Father Stephen P. KelleyThere was a mouse on a farm, and the mouse realized that the farmer had set a mouse trap. And so the mouse went over to the chicken, and the chicken said, “You know I love you, but that’s got nothing to do with me, it isn’t a chicken trap.” The mouse left the chicken and went over to the pig, and said, “My friend, you have to help me get rid of this trap; they’re trying to get me.” The pig said, “I love you man, but that’s got nothing to do with me, it’s not a pig trap.” Then he went over to his friend the cow. The mouse said, “Y’all gotta help me. There’s a mouse trap in this house and if we get together y’all can help me get rid of this.” The cow said, “You know I love you, I got your back, but it ain’t a cow trap.”
Well, one night a venomous snake got its tail caught in the trap. The farmer’s wife walked into the kitchen, the venomous snake bit the wife and she became deathly ill. Well, when someone gets ill, what do you feed them? Chicken soup. And so, the chicken was pulled from the farm, and chicken soup was made. The wife got worse, and church members and family members began to come by early in the morning, and the farmer needed some bacon and some hot links. So guess what got pulled next? Mr. Pig. Then the woman ended up dying from her sickness. And there was a funeral, and they had to prepare for a funeral luncheon. And there went the cow.
The moral of the story is, when one of us is threatened we all are threatened. What one of us is going through, we’re all going through. When one of us weeps, we all ought to weep. When one of us rejoices, we all have to rejoice. Because we’re in this thing together. We ought to thank God for our community, we ought to be a community that rallies around our members going through some stuff and are in need of support.
St. Paul says in his letter to the Romans, which was to encourage the Gentile Christians to help the Jewish Christians who were suffering persecution, “For as in one body we have many parts…though many, are one body in Christ and individually parts of one another…love one another with mutual affection…. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.”
In our readings today, we have a consistent theme of choosing between two ways. This is a theme all throughout the Bible. God told Cain in Genesis 4, “Why are you angry? Why are you dejected? If you act rightly, you will be accepted; but if not, sin lies in wait at the door: its urge is for you, yet you can rule over it.” In Deuteronomy, after Moses had given Israel the terms of the covenant, he tells them, “See, I have today set before you life and good, death and evil. If you obey the commandments of the LORD, your God, which I am giving you today…walking in his ways, and keeping his commandments…the LORD, your God, will bless you in the land you are entering to possess. If, however, your heart turns away and you do not obey, but are led astray…I tell you today that you will certainly perish…. I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live.”
This is the Old Testament image being brought forward by Jesus in our Gospel here in Luke’s version of the Beatitudes, blessings and curses. Moses was the mediator of the Old Testament, speaking prophetically between God and his people. Here, Jesus is God Himself speaking to His people, the Word of God incarnate, telling the people this is the way, walk in it. In this world of secular values opposed to the Gospel, based on the vices of fallen and corrupt humanity, those who revel in these vices and do well for themselves, in the end, at judgment, those who have gotten rich immorally, who laugh at the sufferings and injustices and immorality that they enjoy, who are idolized as the rich and famous, they will weep at judgment. And those who are on the receiving end of that suffering and injustice, who are now poor and hungry and weeping, and those who are hated and ridiculed for their Christian faith and moral integrity, they will rejoice when they are redeemed and vindicated.
Our first reading gives another example of these two ways between which we must choose: The prophet Jeremiah, calling Israel back to the covenant, tells them, “Cursed is the one who trusts in human beings…whose heart turns away from the LORD. He is like a barren bush in the desert that…stands in a lava waste, a salt and empty earth. Blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD…. He is like a tree planted beside the waters that stretches out its roots to the stream…in the year of drought it shows no distress, but still bears fruit.” In other words, those who cling to God are nourished by the wellspring of grace within them. And they don’t just do well when things around them are going well and then fall to pieces when things around them fall to pieces. They flourish in peace and joy and bear fruit in season and out of season, because within them, they are connected to a wellspring that never runs dry. Prayer, scriptures, grace, and works of love and mercy constantly feed them and flow out of them.
In the right order of love, “ordo amoris,” we love God first, because He is closer to us than we are to ourselves. Then those most intimate to us: spouse, children, family. Then friends, neighbors, church, etc., spiraling outward to embrace the whole world in love, and no one is excluded, especially the most in need. Let us choose God and life, and love one another as God loves us.
(Father Kelley is the pastor of St. Francis Xavier Parish in Gettysburg.)
By Father Stephen P. Kelley, Special to The Witness
