Reflection - Compromise

By Steve Hall

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/062522.cfm
Lamentations 2:2, 10-14, 18-19 
Luke 2:41-51 

Lamentations!

A book seldom read in the liturgy, consisting of five chapters, each chapter a poem, each poem written in the same style as the others, each probably written by a different author, each author lamenting the same thing: a specific war and it’s devastating consequences.

The reading is only a small portion of today’s Old Testament chapter, about a third of the total verses in the poem. All of the five poems follow upon the aftermath of the destruction of Jerusalem and Solomon’s Temple. That happened in approximately 587 BC. All five poems follow upon the forceful removal of leaders of the Kingdom of Judea to the land of the Babylonians. It’s images are not foreign to us.

We have seen or been part of at least seven significant wars in my own brief lifetime and our modern media can be even more descriptive than the poet. Still, the poet’s words are not foreign. We can gather enough pictures from the Ukraine today to illustrate what the various authors describe. From what we know, the Russians are already sending Ukrainians into the depths of Russia. And, if the pundits are right about the world food supply, children and infants will faint away around he globe and breathe their last in their mother’s arms.

Back in 1879 General William Tecumseh Sherman of Civil War fame, speaking at West Point, lectured the cadets with the statement: “War is hell.” It’s hard to argue with his assessment. Moreover, the general was probably more accurate than he knew, for war is not just hell-ish, it engages all the evils of which men are capable.

In the third of the five Lamentation poems we are rhetorically asked: “Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and evil come?” (Lamentations 3:38) In this the author is supported by the rest of Old Testament writings as well as modern theology. And so we read.

The Lord has consumed without pity
all the dwellings of Jacob;
He has torn down in his anger
the fortresses of daughter Judah;
He has brought to the ground in dishonor
her king and her princes.

Such descriptions are troublesome for those who ignore or don’t understand a mentality which perceives God as the First Cause of all that is. Nothing is and nothing happens unless God keeps things in existence from second to second. The philosopher’s will distinguish a variety of causes — material, proximate, sufficient, main, etc.; but only God is and ever will be the First Cause. This is a digression from our primary concern; nevertheless it is pertinent to our overall direction. Let’s reflect on this, then, in the light of the Scriptures.

John tells us that God is Love and we struggle to fully absorb that along with the obvious evidence of evil in the world. For understanding we must turn to the oft heard quotation from Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians where he reminds us that “Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful.” (I Corinthians 13:4-5) Paul is here teaching in the broad sense about love, a teaching which is applicable wherever there is love. 

The operative portion of the verse for us today is in the portion that reads Love does not insist on its own way. God is Love, and because He is Love he does not insist on his own way. On the other hand, God does not do what we would too readily do. Compromising, accommodating, negotiating with evil are not possible for God, for the two (love and evil) are utterly opposed.

It is easy to forget that we live in a world that was once ruled by the power of evil. It is easy to ignore the battle raging around us, thinking only that the current enemy is THE enemy. It is more pleasant to suppose that the current enemy (which is our true and only enemy for all time) will, like Germany and Japan after World War II, eventually become our friend and ally. But, just as our God who is Love does not and can not compromise with evil whether it’s the evil that encourages division or the evil that would deprive men of their freedom or the evil of insidious lies that suborn the possibility of peace. If God does not insist on his own way and He does not do so because He is Love, then who are to do differently? But if God can not compromise with or negotiate with evil, neither should we.

The evil that once ruled the world is still around. It may have lost the war in the power of the cross, but it continues with vicious anger to persist in bringing about hatred and division and death. Unless we recognize the deceptions and half-truths with which he is armed we will complacent thinking: ‘the war is over there.’ Sorry, but it’s in our own backyard.

Cry out to the Lord;
moan, O daughter Zion!
Let your tears flow like a torrent
day and night;
Let there be no respite for you,
no repose for your eyes.

Rise up, shrill in the night,
at the beginning of every watch;
Pour out your heart like water
in the presence of the Lord;
Lift up your hands to him.