Week 34 Friday (Year 2)

Readings: Apocalypse 20:1-4, 11 - 21:2; Psalm 84; Luke 21:29-33

The fundamental battle of the Apocalypse is the battle between life and death, and it is also the final battle. The passage we read today speaks of the death of death and of hell. The One who is risen from among the dead now holds the keys of death and of hell. He is for life, and is Life Itself. To Him is brought the Book of Life in which the names of the just are written. The just are raised from the dead for the moment of vindication when all that has been unjust will be rectified, all that has been oppressed will be liberated, all that has been trampled down will be allowed to grow and flourish once again.

Another image is that of the bride. She is the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven, the holy city established in the new heavens and the new earth, prepared as a bride to meet her husband. The city is the place teeming wth life. It is the place of society and community and communion. Marriage is about life too, a fulness of personal life in this highest of friendships which marriage is. There is no human communion that brings us closer to the Divine mystery of love. There is no human relationship that serves as well to illustrate how God is towards His people.

And the bride and groom want life for each other. They celebrate each other's life and they celebrate their life together. One of the mysteries closest to us is the conception of children, the fruit of this kind of love and friendship, actual new lives being produced from the love of bride and groom, their love translated in the form of new human beings. The French philosopher Gabriel Marcel wrote that to say 'I love you' is to say 'you will not die'. The lover cannot contemplate the death of his beloved. Not just sentimentally but metaphysically: to love another person and to think of that person ceasing to be are contradictory, incompatible thoughts.

My words will not pass away, Jesus says in the gospel reading. This generation will not pass away before these things come to pass. He speaks to us of immortality, of realities that will not cease to be. The life he brings, the life he is, will not cease to be. And its power is seen most clearly in the moment that seems like its greatest weakness. Entering into death the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, the Son of Man who will come on the clouds of heaven, destroys death forever. He restores life, and a fulness of life, calling us forward into that same experience, to die with him to sin and evil and the powers of death in order to rise to life and light in the holy city where our joy will be to sing forever the glories of our Beloved.

Week 34 Thursday (Year 2)

Readings: Apocalypse 18:1-2, 21-23, 19:1-3, 9a; Psalm 100; Luke 21:20-28

It is easy to talk in apocalyptic terms and to play with the images which the Book of Revelation contains. It is easy to toy with images of destruction, the collapse of cities, cataclysms of great violence, the end of ordinary life. It is a far different matter to live through an experience like that, as many people do every day, in this past year the people of Ukraine in particular. How imagine the heartbreak as people are forced to abandon their homes and towns? The heartbreak of leaving sons and fathers and husbands behind? The heartbreak of seeing the contempt with which their country is treated by the aggressor? The heartbreak as they see important buildings and monuments destroyed, cities devastated. And such experiences are repeated in many parts of the world where there are wars and rumours of wars, famine and pestilence, oppression and destruction.

It is easy also to say 'at the heart of the great drama of the Apocalypse stands the Lamb who opens the seals, the key to history, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world'. It is easy to say, of the apocalyptic texts we find in the gospels, that always at the heart of these dramas is the Son of Man, coming on the clouds with power and great might.

Of course we believe these things to be true. And a voice saying these things from a place of comfort and security is one thing. Voices like those of the Dominican friars in Ukraine or the Dominican sisters in Iraq some years ago, faithful through months and even years of loss, and keeping faith in the Lamb of God and the Son of Man - well that is a very different thing. These are voices speaking from the midst of destruction and persecution. These are voices that inspire and encourage all who hear them. These are voices that continue to say to us, in the darkest of moments and out of the darkest of situations, 'raise your heads, trust in the Lord, because your redemption is always near at hand'.

Week 34 Wednesday (Year 2)

Readings: Revelation 15:1-4; Psalm 98; Luke 21:12-19

When the time for its judgement comes, the world will be judged by fire. This fire of the presence of God is on the one hand a fire of judgement, consuming all that is arrogant and evil. On the other hand it is a shining 'sun of righteousness', coming with healing in its rays. It is the fire of God's fury and of God's victory, the fire of God's love which both consumes and heals.

The crucifixion of Jesus is the moment of judgement, the world's crisis, dilemma or crux, the paradox in which all the good things of the old order are consumed along with all its evil, and a new order is established at least in principle, in the principle that is Jesus Christ, the source of all grace. The cross will forever render us confused and uncertain, wondering and pondering like Mary standing at its foot.

At the heart of this new revelation of God's love and anger is a violent act. This is what we expect in apocalyptic writing. But the violence is not in the end a violence perpretated by God or by the agents of God. It is rather a violence undergone by God and by the agents of God, a violence endured, so that the old order, the spiral of hatred, is finally undone and a new order, a sea of glass, is established on which those who are being transfigured by this redemptive fire can stand and praise the glory of God.

Jesus warns his followers that it will be for them as it has been for him but it is an opportunity to bear witness. That means an opportunity to participate in revealing to the world what God is like, the Living God, the Father of Jesus. What will seem at first like loss, uncertainty and confusion, being struck dumb, will turn out not to have been loss at all (not a hair on your head will be destroyed). Hated by all for the sake of Jesus' name, the martyrs are the great witnesses to the enduring of this love in the world's history.

We pray for the courage to stay with Jesus as he leads us into the mystery of the Divine Love. We know that this fire will be dangerous for us, burning away the old man, dissolving all arrogance and evil in us. But we know too that it is the sun of righteousness, the radiant light of God's own life, a holy and a blessed fire, come with healing in its rays.

Week 34 Tuesday (Year 2)

Readings: Revelation 14:14-19; Psalm 96; Luke 21:5-11

There is confusion and uncertainty in the two apocalyptic passages we hear today, the one from the Book of Revelation and the one from the Gospel of Luke. It is how the text might also leave us feeling, confused and uncertain. We might feel there is danger here, so much violence, usual in apocalyptic literature, but how are we to receive it? What are we to make of it?

The Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder argued that only an oppressed people, in the time in which they are suffering oppression, can understand the Book of Revelation. Christians who have become in any way comfortable in the world, particularly in terms of power and wealth, find it increasingly difficult to hear the Book of Revelation and to know what to do with it.

What has it got to do with us? From our position of comfort we might be tempted to feel that these readings are not at all relevant to ourselves. They are about either the distant past or the distant future. We know there is a connection with the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple by the Roman armies in 70AD. And we do not really expect Jesus to return soon, do we?

On the journey with him towards Jerusalem we were, at times, confused and uncertain about what he was getting at. And still we stayed with him because we saw or sensed something crucial in him, something crucial for our lives. So now, when we have arrived with him at his destination, and the events of his passion begin to unfold, we are asked to stay with him to the end. (Having loved his own who were in the world he loved them to the end: so Saint John's gospel, and we are asked to love him to the end.)

The journey reaches its conclusion not just in the city, Jerusalem, but in the heart of the city, the Temple. So the last part of Jesus' public ministry is conducted there (Luke 19:45-21:38). This is where, for Luke, the drama is centred. Luke's gospel begins and ends in the Temple, the old Temple. The Acts of the Apostles speaks about the new Temple, Jesus Christ, raised from the dead and living now in those who believe in him, spreading out from Jerusalem, up and down the Holy Land, and eventualy across the known world.

The destruction of the physical building by the Romans confirms a more radical collapse of the old Temple. The way in which God had, up to then, been present to His people is dissolved (the curtain is completely torn in two, from top to bottom) and in its place is the new way in which God is present to His people. Jesus is the new place of the presence of God, firstly in his own body and word and life, and then, when his Spirit has been sent on the apostles, in the church, the community of believers which is now the privileged place of God's presence.

It is why all those great prophetic texts about the Exile - the loss of the land, the fall of Jerusalem, the departure of God's glory from the Temple - can all be applied by Christians to the events of Jesus' suffering and death. All is being undone, creation disembodied, the order of the world is shaken, the centre cannot hold, confusion and uncertainty reign - and through the mist and dust and danger of all that comes the Son of Man, come to judge the world and its peoples, come to strip us completely of the clutter of our idols in order to lead us into the presence of the Living God.

Christ the King (Year B)

Readings: Daniel 7:13-14; Psalm 93; Revelation 1:5-8; John 18:33b-37

In the traditional fifteen mysteries of the Rosary the central moment was the third sorrowful mystery, the crowning of Jesus with thorns. It is a moment familiar from the passion story, as recorded in the gospels of Matthew, Mark and John. It is bizarre, crude and obscene. Jesus is mocked as if he were a king: 'exalted' by being dressed in purple, 'honoured' by being crowned with thorns, 'respected' by being orally abused, 'venerated' by being slapped across the face, and 'anointed' by the spittle of the soldiers.

The prophetic visions of the Old Testament had often spoken of kingdoms. They painted pictures of armies and of victories, of enemies overthrown and of God's people established in a reign that would endure for ever.

The prophetic visions of the New Testament are very similar, but with one striking addition. At the head of the armies, at the centre of the battles, on the throne of victory, stands a lamb. The one who was pierced is now the ruler of the kings of the earth. The one who was annihilated, stripped of all friends, of all possessions, of all security, of all dignity, of all future possibilities, made to be nothing - this one is 'the First and the Last, the beginning and the end'.

A well-known story mocks a proud emperor who thought he was wearing a new suit of fine clothes when all he had on was his underwear. In contrast, Jesus was dressed up 'as if' he were a king - and he really was one. Indeed, the glory of God was revealed in Jesus most clearly in that moment when he was crowned with thorns.

'He loves us', says the Apocalypse today, simply, straightforwardly. 'Perfect love casts out fear', says Saint John in his first letter. Secure in the love of the Father, Jesus gained the victory of the cross. From that brief day of his passion and death, Jesus' martyrdom thunders across the ages and proclaims forever the truth about God: 'He loves us'. There is nothing more serious, nothing more valuable, nothing more true, nothing else worth having, because nothing is comparable to 'the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord'.

Jesus' faithful witness to the truth of God establishes the kingdom that is indestructible, the eternal kingdom. It is built on the solid foundation of what Saint Augustine calls 'the humility of God'. The one who is mocked subverts all human pretension and pride. He teaches us how to conquer our pride, and leads us into his kingdom of truth and life, holiness and grace, justice, love and peace. The weakness of God, His being crowned with thorns, has established this eternal and universal kingdom. For the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

There are times when this is difficult to believe, when we are obliged, for example, to protect and defend with force the people we love and the way of life we value. But we know too that violence always generates more violence, that it is not the way to break the spiral. So the feast calls us to deeper meditation on our common humanity, on our common plight, on our need for 'salvation'.

Week 34 Friday (Year 1)

Readings: Daniel 7:2-14; Daniel 3:75-81; Luke 21:29-33

Trafalgar Square in Central London boasts a column with a statue of Nelson on top, four great lions, some fountains, and four great plinths, three of which support enormous statues of military heroes and the fourth of which is empty. Or at least much of the time it is empty. In recent years there have been competitions to see what ought to go on this fourth plinth and the work of many artists, professional and amateur, has been exhibited on it.

In November 2005 a life-sized statue of Jesus was placed on the fourth plinth. Compared with the monsters on the other three plinths, men and horses many times magnified, this life-sized figure looked pitiable and pathetic. He was a pale and feeble creature, not impressive at all when compared with Nelson and his military companions. They are the right size and strike the right attitude for expressing power, importance, and significance. This is what makes the world go round, makes history, gets things done, and keeps them moving. He on the other hand was practically invisible in the great and busy square.

Today's reading from the Book of Daniel speaks about four monsters which represent four kingdoms, each more powerful, more important, and more significant than the one that preceded it. They are monstrous not just in their size and shape but in their cruelty and indifference. They came, they saw, and they conquered ... but each in turn corrupted and collapsed, each in turn gave way to a monster greater than itself.

Into the midst of this heaving of monsters comes one like a son of man, a human being, representing a different kingdom, one that has its origins and strength in God, and it is his kingdom that is eternal. The more empty and insecure a kingdom, the more vacuous and superficial it is morally and spiritually, then the more it needs the panoply of monstrosity. Like the visions that tormented Saint Antony the Hermit the monsters of the Book of Daniel are full of sound and fury, flamboyant and distracting, but in the end they are devoid of meaning and value, and they fall under the weight of their own emptiness.

The kingdom of God, a kingdom of love and truth, is full and secure, strong and reliable, and it can be among us without the panoply of monstrosity. The kingdom of God is among us like a human being among monsters (Daniel). The kingdom of God is among us like a young woman who is expecting a child (Isaiah). The kingdom of God is among us like a lamb at the centre of apocalyptic turbulence (Revelation).

All the things foretold by Jesus in the course of Luke 21, and which we have heard again these past few days, things monstrous and apocalyptic, all of these things are fulfilled in a young man stripped, led to death like a lamb, crushed by the powers of this world, raised on a cross in foolishness and weakness ... but because of who he is, because of the love in his heart, and because of the truth on his lips, this foolishness is the wisdom of God and this weakness is God's strength.

And yet we often want God to show Himself in the garb of worldly kingdoms, with glorious pomp and terrifying majesty. That would all be more impressive, would it not, more convincing, and more effective. One person looking at the statue of Jesus in Trafalgar Square said 'if that's Jesus Christ, it's a bloody miracle. You couldn't put your faith in someone like that, he's as weak as a kitten'. Another said that 'his smallness just shows what little meaning Christianity has in the world today.' The artist, Mark Wallinger, said he wanted to give Jesus a place among the oversized imperial symbols because he was 'at the very least a political leader of an oppressed people'. Another comment begins in sentiment but ends in the most profound thought quoted: 'I just want to go up there and give him a hug ... he looks so vulnerable you just want to take him home. Seen from the side, it's just amazing. And the closer you get the more young and beautiful he gets'.

It becomes an invitation to reconsider our perspective on Jesus, and our position in relation to him. Seen from the side - what can it mean? - it's just amazing. You want to take him home, at first on account of his vulnerability but later for other reasons. Because the closer you get the more young and beautiful he gets. The monstrosities have their day and bite the dust. The one raised on the cross, weak as a kitten, continues to draw all people to himself. It is he who will reign for ever and ever, this Beauty, ever ancient and ever new, for the closer you get the younger and more beautiful our God is.

Week 34 Tuesday (Year 1)

Readings: Daniel  2:31-45; Daniel 3:57-61; Luke 21:5-11

It does not seem fair. It seems very unfair in fact: this extraordinary climax to a drama in which none of us chose to get involved in the first place. It is all God's idea - to invent the thing and keep it going. Why should he get so furious if his creatures make mistakes or opt out or lose interest?

We find ourselves within this story, like characters in a play, at the mercy of the creator, the writer of the story. To opt out, to say I do not want to have anything more to do with this God or with the Christian story, is simply to move to a different part of the stage, to take on a different role in the same play.

We seem to be trapped. And the stakes at the end are so high: at least if the gospel readings of these next three days are true. An extraordinary fate awaits us, who never really chose to be involved in this drama in the first place, who never agreed to play for such high stakes. And the preacher is supposed to do what seems like some kind of mental gymnastics to show how all this talk of judgement and punishment, fire and disaster, fearful sights and great signs from heaven, is just another angle on our good God, who is only love, only truth, only goodness.

On the other hand it is all true and deadly serious. There are wars and revolutions. Hundreds of people have died through violence in the past weeks. There are plagues and famines. There are fearful sights.  There is unimaginable cruelty and exploitation of women, of children, of men too. There is betrayal and violence and persecution.

We are here whether we like it or not. And we need salvation here: light in which to understand, and help to make changes that are beyond our capacity, if we are to grow towards the fulness of our being.

It is a strange story, all the stranger for being true. It is not armchair stuff. We have to be ready to do battle. We have to be ready to fight for our souls. We have to be ready to defend love and justice. We have to be ready for tears and sweat. We have to be ready to lay down our lives.

We do not know what God is. As life moves on the answer to the question 'what is God?' becomes more elusive. As the world's history moves on the answer to this question too seems ever more elusive. But we believe that Jesus Christ is God's best word about himself. He is a word of truth and love, of blessing and healing. He is the image of the unseen God, the first-born of all creation (and so he is fundamental to our being in the story at all) and he is the first to be born from the dead (and so he is the principle of our salvation into eternal life). He has made peace, but it is by his death on the cross that he has done it.

Although he dwelt among us as truth and love, as blessing and healing, although he worked deeds that brought life, forgiveness and freedom, still, this word spoken by the Father from all eternity, dwelling in time with us, provoked opposition and fear, violence and hatred. Wherever that same word is still proclaimed authentically and wherever his message is truly lived, it still provokes these things.

It is all very strange. Jesus teaches, and shows, that love is the first and the last word about God. And yet Jesus provokes the world's hatred and violence.  It is not always easy to see that love is the last as it is the first word. Sometimes it is very difficult to see this, whether in some pages of the Bible (which in this simply reflect the reality of the human world) or in the events of our own lives.

Feast of Christ the King (Year A)

Readings: Ezekiel 34:11-12, 15-17; Psalm 23(22); 1 Corinthians 15:20-26, 28; Matthew 25:31-46

The great judgement scene with which we bring to an end our year long reading of Matthew's Gospel is so well known, and its meaning so obvious, that there seems no need to preach at all today. Just go and do what the Lord says if we want to be found among the sheep on the day of judgement. We hear it sometimes as if it is a sneak preview of the universal judgement. And for that great and final examination we already know all the right answers! Just go and do it.

But this parable of the judgment is not so much a sneak preview of some future event as it is a warning about our lives here and now. It brings home to us - it seeks to bring home to us - the seriousness of the decisions with which we are faced each day. How will I treat this person? How will I respond to this need? How will I help in this situation? What about the beggar asking me for money, the person I see quietly weeping, the criminal I know whom I've never visited? If what the Lord says in this parable is true - that our relationship with Christ is our relationship with others, and that our relationship with others is our relationship with Christ - are we not in a good position already to judge ourselves? How we treat others is how we are treating Christ and if I want to know what the truth of my relationship with Christ is then I simply reflect on how I have treated others and how I continue to treat them. It is the first and greatest commandment evaluated.

One move we might make at this point is to decide that 'judgement' is a bad word and that Christ couldn't possibly mean that we will be subjected to any such thing at the end. We have developed, surely, to the point where we offer each other non-judgemental listening and unconditional love. Counsellors offer a service that will be non-judgemental. (How many customers would a counsellor get if he or she were to offer 'counselling with judgement'!) In any case, who is entitled to sit in judgement on anybody else? Who is so just, of such integrity, so absolutely objective, that he or she could fairly sit in judgement on another person?

Well we know that there is one human being who can do this and it is part of the Good News that Christ will be our judge. When we hear that sentence - 'Christ will be our judge' - we should hear first the word 'Christ' and that should fill us with joy, relief and confidence, rather than hearing the word 'judge' in the first place filling us with fear and dread. Yet it is a judgement, more incisive and more penetrating than any other. And at the same it is a judgement that is more affirming, more sustaining, more creative, than any other. This Truth really does set us free. If we hear this gospel simply as a trailer for a future event it may not be as helpful to us as if we hear it as a call to action now.

In the background are judgement scenes already familiar from Jewish thought but significantly transformed in a number of ways. Notice that there is no special place for 'Israel', or for 'disciples'. It is a universal judgement, of all the peoples of the earth. This is not only because 'all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God', because all are in need of the salvation that comes from Christ: it is also because all are called to the same kingdom, all are destined for eternal life, God wants all people to be saved.

A second new thing is this: the Son of Man, the Messiah, is given a role that is new. Christ is the door-keeper and the reaper of the harvest. It is he who gathers the kingdom to present to His Father. He is between the Father and us, the mediator, belonging to both sides. He sits at the right hand of the Father and is sent from there to judge the living and the dead. He comes to us from the side of God. But he is also on our side. Christ is the first fruits of the kingdom offered by him to the Father. Just like us, he commends his spirit to the Father. And the Father, in raising him from the dead and exalting him to his right hand in heaven, establishes him as King of all and Judge of all.

Christ is everywhere in this judgement scene. He is the judge. He is the first-fruits of the kingdom being judged: the one who kept the great commandment perfectly. He is identified with all of humanity, since to care for them is to care for him, to neglect them is to neglect him.

The Church's liturgical year ends, effectively, with this feast of Christ the King. With it ends also, for this year, our reading of Matthew's Gospel. This judgement scene is the final part of the fifth discourse in that Gospel. Matthew gives us a new Pentateuch, a new Torah, made up of five great discourses, beginning with the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount, and ending with the great parables of Judgement culminating in this one. All that is left now is the Passion narrative ...

And it is in that Passion narrative that we see the accomplishment of the great commandment. It is above all in his sacrifice that we see the love of Christ which motivates us. In that sacrifice the hungry are fed, the thirsty are watered, the naked are clothed, the sick and imprisoned are visited. When we look at the Cross of Christ we see the judgement already come into the world. The Cross is the throne from which our King reigns in this world. The Cross is the key that opens the door of the Kingdom. The Cross is where we see the consequences of sin and the mystery of God's love.

Why should we feed the hungry, clothe the naked, give drink to the thirsty, visit the sick and imprisoned? Is it only so that we might gain a reward? Is it a kind of Pascal's wager, placing our bets carefully on what the outcome of our lives might be?

It is interesting that no motivation is mentioned in the great judgement scene of Matthew 25. It seems that it does not matter why you feed the hungry or visit the sick, just that you did it, and do it. What moves people in this kingdom that Christ is preparing for the Father is Christ's own love for the Father, the Holy Spirit, poured into human hearts. This is not some kind of external motivation, moving us from outside, a promise of reward or a threat of punishment. It is a motivation from within, so that the care of others becomes a natural and spontaneous movement of the one in whom the Spirit dwells. We do what is good because we have come to love what is good. And just as any truth, no matter by whom it is uttered, is from the Holy Spirit, so any act of goodness, no matter by whom it is done, is from the same Holy Spirit of love.

Feast of Christ the King (Year C)

Readings: 2 Samuel 5:1-3; Psalm 122; Colossians 1:12-20; Luke 23:35-43

In ancient Rome, 'dignity' referred to the weight of authority a public figure gained through his experience and service of a community. Later it was something attached to public roles even where there was a distance, more or less great, between the personal character of the occupant and the significance of the role. Thus popes and presidents, prime ministers and monarchs, are 'dignified', even where there is such a distance, because of what they represent for the ones they serve. If the distance becomes too great, of course, something has to be done!

Although the prophet Isaiah foretells that the suffering Messiah would have 'no beauty that we should desire him', Jesus is in fact the only person in whom there is no distance at all between the person he is and the roles he occupies. There is a simple identity of who he is and what he does, and both his person and his roles are worthy of the highest dignity.

Biblical and Christian tradition teaches us that he is the priest, the prophet, and the king. The readings for today's feast, not surprisingly, talk about him as a king, king of Israel of the royal house of David, and king of the Jews in his enthronement on the cross.

The events of his passion leave him with no dignity at all, as Isaiah had foretold: dressed in royal purple only in order to be mocked and spat at, crowned with thorns rather than jewels, his triumphal procession is the way of the cross, his enthronement is his being nailed to its wood, and his exaltation in the sight of the people is his being lifted up on that cross. He was despised and rejected, the man of sorrows acquainted with grief. Nothing seems further from the 'wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting father and prince of peace', to whom earlier sections of Isaiah had looked forward.

Yet he continues to speak of his 'kingdom'. It is not of this world, he tells Pilate, and now, from the cross, he tells the thief that today he will be with him, Jesus, in 'paradise'. As king and shepherd of his people he leads them - us - not into a new historical period, or a new political arrangement, or a new era of prosperity. He opens the way into a new reality, of which he is the beginning, the head, and the king. Compared to this new reality all that we know is darkness and his is the kingdom of light. From the cross he judges the world by his love and his truth. He is the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, we read elsewhere, the only true king, because this 'first-born of creation' is now also 'first-born from the dead'.

The Church, his body, is the sign and foretaste of his kingdom which today's liturgy tells us is a kingdom of truth and life, of holiness and grace, of justice, love and peace. But we can never forget that this divine and human reality has been established through his death on the cross.

'Let us give thanks to the Lord, our God', the liturgy invites us as we contemplate his sacrifice. Dignum et iustum est, we reply. It is a difficult phrase to translate well - 'it is right and fitting', 'it is meet and just'. But notice that ancient Roman word 'dignity'. In spite of its being trampled underfoot, we acknowledge the weight of authority in this man, this man of incomparable dignity. Ecce homo, Christ our King, in whom all things hold together, through whom and for whom all things were created, through whom and for whom all things were redeemed.

This homily was first published on the Torch website for the Feast of Christ the King 2010