November 17 2019
Mal 3:19-20a; 2 Thess 3:7-12; Luke 21:5-19
Brookdale
Gospel passages like today’s are very difficult for us to hear. Some people seem to like the idea of a vengeful god and are eager to jump on the judgment day bandwagon, but I think to most of us the promise of “powerful earthquakes, famines, and plagues” sounds awful. Why is Jesus being such a misery monger? Where is the good news?
And yet. Especially as we get older, we can see the world order that we grew up with and lived with falling apart. Walter Brueggemann[1] called it “the ungluing.” Wars, droughts, and criminal gangs make life unlivable for millions of desperate people, who then flee to countries that don’t know what to do with them. We see glaciers melt and germs become resistant to antibiotics, while hurricanes get stronger and the Amazon rain forest burns. We see taxes rise while our roads and bridges crumble. We see countries abandon the very notion of a world order. Like Jesus said: earthquakes, famines, and plagues.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus warns us not to look to our institutions for permanence and solidity. The disciples marveled at the precious stones and votive offerings adorning the temple, but the temple was in fact destroyed a few decades later. Some of us have marveled at the beauty of Notre Dame, St. Peter’s basilica in Rome, or the magnificent government buildings of Washington DC, but these buildings can also burn or crumble. When things come unglued, there is no safety in buildings or institutions.
Jesus isn’t trying to discourage us here. He’s saying that the things that seem wrong to us really are wrong. The bad things going on in the world may affect us personally. The disciples were arrested and sometimes martyred. There’s no indication that will happen to us, but the point is that God never promised us a rose garden.
So what is the good news? The good news is introduced in the first reading from Malachi, which promises us that God is all about justice and healing. Right now, we might see injustice and ungluing, but the very breakdown of the order we have known contains within itself the “resolve, work, and promise” of the Holy One, who wills our healing and the healing of our society. Malachi says that for those who fear God—that is, those who obey God’s commandments and trust in his justice—the “sun of justice” will arise with healing rays. We just have to be patient and trust that good will win out in the end.
Karl Marx famously said that religion is the opium of the people. That is, the common people are told to trust patiently in God, while the slick operators in Washington and elsewhere make off with millions. But I am not so cynical. Of course, there are plenty of examples of injustice around today, including the slick operators. But look at the almost miraculous examples of justice triumphant that have happened in our lifetimes. Colonized peoples have won their freedom—in India this even happened without a war. Americans gave up segregation and South Africans apartheid. The countries of eastern Europe gained their freedom from the Soviet Union without bloodshed. Women couldn’t vote a hundred years ago, but now women are running for president. The sun of justice is rising with its healing rays.
In the spirit of Malachi, Jesus promises that “by your
perseverance you will secure your lives.”
Things may come unglued, and our institutions may not save us, but God will ultimately win over injustice, and
we will win with him if we persevere.
[1] The major idea of this reflection comes from Walter Brueggemann, “The Terrible Ungluing,” Christian Century (October21,1992), p.931.