Words on the Word
33 Sunday C
Malachi 4.1-2: The day is coming now, burning like a furnace.
2 Thessalonians 3.7-12: Go on quietly working.
Luke 21.5-19: Everything will be destroyed.
In his remarkable memoirs Amos Oz described his childhood in Jerusalem in the 50s. The pioneering spirit was strong. Societal development was seen as fulfilment of prophecy. ‘Isaiah’, writes Oz, ‘was read as tantamount to daily news’. We may smile at such a remark. We may think it naive to think one participates, like that, in the end-times. On the other side: if the Bible is God’s word and if, as Jesus says, ‘everything written in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms’ must be accomplished, then it is our duty vigilantly to interpret the signs of the times in the light of divine revelation. We must look for the eternal in time, in our time.
It is not hard to apply today’s Gospel to our world of today. Revolutions and wars surround us close at hand. We take earthquakes, plagues and famines for granted, as we do hurricanes and floods. What about the great signs in the heavens? We see them in the form of insanely fast technological advances.
A generation ago, a mobile phone was a luxury. Now you can’t take the bus without one. So-called ‘artificial intelligence’ conditions us increasingly. No one knows where it will lead. Geoffrey Hinton, the godfather of AI, thinks there’s a 20% chance that AI might extinguish humanity within 30 years — not long. ‘We’ve never’, he says, ‘had to deal with things more intelligent than ourselves before.’
With such uncertainty abroad, and with the anxiety that follows, it’s not strange that voices are calling out, ‘The time is near!’, or even, ‘I am he!’. Just think: these days the Antichrist is a subject of conversation in Silicon Valley.
How can we, as Christians, relate to such a reality? In the Gospel the Lord gives us three concrete counsels: first, we are not to let ourselves be misled; secondly, we must take the opportunity to bear witness; thirdly, we are to have faith that God will give us, faced with enmity, irresistible eloquence and wisdom.
‘Take care not to be misled’. To avoid being misled, we must have a clear idea of where we are going. For a Christian life’s goal is not a place on the map or an abstract ideal: it is a presence, a person. ‘Follow me’, says Jesus. John wrote: ‘He who says, “I abide in him”, must walk just as he walked.’ To walk as Christ walked amounts to more than lying on a couch watching YouTube. We must know him as he is. Our principal source is Sacred Scripture: the Gospels above all, but also the Epistles, the Acts, and the Apocalypse. This is a time to read Scripture seriously. The Old Testament is indispensable background for the New. The Bible must be read with the mind of Church: it cannot be privatised. We must be formed by the sacraments and by the Church’s teaching. We build up Christ’s mystical Body by keeping the commandments, by looking after each other. Precisely our Catholic communion, our oneness with others in Christ, protects us from being misled. The Enemy of good always tries to draw us away from unity into atomised solitude. Be on guard therefore against individualism. Be on guard against pride and ambition, against all forms of self-glorification.
‘That will be your opportunity to bear witness’. The context Jesus presupposes is austere: it is made up of false accusations, persecution, arrests. The cause of God’s love is set on a collision course with our fallen world. That’s just how it is. We are called to do our utmost to make the world more just, but we shall never succeed fully. Our sick world needs redemption. We must be prepared for opposition. Endurance in great matters is prepared by endurance in small. How do I respond to opposition, to not getting my way? Do I get discouraged and edgy, or do I keep peace of heart? To witness to Christ’s grace, I must first of all deal with my anger, my passions. Each day gives us opportunities to practise.
‘I myself shall give you eloquence and a wisdom your opponents cannot resist.’ This promise is not about assured success in public debating. Remember: Jesus spoke these words to the Twelve by the Temple just before he entered Jerusalem as the new Paschal Lamb, about to surrender in silence to suffer and die for the people. Irresistible testimony may be that of fidelity, quite simply, of self-outpouring unto death. Must of us are preserved from such a trial, thank God; but it sets a standard we must measure ourselves by. That is why the Church, in the Canon, provides long lists of martyrs as allies and exemplars. God perfects his power in weakness. He has done so before. He can do so now, with us.
Let us then live as witnesses to the eternal in time. Whether our time will be short or long, we cannot know. It is not all that important. What matters is to be tools God can use for his saving purpose. We shall be usable to the extent that his peace governs us, that we let ourselves be reconciled with him and with one another, that we learn to love, that we live truly human lives, the way God truly became man.
A sign that we are on the right track is this: if something of Christ’s joy is alive in us. In today’s collect we pray for ‘the constant gladness of being devoted to you.’ The more deeply that gladness is rooted in us, the more impregnable we shall be to fear.
Amen.
Caravaggio, Ecco homo! Wikimedia Commons.