What's Wrong with the World

Homily for the Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A
A hundred years ago, a major newspaper in England asked several well-known people to give a response to the question: “What’s wrong with the world?” As you could imagine, everyone had an opinion, often a long and complicated opinion, placing the blame on any number of people or institutions. But one man gave a very simple, two word response. The writer and theologian G.K. Chesterton said, in response to the question, “What’s wrong with the world?” – “I am.” On the one hand, we could say that Chesterton was just acknowledging what we should all acknowledge – that we are sinners, and that even the best of us make bad choices. The world we live in is not perfect, and will never be perfect, because it is inhabited exclusively of people who are sinners. Only when Christ conquers sin – only when the world is remade at the end of time – will everything be as it should be. Chesterton’s humanity – just the same as yours or mine – means that this world is not perfect.

But there’s another way of looking at this question and response, and St. Paul can help us. He writes to the Philippians: “Complete my joy by being of the same mind, with the same love, united in heart, thinking one thing. … humbly regard others as more important than yourselves, each looking out not for his own interests but also for those of others.” (Phil. 2.2-4) So we look at the question again: What’s wrong with the world – I am, because I am selfish. What’s wrong with the world – I am, because I think more about what’s good for me than what’s good for the person down the street. What’s wrong with the world – I am, because I am not part of a we. Our world can never be perfect as long as it’s made up of sinful people, but it can be better – and St. Paul suggests that the way to make it better is to make the world a community rather than a population of individuals. The human person is both sacred and social – we are both made in God’s image and made for community. The way to make this world a better place is to get to the point where we are all thinking of the common good, what’s best for humanity and each of its members, not just what’s best for me.

For the next forty days or so, it will be almost impossible to escape talk of the economy, the election, and the issues that face our country. And all of these discussion really boil down to trying to figure out what’s wrong with our world. The challenge of our faith – as St. Paul reminds us today – is to do everything we do with “the same attitude that is in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 2.5). And a major part of that attitude is to look at our world with a communal lens rather and a mirror that simply reflects my image onto everyone else. What’s wrong with the world? I am. But how can the world be better – by regarding others as more important than me.