The idea that life were simpler during Jeremiah’s time could also be an expression of presentism too. For example, he did not have to contend with the ubiquity of electronic intrusion. Jeremiah, otherwise known as the reluctant prophet, lamented the deadly plots of evil men surrounding him. In this respect, he was lucky not to be born this era. We have electronic trolls waiting to pounce on anyone who dares to walk out of sync with the “official” narrative. It appears that history is even more forgiving than the internet is. Caught in a wrong place and time and you gain notoriety forever. Post, do or say something stupid, you will live to regret it. How many celebrities have had to apologise for an indiscretion a lifetime ago?
People inhabit fear bubbles. In the movie Black Panther, when the hero caught up with the villain somewhere in Korea, he was about to inflict bodily harm. Thankfully, he was stopped by his trusted aide. Why? The pervasive camera phones. As the crowd whipped out the mobile phone to capture the scene, the Black Panther was advised to back down because of irreparable damage done should he be recorded as summarily executing a person. We no longer adhere to an objective code but live in fear that we might be caught with our pants down. It is not just people who live behind the barricade of fear, institutions too and this includes the Church. We need to be seen doing or heard mouthing the “correct” narrative according to the accepted canons of “racism, sexual orientation, gender equality and etc”. The sacking of the police office was fundamentally a reaction of fear by the authorities that they might be judged as not doing enough to fulfil the demands of the day, that is, black lives matter. Never mind that all lives actually matter. And those who speak up for “all lives matter” will be pilloried as “deniers” who undervalue “black lives”. In these safe shrines of sanctimony, our standard is not so much right or wrong but rather that we should not be caught off-guard.
Why do we fear that much?
You could say that we are suffering from an information overload. We are fed barrages of negative news that whatever is good is filtered out unwittingly. When we can no longer perceive what is good, we will in general react badly. The prevalence of zombie movies is symptomatic of our fear acting out. Firstly, we might be living in the end times. Who knows? But, more likely, it is not the survivors who represent us; we are the zombies. We are like the flesh-devouring zombies in the manner we consume negative news. Secondly, we react to the bad news illogically. Fear traps us within echo chambers corralling us into tribal behaviour. A reason for having this backdoor government is because some politicians have played up the fear that a majority race in the country will be overpowered by a minority group. In the face of this threat, people generally retreat into tribal group think.
This still does not really answer the question why we are fearful. The answer lies in a maybe—just maybe there is no God. What Karl Marx observed of us runs true in that religion is possibly the opiate of the people. It is conceivable that we believe in a God of our own construction. Could this explain why we need Jack Dorsey or Mark Zuckerberg? A couple of days ago, the Gospel reading pointed out that God can see what we do in secret. What if there were no God? How will we be remembered or validated? It used to be that we could settle for God because He sees what others cannot. Thus, what the right hand does, the left does not need to know because God knows. Without God, today we need Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook to validate us. Otherwise we will be "nobodies".
Fear is debilitating. It is not stupid to be fearful. It is more likely that we have become illogical to the point that we see what is not there and miss out what is there. For example, our fear is heightened by a person who died from Covid-19 but we are not even bothered by the many who died from dengue.
Fear that there is no resurrection could be a reason why we are stirred up these days to scour history in order to purify it. It is as if the whole story of humanity has to be written this side of death’s curtain. Thus, we are attempting to erase the "unpleasantries" in history because he or she, this or that person is a blight to our "perfect" postlapsarian (oxymoronic!) world. There is no distinction made between Adam and Christ as if there were no Adam and therefore, there is no need for Christ. However, the 2nd Reading acknowledges that human history is messily contaminated, but it has been set on right keel by none other than the Lord Himself. Then again, because we no longer believe in the Resurrection, we have taken upon ourselves to be the judge of history. We judge the past in terms of slavery, sexism, racism and etc., because we are mortified by our belonging to sinful humanity. This is presentism that is myopic as 30 years down the line, who knows, our generation may be erased too because standards have changed, and we would have become an embarrassment to our descendants.
In the Gospel today, Jesus assures His disciples that they should not fear. The only fear one should have is that God does not see or remember. The need to have a eulogy at the end of the funeral is possibly premised on this unspoken panic that really, God does not see or remember and hence it is left to us to make sure that the deceased is noticed and known. Or that it is up to us and nobody else to right the history of wrongs. We are the last word and not God.
To believe in the Resurrection is counter cultural. To trust that God will remember goes against the grain of existential anxiety. A French writer Jules Renard wrote, “If you are afraid of being lonely, do not try to be right”. Jeremiah was right and the price he paid was ridicule. Jesus was right and He was crucified. They submitted to a standard not subjected to the shifting sands of popular opinion. Apparently, St Augustine used to say, “Right is right even if no one is doing it. Wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it”. Courage is standing against this tyranny of “relevance”.
These days two fears are coming together. First, it is the fear of the pandemic. We naturally fear dying. However, this fear of death actually highlights a second anxiety which is an apprehension of a history without God. Without God, we will always try to right all the wrongs of history forgetting that history has always been salvation history. Totalitarian regimes such as communism thought that it could right the wrongs of inequality or injustice without God and they failed. Today, political correctness befogged by a myopic presentism is trying to rewrite a cleaner history believing that our prevailing history is bereft of God. This is also doomed to fail because we have mistaken liberation to be redemption. We may be freed of inequalities but that is not redemption. For that, we still need Christ who saves us by redeeming and healing our wounded history.
In summary, the courage to overcome the angst of our age is pivoted on a healthy trust in God’s providence. Physical death is not the final word in our earthly existence; God is. Without this firm belief that God will vindicate us, we will never be able to witness to Christ—martyrs dare to walk to their death because they know that their death is not the end of their history. As Sacred Scripture is filled with the assurance that God is in charge—Jesus tells us today: Do not be afraid. I will be with you, always and until the end of time.
