Friday in the 32nd Week of Ordinary Time, November 12, 2021

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 words of the Book of Wisdom used for today’s First Reading may seem like common sense to us.  The author declares that those who deny the existence of God are foolish, for through their delight in the things of this world, they should “know how far more excellent is the Lord than these; for the original source of beauty fashioned them” (Wisdom 13, 3).  St. Paul argues in the same way in Romans 1.  But by the time the Book of Wisdom was written down, the Greek philosopher Aristotle (d. d. 332 B.C.) had argued that the world had not been created and that it had always been — and would always exist.  Other philosophers, among them the Stoics, argued against this idea, but Aristotle’s idea proved very influential.  Thus, the Lord’s teaching that the world would have an end came as a strange idea to many Gentiles, though the teaching of a great judgment in which the just were rewarded and the wicked punished held great appeal.  As St. Luke was writing for Gentile Christians, we might try to think how they heard Jesus’ words here.  We can do this by trying to forget what we know or think we know about what he said.

“As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the days of the Son of Man.”  Luke does not back off from using the Lord’s own words: he quotes him as speaking of the very Jewish figures of Noah and the Son of Man.  Those for whom Luke wrote must already have been familiar with these, for Luke does not explain them in his text.  “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.”  The Lord specifies what he means by “in the days of Noah” and points out that this is normal human behavior as carried on throughout time.  The constant repetition of these actions makes it seem as though they will always continue, even after we of the present generation are long-buried.  “Up to the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.”  Jesus emphasizes the abruptness of the end, and the lack of warning that destruction was coming.  The Lord offers another example, in fulfillment of the rule that “in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall stand” (Deuteronomy 19, 15): “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 first example shows people simply existing, and they are annihilated; here, they are prospering, and it all comes to the same, sudden end.  

The third end-time, then, will be the most unexpected and cataclysmic of all, for civilization would have built itself up with mighty systems, knowledge, and physical presence, for “so it will be on the day the Son of Man is revealed.”  The Lord  next gives an idea of how sudden and how definitive this ending will be: “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 use in the translation of “someone” and “one” weakens the force of these words by avoiding the concrete terms the Lord uses: a man is on the roof repairing it; a man is in the field planting or harvesting.  “Remember the wife of Lot.”  During the flight from Sodom, where she had lived her life, she turned to see the fire and brimstone raining down upon it.  She disobeyed the command of the angel in doing so and was changed into a pillar of salt (cf. Genesis 19, 26).  When the Lord comes, there is no time to look back.  Spiritually speaking, the time for repentance is over with his coming.

“Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses it will save it.”  This saying seems just dropped into the Lord’s teaching and could be skipped over without losing much of the overall meaning of the text, but it serves as a reminder.  The Lord frequently taught that once a person has determined to follow him, there can be no going back — not even a glance at what was left behind.  It would have seemed to the Gentiles, reading this, that the Lord was speaking particularly to them because of the radical difference between what he taught and what they had always known before.  The believer must look at Jesus and at nothing else.  We cannot hope for comfort, consolation, or defense from his judgment at anything in our past, nor can we hide from him.  He teaches us to look neither to the left, nor to the right, nor behind us, as we lurch our way, as toddlers learning to walk, into his welcoming arms. 

“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.”  The Greek actually says, “one will be received, the other sent away”, which sounds quite ominous.  The Lord’s point in mentioning two people being in nearly the identical spot is to show the precision with which the righteous are saved and the wicked are “sent away”.  There are no wicked ones accidentally caught in the same net as the just.  This also recalls the Lord’s parable of the wheat and the weeds (cf. Matthew 13, 24-43), in which the good and the bad are allowed to live on earth in such a way that their lives are entwined, but in the end, only the wheat will be brought into the barn.  The Gentiles could have understood this as pertaining to them and the Jews, in that the Jews had largely rejected Jesus and would be “sent away” in consequence while they, the Gentiles, who had lived nearby would be “received” because they had converted.

“ ‘Where, Lord?’ He said to them, ‘Where the body is, there also the vultures will gather.’ ”  Jesus’ followers tried to understand his teaching as applying to a certain place, as in, Where will the Son of Man appear? Or, Where will the judgment take place?  Or, even whether this will involve only the Jews or everyone in the world.  The Lord’s answer, translated literally from the Greek, is, “Where the body is, the eagles will gather together.”  It is not “vultures” that gather, but eagles.  The “body” is that of the Lord.  St. Ambrose reminds us that this is the Body of which the Lord himself had said, “For my Flesh is meat indeed: and my Blood is drink indeed” (John 6, 56).  Those who are accustomed to eating this Flesh are called “eagles” because, as Ambrose says, they soar high above the earth — in their way of life and their thoughts — and live to great ages.  And so when they see the Lord’s Flesh again upon the earth, they gather to it.  Ambrose likens this gathering as the gathering at the Lord’s tomb: Mary Magdalene, her companions, and the Apostles.  Also included would be Lazarus and Nicodemus, who interred his Body.  Those who truly believed came to his tomb, despite the threat of guards and the fear of disappointment.  The Blessed Mother, who stood at the Cross as her Son suffered upon it, is chief is these.  If we likewise feed upon the Flesh of our Savior at Holy Mass and live in a way worthy of him then, wherever he goes we will find him, at last coming to him in joy on the last day.