My mother asked me what I was going to preach about today
and I told her “the end of the world.” She replied, “We’ll I’m not going.” I’m not sure if she meant she wasn’t going to
attend Mass or not going to attend the end of the world. I’ll wait and see.
You know they say Irish diplomacy is having the ability to tell someone to go to hell and they will go away looking forward to the trip. Oscar Wilde said, “If you must tell someone the truth, make him laugh—or else he’ll kill you.” I pray I have such mirthful diplomacy today.
The readings today remind us that there will be
an end to this world as we know it.
The first reading today (tonight) is from
Malachi. The people complained that
being faithful to God had never really paid off. In their lack of faith, they
failed to practice justice… they defrauded widows and orphans, ignored the
plight of the stranger in their midst, and the poor and defenseless were
trampled down, while the wealthy extorted the poor.
The religious practice of many of the priests, religious leaders, and the people had become a pretense, a false religiosity whereby they merely went through the motions of worship, but their hearts were far from God and love of neighbor.
Marital infidelity and social injustice was the rule of the day as the people had abandoned their covenant with God. Malachi emphasized that the right relationship with God depended upon a right relationship with our neighbor.
Malachi harshly criticized the Jewish priests for their abuse of religious ritual and toleration of injustice.
Malachi even dared make the dramatic claim that it would be best to shut the temple down, better to close its doors rather than offer the Lord false worship.
[“Oh, that one among you would shut the temple gates to keep you from kindling fire on my altar in vain!” (Mal. 1.10).]
Malachi raised the question: Why have a Temple – no matter how magnificent – if true worship is not taking place within it?
[Malachi went so far to point out that the pagans and gentiles were honoring the LORD, while the Jewish priests were profaning God’s holy name by giving poor and worthless offerings.]
There will be an end. There will be a judgment day. The day is coming, says the Lord, when this world, this life as we know it will come to an end. God will set things right. The good will receive their reward; the evil will receive theirs. All evil will be overturned.
Malachi’s dramatic claim that it would be best to shut the temple down was still reverberating some 500 years later, when Jesus observed some people excitedly pointing out the beauty of the temple.
But Jesus responded with shocking words: “The days will come when there will not be left a stone upon another.”
The people in today’s gospel looked on the grand façade of the
Temple and proclaim its greatness. They were beginning to think that this world is
really all that matters.
We too like to
be comfortable.
We can
fall for the lie that this world is all that there is. We can get caught up in our own narrow, narcissistic worlds where
our cause is the only cause. We can become so narrow-minded and self-absorbed
that we cannot see beyond the grave.
But have we deceived ourselves?
Like the rich fool who lived as if there was no
tomorrow, yet he died that very night in bed planning to build bigger barns to
secure his life;
Like the rich man who wore purple garments and
fine linen and dined sumptuously while ignoring the poor man Lazarus;
Like the near-sighted Pharisee who could only
pray to himself and look down on others.
Yes, even Christians are tempted by the lure of
this world’s values.
If we
carve out a nice worldly existence for ourselves and close in upon ourselves
thinking that pleasure, popularity, power, and possessions will fulfill us in
this life, we will one day awaken to the reality that we have been duped, sadly
mistaken – that our eternal thirst cannot be quenched with finite earthly pleasures
and joys – no matter how noble.
Our eyes
must be focused on Christ who is forever leading us over the horizon of this
world into the light of His kingdom.
The
disciples of the Lord wanted to avoid the Cross.
But our
call is to take up the cross.
It’s all
about the Cross; it always was and always will be.
Christ always calls us beyond our worldly
happiness to eternal life.
Here we have no lasting city. Our citizenship is in
heaven.
We see beyond this brief life; and we see even beyond death.
Jesus says to his disciples – and to us - no matter
what happens, God will be with us.
We cannot get hung up on elaborate buildings or
anything or anyone else or any one.
Christ must be the cornerstone.
Christ is the narrow gate.
Christ is our true Temple.
So no matter how many wars, natural disasters,
earthquakes, sinkholes, tornadoes, hurricanes, or typhoons we
hear of or experience; no matter the strange meteors or comets or
celestial signs, including satellites falling from orbit, our focus should be
on proclaiming the gospel, the good news of Christ’s redemptive love; disasters
and cataclysmic events, political unrest, social upheaval, violence and war
cannot separate us from the love of God.
Oh, yes, some of us may suffer martyrdom – perhaps not
as our brothers and sisters in the faith are experiencing elsewhere in the world
where it is illegal to do what we are doing here this morning/evening – but some
of us may be ridiculed by our peers, even by our family members and fellow
Catholics for our faith… defending the poor, taking a stand for justice, celebrating
the sacrament of marriage or proclaiming the dignity of the life of the unborn.
While at the same time we may be condemned for our ministry among those who have
been marginalized by society—or even by some members of the Church.]
We may be misunderstood and be put to death
socially. We may suffer a bloodless martyrdom of gossip all because we have
remained true to our faith.
St. Paul reminds us that there are people
who have their nose in other people’s business – and then there are others who
have their business in your nose.
Suffice it to say that there are too
many people who are too busy trying to remove splinters from their neighbors’
eyes while they have wooden beams in their own eyes.
There are some Christians who are
awfully proud of their holiness and seem to make it their aim to know their
neighbors’ sins.
But we can’t worry about all that.
In fact, there is no time to worry.
Today is the day of salvation.
And we must persevere to the end.
For the same God who has counted the hairs on
our heads will not abandon us.
We are all sinners journeying to the Kingdom
together, broken members of the Body of Christ, nourished by His Grace, His
Word, the Eucharist, and encouraged by one another.
This is the Good News.
God raises up fallen humanity and calls us to
reach for the heights of the kingdom; a kingdom where we are to bring God’s
kingdom to the present world: on earth as it is in heaven.
We need to have faith and trust in God in the difficult times when
the walls seem to be caving in upon us, when we are in a fog of uncertainty, when the Cross is oh so heavy.
None of
us is going to get out of this world unscathed.
But death is not the end; we will rise again.
The temples of our bodies might be destroyed,
but we will remain the Temple of God, the People of God, the Body of Christ.
And no one can destroy that.
They may try.
But we will rise with Christ on the Last Day.
