It was the eighteenth-century French philosopher Voltaire, quoting an Italian proverb, who said that “the best is the enemy of the good.” We often hear this as an admonition not to let the perfect be the enemy of good. Another possible translation: stop procrastinating and get to work.
We all probably know people who completed years and years of education, coursework, and comprehensive exams but could not bring themselves to finish their dissertations. Right there on the precipice of receiving a terminal degree, the academic endeavor halts. The prospect of imperfection wins over the completion of the task.
Some of us might put off writing the paper because we don’t know the perfect way of beginning the essay. Or we delay tidying the house because it will simply get messy again. Really, which of us is not, in some sense, a procrastinator?
The tendency to procrastinate is no stranger to the spiritual life. And there may be good reasons for it. We feel intimidated by our task. We are born, tradition tells us, with original sin or with an innate tendency to do the very thing we know we shouldn’t do, to paraphrase the words of St. Paul. How does one even begin a journey towards holiness when we know it will be imperfect? And on top of that, St. Matthew gives us words from the mouth of Jesus himself that urge us to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. This is a tough order. No wonder people procrastinate when it comes to their spiritual housekeeping.
Members of the Church have found other ways to procrastinate, which appear to be getting things done but, instead, merely kick the can farther down the road. This often involves the words “taskforce” or “special committee.” We decide that some action needs to be taken, and so we invite members to a special decision-making group that spends yet more time delaying any kind of action.
In the face of unconscionable injustice or evil, we can be quite adept at spending hours of our time talking about things and never actually doing anything about it. It is tempting to use a false grace/works dichotomy to justify our procrastination. We can’t save ourselves but can only be saved by grace, and if we try to work too hard, we’ll all be little Pelagians, trying to earn our salvation by our own works. So, better to wait for God to bring it all home on judgment day. Pray fervently for the end to come, because in that next life, it will all be so much better.
These sound like hyperboles, but we all know that there is truth in them. Whether it’s a defense mechanism to protect ourselves from reality or an oppressive sense of helplessness, we humans are adept at procrastinating.
Which is all the more reason why St. Mark’s account of the calling of the first disciples is so striking. We are perhaps accustomed to Mark’s terse prose. His Gospel is the shortest and all the action happens with such immediacy. There is little room to ponder and imagine. St. Mark spends no time on the birth narrative or on Mary pondering things in her heart. Mark is primarily concerned with the urgency of the Gospel. There is very little time or opportunity for anyone in Mark’s Gospel to procrastinate.
Nor do Simon, Andrew, James and John dawdle when Jesus walks by them on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. It is almost comical. Simon and Andrew’s fishing endeavor is arrested by Jesus’ abrupt command to follow him and his cryptic statement that he will make them become fishers of people. They simply drop their fishing gear and go with him.
Likewise, for James and John. Not only do they leave the nets they are readying to fish, they leave their father and the hired hands in the boat, and they go with Jesus. It all sounds so improbable. Who would ever be so naïve as to do such a thing?
And perhaps this is precisely what Mark is trying to say. The rapidity of all the action in Mark’s Gospel is a shocking prod out of the tendency to procrastinate, think things over, or form a taskforce before taking any kind of action. It would even seem that Mark is encouraging impetuous, maybe even foolish, behavior. But Mark gives us a clue as to why there is no room for procrastination and why, even impetuous action might be needed for the sake of the Gospel. The kingdom of God has drawn near.
There is no reason to wait. There is no time to form a committee and think things over. There is not even time to get things perfect before beginning. Jesus is very clear: The kingdom of God has drawn near. Repent. Believe in the Gospel.
Could it be that procrastination and an exclusive focus on the end times is merely an excuse for avoiding the difficult work of repentance and believing the Gospel in the present? Is eschatological fascination used to justify spiritual procrastination?
Mark never denies an end time where God will bring all things to their perfection in him. It is just made acute within the present urgency of the Gospel. Now is not about perfection. Now is about letting God draw us, right now, into the power of his sanctifying grace and saving acts. Now is the time for God to make us holy.
I seriously doubt that the first disciples avoided any kind of deliberation. I doubt that they didn’t have second thoughts about dropping everything and following Jesus. I am unconvinced that things were as simple and straightforward as Mark’s prose suggests. But this is not the point. Mark shows us in no uncertain terms that there is no time to waste. The kingdom of God has drawn near. It is here. And it’s time to get to work.
So, too, for us. The kingdom of God has drawn near. It is, in some mysterious way, right here with us, even if we don’t see it. And for that very reason, it’s time to get to work.
We, like those first disciples, are ensconced in a moment of time that is pregnant with the possibility for God to act in unimaginable ways. We are in a time so charged with possibility for repentance, change, and belief that we should hardly be able to stand it. We should be bouncing off our feet to respond to God’s call and to follow Christ, whether it seems rash, foolish, or delusional.
There is an urgency among us that is so often ignored or taken for granted. And here are the bare facts that we know. There is a Gospel that has upended the world and that needs to be proclaimed, by you and by me. There are many people, not in some other neighborhood or country, but right in our own streets and communities, who are desperately longing to hear the Gospel, even if they don’t know it. There are wounds oozing the puss of years of neglect and mistreatment, of racism, hatred, and enmity, and they need to be healed right now by the balm of the sweet Gospel. There are chasms in our midst that need to be bridged but around which people have circumnavigated for far too long. And these chasms need to be closed by the reconciling power of the Gospel.
But it seems like it is never the right time in the face of fear, caution, and complacency. There is never enough money. There are never enough helping hands because the congregation is too small. The task appears far too great to be undertaken with the meager resources of the Church. The odds are all stacked against us, so it’s better not to try but rather to play it safe. Perfection becomes the enemy of the good or a justification for malaise.
We have heard for far too long that if things don’t change in the Church, there will be no Church in a few decades. But every minute spent lamenting our current circumstances is a minute wasted for the sake of the Gospel. An obsession with declining numbers only results in people sitting around twiddling their thumbs and giving up on ever getting anything done.
But hear what Mark tell us. There is an unbelievable urgency to the Gospel that we cannot ignore. There is work that God is doing and ready to do, and we are called to follow. The kingdom of God has drawn near. Repentance is needed to move from past evil to future healing. There is a Gospel waiting to be believed. There is a Gospel waiting to change lives and the world.
I, for one, do not despair over the state of the Church. It does no good for us to sit still and count our sorrows. It does no good to let perfection be the enemy of the good. The manic exigency of Mark’s Gospel can be enough to wake us from our spiritual torpor and light a fire among us.
We will never get it just right. We will never be perfect in this life. We will try and fail. We will need to get up, lick our wounds and move on. But if we never get up, nothing will ever happen.
So hear the demand that Mark makes on us. There is no better time than now. The kingdom of God has drawn near. It is ready to yank us from our slumber. There is a Gospel that is meant to be proclaimed and shared, and there is so much need for it. The time has been fulfilled, and now’s the time to get up and do something about it.
Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Third Sunday after the Epiphany
January 24, 2021