Tuesday of the Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time

 Lectionary: 432

For you yourselves know very well
that the day of the Lord will come like a thief at night.
When people are saying, “Peace and security,”
then sudden disaster comes upon them,
like labor pains upon a pregnant woman, 
and they will not escape.

 

In his First Letter to the Thessalonians, Saint Paul described the Second Coming of Jesus in very familiar terms. It sounds like an unexpected disaster.

As Kabul fell to the Taliban I heard the story of a woman who, two months ago, had gone with her children from the United States to Afghanistan to visit her family. They knew there was danger from terrorist bombings but had no idea the Afghan military and government would collapse so suddenly. I did not hear the end of the story but it sounded grim. They might never return to their new home, the United States.

Speaking of the Day of Judgement, Saint Matthew described a similar, terrible scene when he spoke of two men sleeping side by side, and two women working together, “One will be taken and the other left.” Tornadoes and wildfires act like that. Train wrecks and auto crashes kill some and others walk away unharmed. One house is swept away while neighbors watch the Weather Channel. 

As democracies developed and shaped their economies in America and Europe they created insurance companies to provide a buffer against catastrophes. Gradually these companies for the privileged have extended their reach into the middle and lower classes so that, it seems, everyone has some life, home, health, and car insurance. With those safeguards people can take vacations and travel. Many feel so secure they take grave risks like smoking and motorcycling without a helmet. If they die, they suppose, their survivors will be supported.

But they don't always calculate the costs of long term, chronic illness, endless doctor appointments, and home health care. Governments rightly assume that everyone wants to live as long as possible; and many citizens, caught off guard, survive for weeks and months on death-prolonging "life support." Taxpayers and their insurance companies are not eager to take up the slack. Eventually overstressed health care systems must resort to triage, deciding who should live and who should die.

When our human systems collapse "…disaster comes upon them, like labor pains upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.”

Some Christians interpret these scripture passages as if they predict a mythological future, but Jesus and Saint Paul were familiar, as we should be, with both this world’s catastrophes and God’s sovereign presence. The LORD is still in charge.

Parables like that of the wise and foolish girls remind us that our best systems are only human products; they neither guarantee God’s mercy nor forestall God’s justice. They do not insure indulgence, foolishness, or sin. They cannot guarantee even responsible compliance to just human laws.

As he gathered Jews and gentiles into his Christian congregations, Saint Paul spoke to them of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection; and of our destiny as God’s holy people. He promised nothing in this world except harassment, ostracism, and persecution. And he assured them that the coming days of disaster would be, for us, days of deliverance. 

If disasters like the fall of Kabul, wildfires in the west, or worldwide pandemics do not signal the end of human life on the planet, they are nonetheless apocalyptic events. They remind us that we must remain faithful, hopeful, and charitable in good times and in bad. As the Lord says in Saint Luke’s Gospel, “… when these signs begin to happen, stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand.