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You know how the ending of a book or a movie can make or break the entire story? I’m sure, we’ve all read a book or watched a movie where we were captivated by the story the whole way through only to be disappointed by a bad ending that ruined the whole book or movie for us. When this happens, we might think to ourselves, “Well, that was a big waste of time. Unfortunately, I’ll never get those hours of my life back.”
If our story is to have meaning, our story also must be heading somewhere so that its conclusion or culmination can give meaning to what happens along the way. So, where is our great human story leading?
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus tells us where our story is heading and what will be required for its fulfillment. Our story, like Jesus’ story, and all good stories has some conflict that is foreshadowed in the future that we as characters in this story must persevere through.
Let me set the stage for today’s Gospel reading. It begins with Jesus encountering people in the temple and the timing of this encounter is very important. This is right before Jesus is about to be sold out by his frenemy, before all his friends are to run away from him when he is arrested, before he is to be denied by his closest friend, before he is to be beaten, and before he is to be killed on the cross. Jesus knows that to let his followers live in a fairy tale thinking all is well and that the rest of their story is living happily ever after would not be doing them any favors as it would be allowing them to live in a lie. Jesus knows that the time has come to prepare his followers then and now for the tough times ahead.
As the scene in today’s Gospel opens, people are in the temple in Jerusalem talking about how marvelous the temple is and how it is adorned with costly stones. Jesus, tells them “all that you see here – the days will come when there will not be left a stone upon another stone.” To these Jewish people, hearing Jesus say the temple is going to come crashing down must have sounded like Jesus was describing the end of the world as they knew it.
For the Jews standing in the temple, the temple was the center of their lives. The temple was the center of their worship, their culture, and their identity. The temple was a huge point of pride for them. And Jesus tells them, it’s all coming down. It’s hard to come up with a modern-day example to help us understand the importance of the temple to Jews during Jesus’ time. It would be like Jesus coming here today and telling you that your church, your place of work, your school, your house, your social media following, the American Flag, the Statue of Liberty, your political party, whatever the part of your life you’re most proud of and that you’ve built your life up around, all this wrapped together, it’s all coming down, it’s all about to be gone, it’s all coming to an end.
Jesus’ comment is meant to be a wake-up call to those of us who are fixating too much on the passing things of this world. The stuff of this world after all is what we tend to fixate on and worry about the most, isn’t it?
How am I going to find time to do all the work I have to do? How am I going to get my grades up in school? How am I going to get out of debt? How am I going to be able to afford to retire? How are the Election results going to turn out? So much of this stuff that we’re fixated on and worry about is going to pass away.
When was the last time we focused on the decisions in our lives that actually matter in the end to Jesus? We say, oh, I’ll wait to focus on that later in my life or when some of the signs of the end times Jesus talked about start to happen. Jesus said a sign of the end times will be when many people come trying to mislead us by presenting themselves as our savior and telling us the time has come for us to follow them.
Have you watched any of the recent political campaign commercials? If so, you know there is no shortage of people fitting this sign of the end times. You know the type of political campaign commercials I’m talking about. The commercial where the candidate portrays themself as our savior and their opponent as the devil incarnate and tells us the time has come to follow them. I remember a time after an Election when I was devastated. I felt utterly hopeless because the Election results did not turn out the way I hoped. I had placed so much of my hope in the Election results that I was misled into thinking things were going to be hopeless if they didn’t turn out the way I had hoped.
Maybe some of you are feeling this way today or you know what I am talking about because you felt a similar way in a previous Election. Friends, Jesus is giving us a wakeup call that we are placing too much of our hope and faith in political leaders, or it could be preachers, teachers, musicians, professional athletes, and celebrities who come and go, who are here today and gone tomorrow, and who are not the Messiah.
The longer we allow ourselves to be sucked into the whirlpool of the things of this world being the center of our lives, round and around we go, and the harder it becomes for us to escape this downward cycle. Today is the best and easiest time to get out of the whirlpool sucking us ever more into the things of this world being the center of our lives.
Because we know the things of this world are passing away, we have been counseled to deal with them contingently and as not being worthy of our deepest love. Jesus teaches us to neither take the world’s affairs too seriously nor abandon them as valueless. We are free to serve a passing world and its inhabitants even as our hearts have been wired for a coming kingdom in which earth and heaven will be renewed. Our hope and longing center on the full arrival of that kingdom. Every time we say the Lord’s Prayer, we are asking for the world to end when we say “thy kingdom come, thy will be done.” Come on Lord, it’s time. Let’s bring an end to disease, destruction, death, and suffering and let’s begin again with you. That’s what we’re longing for.
Jesus tells us the end of the world is coming and that this age and our brief lives here are a time of testing. Jesus tells us this time of testing will consist of our friends and family hating us and handing us over to be persecuted. It will consist of earthquakes, famines, plagues, and of war. Jesus does not say be afraid. Instead, says be ready.
I love what Jesus does here as Jesus tells it how it is. Jesus tells us, if you want to be my follower, this isn’t going to be easy. Have we ever talked with others about following Jesus in the same way Jesus talks about being his follower in today’s Gospel reading, about how it’s going to be really hard? If we ever talk to others at all about following Jesus, we probably do the exact opposite approach by describing our church, our faith, and being a follower of Jesus as being easy and fun. We say, “it’s great, it’s a beautiful church, I like the music, the preaching is usually good (except when the Deacon preaches), they have food after Mass, Fr. Jeremy’s great, I’ve made a bunch of good friends, going there has helped me become a better person, when you die, you go to heaven, it’s all good. You should come check it out.” This may be a well-intentioned short-term strategy, but it’s not Biblical.
I’ve looked through every page of this book trying to find the part where God says, “following me will always be easy and fun,” but I have yet to find it. While I have yet to find the part about following Jesus being easy and fun, I have found the part about Jesus dying on the cross for you and me.
The myth that loving us is always easy and fun is a lie and Jesus will be the first to tell us this hard truth. But you know what? Even though loving us wasn’t always easy and wasn’t always fun, Jesus persevered in loving us anyway.
Thank God Jesus’ love for you and me wasn’t dependent on it being easy and fun for him and him feeling like it. Thank God Jesus’ love for you and me wasn’t dependent on sunny days, smooth sailing, and easy circumstances. The pages of scripture talk about how Jesus persevered through tough times for us and that as we disciples follow him, we also must be prepared to persevere through tough times.
The God of the universe just spoke to you and me in the Gospel reading. What did he say? He says, “by your perseverance, you will gain your life.” This perseverance is not something we wait until the end to start doing, we are to do this work now in our daily lives. Jesus has revealed the future to us to help us deal confidently with the work in front of us.
As our second reading reminds us, sometimes this work can feel like toil and drudgery. But you know what, when we don’t feel like doing the hard work of being a parent or taking care of a loved one, we put on our big girl and big boy pants and we do it anyway. When our significant other, our friend, or our co-worker is on our last nerve, we persevere in asking Jesus for guidance, patience, and strength in taking the next right step. When we do this, we get life for ourselves and we also beget life in others.
Jesus’ love for us after all was not just something that happened in the past. Jesus continues showing his love for us today by taking the challenging approach of working through us sometimes not-so-cooperative followers and through the Eucharist.
No matter how dark it gets, remember, you and I have the light of Christ inside us. We bring his light in the midst of darkness. We bring hope in the midst of despair. We bring faith in the midst of doubt. This is how all that we most hope for, our search for loving communion, our longing to be home, will have their true fulfillment.
Until this day comes, while we are still here, we persevere. We allow God who is the author of all that is good to use our lives as instruments to write the best ending to our story. This ending will be one where the world as we know it comes to an end while the ultimate human story is just beginning.
33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time Cycle C – November 13, 2022
Mass Readings:
Reading 1: Mal 3:19-20a
Psalm: Ps 98:5-6, 7-8, 9
Reading 2: 2 Thes 3:7-12
Gospel: Lk 21:5-19