a lawless blog

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29th Sunday of Ordinary Time C

October 20, 2013

"Pick out certain men,

and tomorrow go out and engage Amalek in battle. 

I will be standing on top of the hill

with the staff of God in my hand." 

So Joshua did as Moses told him:

he engaged Amalek in battle

after Moses had climbed to the top of the hill with Aaron and Hur.

As long as Moses kept his hands raised up,

Israel had the better of the fight,

but when he let his hands rest,

Amalek had the better of the fight.

Moses’hands, however, grew tired;

so they put a rock in place for him to sit on. 

Meanwhile Aaron and Hur supported his hands,

one on one side and one on the other,

so that his hands remained steady till sunset.

"There was a judge in a certain town

who neither feared God nor respected any human being. 

And a widow in that town used to come to him and say,

'Render a just decision for me against my adversary.'

For a long time the judge was unwilling, but eventually he thought,

'While it is true that I neither fear God nor respect any human being, 

because this widow keeps bothering me I shall deliver a just decision for her

lest she finally come and strike me.'" 

The Lord said, "Pay attention to what the dishonest judge says. 

Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones

who call out to him day and night? 

Will he be slow to answer them? 

If an image speaks a thousand words, then we don't need to add many words today, for we have two images. But being word images, I need to sketch them briefly...

The first is of a man who had the role of leadership thrust upon him. He has led a large group of slaves in a successful escape. The refugees forever after marvelled at how they'd made their way across the marshland, spreading out and stepping lightly on the firm salty crust. Their pursuers charging headlong in hot pursuit had horses and chariots bog deep in the mud. They must have churned up such a quagmire that even soldiers on foot could not get through. The refugees had time to scatter through the scrub and elude the few who did come after them. 

Stories of this kind abound in the memories of refugees of every era. This one became known as the Crossing of the Red Sea [or Reed Sea: Link], part of the remembered Passover. But this is an aside.

On their journey they have encountered a hostile tribe blocking their way. Moses tells Joshua to form a band of fighters and try to force a passage, while he goes off up the hill. On the hilltop he raises his hands to the sky in a gesture of need, expressive of faith, of trust, of hope - and he maintains that posture all day until the setting of the sun.

We marvel at the restrained objective tone of this account, almost like a police report. You can imagine people asking, "But what on earth did he do up there?" And the answer: "Nothing. He just stood there with his hands held up, like this, until the sun went down."

God does not get a mention in this sketch. It is not about god, so we should not draw conclusions that are not contained in the image. All we have is the image of a man of faith, a leader who trusts his fighters to do their best while he supports them as best he can. 

He personifies their need; he embodies his faith. 

He leads his people by being the figurehead of their need and their trust. He persists to the point of exhaustion and beyond, even needing help from supporting friends.

This is no empty gesture. Their desperate need is portrayed before the Spirit, that spirit "manifest in the laws of the Universe - a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble." (Albert Einstein) This man had sensed some manifestations of the spirit. He was awakened to the power that could set his people free. Now he stands with empty hands reaching up in persistent pleading, and that was enough... 

*****

The second image is of a person at the other extreme, a nobody. She is a woman who, with her husband dead, has no position in society, no one to defend her or speak for her rights when some shyster takes advantage of her. She makes an appeal to the local magistrate, but he turns out to be corrupt and has no interest in helping this non-entity. 

The image is of a persistent woman, waiting at the official's door when he leaves his house to go about his business in the town, standing - maybe staring at him across the square when he sits with the elders at the gate, following him home for all his family to see his meanness. She maintains her plea, never growing weary, never giving in to discouragement, never giving up in despair.

*****

Persistence must be the title of both images, persistence rooted in belief in the rightness of the cause. It is structured as hope, when there is nothing to rest hope on. It is experienced as trust, a personal surrender to the spirit who is the breath of life. While I have breath in my body I will still hope... 

Examples of persistence of this kind are everywhere in our daily experience. It might be a useful exercise to focus on an outstanding one of recent memory. There may be some that could be shared. Foremost in my mind are those survivors of abuse who cried out for justice until they moved governments to set up Inquiries. 

*****

What fuels persistence? What is it that makes some people keep battling on, keep asking, keep signing petitions, keep praying? What is it that enables some soldiers, like our militia of the 39th Battalion on the Kokoda Track in July/August 1942, to hold on and never give up? It is something that gets far too little attention. It is hope.

Hope is an elementary force within the human psyche. It stands between two exaggerations: optimism and despair. Paul wrote that  three things endure: faith, hope and love. If the greatest of these is love, the strength of love's foundation is hope. It is a power that summons up resources from deep within, and while we return persistently to the encounter we find ourselves trimmed down, our motivation clarified, our ambition purified, our instinct of self-preservation transformed into the purest unselfish love.

*****

Allow your mind's eye to rest upon an image of persistent, trusting pleading - as in a small child with arms raised... Go to:    http://handsliftedup.yolasite.com/