Year C / Ordinary Time / Week 33 / Sunday
Readings: Malachi 3.19-20a / Psalm 95.5-6, 7-8, 9 (R/v cf 9) / 2 Thessalonians 3.7-12 / Luke 21.5-19
Sisters and brothers, we know what perseverance is. But what does it look like?
When the Great Flood was coming, there was a snail. As Noah and his family began building the Ark and gathering the animals to save them, they forgot about Mr Snail.
They gathered the biggest, the fastest, and the fittest of animals. Two by two they brought them into the Ark. They however missed Mr Snail, the smallest, the slowest, the most insignificant.
At this time, there was fear, confusion and anxiety everywhere. Mr Snail wanted to survive the Great Flood. So inch by inch, at a very slow pace, Mr Snail tried to make his way to the Ark. The rains finally came and the waters rose. And there on the Ark, with Noah, his family and the hundreds of animals was Mr Snail. Yes, "by perseverance, the snail reached the Ark” (Charles Spurgeon).
By perseverance Mr Snail made it.
This is a good story to hear at this time of the year. In seven weeks’ time, we will say goodbye to 2019. In one week’s time, we celebrate the Solemnity of Christ the King and the end of this liturgical year. Students have ended their school year. Workers are doing their year-end reviews. Homemakers are ending this year preparing for Christmas and New Year celebrations.
Looking back on 2019, the question we might ask is: How have we persevered this year? Were we like Mr Snail slowly making our way through this year to end it well, in spite of our fears, worries, and struggles? Or, did we persevere like Mr Snail to look ahead to next year and new beginnings?
Endings and beginnings is Malachi's focus in the first reading. He presents us with an image of a harvest. The good grain has been gathered and taken away. Only the stubble is left; soon it will be set on fire.
For Malachi, the stubble is a metaphor for the Israelites who resisted God’s ways by cheating others, selfishly caring for themselves, not others, and speaking ill of God. They did not follow God’s laws and God’s way. The Lord God will burn them like stubble is burned, Malachi announces.
For the Israelites who trusted and lived in God’s ways, Malachi announces good news: they will be blest like the earth is blessed by the rays of sun. God will be just to those who are faithful to God. God will fulfill their heart's desire for God.
Simply put Malachi reminds you and me that life with God results in a rich harvest. Those who reject God are like a fruitless field that must be burned away.
I find this reading challenging, hard to hear as the year ends. You might too. I wonder which group I belong to. You might too. If we didn’t live this year well as Christians, would God want to metaphorically burn up our lives and purify us? Or, if we did live our year well, will God give us more grace to live better?
Truth be told, we have a foot in each group. It is there natural for us to hope for the best and to fear the worst as we account for this year before God.
Maybe this is why we come to Jesus in the Eucharist. To remind ourselves of who we are in God’s eyes and how God’s mercy works for us — yes, we are sinful sometimes, but we are always in God’s eyes, his own, his beloved.
Malachi writes about the “healing rays” flowing from the “sun of justice” that will rest upon those who “fear” God’s name. This fear of God is not fear of a vengeful and punishing God. It is reverence for God. It is knowing who God is and who we are. Malachi writes to console those whose lives revere God.
Have we lived such lives this year, especially when it was difficult and despairing? If we have, give thanks. If we have not, let's work to live better in the new year. Can we accomplish this?
Jesus teaches us how to live such lives in our gospel passage. “Your endurance will win you your lives,” he says.
He teaches his disciples this lesson as they admire the beauty of the temple. It will not last he reminds them because everything changes. The disciples are upset and anxious; they want to know when the temple will be destroyed. We are like the disciples. Change upsets us. We want certainty about the what, when, why and how when change intrudes into our lives. Many don’t like change because it disturbs us: how can we continue living?
As people of faith, we must answer another question. It is fundamental to who we are as Christians: can we still live with hope in God if the change is painful, hard and disorientating? Yes, Jesus says. “Your endurance will win you your lives,” he reminds us.
Endurance or perseverance is about steadfastness and constancy. It is the hope-filled capacity to stay focussed on one’s purpose. This gives strength to endure great trials and sufferings with patience. You can call this, “keeping the faith.”
Keeping the faith is what Jesus is calling us to do today. He is challenging us to practice endurance or perseverance in our lives. We do this best by keeping faith to our commitment that Jesus is our Saviour. “I myself,” Jesus proclaims in today's gospel reading, “shall give you an eloquence and a wisdom” against your enemies and be your protector.
We made this commitment at Baptism. We stay faithful to it in each Eucharist, at every confession, whenever we pray, however often we read scripture and reflect on it, and every time we do what Jesus did to our neighbour.
Why do we keep this commitment and persevere in it? Because we believe that in Jesus we will know God and the power of God’s love to save us. The saints knew this. For them, staying close to Jesus and persevering in life with him forms us to become more like him — in faith to love God, in charity to serve others, and in hope to believe we are meant to belong to God always.
What will give us the confidence to preserve in our commitment to Jesus? God’s fidelity to persevere for us in Jesus. This is his commitment to us. It is his encouragement we can preserve too.
And we do when we come to Eucharist and Confession and when we pray and care for others, in spite of our sinfulness and frailties. Every time we do these we persevere. Isn’t our experience of God’s constant and life-giving love as we persevere the enduring reason we can keep the faith even in difficult times? As we do so, don’t we come to know the truth of Jesus' promise "I will be with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28.20) because in Jesus we see, encounter and know God?
If we answer is “yes” to these questions, then, let us rejoice for the gift of perseverance in our lives. Perseverance that empowers our faith to overcome fear. Perseverance that enables us to believe in the promise of beginnings to defeat the darkness of endings. Perseverance that assures us that hope always leads us onward.
Let those who have ears, then, hear Jesus’ guidance that it is good to endure and persevere to the end. And more than hear, let us live it as Jesus calls us to in Luke’s Gospel: “Stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand” (Luke 21.28).
Perseverance, endurance, keeping the faith, staying true to our commitment to Jesus — this is God’s gift for us to walk free and be fully alive, even in the face of endings. We can because God is already and always committed to persevering with us and for us in Jesus. This is the Good News we hear today.
Perseverance was very good for Mr Snail. When the Great Flood receded and the Ark landed on dry land with a thud, a rainbow bridged the wide expanse of the clear blue sky. Noah let down the door to the Ark. All the animals trooped out, safe and sound. Mr Snail inched his way out too. Indeed, by perseverance Mr Snail did reach the Ark; by perseverance, he stayed safe on it, and by perseverance, he walked out free and alive.
Mr Snail’s perseverance made his hope come alive.
Today, Jesus reminds us that it is good to persevere in our faith: it makes us alive in God and for God. We can because of him. He is our hope. Can you and I then keep our faith in Jesus’ promise that our endurance will indeed win us our lives?
Preached at Church of the Transfiguration, Singapore
photo: www.rajeshseshadri.com
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