A homily for the Thirty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, November 14, 2021
Dn 12:1-3, Heb 10:11-14, 18, Mk 13:24-32
Judy Garland sang it:
So always look for the silver lining
And try to find the sunny side of life
Today’s Scripture passages are none too sunny as we close out Ordinary Time and the year of Mark’s Gospel.
Frankly, “gloom and doom” only begin to categorize them.
So let’s look for the silver lining and the sunny side.
Down near the end of Jesus’s apocalyptic pronouncement in Mark’s Gospel is a comforting promise:
Heaven and earth will pass away,
but my words will not pass away.
The words of The Word Made Flesh are eternal.
They are words that challenge. They are words that afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. They are words of hope. They are words of love from the source of all love.
The words of Jesus as recorded by Mark the Evangelist make it clear that Jesus fully understood the human condition. The Carpenter from Nazareth understood that work is necessary. The Son born on a cold night understood the changing of the seasons. The healer of the sick and the itinerant preacher who uplifted the poor and marginalized understood how society shuns people arbitrarily and maliciously.
The actions of Jesus as recorded by Mark give us a role model. We too must work, adapt to changing seasons, uplift everyone we meet, using our unique gifts and skills to let the divine in us shine through.
Today’s passages from Scripture, while ominous on first reading, show us how God’s plan for humankind is woven into the laws of nature.
Next weekend, we honor Jesus Christ as king of the universe, the conclusion of the liturgical year. With the first Sunday of Advent on November 28, we start a new year with the season of preparation for Christ’s Nativity.
Today, though…
Today we are reminded that everything is finite and temporary except God. This season of Ordinary Time, this liturgical year, our time on Earth all have endpoints.
That’s the cyclical nature of things, and as we rake leaves and make sure we have rock salt for the inevitably icy sidewalk, we know that in wrapping up one season we must prepare for the next.
And experience has taught us how to prepare. Experience has taught us that anything left undone from one season to the next — whether that season is of nature or of our lives — anything left undone may never be finished. So experience also teaches us urgency.
Jesus had only three years to carry out his ministry, yet in those thousand days, he changed the course of humanity. That’s urgency.
Think of every issue we face today that calls for urgency:
Climate change.
Wealth inequality.
Food insecurity.
Bitter political divisions that lead to violence.
All the phobias and -isms that also lead to violence.
Two millennia after Jesus sacrificed his earthly life to atone for these sins, humans are still committing them. Committing them with wild abandon.
So if we believe — and we do — that the Good News that Jesus preached and lived will not pass away, how do we chase away the gloom and doom and dark clouds that hang over us? How do we live in his footsteps?
We must be the silver lining.
