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Serious Business

by Father Dominic Legge, OP 

Our times are not so unique. The worship of God is not often appreciated today as more than a hobby or a matter of personal taste. (“Ah, you like Mass with bells and incense – how exotic. It reminds me of the Buddhist monk Oprah interviewed who uses tea-drinking for meditation!”)  But as the readings in the liturgy this week remind us, this kind of soft syncretism is nothing new.

 

All week, we have been hearing at Mass about the deeds of Elijah, the great prophet of the ninth century B.C. He lived in a dark time in the history of Israel. For the sake of political advantage, Ahab, Israel’s king, married Jezebel, the daughter of a foreign king. Under her influence, Ahab began to worship the god of her people: Baal, a pagan god. Probably, he continued to worship the God of Israel, too. If we were to put this in today’s language, we might say that Ahab was seeking peace, harmony, and tolerance, and he thought that there was not just one right way to worship God. “Who am I to say that the religion of the Sidonians is false, and ours is the only true path?” And, following his example, many others in Israel began to think this was nothing serious – it certainly made relations with the neighboring pagans much easier. (After all, just because you don’t obey every little iota of the Law, that doesn’t make you any less good an Israelite, does it?)

 

It seems that few objected to this comfortable arrangement, and Ahab didn’t look kindly on those who did.  But Elijah stood firm. When he resisted Ahab’s compromise, he had to go into hiding for three years to escape Ahab’s wrath. When he finally confronted the still-seething King Ahab in front of all the people, Elijah minced no words: “How long will you straddle the issue?  If the Lord is God, follow him; if Baal, follow him.” For Elijah, one or the other had to be the true God.  And if the Lord is God, then worshipping Baal is no trifling matter. (To read the rest of the story, deserving to be in a collection of the Bible’s greatest hits, see 1 Kings chapters 18-19.  Hint: it doesn’t end happily for Ahab or the prophets of Baal.)

 

Again and again, Pope Benedict has emphasized the central importance of the worship of God. This is because, as Elijah knew, worship is a deadly serious business. It is real. It is a profound spiritual act. When we worship, we subordinate ourselves to who, or what, we worship. We bow down in adoration. And it makes all the difference in the world whether we are worshipping something true or something false. To bow down before a lie, to place our lives at its service, is, well, a kind of spiritual death. No amount of political advantage or domestic comfort is worth that.

 

(Of course, we must not say that only Christians, or Catholics, can be saved. As Cardinal Ratzinger has written, God desires all men to be saved, but not because “one religion is as good as another.” Rather, through Christ and the Church, God can give grace to non-Christians, moving them towards the true God, even if they are not visibly members of the Church.)

 

Jesus reconfigured the Jewish worship of the God of Israel around his own person. At the Last Supper and on the wood of the cross where his Sacred Heart was pierced for us, he revealed himself as the true priest and the true sacrifice in the worship of the true God. And this is why the liturgy is not simply a matter of personal preference, a charming hobby, or an exotic relic of the past. In it, we come into contact with the Living God himself. And that is serious business indeed.

 

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(The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Headline Bistro or the Knights of Columbus.)