An optional deep dive

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This post is a more detailed discussion regarding the nature of Luke’s third prediction of Jerusalem’s fall, a far more detailed speech (the others come in 13:34-35; 19:41-44). It is a bit of a deep dive beyond this morning’s post which included summary information. So, feel free to dive in …. or wait until we pick up the thread tomorrow morning.

The speech’s character emerges when one examines the parallels in Matthew 24:1-35 and Mark 13:1-37. A comparison of these parallels shows how Luke has drawn out some additional teaching and made some distinct points. Some of these points emerge from the additional material Luke includes (vv. 18, 21-22, 24, 28 are certainly additional material; vv. 19-20, 23b-26, 34-36 are probably additional). Other emphases surface because of the way Luke has presented the traditional material. Where Matthew speaks specifically of the “the desolating abomination” (Mt 24:15, referring to Daniel 12:11), for example, Luke simply refers to the “desolation” (Lk 21:20).

The significance of these differences becomes clear as one carefully compares the accounts. Luke emphasizes the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 in a way the other Gospels do not. Mark and Matthew anticipate the fall of Jerusalem in the way they introduce the discourse, but Luke focuses on the short-term event in a way Matthew and Mark do not. His temporal indicators (vv. 9, 12) draw the reader back toward the present before really focusing on the end in verses 25-28. A transition begins to appear in verses 20-24, but until verse 19 the focus is still on events before the judgment of the capital in A.D. 70, which is not yet the end.

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Some Context for the End

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This coming Sunday is the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Lectionary Cycle C. Two Sundays ago was the encounter with Zacchaeus in Jericho (Luke 19:1-10). This followed by Jesus’ parable of the ten gold coins (19:11-27) and Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem and the events of Palm Sunday (v.28). What follows has been a series of confrontations with the Jerusalem authorities in the Temple, an example of which was the previous Sunday gospel in which the Sadducees confronted Jesus around the topic of resurrection. The confrontation now shifts to the future tense. The extended dialogue concerns the:

  • coming persecutions and destruction of the Temple (21:5-19), our gospel reading;
  • destruction of the Jerusalem (21:20-24); and
  • coming of the Son of Man (21:25-36).

It is tempting to refer to these verses as St. Luke’s “little apocalypse,” given its similarity to the accounts in Mark and Matthew – and the ongoing fascination of evangelical American Christianity with the “end times” popularized by the “Left Behind” series of books and movies. Described in another post later this morning with more details for those interested, Luke’s account is different in that all the “temporal markers” in the telling are focused on the present. Luke reserves the future focus for later verses outside our gospel text. Up through verse 18 the focus remains on events before the judgment of the capital in A.D. 70, which is not yet the end. While there are apocalyptic elements, it is not the final words of Jesus, but an introduction to his suffering and death.

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Temples of the Lord

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The usual sequence of Sunday Gospels is interrupted as the Church celebrates the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica. The Lateran Basilica in Rome is not the oldest church in Rome – but did you know that the Lateran Basilica is the Cathedral of the Diocese of Rome – the place from where the Bishop of Rome, Pope Leo, leads his diocese even as he leads the church universal. The Lateran did not even start out as a church – it was a palace on the Lateran Hill that came into the possession of the Emperor Constantine. Later the emperor gifted it to the church and by 324 A.D. it was converted to become a church and was declared to be the “mother church” of all Christianity: ecclesia omnium urbis et orbis ecclesiarum mater et caput – of all the churches in the city and the world, the mother and head. The underground and pilgrim Christians now had a permanent home – and so it has been for 1700 years.

I love the imagery from the first reading: “The angel brought me back to the entrance of the temple, and I saw water flowing out…” It is from the Prophet Ezekiel who is speaking to the Israelites exiled to Babylonia. They know that Jerusalem and the Temple are about to be destroyed, but Ezekiel tells them that one is not an everlasting Temple. And so he shares his vision of water flowing out from this heavenly, living temple. It is the water of life. It restores and renews everything. The plants flourish; the fish are plentiful. His message is that the exile will be for a while, but God is with them. Even now the Lord is at work renewing and rebuilding the Temple on a new foundation. No doubt the people wonder “when and where.”

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Blessed John Duns Scotus

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Duns Scotus1

November 8th is the feast day of Blessed John Duns Scotus, a Franciscan friar from Scotland noted for his theological and philosophical work in the high-middle ages (late 13th and early 14th centuries). Scotus’ work was in the generation that followed Thomas of Aquinas and Bonaventure. His work was complex and nuanced, and he is generally considered to be one of the three most important philosopher-theologians of his time. He was given the medieval accolade Doctor Subtilis (Subtle Doctor) for his penetrating and subtle manner of thought.

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Reflection on Jesus the Disrupter

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In 2025, instead of the 32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, this coming Sunday we celebrate the Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome.  The scholar Gail O’Day [545] offers the following reflection on the Temple-cleansing pericope. She notes that the most common popular citation of this passage is to point to Jesus’ anger as some proof-text that anger can be righteous and justified. That is a discussion for another day, and like O’Day, I would suggest that pathway takes you away from the deeper reality of the narrative.

John 2:13–22 is popularly interpreted as an example of Jesus’ anger and hence his humanity. Jesus’ actions of taking the whip, herding out the animals, and overturning the tables are pointed to as evidence that Jesus could get angry. Such attempts to amass evidence to prove Jesus’ humanity actually undercut the power of the incarnation, however. To focus on isolated attributes or emotions as proof of Jesus’ humanity is in effect to seek after signs, to base one’s faith on the surface evidence without perceiving the deeper reality. The underlying reality of the Fourth Gospel narrative is that “the Word became flesh” (1:14). Jesus’ humanity thus pervades everything he says and does in his ministry. The scandal of John 2:13–22 is not Jesus’ anger as proof of his humanity, but the authority this human being claims for himself through his words and actions.

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Misunderstanding

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In 2025, instead of the 32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, this coming Sunday we celebrate the Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome. 

In vv. 18–20 we see the first example of the Johannine narrative technique of misunderstanding. The Jews respond to Jesus’ words about the destruction and raising of the Temple with a very pragmatic protest. Clearly their understanding is limited to the physical realm and made no approach to the deeper meaning of Jesus’ words. The verb Jesus uses to speak of the raising of the Temple (egeirō) points to a second, more symbolic level of meaning, however, because that verb is also used to speak of resurrection (John 2:22; 5:21; 12:1, 9, 17; 21:14).

This interchange of misunderstanding is a recurring technique in John’s Gospel: the story of Nicodemus (3:3–5), the encounter with the Samaritan Woman at the well (although with a much different result than Nicodemus), and at least four other times

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Chichijima

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Over the course of the last few months, a lot of you have let me know that you regularly forward the series of emails to friends, relatives and interested parties. Thank you! Yesterday I received an email letting me know that one of the friends – a US Naval Academy graduate from the Class of 1959 – let them know that his father, a Lt. Colonel in the US Marine Corp – had been assigned post-war duty on the island of Chichijima. Curiosity kicked in.

Chichijima is the largest and most populous of the Bonin Islands. Chichijima is located in the Pacific Ocean about 620 mi south of central Tokyo and 150 mi north of Iwo Jima. The island is only 9 sq. miles in size. It is the largest of the Bonin Islands and has traditionally (and still today) the seat of local government. The name “Chichijima” means “Father island.”

The Early Years. The island shows some evidence of early inhabitants and various explorers sighted the island (Dutch in 1639; English, Prussians and Russians in the 1820s ) but the “discovery” of the island was when a Japanese merchant shipwrecked there in 1669. The crew eventually repaired the ship 72 days later and sailed home to Japan but reported the unknown island. In May 1675 a specially commissioned expedition located the island, came ashore, collected samples of plants and animals, created preliminary charts and maps, and then returned home to Japan. The island was claimed by Japan, but since Japan was in full isolation, it was more pomp and ceremony since the island remained uninhabited.

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Cleansing the Temple

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In 2025, instead of the 32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, this coming Sunday we celebrate the Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome. 

13 Since the Passover of the Jews was near, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 He found in the temple area those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves, as well as the money-changers seated there.

From Josepheus, a Jewish historian who wrote in the later part of the 1st century AD, we know that in this period the temple functions were under the control of the Sadducees and the high priest Annas.  As high priest he also served as the Treasurer of the temple with his sons as assistant treasurers. Their avarice and greed for money lead this spectacle to be called the “bazaar of the sons of Annas”.  They used the ritual of Temple religious life to implement a scam on the people of Israel:  temple sacrifices brought from home were mandatorily inspected for blemish, for a fee.  Blemish was always found.  But a pre-inspected, blemish-free sacrifice could be purchased in the temple compound, for an exorbitant price, but not with Roman coinage (the images violated the law).  The money changers exchanged Roman coins into specially minted temple coins, at a profit.  It is against this background that Jesus cleanses the temple.

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A New Creation

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In 2025, instead of the 32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, this coming Sunday we celebrate the Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome.  From the beginning of the Fourth Gospel there has been a theme of newness and of creation. The Prologue refers to the power and role of the Word of God in the story of Creation. Then, very subtly, it continues to recount a new creation in the Incarnation of Jesus. In John 1:29 you see the phrase, “the next day” as John the Baptist testified to Jesus. “The next day” the first apostles are called in v.34 and following. The “next day” (v.43), now day four of the new creation week, Philip and Nathanael are added as disciples.  

The passage immediately before our gospel passage in the Wedding at Cana (John 2:1-11). Our gospel is followed by the account of Jesus and Nicodemus (John 3:1-21). “On the third day…” (Jn 2:1) we find ourselves, according to the Johannine imagery, on the seventh day of the new creation week.  The creation week reaches its climax – the unveiling of the public life of the Anointed One of God.  The account of the wedding at Cana is relatively short (11 verses) and yet it is filled with a variety of images, theological and sacramental.

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The Invitation

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In this day and age, we receive all manner of electronic invitations (evites): to meetings, parties, events and more. Upon receiving the invitation, are we excited? Were we just hoping for a day or evening off? Does this seem more obligatory than interesting? Do we have to rearrange schedules? Are hoping something more exciting comes along? We have choices – delete, never open, don’t answer, answer with regrets, or accept. And then come all the consequences of all those choices we make, intended or not. Does all this seem like a phenomenon of the internet age? Not really. It is as old as time and part of the gospel.

Just this weekend, All Saints and All Souls remind us that every human life receives the invitation to join God in the Kingdom. Every life is moving toward one of two destinations: either we sit at the banquet of the Lamb, or we stand outside by our own choice, occupied by other concerns..

In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells of a great banquet prepared with care and generosity. The invitations go out, but one by one, the guests make excuses: a new field to inspect, oxen to test, a marriage to attend. All seem reasonable enough — yet in the end, each one chooses something else over the invitation of the King.

The Kingdom of God is not a casual opportunity to be accepted when convenient. It is a summons that demands a decision — now. The tragedy of the invited guests is not that they thought so little of the host, but that they preferred something else, something mundane, something profane. They allowed the good to become the enemy of the best. But we don’t do that, right? 

  • “Yes, I’ll pray more… once things calm down.”
  • “I’ll forgive… after I’ve had time to cool off.”
  • “I’ll follow You more closely… when life settles.”
  • “It’s an open invitation, right?  Let me get back to you.”

And the moment of grace passes. Life swallows you up. The seat prepared for you grows cold. One of the problems with procrastination is that it can make it harder to accept God’s call later, as you become accustomed to not listening. 

The saints we celebrated two days ago were ordinary people who simply said “yes” to God’s invitation — not someday, but today. They made room for the banquet of grace in the midst of work, family, suffering, and daily duty. The souls we prayed for yesterday are those still being purified of hesitation, learning to love God completely.

So today’s Gospel presses the same question upon us: When the Lord invites us — in prayer, in service, in conversion — do we respond, or do we delay?

To make a decision for Christ means to live each day as if the invitation has just arrived — because it has. Every Mass is a foretaste of that eternal banquet; every “Amen” at Communion is our RSVP to the feast of heaven.

The Feast of the Great King is ready today — not tomorrow, not a time when it’s convenient. The Gospel does not say, “Come when you can,” but “Come — everything is ready.” “Now is a very acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” (2 Cor 6:2)

May we not delay our response. May we say yes now — so that, when the great banquet is finally opened, our places will be waiting, and we will hear the words every saint has longed for: “Come, everything is ready.”

Image credit: St. Francis of Assisi via Canva.com | CC BY-NC-SA 4.0