The Kingdom of God vs.The Kingdom of Men

The theme of last Sunday’s readings had to do with Jesus announcing that, “the Kingdom of God is at hand.” (Mark 1:14)  Jesus Himself is compared to Jonah, who despite his reluctance and fear, announced the Word of God to the people of Nineveh, who immediately repented and reformed their lives.  The response to Jesus was not nearly as impactful at first, and resulted in His arrest and crucifixion.  Jewish leaders of Jesus time were entrenched in their beliefs and wielded significant power over the Jews, so they refused to believe that Jesus Himself represented the coming of the Kingdom of God to earth.  We cannot enter into the Kingdom of God by our own effort, only the saving power of Jesus death and resurrection can effect our salvation and our entry into the Kingdom of God.

And what did the arrival of the kingdom of God entail?   With the benefit of hindsight and centuries of scripture study, we know that Jesus fulfilled the law in every respect.  In doing so He ushered in the kingdom of God, founded on the truths already presented in Old Testament scripture, and explained and elucidated by Jesus, through His teaching and His life of obedience to God, even when it meant putting Himself in imminent danger.  The question each of us must answer is whether or not we will abide by God’s law, as brought to light by Jesus, or tweak it to suit our own willful desires?   The former (abiding in God’s law) is the very definition of being a Christian, and means entering into the kingdom of God, subjecting ourselves to God’s law.  The latter is moral relativism, picking and choosing what to believe, according to our whims, and remaining outside God’s law, outside His kingdom, making gods of ourselves.

Too many people who call themselves Christian or Catholic, choose to ignore God’s law as made known by Jesus.  Excuses range from refusal to impose their personal morality on others, to rationalization based on faulty logic.  Refusal to inform our conscience with the Word of God and the wisdom of the teaching of the Church, is akin to ‘ignorance is bliss.’  Even when the after-effects of sinful choices are clearly evident, people will often turn a blind eye to the facts.  The most obvious examples of this are the total disregard for the consequences of the breakdown of the family, and the health impact of homosexual relationships.   A recent meta-analysis (a review of the available data), demonstrated unequivocally that children raised by both father and mother fare far better by every measure, than those raised by single parents or two parents of the same sex.  318 studies performed in 13 different countries documented significant negative outcomes for children of same sex couples in terms of education, physical and emotional health, and perhaps most alarming, the high propensity of being abused or molested by a family member or friend of the family.  Similarly, numerous studies have documented the health hazards associated with homosexual activity, ranging from AIDS to physical damage caused by unnatural sex acts.  Then there are the numerous studies linking breast and cervical cancer with abortion, birth control, and promiscuity.  But none of this is revealed in any significant way, in fact it is shunned by the media.  Instead, people who point out these risks or oppose their children being immunized against STDs, are labeled “right-wing extremists.”

The warnings in the Book of Proverbs are a chilling reminder of where all this is headed:

“If a ruler listens to lying words, his servants will all become wicked.  Without prophecy (the word of God), the people go wild and perish, but happy is he who keeps the law.”  (Proverbs 29:12,19)

There’s a reason why the Israelites had such reverence for God’s law:  it kept them safe and enabled them to thrive.  The very first Psalm defines happiness in terms of abiding in God’s law,

“Happy the man who follows not the counsel of the wicked…but delights in the law of the Lord and meditates on His law day and night.”  (Psalm 1:1)

Psalm 119, one of the lengthiest at 176 verses, is devoted to praise of God’s law.  Is it any wonder so many people are unhappy these days.  Depression is widespread, with some estimates as high as 40% of women of child-bearing age and 20% of men suffering chronic depression.  I’d be willing to bet that the rates are much lower among those who abide by God’s law.  Christian psychologist M. Scott Peck had great success treating depressed patients when they were willing to seek forgiveness for their sins and reconcile with God.  He documented this in a series of books, starting with The Road Less Traveled, four decades ago. 

What people seem to have forgotten is that the pursuit of happiness is not merely the quest for and attainment of pleasure or power.  True happiness can only be found in being right with God, and by entering fully into the Kingdom of God where Love reigns, love that imitates the life and teaching of Jesus Christ.  Every kingdom has laws, and in God’s kingdom, His law prevails, and that law is predicated on Love that is infinitely powerful, even to the point of overcoming death. 

Our 21^st century world is increasingly dominated by “rulers who listen to lying words,” and whose “servants have all become wicked.”   Despite the fact that our government has legalized abortion and gay marriage, we must remain faithful to God’s law and “follow not the counsel of the wicked.”  Our happiness depends on it, and so does the health and safety of our nation.

What Are Our Bodies?

Last Sunday’s readings were focused on God’s call to each of us.  In the first reading, God called Samuel while he was sleeping, and in the gospel when the first apostles approached Jesus, He asked them, “What are you looking for?” before inviting them to join Him.   This short meditation will focus on the second reading in which St. Paul explains that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit.  Here are a few excerpts from chapter 6 of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians:

“Brothers and sisters: The body is not for immorality, but for the Lord,
Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?
But whoever is joined to the Lord becomes one Spirit with him.
Avoid immorality.  Every other sin a person commits is outside the body,
but the immoral person sins against his own body.
Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you,
whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?
Therefore glorify God in your body.”

As part of God’s creation, each one of us has a mortal body created miraculously out of the matter that God created at the beginning of all creation, commonly understood as ‘the big bang.’   Every cell in our body, with its precise atomic structure, function, and purpose, seems to know exactly what its role is in forming our bodies and keeping us alive.  You might say there’s a certain native intelligence inherent to every cell and every organ that comprises our mortal bodies, even though these mostly carbon-based cells are formed out of atomic and subatomic matter that has been in existence for billions of years.  The complexity of our bodies is awe inspiring when studied and understood in it inexplicable order.  This is all too astounding to be the product of random chance, as demonstrated by so many scientists who ascribe to the anthropic principle of intelligent design.

In addition to these astonishing bodies we take for granted, we are imbued with the power of reason and understanding, two realities that cannot be accounted for simply by the electro-chemical processes of the brain, otherwise many other mammals would share these qualities.  These uniquely human qualities are quite literally super-natural, in that they cannot be accounted for by the purely biological functions of our bodies.  Clearly, God created us for something more than our instincts and personal comfort, and that something has been revealed to us by God Himself in scripture, and more precisely in the words and actions of Jesus.  Not only did Jesus come to heal the sick and forgive sins, He conquered death itself, showing us that we were created for more than just a short human lifetime. 

The question Jesus asked his first apostles, “What are you looking for?” resonates down through history to every one of us.  What is our life’s desire?  Are we satisfied with momentary pleasure and comfort, or does our spiritual nature drive us to want something greater, more permanent, and more fulfilling?  St. Paul answers this question for us when he says, “the body is not for immorality… the immoral person sins against his own body.”  When we succumb to temptation and commit sin, we invariable injure ourselves either physically, emotionally, or both.  Too often, we settle for momentary satisfaction even though it may injure our soul and weaken our spirit, often without our realizing it.   However if we cultivate a virtuous life by avoiding sin, we “glorify God” with our bodies.  These amazing bodies we have been given for a short while are nothing less than the physical embodiment of God’s love, or as  St. Paul says, “your bodies are members of Christ.”  If we use them selfishly, we squander our birthright as sons and daughters of God, and damage or impair our spiritual health, possibly jeopardizing our eternal happiness.

God has promised that our spiritual bodies will live beyond death, no longer restricted to the physical limits of human perception.  In death we will rise above the confines of the visible and audible spectrums of light and sound, beyond the constraints of time and space, and live in the eternal present with our Creator.  At the risk of repeating what I’ve said in previous blogs, I believe our mortal life is a gestation period until we are born to eternal life.  The difference between this decades long gestation period and that of an unborn child, is that we have the power to choose, to cultivate a moral conscience, to use our supernatural powers of reasoning to discover that God exists, and to prepare for eternity.  Or we can fritter away this opportunity by remaining in the darkness of sin that clouds our judgment and limits our spiritual growth, to the extent that when the end of our life comes, we may be unprepared for, or possibly incapable of accepting the infinite Love of God.  

The gift of our body and human lifetime presents us with the opportunity to mature spiritually so that at the end of our life we can confidently answer the question, “What are you looking for?”

Christian Persecution; Time for Another Crusade?

The words ‘Christian persecution’, conjure up images of first century Christians being killed by lions in the Roman coliseum.  Growing up in a free country, I thought the persecution of Christians was distant history, and I often wondered whether I would have had the courage to stand up for my faith.  Similarly, when I read about the Crusades, I thought they too were nothing more than long ago stories about courageous knights defending Christian Europe from the Moors, Turks, or Muslim invaders.  And yet, here we are in the 21^st century and 100 million Christians are being persecuted in the sense that they are being driven from their homes, crucified, beheaded and forced to flee their homeland.  Hundreds of Christian churches have been bombed in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Nigeria and many other places.  ISIS beheads Christian children as well as adults, and Boko Haram kills or abducts hundreds of Christian children, selling them into slavery, or worse.  In Nigeria alone, 10,000 Christians were killed just last year.  Yet, on his most recent trip to Africa, our president condemned leaders of the African nations for their refusal to openly endorse gay marriage, but had little to say about the persecution of Christians or the many human rights travesties resulting therefrom. 

Here in America, “home of the brave, land of the free”, the Little Sisters of the Poor are being relentlessly pursued by the Justice Department for refusal to violate their religious conviction that providing birth control, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs is morally wrong.  Hundreds of religious and non-religious employers are seeking relief in the courts from that same Obamacare mandate.  Christian florists, bakers and photographers who refuse to participate in gay weddings are being fined, and in some cases arrested, for ‘violating the civil rights of the gay couple.’  Just last week in our nation’s capital, the Washington D.C. city council voted unanimously to revoke a 40 year old ordinance that protected religious organizations from being forced to endorse activities opposed to their religious beliefs, opening the door to lawsuits if priests or ministers refuse to perform gay marriage, or if they openly oppose abortion.

This past Sunday was the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, commemorating the beginning of Jesus public ministry.  Those of us who are baptized are called upon to decide whether or not we acknowledge Jesus as the Son of God, and profess belief in Him and the Church He established.  The alternative is to believe that He was no more than a gifted, itinerant preacher.   Are we willing to stand up for our belief, or have we given in to the relentless criticism of Christians as intolerant, naïve, and perhaps somewhat dim-witted for believing in “pie-in-the-sky?”

Fr. Robert Baron explains that there are two prevalent “meta-narratives” in the world.  A meta-narrative explains how people understand and explain their view of the world.  The first holds that the age of enlightenment in the 18^th century was the ‘coming of age’ of human reason, when the great thinkers of the age debunked religion and relegated it to the dustbin of history.  In doing so, they ushered in a new progressive political agenda that calls for improving humanity through science and technology.  The second meta-narrative is that the highpoint of human history was the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ who revealed the true nature of God and our supernatural nature as children of God.  Belief in the first narrative played out in the establishment of Communism, and continues through the pursuit of the liberal, progressive and socialist political agendas.  The second is essentially the conservative, Christian worldview.  Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and others carried out their agenda by dint of force, attempting to eradicate all religious belief which they viewed as an impediment to human progress, and simply killing or abandoning all the people they thought were dragging down humanity’s progress.  Despite the economic and social failure of Communism and Fascism, the liberal, progressive political continues, if more subtly, in Western nations, and the toll in human lives is no less staggering.  While the Communists executed tens of millions in their effort to rid the world of the “unfit,” 50 million babies have been murdered in the USA alone, at the hands of the secular meta-narrative.   In the Middle East, Islamic fascists openly persecute and murder Christians, seizing control of entire regions in their effort to establish a new world-wide Caliphate in much the same way Mohammed and his successors did for 1000 years, from the middle of the first to the middle of the second millennium.   This week in France, 40 world leaders joined to demonstrate their solidarity in opposing the advance of this effort (sans any US presence).  Could this be the beginning of a new Crusade to push back the advances of Islamic extremism?

In the meanwhile, the secular, progressive agenda, led by the Obama administration and implemented through the departments of Health and Justice, continue to harass Christians, and threatens them with government imposed fines and lawsuits if they dare follow their religious conscience on matters of abortion and gay marriage.  Our government also directly funds abortions with a half billion dollars given directly to Planned Parenthood and billions more in Obamacare funding of abortions as required in the new plans which, by law, must include abortion coverage.  87% of the people enrolled in these plans receive federal subsidies to pay for their coverage.

The question for us is whether or not we are willing to stand up and fight for the Christian meta-narrative.  Will we endorse open resistance toward the advance of Islamic terrorists, in effect launching a crusade to stop the creation of a worldwide Caliphate?  This is almost a rhetorical question because it’s easy to see the danger of growing terrorism incited by those who believe they are called by Ala to impose their religion on the entire world.  But other extreme is a government attempting to impose the secular meta-narrative on its citizens, and essentially eradicating the exercise of religious belief.  As Christians, we must resist this advance of the secular meta-narrative before it takes complete control of our country, led by the incumbent administration which has been methodically ignoring and dismantling religious freedom as prescribed by the First Amendment.   This must be what Jesus meant when He said that He has come to earth to light a fire, and that fire is the Spirit of Truth. Will America remain "home of the brave and land of the free," or will we succumb to the secular meta-narrative?

The Discovery that Changes Everything

The dictionary defines an epiphany as, “A sudden intuitive leap of understanding, especially through an ordinary but striking occurrence.”  Today we celebrate the Epiphany of the Lord, associated with the discovery of the baby Jesus by the Magi.  For many, this is just a quaint story about three kings who sought and found the newborn Christ, but there is much more at issue here.  Discovering the reality of God can be, and should be a life-changing experience.  Coming to the realization that there IS a God and that He created us for eternity, changes our understanding of the meaning of life.  It explains why we are drawn to the good, the true, and the beautiful.  Without this understanding, what is after all, the meaning of life?  As I wrote about in my previous blog, without a belief in God, life is nothing more than a fleeting attempt to find happiness in earthly satisfactions. 

All the symbolism associated with Christmas points to the fact that Jesus came in the darkest of times, in the most humble of circumstances, to bring light into the world.  The Light of Christ overcomes the darkness of sin and death, revealing the true meaning of love.  This changes everything if we come to realize that we are the beloved children of God, called to something far greater than the selfish pursuit of pleasure.   Life is not, “nasty, brutish and short” as described by the atheist Hobbes, who then concluded that the best thing for everyone is for the intellectually elite, the philosopher kings, to make decisions for the masses who are selfishly pursuing their own personal desires.  This is pretty much the way all socialists view society.  They believe that people are too dimwitted to make good decisions for themselves.  The recent brouhaha over Jonathan Gruber’s repeated comments about the people being too stupid to understand Obamacare, demonstrates the arrogance of the secular progressive movement.  Turns out that Gruber, a professor of Economics at MIT, also published papers showing that the government saves about $1.6 billion a year as the result of the widespread practice of abortion in what he calls, “positive selection,” meaning the poor, undesirable members of society who would otherwise be collecting welfare benefits.  “Positive selection” is simply a euphemism for eugenics.  This is a view openly held by Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg who has stated more than once that abortion is desirable because, “it cuts down on the growth in populations we don’t want to have too many of.”  These are her exact, if inarticulate words, and they smack of eugenics.  So the 50 million babies sacrificed to abortion are a good thing in Gruber and Ginsberg’s minds. 

All of this points to the fact that we live in dark times and we are sorely in need of The Light of the World.  We are engaged in nothing less than a culture war.  St. John Paul II coined the term culture of death, and more recently Pope Francis has warned about a “throw-away culture” in which the poor, the weak and the vulnerable are considered “disposable.”   Are we people of intelligence and free will, capable of knowing, loving, and serving God, and of knowing good, appreciating beauty, and recognizing truth?  Or are we just complex animals for whom instant gratification is the greatest good, and therefore in need of the intelligentsia to control and direct our lives? 

So, these are our choices:  A.) Accept the Light of Christ, and find the courage to fight for the dignity of human life in the culture wars; Or B.) Passively remain in the dark and accede to the demands of the philosopher kings who claim to be “on the right side of history?”   I choose A above, how about you?