Word to the Wise
Wednesday, June 1, 2016 - Wednesday in the 9th Week in Ordinary Time
[2 Tim 1:1-3, 6-12 and Mark 12:18-27]I remind you to stir into flame the gift of God that you have through the imposition of my hands. For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather of power and love and self-control. [2 Timothy]
One of the main reasons for the rapid spread of Christianity was the moral standard that it set for believers. Christians stood out from the casual or amoral Greco-Roman cultural ethos that was dominant in the Mediterranean world. That cultural ethos was first brought by Alexander the Great and then by the Roman empire. It included, of course, the polytheistic religion as well as theater and public games, all of which are testified to by the existing ruins which tourists to the region can see to this day. Perhaps by our own standards, the early Christian community might have seemed a bit prudish, but the "anything goes" moral standards of the Greco-Roman culture were deeply offensive to Jewish Christians, and Gentile converts were attracted to a stricter and more demanding way of life. It was not easy to maintain Christian standards as we know from St. Paul's letters to the Corinthian community. Nor is it easy to maintain those standards in our secular age.
The words quoted today from 2 Timothy are an effort to encourage the maintenance of high standards. They are as true now as they were when Timothy first received them. My many years in campus ministry acquainted me daily with the struggles that students experience in living a moral and faithful lifestyle amid the vast number of amoral or immoral choices that are available. More of the same awaits them after graduation. Indeed, unless one believes in the "spirit" that one receives at baptism, Christian morality is just one system among others. When our moral choices are deeply rooted in faith and prayer, they become clear to us and our choices stand out. What is more distressing is to experience G. K. Chesterton's famous remark that Christianith has not been tried and found wanting. Rather it has not been seriously tried. Today's passage from 2 Timothy reminds us that we have the power to make that serious effort! AMEN
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