33^rd Sunday in O.T. (C); November 17, 2019

Mal 3:19-20a   Ps 98   2 Thes 3:7-12   Lk 21:5-19

Deacon Jim McFadden; SJB

 

         “And they shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, my own special possession…And I will have compassion on them” (Mal 3:17): these words come to us from the last page of last Old Testament prophet, Malachi. They are directed to those who trust in the Lord, who don’t put their trust in world princes, but put their hope in Him alone. They are the ones who see in God life’s the greatest and ultimate good: God is their Center; hence, they refuse to live only for themselves, for their tribal, parochial, and nationalistic interests. For they are the ones who are living the First Beatitude—“Blessed are you who are poor, for the kingdom of God is yours” (Lk 6:20). While they are poor, they are, nonetheless, rich in God. For them, the sun of justice will rise.

The prophet Malachi contrasts them with the proud and arrogant, who seek a secure life in their independent self-sufficiency and earthly possessions. The last page of the Old Testament cuts to the quick by raising the challenging questions about the ultimate meaning of life: where or whom do I find my ultimate security? Do I find it in the Lord Jesus or in the goods of the world of wealth, prestige, hedonistic pleasure, and dominative power?   Where is my life headed? What does my heart long for? Do I hunger for the Lord of Life or the ephemeral things that cannot possibly satisfy?

Similar questions appear in today’s Gospel reading from Luke. Jesus is in Jerusalem for the last and most important page in his earthly life: his death and resurrection, which will culminate his Mission.   He is in the precincts of the Temple “adorned with noble stones and offerings” (Lk 21:5). People are speaking of the beauty of the Temple, the epicenter of Jewish worship, much the same way that people talk about St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Jesus takes the occasion to say that “The days will come when there shall not be left here one stone upon another” (v. 6).   He adds to this sobering forecast that there will be no lack of conflicts, famine, convulsions on earth and in the heavens.

How do we respond to such uncertainty, destruction, and chaos? Jesus does not want to frightened us. Indeed, he is always telling us to not be afraid. I believe what our Lord is telling us is that everything we now see will inevitably pass away. Even the strongest kingdoms, the most formidable nations, the most sacred buildings and the surest realities of this world they do not last forever; sooner or later they fall, they give out, to be replaced by something else. That is the challenge of living the Gospel, because once you become a Kingdom person, you can never absolutize any system, least of all your own fabrication.

In response, people immediately put two questions to Jesus: “When will this be, and what will be the sign?” (v. 7). When and what: we are constantly driven by curiosity because we want to remain in control. But Jesus does not care for such curiosity because he is always calling us to live in the present. Suppose we knew for certain the date the world was going to end and what the signs would be. What difference would it make? We already know the end of story: through the Death and Resurrection of Jesus, sin and death have been conquered and everything will be reconciled in Jesus. So, what we have is the present, and it is now that we live the Gospel.

            In today’s readings Jesus is questioning us about the meaning of our lives. Using an image from our Gold Rush history, the readings serve as a sluice or strainer through which our life can be poured: they remind us that nearly everything in our life is passing away. But, what remains is a few gold nuggets. There are some realities that remain and will not pass away, like precious nuggets in the sluice.   O.K., what is it that endures, what has ultimate value in life, what riches don’t disappear. Two things: the Lord and our neighbor. These two, the basis of the Great Commandment, never disappear! They are the greatest goods; these are to be loved. Everything else—the Earth, the heavens, St. Peter’s Basilica—will pass away; but we must never exclude God or others from our lives.

Today, though, so much of our existence is about exclusion, keeping other people away as we cling to our factional precinct. We view others through the prism of my expectations, needs, and fears; we exploit others as objects of my gratification whether it be economic, political, or social. What we lose sight of is that human beings are precious. The human person is set by God at the pinnacle of his Creation. But, in our throwaway culture, human beings are aborted, exploited, discarded in favor of ephemeral things. Brothers and sisters, this is unacceptable because in God’s eyes mankind is the most precious good. It is ominous that we are getting used to seeing human beings objectified and rejected.   We should we worried when our consciences are so anaesthetized that we no longer see other human beings as our brothers and sisters suffering at our side or notice the grave problems of our world as we distract ourselves with mindless entertainment.

People of God at SJB, let us never forget that we are God’s “own special possession” and so is the person sitting to your left and right. Let us stay and abide with the Lord Jesus here and now and enthusiastically live the Great Commandment. Let us be lovers, delighters, and positive builders of the Kingdom of God right here and now! Amen.