Loosening its grip

We are making progress in the slow process of listening. Forecasts of the outcome of the Climate Change meeting in Paris are generally positive. It will not solve everything but it will achieve some success which later gatherings can build on. “There is reason to hope that humanity at the dawn of the twenty first century will be remembered for bravely shouldering its responsibilities,” wrote Pope Francis in Laudato Si, #165.

In the scriptures there is much “code” language, hidden meanings disguised in poetry. I remember a teacher once tried to persuade us at school that the ancients did actually “level mountains and fill valleys” and I remember being unconvinced. It is far more likely that the authors had in mind ways of developing communication between foes. If I listen to you and put aside all my own ideas and hidden agendas for a moment, there is a possibility we can level the mountain between us. We really should congratulate one another on the efforts being made to build peace in the world at the moment. I still have in mind what an old German priest said in his Christmas sermon in 1976 in Detroit; “The world is a far better place today than it was when Jesus was born in Bethlehem.” And it is true. It is also true that in the past forty years since he said that it has gone on improving.

But the evil spirit is fighting back. It is by no means flattened. All you have to do is to look at the actions of ISIS, the drug barons and the human trafficers and many others whose consciences seem to be flat. And there are others who are avoiding audacious responses; they simply meet violence with more violence and do not think beyond the ancient law of revenge. This law only creates more violence and a spiral that feeds on itself. They too, however outraged they are by the men of violence, have, at some stage to think through what is happening and come up with something more imaginative than simply bombing the life out of people.

There are many signs that evil is losing its grip and that all “humankind will see the salvation of God.” But this is still some way off.

6 December 2015            Advent 2 C
Baruch 5:1-9                Philippians 1:3-11            Luke 3:1-6