A Bad Deal

Oct 26: Thursday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time

Some things are worth fighting for.

Weirdly, the priest at today’s mass mentioned this scene from The Office in today’s homily. His point as that fighting doesn’t mean ending things.

Reading 1

Rom 6:19-23

Brothers and sisters: I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your nature. For just as you presented the parts of your bodies as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness for lawlessness, so now present them as slaves to righteousness for sanctification. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free from righteousness. But what profit did you get then from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been freed from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit that you have leads to sanctification, and its end is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Paul was a businessman, and it colors a lot of his writing. Profit and wages aren’t perfect metaphors, since we can’t actually earn salvation. But it’s a part of most people’s daily existence, and thus relatable.

The point is that God grants us the dignity of consequences for our actions. We get to chose slavery or freedom.

Responsorial Psalm

Ps 1:1-2, 3, 4 and 6

R. Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.
Blessed the man who follows not
the counsel of the wicked
Nor walks in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the company of the insolent,
But delights in the law of the LORD
and meditates on his law day and night.
R. Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.
He is like a tree
planted near running water,
That yields its fruit in due season,
and whose leaves never fade.
Whatever he does, prospers.
R. Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.
Not so the wicked, not so;
they are like chaff which the wind drives away.
For the LORD watches over the way of the just,
but the way of the wicked vanishes.
R. Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.

Again, metaphors help us understand eternal consequences. There’s a permanence to doing good, whereas any immoral act is enjoyable only fleetingly. Because God is eternal and watches over us, he decides what lasts and what passes away.

Alleluia

Phil 3:8-9

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
I consider all things so much rubbish
that I may gain Christ and be found in him.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Again, Paul the businessman is throwing out the waste fabric,¹ because it’s not profitable to hang onto. We should throw away anything we don’t need.

Gospel

Lk 12:49-53

Jesus said to his disciples: "I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing! There is a baptism with which I must be baptized, and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished! Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. From now on a household of five will be divided, three against two and two against three; a father will be divided against his son and a son against his father, a mother against her daughter and a daughter against her mother, a mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law."

Once again, metaphors aren’t perfect. Jesus doesn’t want to run around with a flaming sword.

Swords were the sharpest things known at the time. They were very serious business. A sword can finely and definitively divide things—right from wrong, truth from falsehood.

There are some things that can’t be compromised. Remember that tolerance isn’t a Christian virtue, at least not with regard to good and evil.

Jesus uses strong language, but like Paul, he’s using language we can understand. If we stick to Jesus, the Way, the Truth, and the Life, that will put us in conflict with others. We need to be prepared for that.

We shouldn’t trade Jesus for “peace,” because that kind of compromised peace will not last. It’s a bad deal.

1. I don’t know how tents are made.