Homily for Friday, 14 November 2014– Ferial

Friday of the 32nd week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: 2 John 4-9; Psalm 119:1, 2, 10, 11, 17-18; Luke 17:26-37

Is it not tempting, when we hear ominous readings like those we hear today, to think that they do not concern us? Jesus uses frightening images of the end times in our Gospel reading, which recall the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in the Old Testament. And then the Second Letter of John warns about “many deceivers” and the “antichrist.” Is it not easy to think that these “fire and brimstone” messages belong to the past or are for somebody else?

I can imagine the people of the time of Jesus and John falling into this temptation: “Somebody else is like Lot’s wife; not me. Somebody else is being compared with those destroyed in the Great Flood; not me. I am strong enough not to fall to the ‘antichrist’; John must be directing his message at other people.”

Could not frightening messages like those in our readings tempt us to deflect the harshness of these messages away from ourselves? And yet, if we deflect the harshness of our readings away from ourselves, we are in danger of missing their point; a point that is very much applicable to all of us. Jesus’ point is one of being prepared for the coming to fullness of the Kingdom of God. Within communities; within families; even within the Church there will be people (hopefully few) who will not recognize that this message is for them; for all of us. Some will attempt to influence others into their error and sin, dividing communities; families; the Church perhaps. But Jesus asks us to be prepared for the coming of God’s kingdom.

The Second Letter of John gives us a practical way to be prepared for this definitive coming of God’s kingdom; for the end times: “Love one another.” This so simple and yet so difficult (in fact impossible without God’s grace) commandment to live out is not “a new commandment,” John says. It is the same way we as Christians have been asked to act “from the beginning.”

But this commandment to “love one another,” like Jesus’ urging us to be prepared for the end times, can easily be lost if we focus on avoiding “the antichrist”; if we focus on to whom Jesus might be directing his frightening references to Sodom and Gomorrah; to the Great Flood.

If instead we focus on simple acts of kindness; on giving thanks to other people and to God for acts of kindness and service toward us; if we are mindful of the poor, the sick, and the disadvantaged; if we build unity in our communities, our families, and our Church; if only, as our beloved Fr. Jack Rosse, whose anniversary of death we mark today, said, we “remember to share our smile,” then I think we will have captured the point of our readings today.

This is no new commandment; it is “from the beginning”: “Love one another.” This message is as applicable to us now as in Jesus’ and John’s time. Love, in the many ways we can show it, is the best preparedness for the coming to fullness of God’s kingdom.