THE RISK OF BELIEF
Author: Fr. Michael Byron
February 06, 2021
Occasionally, I will tune in to the Weather Channel on TV
when something extra-ordinary is happening. There’s something perverse but compelling about people’s interest in
watching natural disasters unfold elsewhere, while sitting in their easy
chairs.
One thing that has always struck me as strange about the
Weather Channel is that the first instinct that it has, in the midst of
hurricanes, floods, blizzards, or wildfires, is to dispatch a reporter to go
stand there in the midst of it and to speak into the camera with the message
that everybody else should stay far away.
That’s a message that could just as easily be given from a
safe, remote studio elsewhere. Why would
people willingly decide to put themselves or others in danger like that? It makes for good TV drama, but is doesn’t
make much common sense, especially when the behavior is exhibiting exactly the
opposite of the preaching.
There are, of course, people whose life responsibilities
require them to put themselves in harm’s way. We’ve seen it especially during this past year: first responders, police
officers, fire fighters, senior care givers, nurses and physicians, soldiers. But weather broadcasters do not seem to fit
that list. The threat of danger & suffering and loss will come for all of
us, one way or another, but we need not go out there looking for it
deliberately.
The same thing can be said about our religious
commitments. If we are faithful to them,
they will bring not only consolation, and even joy to us. They will also confront us with unwanted and
unexpected suffering. And we don’t need
to be out there looking for those things. They will find us. It’s in the
nature of what faith is. And perhaps the
greatest kind of undesired challenge to our faith comes when we are being made
to persevere in the face of what we cannot understand, or what seems
unfair. When all of our best efforts to
please God result not in earthly success, but with tragedy.
This year of COVID-19, for example, is not God’s judgement
on the wicked people-as some fringy religious people actually believe. It is simply bewildering from a perspective
of faith. That’s not a very satisfying
response. But it’s the honest one. And it brings with it an undeniable kind of
spiritual suffering. Why is this
happening to us? To everyone? This is
the same suffering that the Prophet Job knew very well more than 2000 years
ago. His lament, which we heard in our
first reading today, is the cry of one who simply cannot understand why he has
lost everything in this world despite being faithful to God. He lost his wife and children, his animals,
his property. He is a broken man. No wonder he speaks as he does:” Life on
earth is drudgery, I live in misery, I cannot see any hope, and I shall never
again be happy.”
But, what we don’t hear him say is that he has given up on
his belief in God, or that he curses God. In fact, that would have been the easier thing to do, and it would have
made his suffering a bit less. It’s
precisely because of his faithfulness that he is so bewildered, that it
hurts so much. He has experienced what
the disciples of Jesus in today’s gospel of Mark have not yet realized. We are still in Chapter 1 of this gospel, and
so far, the only thing that Jesus has shown them is that he can work miracles
and heal people. He is the man from God
who can fix things and restore relationships. And as Mark tells us, “everyone in town wants a piece of that!” As Simon told him, “everyone is looking for
you”.
But that’s only half the story of being a disciple, as Jesus
knew well but the others didn’t-yet. And
that’s why Jesus wouldn’t allow the demons to speak, because they “knew
him”. They knew the whole of what
following this man would involve, namely, unwanted and unexpected suffering,
confusion, loss, and ultimately death. Not in spite of their faithfulness to God, but because of it.
The demons themselves would spend the rest of Jesus’ life
confronting him and scaring the people around him with threatening shows of
peril and danger. The demons knew that
they had already been defeated-but as yet, nobody else did. The disciples would come to learn that
marvelous news-but not until Easter, not until all the suffering was over.
So for us today, we don’t have to be like the Weather
Channel group, running all over in search of danger. It will come to us just by our being true to
our Christian calling. That’s not the
whole story, thank God, but it is the unavoidable part of it. The first disciple didn’t know that, but we
can. And we can persevere.
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