Tag Archives: Babylon

No Stone Will be Left: 34th Week

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Enrique Simonet, Jesus over Jerusalem

We read Luke’s Gospel this week, the 34th week of the year. Luke  follows Mark’s Gospel closely in describing Jesus as he arrives in Jerusalem from Galilee, but he makes some simple, yet significant changes to Mark’s account. 

Mark’s account says that Jesus went back and forth to Bethany each day while teaching in the temple in Jerusalem. Luke’s account doesn’t mention Jesus’ stay in Bethany at all. Jesus comes to Jerusalem to enter the temple of God. 

The temple has great significance in Luke’s gospel.  Earlier in his gospel, Mary and Joseph bring Jesus there after his birth. His identity is validated there. For Jesus the temple is his Father’s house, where he belongs. It’s his home, where he teaches with authority, confronts his enemies and gives hope to those like the poor widow.

In Luke’s extension of his gospel, the Acts of the Apostles, the temple is also significant because the church is born there. For Luke, a disciple of Paul, we are also the temples of God and the Spirit of God dwells in us.

In Luke’s gospel, Jesus teaches about the end times in the temple area about the end ; in Mark’s gospel he teaches about it from the Mount of Olives. Though the temple stones be cast down, Jesus is the cornerstone, and so when “ powerful earthquakes, famines, and plagues from place to place; and awesome sights and mighty signs will come from the sky,” he remains our Rock.  

In this week’s readings, Luke adds some  important words to Mark’s fearful account of the end time. The end is coming soon. Mark seems to say. The end waits “until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled,” Luke’s account says.(Luke 21:24)  The last times are delayed, not imminent. They will come at an indeterminate time, after the gentile world receives the gospel.

Yet, because Mark’s account was held by other followers of Jesus, Luke does not dismiss it.

Perhaps because the trees are shedding their leaves now in this part of the world, I notice another small change Luke makes to Mark’s gospel. “Learn a lesson from the fig tree. When its branch becomes tender and sprouts leaves, you know that summer is near. In the same way, when you see these things happening, know that he is near, at the gates” Jesus says in Mark. (Mark 13: 28-29)

Luke adds to the fig tree “and all the other trees.” (Luke 21:29-31) Why all the other trees? Was Luke adapting the message of Jesus to those forested regions in Asia Minor unlike Palestine, where creation in its many trees spoke of Word made flesh as well?

The gospel writers struggled with the great mysteries of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus and tried to adapt it to their times and place. We struggle with these mysteries too.

Pope Francis, in a letter on the study of history, said we need to read the fundamental texts of Christianity and understand them without “ideological filters or theoretical preconceptions” . “A study of history protects us from ‘ecclesiological monophysitism’, that is, from an overly angelic conception of the Church, a Church without spots and wrinkles…  A proper sense of history can help us develop a better sense of proportion and perspective in coming to understand reality as it is and not as we imagine it or would prefer reality to be.”

Like us, Luke and Mark struggled to understand.

Ezekiel, Words for Hard Times

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jewsinexile
Jewish captives led to Babylon, 6th century BC

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We begin reading the Prophet Ezekiel weekdays at Mass. He was a priest brought captive to Babylon along with King Johoiachin and members of the Jewish elite after the Babylonians crushed the Jewish revolt  in 597 BC. He could be one of those pictured above, on their way to exile .

The Jewish elite taken to Babylon were convinced God would never permit Jerusalem to be destroyed. When it was destroyed, they were just as convinced it would be rebuilt quickly. You’re wrong in both cases, Ezekiel tells them. Jerusalem will be destroyed and it won’t be God’s fault– it’s yours. You are unfaithful leaders.

“Thus says the Lord GOD: Woe to the shepherds of Israel
who have been pasturing themselves!
Should not shepherds, rather, pasture sheep?
You have fed off their milk, worn their wool,
and slaughtered the fatlings,
but the sheep you have not pastured.
You did not strengthen the weak nor heal the sick
nor bind up the injured.”

Jerusalem won’t be restored by your power either, Ezekiel says. It will take time, and it will come in God’s time, not yours, by God’s power, not yours. In the meantime, ask God to take away your hearts of stone and give you natural hearts.

The Jewish leaders didn’t like Ezekiel’s message:

“Son of man, listen! The house of Israel is saying, ‘The vision he sees is a long time off; he prophesies for distant times!’ Say to them therefore: Thus says the Lord GOD: None of my words shall be delayed any longer. Whatever I say is final; it shall be done.”

Hard times lead to impatience, to blaming others, to thinking God is absent, but hard times are blessed times, Ezekiel says, when God is more present than ever. God will save his people.

“Thus says the Lord GOD,”

I swear I am coming… I will claim my sheep…I will save my sheep…
I myself will look after and tend my sheep.” (Ezekiel 34,1-11)

Good words for us today?

Telling the Truth in Dangerous Places

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The two places recalled in today’s Mass readings are dangerous places for telling the truth. The three young men in Babylon tell the truth in the hearing of a king who wants all to bow down to him. They remain loyal to their God and they are thrown into a fiery furnace, but God keeps them unharmed.

Jesus speaks the truth in the temple in Jerusalem. His message is inflammatory, according to the temple leaders. They would rather he be silent or go somewhere else, preferably back to some little village in Galilee. But he speaks his truth and tells them they are not children of Abraham, but people looking after their own interests. Their dialogue as recorded in John’s gospel still crackles with controversy.

Jesus will be sent to death, but God will raise him up.

From what we know about the Jewish temple at that time it does seem like a place where you had to watch what you said. Though the Romans kept Judea on a loose leash, they didn’t like rebellions. Their representatives in the area were not the best  administrators then–Pontius Pilate really wasn’t good at managing Herod or his Jewish subjects. Historians say he was incompetent.

In the late 60’s some young Jewish leaders attached to the temple would massacre a detachment of Roman soldiers and bring Titus and his legions into Judea to level the temple and Jerusalem itself.

The temple was a volatile place; the temple area today still is. Martin Goodman’s book, Rome and Jerusalem, tells the story of the sad tale of Jerusalem’s destruction and the events that led up to it.

But we still have to speak the truth at dangerous times and places. Yes, even today. Not everyplace or everybody wants to hear it. Don’t mention things like the need for addressing the inequalities that exist in our world in some places.  How can we make sure people everywhere have enough to eat and drink and a place to live? How can we respect human life, from birth to death? How can we deal with the climate change? How can we live together as a human family in our world?

You can’t speak about issues like this in some places, even some of our churches. But if Jesus offers an example, we should.