Thursday, November 14, 2019

Sunday Gospel Reflection, November 17, 2019: Lo, the day is coming, blazing like an oven...


Should you be afraid of the future?

  It’s hard to face what we might call the end times… to imagine that the world as we know it will end in the not unimaginable future, whether it be due to our own personal demise or to a cataclysmic event that affects our entire nation or even the planet.  This hesitation to face what’s coming is part of human nature.  In the Book of Malachi, for example, the people of Israel are cynical, weary, and even negligent, so God calls them to reform, announcing a general reckoning for those who fail to change their ways:  Lo, the day is coming when all the proud and all evildoers will be stubble… Jesus has a very similar message in Luke’s Gospel:  the days will come when there will not be left a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down.  The images in both stories are violent:  blazing fires, violent destruction, both natural and human-made, and even oppression and intense suffering:  they will seize and persecute you because of my name, Jesus tells his disciples.  It is all quite terrifying!

  But, as both Malachi and Jesus reassure their listeners, God is just.  We may, like certain lazy members of the Thessalonians' community, be acting in a disorderly way, not minding our own business but complicating the lives of others, distracted by end times we imagine as coming soon.  Or our sins might be more serious, sins against justice toward our fellow human beings.  Yet Malachi speaks of the sun of justice with its healing rays that will shine on those who fear God’s name, and Jesus encourages his listeners to exercise clear-headedness and endurance:  By your perseverance you will secure your lives.  However, total commitment is necessary – total commitment to orderly living, to living in awe of God’s power, in right relationship with God, a God who comes to rule the earth with justice (Psalm 98) and expects us to be just in turn, life-giving to those around us, committed to the name of Jesus, living for him before all else.  There is nothing to fear, in truth – not a hair on your head will be destroyed – so long as we surrender our lives to the God who loves us, with confidence in his name, open to mysteries that are beyond our comprehension, accepting change and challenges as they come, secure in the knowledge that our just God rules the peoples with equity, and will rule us with equity as well.

Image source:  www.wordclouds.com

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