Friday in the 32nd Week of Ordinary Time, November 11, 2022

Luke 17, 26-37

Jesus said to his disciples: “As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the days of the Son of Man; they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage up to the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Similarly, as it was in the days of Lot: they were eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting, building; on the day when Lot left Sodom, fire and brimstone rained from the sky to destroy them all. So it will be on the day the Son of Man is revealed. On that day, someone who is on the housetop and whose belongings are in the house must not go down to get them, and likewise one in the field must not return to what was left behind. Remember the wife of Lot. Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses it will save it. I tell you, on that night there will be two people in one bed; one will be taken, the other left. And there will be two women grinding meal together; one will be taken, the other left.” They said to him in reply, “Where, Lord?” He said to them, “Where the body is, there also the vultures will gather.”

The Gospel Reading for today’s Mass continues with St. Luke’s account of the Lord’s teaching on the end of the world.

“As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the days of the Son of Man; they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage up to the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.”  We can understand “the days of the Son of Man” in two basic ways: first, as the Messiah’s appearance in Israel, and, second, as his return to judge the living and the dead at the end of the world.  The Jews hearing the Lord speak these words would have understood them in the first sense.  While they did believe in a great judgment, they believed it would take place after the thousand year reign of the Messiah as king in Jerusalem.  Hearing the Lord talk as he does with this in their minds would have confused them.  They did not understand that the Messiah came to sacrifice himself and that the judgment would occur at his second coming.  “As it was in the days of Noah, etc.”  The Lord Jesus speaks of a pivotal event in human history in which the world was destroyed in a flood, with only Noah and his family to survive it.  The Lord’s words made little sense to the Jews hearing him st the time, for the time of the Messiah was not one of “destruction” to be compared with the Flood, but a time of jubilation for the deliverance of Israel.  The Lord Jesus very aptly points to the Flood as a sign for the second coming because the world will be brought to an end and the wicked will perish.  The Just in the Ark of the Church will be saved.  “Similarly, as it was in the days of Lot: they were eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting, building; on the day when Lot left Sodom, fire and brimstone rained from the sky to destroy them all.”  The Lord Jesus emphasizes his teaching by pointing to another fearsome judgment: that on Sodom and Gomorrah.  These are no natural disasters but deliberate acts of destruction to punish the wicked.  In both cases, the wicked lived unaware that their actions provoked consequences — or, if they were aware that their actions would draw punishment upon them, they did not care, or put off repentance until some vague time in the future.  Each human person faces this reality, that we do not know for sure tomorrow will come for us, but we act as though an unlimited number of tomorrows are in store.

“So it will be on the day the Son of Man is revealed. On that day, someone who is on the housetop and whose belongings are in the house must not go down to get them, and likewise one in the field must not return to what was left behind.”  The Lord completely overthrows the teaching of the Pharisees here, and teaches a new doctrine entirely.  Unable to abandon their man-made doctrine for that taught by One who raised the dead, they sought to kill him.  

“Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses it will save it.”  The Lord seems to contradict himself here in that he warns people to preserve their lives but here tells them they must lose them.  The Greek word translated here as “life” can mean this, but it is not the usual word for “life”.  Instead, this word is almost always translated into English as “spirit” or “soul”.  But the word’s multiple meanings help is to understand the Lord’s meaning: “He who seek to preserve his life will lose his soul, but whoever loses his life and save his soul.”  That is, as believers we give up our lives by living for Jesus Christ, and thereby we gain eternity.  Those who live for this world and its fleeting pleasures will lose their souls.

“I tell you, on that night there will be two people in one bed; one will be taken, the other left. And there will be two women grinding meal together; one will be taken, the other left.”  These verses have been used as the basis for the strange notion of “the rapture”.  According to the main idea, at the end of the world the saved will be rapt up by God and the unsaved will be left on the earth to be destroyed.  Variations in the idea include a belief in a literal thousand year reign of Christ on the earth.  However, the Lord is explaining the suddenness with which his return will take place, and uses the figure of people engaged in work suddenly being whisked away to show this, as well as to show that the good and the wicked will be separated at the end.  “Remember the wife of Lot.”  This warning seems out of place, but the Lord might have meant how necessary it is for us to heed his words.  He is the Angel who has come to us today to urge us to flee the world and its ties before it is too late: “Flee for your life; do not look back or stop anywhere in the valley; flee to the hills, lest you be consumed” (Genesis 19, 17).

“They said to him in reply, ‘Where, Lord?’ He said to them, “Where the body is, there also the vultures will gather.”  The Jews asked their question in response to the Lord’s admonition to flee: Where shall we flee to?  He gives a cryptic answer: “Where the body is, there also the vultures will gather.”  The translation here of “vultures” is false.  The Greek word means “eagles”.  It is not clear what the translator thought he was doing.  At any rate, the reply the Lord gives means that at the time, it will be clear where we are to go, just as if we were in a field and we saw eagles circling around a small area, we would know that they had found something to eat without our actually seeing it.  Just so, we will know what to do and where to go when the time comes.  The Fathers interpret this verse as the “body” being the “Body of Christ”, while the “eagles” were the angels and saints.  That is, we stay with the Church and follow the Lord Jesus Christ wherever he goes.