Ordinary 30

The Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Sirach 35:12-14, 16-18; Psalm 34; 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18; Luke 18:9-14

I recently called a friend to check in on her. She is up there in years and her health has been failing. Her physician told her that there is nothing more they can medically do. Death is not imminent but she knows there are no other pathways for her life. My friend said it was good to know you are going to die. You have the opportunity to speak with family and friends and tell them what they meant to you. She has been able to reflect on her life and all the good that has been present. My friend is a woman of deep faith and so she is not afraid. There is a calm and serenity about her. I’m sure we will talk again.

The second letter to Timothy may be the last letter Paul wrote. Paul is under house arrest, he has had his day in court and is aware his days are numbered, that his death is imminent. He does not resent it. Like my friend he faces death with a calm resignation that springs from a deep faith.

Paul offers us a three images to describe his impending death. “I am already being poured out like a libation.” Among the ancients, a libation was a ritual pouring out of wine as an offering to the gods. But notice the active tense Paul uses: “I am already being poured out…” Death is not a singular moment but a movement toward a culmination. He goes on to characterize his death as a departure, a leave–taking; “and the time of my departure is at hand.” The Greek word he uses is associated with sailors weighing anchor or soldiers breaking camp. Like personnel in the military after a demanding tour of duty he is now eagerly anticipating going home.

In both images Paul is not in control. Someone else pours; the wine can only spill out. Military personnel do not make decisions, commanders do. Soldiers merely carry out orders.

How many of us are feeling we are more and more not in control of our lives; that other forces are moving us around like chess pieces on a board?

A final image Paul offers us is derived from athletic competition, “I have competed well; I have finished the race…” Paul has done what he could and all he can now do is wait upon God. He can affirm, “I have kept the faith”, that is, he has remained loyal.

Both Paul and my friend are not experiencing their impending deaths as an unfortunate event, something to be feared and fought against at all costs as we often see in our present culture; rather they are approaching death as the culmination of their life of faith; as a movement toward God.

Life consists of many deaths: the death of our perceived autonomy, of unrealistic hopes, of institutions that are an important part of our lives. There is the death of relationships that did not have deep roots as well as the death of marriages and vocations. Ideas are found wanting and die. What deaths have you experienced or are experiencing? There is the death found in abandonment and rejection. Paul experienced this: “At my first defense no one appeared on my behalf, but everyone deserted me”. Have you ever felt that way?

Worlds die. Ours may be dying. The crises of the past three years are not isolated events. Wars, famine, inflation, irreconcilable divisions, limited resources, and violence mark our age; even Mother Earth seems to be roaring with a lion’s mouth to devour us with raging wild fires, mega hurricanes, droughts and rising oceans. People speak of the end of the world using words like ‘apocalypse’ and ‘Armageddon’. Similar language was used when Saint Augustine wrote his “City of God” as the Roman world was collapsing giving birth to the medieval order. On 14 July 1789, with the storming of the Bastille, feudalism and the alliance between Church and State; a world that began with the baptism of Clovis in the sixth century came to an abrupt end. More recently, the world that existed before the Russian invasion of Ukraine is gone.

Worlds die. Worlds are born. When worlds are dying, and I believe ours is, we need something sturdier than the fictions of technology and social progress.

Anxiety is not new. Humans have always worried about the future. Jesus told us not to worry but we do. Our culture’s taste for a dystopian, hopeless worldview has been revealed in novels and films from Burgess’ “Clockwork Orange” to Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale”. Hope seemingly has been in retreat but it was in just such a state of crisis, of mingled joy, expectation and terror as one age was passing and another coming into existence that the church was born and therefore in which the Church should again find its greatest gift, hope.

My friend and Paul offer us a Christian perspective with which to confront death and the disruptions of life. The ground for Christian hope is to keep faith, that is, trust in God. In times of crisis, hope takes risks. Unlike Paul and my friend, many Christians today resist moving forward which embodies a lack of trust in God’s presence among us.

Hope takes risks, it risks disappointment. Jesus was disappointed in his disciples and often is in us. Paul was disappointed in his co-workers who abandoned him and at times even worked against him. It is not always easy to continue going forward but is that not better than hoping for nothing?

How are you and I, with feelings of helplessness and desertion, “keeping faith”?