Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dec 12 2024

Reflection-God’s Ways, Not Our Ways

Theologians tells us that we have a God who speaks, a God who is by nature a Self-communicator. There is a symphony of voices through which the Lord of the universe sings to us—through the created world, through salvation history and the prophets of old, through the preaching of the apostles, through the Holy Spirit at work in our midst, and of course through the written saga of the Word-become-flesh, Jesus himself, as recorded in the scriptures. Our God is not silent.

Today, Luke gives us Jesus’ final end-times speech. Calamities and disasters will happen. Read the signs of the times in history and in the created world: earthquakes, famines, plagues! Persecutions, wars, and insurrections! Bad stuff. The end is coming. Be attentive!

There are times when we are more aware of our fallibility, our finitude, and our ability to break. In the northern hemisphere, November is such a month. The tree branches look lifeless. The sunflower stalks are in the compost bin. The Baltimore orioles have flown south. The daylight grows short.

We do not know the future. Jesus says not to presume that we do; we should not be deceived. Though God is always speaking, there are some things about which God does not communicate—not the when, not the how, not the where—of the world’s end or our own. About that, God is silent.

Malachi prophesies about the coming of the day of the Lord, in a blaze, on fire!

And yet, ironically, when that great and terrible day came, the Savior of the universe, slid through the birth canal of a young woman, in the most helpless way possible, to come into the world. Is there a heavenly sense of humor?

God’s ways are not our ways. We do not know what is coming.

Consider/Discuss

We understand some things. Yet there is so much more that we do not grasp. Who knows what is yet to come? How can we persevere and remain faithful, be attentive and stay strong in trust, even though we do not know?
Bad things happen. But whether we live or die, no matter what darkness swirls around us, no matter how dire the situation, the Lord desires to shine through us like stars in the night sky. You and I are to be the blessing of God in this point of history. What does that mean for how are we to act? For how we are to pray? How can you and I grab onto that personal mission even more strongly as this church year draws to a close?

Living and Praying with the Word

Lord, you are the God of surprises. If we had known so many years ago what our lives would be like, would we have had the strength to walk forward into them? Thank you that you don’t show us the future either! But you do show yourself to us in so many little ways, right here and right now. You are full of amazements! Who would have guessed that you would have become flesh in the way that you did? Do you chuckle a bit at that? You are so good. Lead us to your eternal light, whenever and however that comes. Thank you, thank you, God of glory!

Dec 12 2024

God’s Ways, Not Our Ways

The first several decades of the post-exilic period were a time of great trial. The former kingdom of Judah remained under foreign rule and only very slowly emerged from severe economic and demographic stagnation. Malachi focuses on additional problems: the resumption of injustice in the land, widespread marital infidelity, and priestly negligence and complacency. Through the prophet, God continually chastises the people for persisting in many of the very behaviors that led to the Exile in the first place. Where was the purification that was supposed to have taken place? The people always respond to these criticisms with disbelief: “How have we disdained your name?” (1:6). The prophet and others begin to wonder, “Where is the just God?” (2:17). In response we have today’s short reading. There will come a purifying fire when the Lord comes in judgment. The heat of God’s judgment will consume evildoers, but it will bring “healing rays” for those who are faithful to God.

In his conclusion to his Second Letter to the Thessalonians, Paul exhorts the community to avoid acting in a “disorderly” way, which is to say, in a way that disrupts the peace and harmony of the community. This can happen in a couple of ways: by sowing doubt and dissension about Christian doctrine or by refusing to contribute to the needs of the community through work (3:6). As they have been instructed to look to Christ as a model of trust in God (3:5), so they should look to Paul as a model of industriousness for the “common good.” Paul and his companions have avoided burdening the Thessalonians by demanding anything from them, but instead have worked for their bread. Those among them who are shunning work (perhaps because they thought the parousia had already occurred) or otherwise disrupting the harmony of the community are not looking out for the good of that community.

The temple in Jerusalem was massive and completely covered in gold. It must have been hard to imagine that it could ever be destroyed, as Jesus claims it will be (and was, by the Romans, in A.D. 70). Jesus assures the crowd that there will come a time when the world will come undone. But before this, and more immediately relevant to them, his followers will be subjected to the same trials and persecution that he is about to undergo. In response to this, they should not fear, but trust in God and see the trials as occasions to proclaim the gospel, which is perhaps most effectively and authentically preached under such circumstances. Although many will suffer, some even to the point of death, yet “not a hair on your head will be destroyed” if they remain faithful. He is speaking, of course, of life in him, both in this world and in the next.

Dec 03 2024

We Didn’t Start the Fire . . . But We Keep It Going

The Bible tells us that when he became king, Solomon prayed to God to give him wisdom, that he might have a “listening heart to judge your people. . . . For who is able to give judgment for this vast people of yours?” (1 Kings 3:4–9). In the book of Wisdom we are given an extended version of this prayer, in which Solomon asks God, “Who understands what is pleasing in your eyes and what is conformable with your will?” (9:9). Today’s reading continues that prayer, the point of which is that without the wisdom that comes from God as a gift of the Holy Spirit (9:6, 17), humans are crippled in their ability to understand reality. If they have trouble figuring out the natural and human world, how can they possibly know the ways of God without the gift of wisdom, which is freely given to anyone who seeks it earnestly?

Here is what we are able to discern about Philemon, Onesimus, and Paul from this very short letter. Onesimus is a slave of Philemon and has, apparently, run away and ended up with Paul, who is in prison. There he has been baptized by Paul, so that Paul can call Onesimus his “child” and himself his “father.” Paul is now sending Onesimus back to Philemon, a fellow Christian, with the hope that the latter will free the slave and send him back to Paul. The Apostle does not want to command anything of Philemon, but he hopes that he will do the right thing once he realizes that Onesimus is now his “brother,” not only as a fellow human being but especially as a fellow Christian. Paul expects Philemon to recognize that Christians cannot relate to one another according to the world’s standards.

Jesus returns to an earlier point about commitment to discipleship (Luke 9:51–62) to make things perfectly clear: not even family, not even one’s own life must take precedence over Jesus. The word translated “hate” here should rather be rendered “deny” or “give up.” Jesus gives his reason for this through two examples, both of which highlight the need to be fully prepared before one begins a major project. It is notable that in both examples, preparation means adequately supplying oneself with money or people, whereas Jesus concludes what seems to be the opposite: to prepare to follow him, one must get rid of everything. This is a paradox, because by giving up everything, one gathers to oneself the interior and exterior freedom to give oneself completely to Christ.

Dec 03 2024

Reflection-We Didn’t Start the Fire . . . But We Keep It Going

I built many fires during the COVID-19 pandemic. In mid-January of 2021, when it was twenty degrees outside, how else were my students and I to stay warm in my Michigan backyard during spiritual direction Those bonfires were big! Each started with a spark from a match. The spark caught the rolled-up newspaper, which then ignited the walnut sticks and the oak kindling. Flames shot up. The light was bright. I threw on oak and cherry. Loads of logs later, a pile of coals began to glow and glimmer. Only then did we begin to get warm from the fire’s heat.

The author of Luke/Acts might tell you that discipleship is like that fire. In the early days of the church, the spark of the Spirit ignited the apostles at Pentecost. The gospel shot out to the ends of the earth in a bright flare. Jesus’ followers glowed with the light of love. Folks burned with the faith and the flame grew. By the time that Luke was old, loads of logs had been thrown on that fire: his companion Paul had been killed, Peter had been crucified. Stories of martyrs spread: tales of those who gave up family, reports of those who gave up possessions, legends of those who gave their lives in allegiance to that Name. The flame of faith glowed from the coals of martyrdom. And that fire warmed the world.

People began to ask, Who is this man Jesus whose followers are willing to die for him? Who is this Holy Spirit who ignites such courage in such ordinary folks? Luke had to make Jesus’ story known. He had seen the Holy Spirit transform believers. Those early years of enthusiasm had matured into glowing coals of martyrdom. The message? Follow Jesus. Take the path of the cross. Know that it was costly for Jesus. Know that it will be costly for you. Count that cost. Know that it could mean your life. Follow anyway.

Consider/Discuss

To us in the twenty-first century, Jesus’ conditions for discipleship in Luke’s Gospel might seem harsh: give up family, possessions, life. To the first-century Christians, it was the reality of their lives. By the time that Luke wrote it down, it had become their history. In our time and place, what does committed discipleship look like? What does total allegiance to Jesus cost us?
We cannot conform ourselves to God’s will on our own strength. When have you felt the warmth of the Holy Spirit empowering you to be more than you thought you could be?
How have you experienced the power of prayer to fuel that flame more brightly?

Living and Praying with the Word

Lord, you ask much. At the same time, you give much. We are not abandoned to our own devices. Spirit of love, enflame our hearts for courage and bravery and strength. Lead us higher, lead us to be who you want us to be. You ask us to count the cost. You ask us to be willing to follow you no matter the cost. We want to do that. We give ourselves to you again this day. Thank you for firing our hearts and leading us forward.

Nov 06 2024

Reflection-Visions of the End

In the 1400s, artists depicted Doom. Jan Van Eyck painted grisly naked bodies, deformed and in torment, with a skull-like figure hovering over them. Hans Memling depicted the Last Judgment with bodies flung about; a demon seizes a helpless man by the ankle and smashes a foot on his neck. The people of Europe had just come through one of the most hellish centuries in memory—war, famine, and bubonic plague had decimated Europe. They had seen dead bodies. They had seen people starve. The artwork reflected that desolation. Where was God in all that tribulation? The mild Jesus of the thirteenth century’s artists was gone. The art of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries tended to portray God as harsh, judgmental, and aloof. If you needed help, go ask his mother or one of the other saints. God wasn’t likely to help you.

Where are we now? When we hear Jesus talk this week about tribulations and stars falling from the sky, is this more real than it used to be? Could we be wiped out by war, or famine, or disease? When the prophet Daniel speaks of a “time unsurpassed in distress,” does that feel more like a possibility?

I know a young woman who lost two of her grandparents in one day during the COVID-19 pandemic. The immediate response was, “God, where are you in this?” If desolation goes on for a hundred years, as it did in the fourteenth century, will our perspective of God change? Will we believe that God is likely to help us?

Jesus says that we cannot know the day or the hour of the end. But with the psalmist, we ask for the grace to hang onto a belief in a good end, believing God will not abandon us to Sheol, the land of the dead. God alone is our inheritance!

Consider/Discuss

How has your perspective about the end-times changed since five or ten years ago? Have recent tribulations altered your perception of God? If so, how? If not, why not?
Many recent movies and shows deal with apocalyptic scenarios. Have you seen one that has impacted you? How do the protagonists deal with the end-of-the-world trials that they face? Where is/isn’t faith in God present in those end-times situations? Six centuries from now, how will people look back and see how our artists are depicting the Divine in the twenty-first century?

Living and Praying with the Word

Jesus, from your words, you appear to have a long perspective. While we measure time in days and years, you see things in centuries and eons. If heaven and earth pass away, will your words not also pass away? That is hard for us to envision. Give us your eyesight this day. The end of the world is a scary prospect and we cannot handle that without your help. Strengthen us this day for whatever the future brings. In the midst of our fears, be our Peace. When trials come, be our Rock. No matter what happens, show us the path of life and allow us to glorify you forever.