justice will unite us in finding ways to keep weapons out of the hands of
dangerous people.
Why
pray? Because every prayer is an act of faith,
hope and love, and love always triumphs over evil.
Whether in the two prisons within our parish, in a
high school in Parkland, Florida, or in the depths of our own hearts, the struggle
between good and evil is very real. It’s
time to choose sides. But before you do,
I’ll let you in on a little secret:
through his passion, death and resurrection, Jesus conquered evil; God
has already won. The Kingdom of God is at hand, but it will only be
manifested in this world when we side
with God, when we repent and believe, when we cling to the better angels of our
nature.
