Homily 606 – 7 APE
Holy Transfiguration, Ames, Iowa
August 11, 2024
Epistle:  (116) Romans 15:1-7
Gospel:  (33) Matthew 9:27-35

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God.

The world – those who don’t follow Christ – will never, ever, understand us.  This lack of understanding was evident in the past couple of weeks in particular.  We had very public conversations about the opening ceremony at the Olympic games, for example.  We had reactions, and critiques of the reactions, and responses to the critiques of the reactions.

Nowhere in all of that did I see anyone ask an important question.  Perhaps it was only important to me, I’m really not sure.  But the question that I think should have been asked was this:  Why do we expect the world, ruled by the evil one, to represent our values and morals as Christians?

It would be like traveling to a foreign country and expecting them to celebrate American Independence Day.  Or honor the laws and customs of your home country in a foreign land.

It just doesn’t happen that way.  This world is not a place for Christians.  It is the land of the evil one, at least for now.

Maybe there was a time when we could say that the world was a Christian place.  If it ever existed, it doesn’t exist now at all.  And truthfully, it didn’t exist then either.  It was a corrupted form of Christianity.  When the Church is united with political power, it submits itself to the rulers of the world.

Jesus could have overthrown the Romans in a heartbeat, and ruled not only Palestine, but the World.  But this world wasn’t His to rule at the time.  It was, and is still, the domain of the evil one.

In the Gospel lesson today, the reaction of the Pharisees was telling.  “He casts out demons” – meaning he does incredible things, miraculous things – “because he is in league with the forces of evil – the prince of evil.”

The Pharisees had power.  The Romans allowed it, but they still had power.  And when Christ confronted their power – threatened their power – they reacted as anyone of this world would.  They condemned it, and tried their best to eliminate the threat.

Or, at least, the perceived threat.  Christ made it clear that He was not after political power on earth.  As St. Paul put it in the Epistle to the Ephesians, “we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”

Something to note – there are 9 orders or ranks of angels.  Two of the 9 are powers and principalities.  And, what St. Paul tells us, is that some of those fell from Heaven with Lucifer’s fall.

We have angels of nearly every rank on both sides.  Including powers and principalities.  We struggle with the ones on the earth, assisted by the ones in heaven.

Christ Himself directly struggled with the evil one as He spent 40 days in the desert after his baptism being tempted with all the things of the Earth.  Which He rejected.

If Christ had wanted to set about creating an earthly kingdom, He would have done so then.  In His humanity, I have to believe that temptation to do so was quite real, and quite powerful.

He, even from then, sacrificed His human will, His human ego, to fulfill the Divine Will.  As we would say today, the struggle was real.  More intense than we know.

So, Christ didn’t accept this world to be His rule, His kingdom.  He knew, and we also know, that there is a higher and better plan for us.  Our kingdom, like Christ’s kingdom, is not of this world.  And it will never be.

We will never be comfortable here.  We’d love to be, but that is a deception by the ruler of this world.  We will continue to see injustice and war and poverty.

To reinforce the truth of this, St. Paul tells the Romans that we are to bear the weaknesses of the weak.  Not just please ourselves.  Please our neighbor for what is good, to be edifying to him.  Just as Christ didn’t please Himself.

Christ didn’t follow His own desire.  In the Garden of Gethsemane, Christ explicitly prayed, “Not My will, but Yours, Father.”

In our day, we who follow Christ and desire to progress toward Christ need to adopt a philosophy that may run counter to our internal programming of our childhood and youth.

We need to prepare ourselves, every moment, that the world will never do things the way we’d like.  That it will never accommodate Christians.  It may say or appear to accommodate Christians, but that Christianity that the world accepts is a corrupted Christianity.  A false Christianity.  An Anti-Christianity.

We should always remember that the anti-Christ is not one who opposes Christ.  The antichrist is one who takes the place of Christ.  All of us, to the extent we haven’t completely crucified our ego, are antichrists.  Our egos take the place of Christ.

That is our struggle.  The world – that is to say, society around us, many of our friends and neighbors and even family – will oppose us in our struggle.  They don’t understand that we are working and striving for a higher and better and perfect Kingdom.

We should expect that.  And, as we follow Christ, simply bear and endure that insult and that offense.  People say sometimes, shouldn’t we defend Christ?

Well, St. Peter tried that when the posse came for Christ that night of His betrayal.  And what Christ told Peter, is also what Christ tells us.  Put your sword away.  Put your keyboard away.  I can call 10 legions of angels to defend me if I desire it.

Better to let them continue to crucify me and insult me.  Endure that with me, Christ tells us, so that together, our triumph, the triumph of our resurrection, will be complete.

And we will then be vindicated.  Have faith.  We will be vindicated by Christ.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God.  Glory to Jesus Christ.