Advancing the Establishment of the Reign of God

Homily for the Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

After the Babylonian Exile and the repatriation of many of the exiles, it had become clear that Judah would not soon regain political autonomy and a king from the house of David as had been promised by God to King David. Aware that God’s promises were not always fulfilled as the people thought they would be, the prophet Zechariah maintained the hope of previous prophets by depicting a glorious eschatological restoration. He began to look to the future Messiah as the way that God will fulfill the promises made to King David.

In the passage which we read today, Zechariah foretells the coming of the King of Peace and with him the dawn of a new order in human affairs. This short excerpt from Zechariah is set within a return from exile and the liberation from oppression by alien powers. In language full of messianic allusions, a king is promised who does not need pomp and circumstance and who signals his peaceful intent by the mount on which he enters the city of Jerusalem. The messianic expectation is a promise of a new, divinely sanctioned order which offers us peace and well-being. The evangelists record the fact that shortly before his crucifixion, Jesus entered the city seated on the foal of an ass, the very image that Zechariah had foretold.

The text from St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans fits unexpectedly well into this theme because in it, St. Paul maintains that Jesus has accomplished what the Law could never do; namely, given us eternal life. Jesus has come with the gift of the Spirit to make possible a new order that fulfills all that the Law claimed and commanded. Through the new life gained through his resurrection, Jesus sets us free from the desires of the flesh and makes it possible for us to live according to the Spirit. St. Paul is making a very large claim when he insists that in Christ Jesus a new order has become possible in human society, an order that overcomes all of the human destructive attitudes and actions.

The background formed by both these readings gives depth to the Gospel text which we read today. Here Jesus is saying that the new order that he has come to bring is more readily received and appreciated by the simple and unpretentious than by those who are taken to be wise and learned in the world. It is clear that the new order will not appeal as directly and spontaneously to those who have too great a stake in the old false order. The assurance of Jesus is that his “yoke”, which is his law of love for God and neighbor, is not onerous or complicated or difficult to understand and observe. It is a discipline of simplicity yielding harmony and joy. That is the source of the new order as well as the source of the widespread peace that is promised to those who accept the “yoke” of Jesus.

If we believe this and accept his “yoke,” there is plentiful redemption for our tortured world. If we begin to live and relate to one another like this, we are sure to experience the coming of the reign of God, the peaceable kingdom. Of course, the antithesis of this acceptance is the rejection that will be evident among those who do not place their faith in Jesus. In other words, those who have accepted Jesus as their King will be charged with the task of preaching repentance throughout the world. This is the commission that was given to all of us on that first Easter morning when Jesus appeared to his disciples in the Upper Room and greeted them with “Shalom.”

Once again, we are reminded that the theme that runs throughout Ordinary Time is the cost of our discipleship. We must turn away from the flesh, which St. Paul identifies as all those attitudes and behaviors which draw us away from God, and live according to the Spirit, which St. Paul identifies as the attitudes and behaviors which draw us toward God. It is these attitudes and behaviors which will bring about the kingdom of peace for which we all so ardently hope.