Readings for 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time: MAL 3: 19-20A; Ps. 98: 5-9; 2 THES 3: 7-12; LK 21: 5-9.
We're still reeling from the astounding results of the November 8th U.S. elections, aren't we?
For many -- especially immigrants, people of color, Muslims, progressives and followers of Jesus -- what some have called the "Trumpocalypse" nearly seems like the end of the world as we know it.
Even the Republican Establishment is not completely happy. Mr. Trump is not really one of them. In effect, (like socialist Bernie Sanders for the Democrats) the Donald was a third (Fascist) party candidate. His election shows that both major parties are disintegrating before our eyes. Powerful third and fourth parties are proliferating alongside Greens and Libertarians. In reality six relevant parties contended in the recently concluded election cycle.
At the moment however, it's the anti-Gospel political right that is enjoying its moment in the sun.
All of that makes today's readings disturbingly relevant. They appear to centralize "the end of the world." And on top of that Paul's dictum from Second Thessalonians seems eerily to confirm right wing tendencies towards "tough love." There Paul says ". . . if anyone is unwilling to work, neither should that one eat."
But don't be misled. There's not a trace of "tough love" in Jesus' treatment of the poor. And "apocalypse" is not about the end of the world. It's about unsustainability. The word apocalypse means "unveiling." It's about "revelation" in that sense -- making evident what's hidden about the world and who's in charge. Apocalypse affirms the unsustainability of empire. Radical change is inevitable.
Apocalypse emerged a few centuries before the birth of Jesus. To convey its message of impending radical change, it employed stock images of natural catastrophe, plagues, wars, earthquakes, and portents involving the sun, moon, and stars. The change would be cosmic.
The audience of this strange literary form was empire's victims. It was meant to encourage the poor and dispossessed, the unemployed, sick, widowed and orphaned -- not the rich and well-off. Apocalypse assured the poor that all systems of oppression end in flames whether they're Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Greek, or Roman. (Those are the global giants that oppressed Israel at one time or another in its history.) Where are they today? They've been swept away by the tide of history. And the apologists for "Eternal Rome" find themselves somewhere in antiquity's dustbin.
So it's ironic that apocalypse should be embraced by conservatives and their rich patrons -- by those who want to keep things as they are. Things do not have to be that way. And "by God," they won't be! That's the message of apocalypse. A new era is dawning, and you'd better be on the right side of history or you'll lose out. Being "left behind" means supporting the old order that's doomed.
The problem is that right from the beginning, believers took literally the cosmic and highly poetic symbolism of apocalypse. (We always get in trouble for being too literal.) That's the attitude that caused Paul to tear his hair out in today's second reading. Some in the early Christian community took the imminence of this expectation so seriously that they even stopped working.
What was the point of work, they reasoned? Everything was about to change profoundly by God's intervention. That made human work meaningless. All believers had to do was sit back and wait for Jesus' triumphant arrival. Eat, drink, be merry, and whistle past the graveyard in the meantime.
Those are the people Paul addresses in this morning's excerpt from Second Thessalonians. He's clearly exasperated. He says, "Look I'm working. And I'm the one responsible for your believing in Jesus' Second Coming! Get real, people. Go back to work. Stop sponging off the community. Instead, be like me and do your part to bring about the new order we all expect. "
Paul's words bring to mind the people who refuse to work today because they deem apocalyptic expectations divinely ordained or "natural." And I'm certainly not referring to welfare queens.
Instead, I'm talking about people so committed to the old order that (with Margaret Thatcher) they're convinced that "There is no alternative," even though the "inevitable order" they support threatens the very survival of their own grandchildren. So they do what must be done to perpetuate what in God's eyes is unsustainable.
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