Thursday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time
On this Independence Day, it is no accident that the psalm and each reading contain the word “peace.” These readings were selected for this day to remind us all of God’s call to be a nation of peace. We, as individuals, Daytonians, Ohioans, and Americans are called to live and act peacefully. What does peace mean for us today? Today’s readings inform us of God’s plan for peace.
The first enemy of peace is anxiety. The dreaded ‘what-if’ robs us of our peace. But more importantly, it drives us to waste our efforts uselessly, instead of actively solving real problems. Someone once said, ‘worry is like a rocking chair; it’s an action that changes nothing and gets us nowhere.’ The antidote proclaimed in the second reading is simply to pray. God knows what we need. God desires to give us good gifts. Sin (our own and other people’s) can block God’s gifts, but let us rest in the knowledge that God wants to give us good gifts. Some ministers advise us to ‘give your concerns to God.’ Let God have them, let God ‘worry’ about it and take care of it. When a worry rolls around in our minds, it’s wasteful and deprives us of peace. Again, the second reading has an antidote: Think of good things. It’s true there are bad things around us. But it’s also true there are a lot of good things happening. When you notice you are worrying, shift your mind to good things. For example, I worry a lot about climate change and the world we are leaving for my young children and future generations; When I notice I’m wasting energy on this, I instead focus on all the things we are doing to solve the problem; electric cars, renewable energy, walkable communities, the Pope’s Laudato Si encyclical, plant-rich diets, etc. There are ways to make it better, and it is getting better. It motivates me to help more; no one gets much accomplished when they’re worried and depressed.
On a communal and societal level, what if we could similarly give our worries over to God? What if, instead of putting our hope in ourselves or our government to allay our fears, we placed our hope in God and prayed in the Spirit for guidance? I’m not saying we stop taking steps to address realistic fears; rather, in God’s peace, we do what we can and trust that, with God’s grace, it will end up as good as it possibly can. So much of what government does in our name happens because people are afraid. We are afraid of immigrants, of terrorists, of a bad economy, so we have policies that de-humanize immigrants, make war among innocent peoples, and enact economic policies that help the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. It’s wrong, but it gets accomplished in the name of fear.
The third enemy of peace is a lack of 'generativity'. In today’s psalm, we hear the promise of the Lord’s benefits; “our land shall yield its increase.” Peace is not the absence of war or strife; it is the generative/ productive/ upward movement of all towards God. When everyone has enough and is occupied in good works, the Holy Spirit grants the increase. We see this in the Eucharist, in the growing season, in family life, and even in a small way in economic activity. One of our greatest worries is that, whether in an emotional or material way, what we have and are is not enough. The promise of peace is the promise that there will be enough. With God, we are enough. We lack no good thing; God’s grace is sufficient.
Our glorious Lord is greater than the problems of this age. God comes to speak of peace to us. As individuals and as a nation, may we set aside fear, set our minds on the good, and trust in God’s increase. Amen.
-Chris Nieport