This past week we have heard a presidential candidate in a televised debate call for the imprisonment of his political opponent. Throughout the week, the mobs gathered at his rallies have chanted, “Lock her up!” For those who have studied any American history, this brings to mind the senseless and violent mob justice of American vigilante groups, including the Ku Klux Klan, who executed and burned down all whom they despised and hated. For a presidential candidate to incite a mob to injustice is a criminal miscarriage of justice. In contrast to the nonsensical and hate filled justice of this past week at this candidate’s political rallies, in the Gospel for this Sunday, we encounter the justice of God.
While at a Permanent Diaconate Conference in Milwaukee about 16 years ago, one of the presenters, the auxiliary bishop of Milwaukee, Bishops Sklba, a biblical scholar and professor of scripture, described the justice of God as that which fulfills the intention of God. He used a pencil as an example. In the realm of God’s justice, a pencil is “just” if it fulfills its reason for being created, namely, to write on paper or some other surface. If we follow the Bishop’s definition of the justice of God, humanity is only “just” when we fulfill the reasons for which we were created, namely, to love God with all our heart, with all our mind, with all our strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. Jesus, God made human, is the only human being created who has fulfilled God the Father’s intention for humanity. Only Jesus is the full embodiment of Divine Justice.
In spite of our best intentions, collectively as human beings, we fall far short of being the embodiment of God’s justice. Granted, there are those who have dedicated their lives to living as fully God’s intention for humanity. Dorothy Day, Archbishop Oscar Romero, Mother Theresa, Francis of Assisi, Ignatius of Loyola, amongst many others, have sought to embody God’s justice, but have acknowledged either in speech or writing, their inability to fully live the justice of God. In their acknowledgement of their falling short, they, nonetheless, did not give up but aspired and pushed themselves harder to embrace and live the justice of God to the best of their ability.
Toward the end of today’s Gospel, Jesus tells his disciples that the justice of God will come quickly for those who have faith. Jesus follows that statement with the question, “But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” At the second coming of Jesus, will he find people who aspire to love God with all their heart, with all their mind, and with all their strength, and love their neighbor as themselves?
There are many Christians who have lived under the delusion that the United States was founded on the Christian religion. The truth is that while the Founding Fathers, welcomed Christianity, they also welcome all religious expression. To protect all citizens from religious persecution, the caveat of the Founding Fathers was that no one religion, be it Christian or non-Christian, would dominate or direct the nation. The only “religious” document that had priority was the Constitution of the United States. In the eyes of our Founding Fathers, this document holds the high place over the Torah, The Christian Bible, the Koran and all other religious books.
To live in this environment calls us as Catholic Christians to live counter-culturally. Our starting point to living a full “just” life is the Holy Eucharist. It is within the celebration of the Sunday Eucharist in which we give thanks and praise to our God who created us. It is within the celebration of the Sunday Eucharist in which we encounter in one another the living and breathing presence of God. It is in immersing ourselves fully into this mystery that we are able to begin our aspiration to live God’s justice as fully as we are able. It is in recognizing the presence of God in humanity, as broken and as ugly as we may be, that we abhor the mob mentality of injustice that we have seen this week at Trump’s rallies, while we love the very people who are being incited to violence.
This is what it means to live a “just” life. This is what Jesus is referring to when he asks whether he will find faith when he returns again in glory. Will he find those faithful to living as fully as they are able the Great Commandment of loving God and neighbor? Among whom will we number ourselves, the senseless mentality of mob vigilante justice, or those who embody the justice of God? As in all things, it comes to a personal choice. Following the example of Joshua, the prophets, the saints, and Jesus, I choose God!
