The Violence of Politics Comes from Some Place False
15th Sunday of the Year
The Violence of Politics Comes from Some Place False
The best archeological evidence we possess tells us that human beings first used bricks to build houses about 9,000 years ago in ancient Mesopotamia. These first bricks were made by sculpting clay mixed with straw into different shapes and then drying these bricks in the sun. The Romans, of course, developed better and more efficient ways for making bricks: armies would travel with portable kilns, using fire to harden bricks stamped with an image of the emperor or a symbol of their legion. During the Middle Ages, workers softened clay by hand before placing it into wooden molds, wiping away the excess, and pulling the bricks from their frames after drying; the result would be a stack of bricks of the same shape and size, suitable for erecting large churches, homes, or other buildings. These practices continued unchanged until the 19th century.
Though humans had been using bricks for thousands of years, the first recorded use of the term ‘brick wall’ does not appear in Middle English until the year 1465. But by the 1690s in England, it became common for people to express frustration with talk of ‘running one’s head against a brick wall.’ The expression means that someone is trying to accomplish something impossible or futile, pushing up against their limits, performing an action again and again that makes about as much sense as, well, running one’s head against a brick wall.
Today, to talk about banging your head against a wall in frustration is commonplace, and a little cliché. But the expression is still meaningful.
I wanted to talk for a few moments about the history of bricks and banging your head against a brick wall because last week I paid more attention than usual to news about the presidential election. You can be liberal or conservative, progressive or traditional, and still recognize that as a nation we are running up against the most ridiculous of brick walls right now, 78 or 81 years old depending on which side you prefer to bang your head.
I should probably be clearer about the kind of head-banging we are doing as a nation: the problem is not that we care about politics but rather that we mistake politics for a source of authentic hope. Politics matters, policy matters, but you cannot find real, authentic hope in the workings of government. But many people these days (maybe most people) seem to think that politics is our last, best source of hope, believing that the fate of the world depends on the outcome of a presidential election; that is certainly what many politicians want us to believe. The false hope of politics gone wrong then makes people desperate: fear leads to anger, anger leads to hatred, hatred leads to despair, and suddenly your news cycle is dominated by an act of violence like ours is today. In the 21st century, each election cycle becomes a renewed opportunity to bang your head against the brick wall of a false, pernicious hope.
The truth of the matter is that for about as long as human beings have been making bricks, we have also been running up against brick walls of falsely constructed hopes. From one generation to another, one culture to another, the story is always the same: human beings look for sources of hope from the world around them, but none of these false hopes can satisfy.
Why do these hopes false? Because real, authentic hope must meet 5 standards:
(1) Hope is about the future, about possessing something later that don’t have now.
(2) Hope is marked by certainty and confidence; we need to really believe we can one day possess for ourselves whatever it is we need.
(3) Hope must be arduous, hard to get ahold of; real hope can’t come cheap and easy.
(4) Hope cannot be under our control, something that we manipulate or make for ourselves.
(5) Hope must respond to the reality of death because death, corruption, passing away, is the defining feature of everything that exists in the world; real hope saves us from death.
Maybe you can see why human beings looking out in the world for a source of hope is like running your head against a brick wall for about 9,000 years or so: even if you find a source of hope in the world that is future, certain, costly, and beyond your control, there is nothing (and no one) from within the world that will save you from death. You can pass your years trying to be a good person, or spend a lifetime trying to align your chakra, or even commit your life to caring about politics and good government and liberty and equality, and still, one day, you will die. No hope is real that does not save you from death.
St. Paul reminds us today in his Letter to the Ephesians that Christ is our only real source of hope: Christ is future; Christ is certain; Christ comes at a personal cost; Christ is not someone we control; Christ is eternal and has conquered death. We who first hoped in Christ, says Paul, have been chosen, destined in accord with the purpose of the One who accomplishes all things according to the intention of his will to exist for the praise of Christ’s glory. In the mysterious designs of God’s providence, your hope in Christ becomes a participating cause of your own salvation. Hope in Christ—your personal conviction that through Christ you will experience the joys of eternal life—becomes the root that flourishes into a life of faith and charity.
We can be clearer: hope in Christ is real hope and is also the only hope worth having because hope in Christ is the only hope that conquers death.
The world needs the hope that exists only in Christ. Human beings are stubborn creatures. We like to run headlong into brick walls, looking for sources of hope that come cheaply, or that we can control. There is pride in us, and we cherish whatever object or activity reinforces the lie that we have real power over the world around us. We place our hope politics and careers and technology and whatever else helps us believe that we control the narrative of our lives and the narrative of human history. But these beliefs and these hopes are false: nothing we do or make or own will ever give us the gift of eternal life.
The world needs the hope that exists only in Christ. In the Gospel today, Christ sends his followers out two-by-two to preach a message of hope and repentance. These evangelists (call them ‘hope-bearers’) are told to go out into the world with few provisions, to share in the life of whomever they find in the streets, and then, in time, to share the eternal life that is found only in Christ. I like to think that the apostles are told to carry nothing with them because if all you have to offer a person is Christ, then you can rest in the confidence that you have offered the only real hope there is to give someone. You can give a person everything that is needed for a life lived in the world—food, water, work, a home, family, an education, a career—but unless you give them Christ, you do not give real hope.
The world needs the hope that exists only in Christ, and those who follow Christ are called to share that hope; the work of evangelization no longer belongs to apostles alone.
Here at the Basilica of the Assumption, we are lucky enough to have missionaries who get hope right. The young men and women who come to Baltimore to join Source of All Hope head out into the streets two-by-two with only socks, water, and the love of Christ to offer the homeless. Today marks the end of the mission year for Will, Steve, Ginger, and Julia. But the mission itself never ends, nor is bringing real hope to a broken world something reserved to volunteer missionaries alone. Each of us is called to share the Gospel with those who do not know Christ. These missionaries are witnesses to the life that each of us is called to live and we ought to follow their example.
The news cycle in this country (for the foreseeable future) is going to be dominated by talk of politics and violence. The violence that comes from politics is tragic and unacceptable, but really isn’t surprising. When your last, best hope for the world is found in a political party, or a policy platform, or a person running for office, then the possibility that politics might not go your way is terrifying. The false hope of politics makes people desperate, and desperation, whenever or wherever you find it, often leads to violence.
The world needs the hope that exists only in Christ.
In him we were also chosen,
destined in accord with the purpose of the One
who accomplishes all things according to the intention of his will,
so that we might exist for the praise of his glory,
we who first hoped in Christ.
In him you also, who have heard the word of truth,
the gospel of your salvation, and have believed in him,
were sealed with the promised holy Spirit,
which is the first installment of our inheritance
toward redemption as God’s possession, to the praise of his glory.
Homily preached on Sunday, July 14th at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary