Word to the Wise
Sunday, November 17, 2019 - 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time - C
[Mal 3:19-20a; 2 Thess 3:7-12; Luke 21:5-19]While some people were speaking about how the temple was adorned with costly stones and votive offerings, Jesus said, "All that you see here - the days will come when there will not be left a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down.".... [Luke]
The story of Jesus' ministry in the Gospel According to Luke is broadly organized around his journey from his humble beginnings in Galilee to his arrival in Jerusalem, his crucifixion and his resurrection. The Acts of the Apostles, by the same evangelist, takes up the post-resurrection story of the spread of the gospel to the whole known world at the time. In today's gospel scripture, we have Jesus now in Jerusalem with his disciples and other followers. If you can imagine going from a small village church in a rural area to a church like St. Peter's in Rome, you can imagine the awe and wonder of the disciples from villages in Galilee and its surrounding areas. Herod the Great spent nearly 40 years restoring the temple and that restoration was still fresh in Jesus' day. Jesus tells them bluntly that it would all be destroyed! The very center and symbol of Jewish faith would be left in a rubble. Luke was writing after the Romans did destroy Jerusalem and the temple in 77 AD, roughly 40 years after Jesus' death and resurrection!
The disciples had to learn that their faith did not depend on the temple but on Jesus. It would cost them dearly. Hence the warnings were not simply things that Jesus once said, but are warnings in the here and now - not just for Jesus' audience or Luke's audience, but for US too! As beautiful and magnificent as St. Peter's Basilica and other monumental church buildings are, the Eucharist celebrated in a mud-walled space or in an open field is the same. The faith that gathers thousands in St. Peter's is the same faith that is shared in a home Mass. It is our faith in the face of adversity, as Jesus points out in today's gospel, that sustains us to the end, not the building or space in which we gather. The recent fire in Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris shows how important such a building can be as a religious (and secular political) symbol, but it is no substitute for the faith that motivated its construction and the efforts to rescue it..
Today we will gather around the world to celebrate Jesus' life, death and resurrection in spaces magnificent and humble. Those spaces, sacred as they may be to us, are subject to ruin. Our faith in Christ is what will last. AMEN