14th Sunday 2023
Zechariah 9:9-10; Romans 8:9,11-13; Matthew 11:25-30
Beautiful readings, powerful readings, positive readings, with only one problem attached: are they true? are they realistic? (You may see those as two problems, but they strike me as two expressions of the same underlying question.)
“Rejoice heart and soul!” exclaims Zechariah, “Shout with gladness!” He was prophesying after the liberation of the people of Israel from their seventy year exile in Babylon, so he had every reason to rejoice, to shout with gladness. Pondering his words in our own day, we can consider that we have been liberated by the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus the Christ from the far more bitter exile from friendship with God. That gives us a still greater reason to rejoice and to shout with gladness. Let us then be people of rejoicing, people of gladness, and let us be happy to say that, so far, Zechariah’s prophecy IS true and realistic.
Zechariah goes on to point to the arrival of the King, “victorious, triumphant, humble, and riding on a donkey”. That must set bells ringing, taking us to Palm Sunday, and to the arrival of that same Jesus Christ, the true King, in Jerusalem and in His Temple.
The donkey is a despised beast, with none of the trappings of the war horse, a concept which Zechariah develops by proclaiming the banishment of that same war horse, and of all the accoutrements of war. Once again, we can rejoice in recognising Christ as the Prince of Peace; once again we can say “Yes, this is true”.
Or can we? Indeed Jesus fulfilled the symbolism of peace, of humility, of the rejection of war, but what happened to Him? He was rejected, overwhelmed, slain by the men of war. Yes, of course He was raised from the dead, so that ultimately our vindication is assured--another cause for rejoicing—but do we have to accept that Zechariah’s promise of the banishing of war has been delayed?
“He will proclaim peace for the nations” declares Zechariah. True, but apparently not yet. Take a look around the world: Ukraine, Syria, Yemen, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, much of West Africa, to say nothing of injustice, repression, and violence in every country of the world, from China to South Africa, from Europe to the Americas. The King has proclaimed peace, but it is in short supply.
Do we have to say, then, that in this respect Zechariah’s words are untrue, unrealistic? No: the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Peace, has been inaugurated by Christ, but its fullness is not yet. The onus is on us, the people of the Kingdom, to work for that fulfilment. We must pray untiringly for peace; we must work for peace and especially we must respond to the call made by Pope St. Paul VI: “If you want peace, work for justice.” We must reject the sort of phoney peace which is built on injustice; a “peace” which may silence the guns but which leaves innocent people dispossessed or imprisoned, which favours the strong at the expense of the weak, the rich at the expense of the poor, the invader at the expense of the invaded. We must be prepared to pester governments and others in authority, and to accept personal inconvenience, rejoicing in the ultimate triumph of the Prince of Peace.
We must also take to heart Our Lord’s encouragement of us in today’s Gospel. Jesus praises the Father “for hiding [the mysteries of the Kingdom] from the learned and the clever, and revealing them to mere children”. These are words which the Church often appears to forget. In this country at least, the working class Church, which was the backbone of the Church for generations, has largely vanished, and we are in danger of becoming “the chattering Church of the chattering classes”. At both a national and a Diocesan level, we have had more talking shops than you can shake the proverbial stick at, producing enough hot air to heat a mediaeval cathedral, but nothing of any real value or substance. Pope Francis’ synodal approach to Church life holds immense potential, but only if the voices of the little people are heeded.
Jesus also invites us to come to Him when we labour or are overburdened, a situation in which, I suspect, we all find ourselves at times. Do we find rest for our souls? Do we experience His yoke as easy, and His burden as light—always? sometimes? never? Only you can answer that, and you can answer it only when you have tried it—and persisted.
