Homily for the week of November 14, 2010

Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time, 2010 year C

Malachi 3:19-20a

Psalm 98:5-6, 7-8, 9

2 Thessalonians 3:7-12

Luke 21:5-19

Everyone faces problems they may never be able to solve. However, the most important aspect of solving any problem is looking at it within its context, that is, what are the factors that surround it or affect it. The Bible has to be read in several contexts. First we have to look at who were the authors. The writers of the Bible were always responding to something. In most cases they were answering someone's question about a particular situation or about Jesus. The question the passage is responding to is still a question we ask today. As and example in the Gospel I just read Jesus was asked: When will the end of the world happen? And how will we know when that is to happen?

This leads to a second important part of understanding a Bible passage: what is happening in our lives right now? The depth of personal meaning a passage has for us will vary depending on what is going on in our lives today. Reading about a healing miracle will have a certain meaning for someone who is terribly ill and another meaning for someone who has never been sick.

This information on the circumstances surrounding an event is very helpful for approaching today’s readings. Our first reading from Malachi and our Gospel passage from Luke were all written with an eye toward the future. The purpose of these passages is to help us understand and cope with events occurring now and to help us find hope in our future when God will prevail over everything.

Our first reading is from the book of Malachi. Malachi was a chronic complainer. Yet he says that God is like the sun. It is the same sun that warms us in winter but that can give us a serious sunburn in summer. God too is experienced in different ways. The evil experience him as a blazing oven; the good as a healing ray to give them spiritual warmth. And Malachi tells us that a day is coming when God will show his divine face to all who are living. Malachi wanted to remind us that ultimately God is in charge and that God will set all things right. It is this reminder that helps us endure. He reminded the people that while things are bad in this world, we are not really of this world. We can endure because this life is not the one we were born for. We were born for life with God in heaven.

No doubt many people, and maybe some of you, have great fears in our nation today. Our primary fear is an economic one. With the huge deficit, we fear what might come. We worry about what will happen if the nation goes bankrupt. We think, “What about Social Security and Medicare? Will they be there for me?” This fear is not unreasonable.

Our Gospel today was written by St.Luke’s as a time when people were also living in fear. Accepting Jesus Christ had forced a change in lifestyle. Many were afraid of the Roman authorities who did not like Jesus. Some were leaving the Jesus out of fear of persecution or even death.

Numerous fundamentalist preachers on and off TV, keep telling us that we are in the last days, and that the end of the world is coming soon. How do they know this? Because they take a sentence here and a sentence there from the Bible and determine that the current events show that the world as we know it is passing away. The early Christians also thought that the world would end in their lifetime.

These self proclaimed authorities. of course, ignore other passages such as in our last reading today, where Jesus warns us about false alarms. Jesus cautions us that we must be more concerned about living our faith day by day than worried over the date of the end of the world. Jesus says of these false prophets: DO NOT FOLLOW THEM.

A week ago more than 50 Iraqis and 3 Catholic priests were shot to death in an attack in a Catholic church in Baghdad as the people were participating in Sunday Mass.

Jesus never promised his followers then or now freedom from trials or even from disasters. He did promise that he would be with us amid disasters. Jesus made that promise from his own experience. That experience was finalize on the cross.

Often we think God acts one way for good people and another way for bad. We often believe that if the Lord isn't doing what we want, we simply have to change from bad to good and he will give us what we need.

But today's three readings give some different advice. We see a God who is always doing good things for his people whether they are themselves good or bad. His actions come across to us in different ways because we respond to them in different ways.

Jesus does say, though, that before that last day comes we will have to live according to our belief. He says we are called to endure patiently. Jesus is our model and our hope. That is why we are here today. We need a weekly spiritual transfusion from Jesus that will give us the strength to endure the humanly unendurable; to hope where we see no hope; to continue the journey when we feel our strength is at an end.

Today and this week let us think about our own lives. Think of the opportunities we have to do little things that no one even notices. Picking up a piece of trash and disposing it properly. Smiling at someone who seems down. Thanking a clerk at a checkout counter. Visiting a neighbor who is lonely or is grieving. Being pleasant with co-worker. Giving a positive response. Being kind to a classmate who has just been bullied. This is how we fill our heart so that when the time comes, we take it with us. Best of all Jesus is always with us to help and encourage us.