Irony (Gk: eironeia) is an interesting word, and it is not the easiest to define. There are various subtleties present depending on the discipline that applies it. A common denominator though involves some sort of juxtaposition between two starkly different people, principles or situations. In I Corinthians 2:8 and Colossians 2:15, St. Paul speaks of Satan and Christ. Satan had provoked and manipulated the religious and civil authorities to have Jesus arrested, condemned to the cross, and his lifeless body entombed. That was that! As far as the devil was concerned, it was a slam dunk. But he had no idea what God planned and what would follow next. As we know, life followed death as Jesus was revived even as his corpse had grown cold in the grave “from whence no traveler returns” according to Hamlet. In this instance, all sorts of concepts were juxtapositioned; sin versus forgiveness, weakness versus power, darkness versus life, hope versus despair.
More than ever before in the history of our Republic, money, power and privilege are how one gains access to our president and influence in our government. If you don’t believe that, count the billionaires that crowded the stage at the last inauguration. Perhaps as much as one fourth of the wealth of the planet Earth was concentrated at this singular event on an otherwise ordinary day. And speaking of days, the days of a lowly white peanut farmer in Georgia rising from obscurity or a black man whose father abandoned his mother soon after his birth of becoming the President of the U.S. or a woman of any race achieving the same are slipping out of our hands, out of our memories and out of our future.
Presidents in the U.S. have often been broken by the burden of command. Their hair quickly turns grey. They mull and occasionally agonize over important decisions and then consider them yet again. Today, we have a president who enjoys wielding power. He enjoys publicly humiliating other rulers and particularly those people who willingly sacrifice their principles, dignity and self-respect to court his attention. He and his lofty aphorisms seek dominance over the peoples and nations of the world. What he cannot have or buy, he threatens to take by force. As Plato once noted: “might makes right.1” As far as much of our national history was concerned, it was rather that right makes might. Our might was in our care for others in the world who were less fortunate, for refugees, for people dominated by fascist regimes or colonialism. And brother-fought-brother to free the slaves in the U.S. But like peanut farmers looking to make a difference in the lives of ordinary Americans and black men hoping to gain access to prestigious universities through programs that are rooted in diversity and inclusiveness, those dreams have apparently ended.
God who allowed the current occupant of the Office of the President to return to power is not “Wowed” by wealth. Would a being who could turn a planetoid the size of the moon into a flawless diamond in the blink of an eye care about money? Would a God who willed the “Big Bang” in a fraction of a millisecond care about which nation has the most weapons of mass destruction on a planet like ours?
ENTER ROBERT FRANCIS PREVOST
The irony of God was made manifest this week in the selection of Robert Francis Prevost, a Cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church and an American to be the next pope. While little is known outside of his official biography, he appears to be everything that our President is not. No doubt POTUS sees him as a useful ally, but that likely will not happen. There will be no papal pilgrimages to Mar-a-Lago, or trips together to see the Chicago White Sox. I’m not sure whether His Holiness plays golf, but the two leaders will not likely share the links together, either.
I call “Bob” His Holiness because even as I am an evangelical Protestant, I have a healthy respect for most if not all of the popes of my lifetime. Some of my Protestant brethren would scoff at the suggestion that a pope is even a Christian in the first place unless he had a born-again experience. Yes, Jesus did point that out in the Gospel of John that we must be born again, but then Jesus did not leave us a formular. To that, I would reply “When did Luke, or Timothy, or Matthew or Mark have their subjective “experiences?” As Paul says in Romans 10:17 “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” So, I am willing to give Pope Leo XIV a bit of leeway. Nor do I believe that every pope in history is absolutely saved. Only God knows who is and I know very little about most popes.
The College of Cardinals invested Robert Francis Prevost with the high office even though faith and stock in America is at an all-time low lately. Perhaps they saw the same irony as I. Perhaps they hoped that our president would listen when the pope explains other ironies in the Bible. For example, how one who wishes to be served must first be a servant, himself, or how the first in this world will be the last in the next. Mathew 23:11, 12 says “For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” This is how to make America great…by making America humble.
Today more than ever, America needs a strong, moral voice capable of guiding our people, and particularly the flock. From what I understand and have heard so far, Pope Leo XIV can be that voice. For us, he is not just the pope, but an American as well. He has walked our streets, celebrated our holidays, studied our past and is familiar with our traditions. We need a leader we can listen to and not cringe at what he might say next. We need this voice to be anchored in Scripture and the Gospel message of Jesus Christ.
I wish both Pope Leo XIV and Donald J. Trump the very best. I pray that God keeps them safe and blesses them. I can say this because I know what this would mean. It would mean that our president would finally be on a long overdue pilgrimage of his own in which case perhaps our nation could heal and find favor in the sight of God.
1Attributed in The Republic to Thrasymachus who argues that justice is merely the advantage of the stronger.