OUR SUNDAY’S IN SEPTEMBER

“The Lord’s way is not fair!” (Book of Ezekiel)

In nine weeks is the Feast of Christ the King when we celebrate not only the fact that Christ came into His Kingship after His Ascension, but we celebrate something that has not yet happened. We will celebrate that unknown day when Christ will return in glory. This will be a glorious day. What we do not allow into our consciousness is that not only will Christ return as King, He will also return as Judge. We are not happy with the notion that someday we will be judged. God is All Good, All Merciful and All Just.

Ezekiel called this fact to the fore as he addressed the Israelites and laid out the basis for God’s Judgment. Their response: “The Lord’s way is not fair.”

We presume a lot about God and we presume that he is going to let us out of responsibility for our sinfulness like parents who do not hold their children accountable for their actions. But, God will judge as He judges, not as we judge and we must accept what we’ve got coming and acknowledge that it is right and deserved.

Our beautiful Act of Contrition says that while we might fear the pains of hell, we really detest our sins “most of all because they have offended Thee, my God, who are all good and deserving of all my love.”

We tend to think in terms of scorecards when applying justice. In the end, if our goodness outweighs our “badness” we think we will get into heaven. Ezekiel presents two individuals – the first person who has been good through most of his life, but who at the end turns away from God’s virtues. The second person has lived a wicked life but at the end turns toward God.

According to our scorecard justice, the almost-all-good-person will go to heaven and the almost-all-bad person will not. Ezekiel tells us no, that regardless of how much good he has done, the person who turns away from God will not be saved, while the person who, after a lifetime of evil, turned to God will be saved! What would follow is Purgatory for that period of cleansing. Where are we right now? What is the life we will present to God at the moment we meet Him? What we must acknowledge is that we do not grasp God’s justice even though we are asked to adopt it for our own practice of justice. While our justice is marked by what we call “fairness”, God is marked by generosity. We must find this same generosity within ourselves, especially if we hope to receive generous mercy at the end of time!

The most rev. john p. Walzer, D.D.