THIRTY-THIRD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (2025)

THIRTY-THIRD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (2025)

Readings

Malachi 3:19-20

Psalms 98:5-9

2 Thessalonians 3:7-12

Luke 21:5-19

As the Church’s liturgical year winds down the readings turn our attention to the “end times,” the time of our Lord’s second coming.  In two week’s time the Church will begin the great season of Advent, and the themes of today’s gospel will echo from the same chapter of Luke’s gospel – ending one Church year, and beginning another, the themes are identical.  Perhaps we might glean from that the universality of God’s message, regardless of the age that one lives in.

The prophet Malachi, in this very brief book at the end of the Christian Old Testament, gives us a glimpse into the generations after the Babylonian exile (some 450 years before Christ), the priestly caste grew negligent.  They withheld tithes and sacrificial contributions (3:6-11), and they cheated God by providing defective goods for sacrifice (1:6-14).  People divorced their spouses to marry worshippers of other gods (2:10-16), and there was an abundance of sorcerers, adulterers, perjurers, and others who desired to take advantage of workers and the needy (3:5).  Priests, who could strengthen discipline by their instruction, connive with the people telling them what they want to hear (2:1-9).  Underlying all this is a weary attitude, a cynical notion that nothing is to be gained by doing what God wants, and that wrongdoers prosper (2:17; 3:14-15).  [References are from the Introduction to the Book of Malachi from the New American Bible.]

For centuries, the Jewish people, and all peoples, have looked forward to a day when justice will reign supreme, when the “toil and drudgery” of day to day living leaves, and when those who “fear the Lord” will be freed to live the joys of eternal life.  The response to today’s psalm should be every Christian’s mantra: “The Lord comes to rule the world with justice.”  As the Creed proclaims, it is from His seat at “the right hand of God the Father Almighty,” and it is from there that “He will come to judge the living and the dead.”

Christians today tend to focus less on Jesus’ second coming, and more on His first coming, when God’s Son took on human flesh and became one of us, sharing some thirty years of His life with us teaching us how to be better human beings, teaching us how to craft our souls in order that they might find a warm welcome into the kingdom of heaven.   It is clear that the kingdom Jesus came to establish is a work in progress, and to the extent that we model our lives on that of Jesus, to that extent do we build up God’s kingdom here on earth.  But as Malachi and all the prophets before him realized, our humanity weighs us down, and we do not always make right choices in this world.  Has much changed since Malachi wrote “others [came] who desired to take advantage of workers and the needy (3:5)?”  Things might have improved, says Malachi, but “priests [bishops, politicians, teachers, podcasters, etc.], who could strengthen discipline by their instruction, connive with the people telling them what they want to hear (2:1-9).”  Even Luke alludes to the troubling times that will accompany the second coming: “nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom,” “they will seize and persecute you,” “you will be hated by all because of my name.”

Let’s face it, we live in troubling times.  Even when God confirmed Jesus’ Sonship with His Resurrection and Ascension, Jesus knew there was still a lot of work to be done, which is why He sent out His apostles and disciples to spread a message of love, and peace, and harmony.  There is no peace when thugs are separating families because of the color of their skin.   There is no love where the hopes and dreams of a better life are shattered in an instantaneous deportation.  There is no harmony when fishing vessels are blown to smithereens because they are ‘suspected’ of being terrorists.  There is only persecution when SNAP benefits are needlessly withheld, or when some go to bed hungry when unnecessary ballrooms and cathedrals are built.  It is no sin to be rich, but when oligarchs see other humans as only a commodity to be taken advantage of and exploited – these are all signs that we are not even close to the kingdom of God here on earth.

As depressing as many things may be, Luke’s gospel gives us the confidence that by our “perseverance [we] will secure [our] lives.”  We are never to lose heart, we are never to be discouraged.  We don’t know when God will come again, but whether it is at the moment of our death, or at a time in the distant future, we need not fear God’s second coming, if we have lived our lives in the way God has intended us to live our lives.