34KingA20.   Ezekiel 34:11-12, 15-17.  “I myself will look after and tend my sheep.” “I will rescue them from every place where they were scattered when it was cloudy and dark.”  After expressing such deep concern and caring for his sheep as the God who loves us dearly, God says, “I will judge between one sheep and another.” We as his sheep are responsible for our behavior.  Some of us obediently follow our shepherd but some do not.  Judgement will separate those who followed our God loyally from those went their own way.

Matthew 25:31-46.  At his first coming to earth, Jesus came as a helpless baby.  When he comes the second time, he will come the king “in his glory, and all the angels with him.”  “He will sit upon his glorious throne and all the nations will be assembled before him.  And he will separate them one from another,” the good from the bad.  He will send the unrighteous or unjustified “to eternal punishment but the righteous to eternal life.”   Neither the righteous nor the unrighteous recognized Jesus in the lowliest and neediest of people. However, the righteous were compassionate to those who were in need; whereas the unrighteous were not.  To be righteous or just means to be at one with the mind of God or to think and act as God thinks and acts and would have us also do.  The leper in Mark 1:40-41 knelt before Jesus and pleaded to Jesus to make him clean. Jesus “moved with pity, stretched out his hand, touched the leper, and said to him, “I do will it. Be made clean.”

In this Sunday’s parable the king said, “Whatever you did for one the least brothers of mine, you did for me.”  The least or the lowliest of humanity seek God’s help because they are without any resources to help themselves.  God fills their helplessness with his pity and compassion.  God is there in them because of his love for them.

1 Corinthians 15:20-26, 28.   “For just as in Adam all die, so too in Christ shall all be brought to life: Christ the firstfruits; then at his coming, those who belong to Christ; then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to his God and Father, when he has destroyed every sovereignty and every authority and power.  For he must reign.”  As Adam, our forefather in the flesh, died, we human beings must also die in the flesh.  However, Jesus, our brother in the flesh with the power of his divine origin, resurrects us from earthly death so to give us, who belong to him, eternal life.  At his second coming Jesus reigns as the king who destroys all other claims to authority and power, even death itself.  With all challengers to God’s authority laid waste, it will be clear that God is “all in all.”  God is everything.  All that is not of God, in union with him, will be worthless.  God’s plan in the fullness of times was “to sum up all things in Christ, in heaven and on earth.” (Ephesians 1:10)  God put all things beneath Jesus feet “and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of the one who fills all things in every way.” (Ephesians 1:22)

34A/King17.   Ezekiel 34:11-12, 15-17.  Yahweh is greatly distressed at how badly their leaders have led the Hebrew peoples.  Through Ezekiel the prophet (Ezekiel 34: 20b-21), Yahweh says, “Now will I judge between the fat and lean sheep.  Because you push with side and shoulder, and butt all the weak sheep with your horns until you have driven them out.”  In today’s reading it is the sleek and the strong who have taken advantage of the lost, the strays and the sick.  Yahweh comes as judge to straighten out what had become crooked, to empower those who were powerless, to strip naked those who overpowered the weak.

Matthew 25:31-46.  “When the Son of Man comes in his glory” “upon his throne, and all the nations will be assembled before him.” He will judge them as a king judges his people.  As David was king and a shepherd, like the Son of Man takes on the image of shepherd as well as king.  Continuing in this same line of imagery, the king tends his people as a shepherd his flock of sheep and goats. The sheep are portrayed as the obedient ones who meekly follow the commands of the shepherd, whereas the goats are the impetuous ones who do as they wish and not as the shepherd wishes.  To the sheep, the king says, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father.  Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”  To the goats he says, “Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”

Then he says what the sheep did that made them sheep and the goats that made them goats.  The king says of himself, “when I was hungry,” which is to say that he himself was the one who was without food. Those designated as either sheep or goats are puzzled because neither saw the king being hungry. So they ask, “When did we see you hungry?”   The king replies, “Whatever you did for the least brothers of mine, you did for me.”  He identifies himself with those in need.  God is love.  His love unites him to those who are in need of his help.  We do not have a God who is distant from us.  Because of his very nature as an all-loving God, he is together with us in our need.  Our deepest need is to be with him in heaven.  Jesus said in John 5:44-45a, “But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly father.”  God’s love extends to all.  When we refuse to love anyone as God loves them, we are refusing to love God himself.  “If anyone says ‘I love God,’ but hates his brother, he is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.  This is the commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.” (1 John 4:20-21)

1 Corinthians 15:20-26, 28.  “For since death came through man; the resurrection of the dead came also through man.  For just as in Adam all die, so too in Christ shall all be brought to life.”  The sin of Adam and our sins divorce us from God and his love that is true life.  Jesus’ love for us on the cross overwhelms sin and its fruit, death.  At the Second Coming, “when everything is subjected to him, the Son himself will also be subjected to the one who subjected everything to him, so that God may be all in all.”  God the Father is God over all with his Son at his right hand.

 

33A23.    Proverbs 31:10-13, 19-20, 30-31.  This husband’s wife “is far beyond pearls.”  She was always occupied making their house a home, and making God’s life, her family’s life.  “Give her a reward for her labors.”

Matthew 25:14-30.  The Master, God, is demanding.  He entrusts each of us with talents or capabilities “to each according to his ability.”  He is a task master who demands that we not waste our life time running off in self-serving worldly directions but that we accomplish what our gift of a life time requires of us, to live toward the goal of our eternal life time.  Wasting our God-given life time will be treated severely.  “Throw this useless servant into the darkness outside, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.”

1 Thessalonians 5:1-6.   This world can easily anesthetize us into living for this life and ignore eternal life.  We can readily live to be at peace and secure for the present moment without a thought for eternal life.  Living in reality is not living in a present-day dreamlike restfulness and avoiding taking on the challenge of living for the ‘forever’.  To choose the fullness of the realities of the life that God has given us is to take on the responsibilities that often can make life quite demanding.

33A20.    Proverbs 31:10-13, 19-20, 30-31.  “When one finds a worthy wife, her value is far beyond pearls.  Her husband, entrusting his heart to her, has an unfailing prize.”  A worthy wife means that she is a woman of great worth.  With her he has a spectacular thoughtful gold mine of a woman. She is unbounding riches, a treasure of boundless productivity.  She is a bonanza of goodness who makes the ultimate use of the capabilities that God has given her.  That is what today’s Gospel calls us to.

Matthew 25:14-30.   Life is a gift that we were not able to ask for, since no one can ask for anything if someone is not living.  While life is a gift, it is at the same time a demand, that we live the life that we have been given and live it to the fullest. In giving us life, God gives or shares with us something of his very self, as a mother shares something of herself in giving life to her child.  Our gospel parable says that the master “entrusted his possessions to them.” In this case his possessions are what belongs to the master, in the sense that his possessions are a share in what makes up who he is.

He shared his possessions “to each according to his ability”, so that each person had the capacity to develop or grow those possessions or gifts.  They are gifts or talents that enable us to make something more of ourselves, likes seeds that have the capacity to grow, so to develop us, and so make us more of who our master is. The master has great joy which he shares with his servants when he sees his servants mature by developing their God-given gifts, as does a parent who sees ones’ children develop beautifully and graciously.  The servants who were productive with the talents or gifts given them saw or viewed this as an opportunity or privilege from which they and their master could benefit.  On the other hand, the servant who buried his talent or gift saw this as a threat issued to him by a master whom he feared.  The servant who refuses to live his God-given life to the fullest but instead buries his potential to develop and grow is choosing to bury his life, his very self.  The choice is to move up or down but never to stand still in the same place.  That, of what God gives us and we do not use, withers or is lost.  God no longer puts any more of his efforts or grace in those who refuse to grow in Christ.  Instead God puts even more of his grace into those who choose to be productive.  Why should God waste his time and effort on what is useless?   “For to everyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich” in the abundance of God’s goodness in him.

1 Thessalonians 5:1-6.  “The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.”  “The day of the Lord’ is the day when Jesus comes the second time at the end of the universe but also can be the day when the Lord calls us individually from this world.  Jesus said in the parable of the ten virgins, “Therefore, stay awake, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” (Matthew 25:13)

“For all of you are children of the light and children of the day.”  The children of the darkness refuse to take seriously that we can be called to face our Judge at any time.  Readiness is to live every moment in the Lord who is the light.

33A.   Proverbs 31:10-13, 19-20, 30-31.  As the master in the Gospel readings entrusted his possessions to his servants, likewise the husband entrusts his heart to his wife.  She does not let him down, for “she brings him good, and not evil, all the days of her life.”  It is her heart that moves her hands to the good of her husband, the poor and the needy and not her charm or beauty that give useful service all the years of her life.  “The woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.”  This is not the fear that is crippling and trembling but the Old Testament fear that respects God as the God over us to be glorified and obeyed in all that we are and do.

Matthew 25:14-30.  In this parable the master entrusts his possessions to his servants to each in proportion “according to his ability.”  When the master came back, he settled accounts with them.  The first two servants doubled their master’s possessions but the third simply returned the master’s possessions without any increase, since he had done nothing.  To the first two the master said, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”  Then he rewards them with even greater responsibilities, saying, “Come, share your master’s joy.”  However, to the third he says, “You wicked, lazy servant!” and orders him to be thrown into the darkness outside, calling him a useless servant.  Those who show themselves to be responsible with the master’s possessions will be rewarded greatly but those who are not, shall be punished severely.  St. Paul wrote in his second letter to the Corinthians (5:10): “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive recompense according to what he did in the body, whether good or evil.”  Clearly the master that Jesus is referring to in this parable is himself.  Some say that the possessions or talents that Jesus is referring to are our various abilities.  I think Jesus is referring to the graces he gives us to make ourselves and the world around us better, thus giving him glory and building his kingdom.  His graces are a share in his infinite power with us to enable us to do his will here on earth.  As it says in the Our Father prayer: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”  To refuse to respond affirmatively to God’s graces to better ourselves and the world around us is to put everything into the devil’s hands to deal destructively with us and the world around us.  Evil is defined by our refusal to use God’s graces, i.e. to respond to God’s intervention within us to move us in the direction he wants us to go, and thus we are an unresponsive, irresponsible people.  In the Nicene Creed we say every Sunday, “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.”  Jesus will simply read back to us our lives.  That will be our testament either to our eternal salvation or destruction.

 

1 Thessalonians 5:1-6.  Paul writes, “For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief at night.”  The ‘day of the Lord’ is an expression that meant the Second Coming of Jesus that was to be the end of the universe and the final judgment day for all.  Paul goes on to criticize the attitude that says ‘Peace and security,’ that is there is nothing to be worried about.  All is well and we do not have to be responsible to any God.  We have everything under our control. But Paul writes, “therefore, let us not sleep as the rest do, but let us stay alert and sober,” be ready and not caught irresponsibly unprepared as useless servants.

 

32A23.   Wisdom 6:12-16.    Jesus said to Peter in Matthew 16:23b:  “You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”  Wisdom is to think as God thinks, to know as God knows.  Wisdom is “found by those who seek her.”  God gradually enables us to be of one mind and one heart with him as we grow to love him more and more.

Matthew 25:1-13.   The parable of the ten virgins is an ‘end-time’ parable in which Jesus seeks to prepare us for the end of our time on this earth.  The oil that the foolish virgins lack and the wise virgins have is the spiritual life of the Lord that we grow in daily by living with the Lord as the center of our life.  Being lost in the physical tasks of this earth and ignoring the Holy Spirit’s life within us leaves us unprepared to go with the Lord when he calls us from this earth.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18.  The early Christians assumed that the Lord would soon be returning a second time (that is, some time after his ascension) to take up to heaven all the living who remained faithful to him.  The Thessalonians thought that those who died before Jesus’ Second Coming would not be taken up to heaven because they were not still living at the Second Coming.  Paul assures them that, whether dead or alive, all the faithful would be taken up.  The point is that the Lord will take up all who are faithful to him and leave the rest behind.

32A20.   Wisdom 6:12-16.   Wisdom here is personified as a woman who brings the beauty of her wisdom or penetrating understanding to all who wish to grasp far more than the superficial.  The old expression ‘mother wit’ seemed to capture the idea of a wisdom that a simple young girl had to develop to raise young children and steer a young husband so to have a nurturing wholesome home.  Wisdom is developed with the abundant presence of the Holy Spirit who enables us to avoid the pitfalls of getting lost in the emotions that lead one to wander hopelessly in the deviant directions that this world can take us.  Wisdom “makes her rounds, seeking those worthy of her, and graciously appears to them in the ways, and meets them with all solicitude.”  That wisdom is the Holy Spirit.

Matthew 25:1-13.   Jesus’ parables are pointed, i. e., do not intend to say everything but just make a simple point. By our baptism we are promised or betrothed to the Lord.  The ten virgins or betrothed represent the assembly or people of the Church whose task it is to prepare themselves to be joined as in a marriage, just as a bride and groom, to God for all eternity.  We are a mixed community or assembly, some who take that preparation seriously and some who do not.  The foolish, that is to say, those who did not act wisely, did not prepare themselves to meet the Lord whenever he might come.  The oil that would give them the light to see through the darkness of this world is a life of holiness or union with the Holy Spirit.  Without that light we cannot make our way.  If God comes to call us and we are not ready, the door will be locked.  If we do not strive to be holy day in and day out, making ourselves ready for the Lord whenever he calls us from this life, we will hear him say to us: “Amen, I say to you, I do not know you.”  There is no happy ending for those who live foolishly, not wisely.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18.  Apparently some of the Thessalonians were thinking that those who had died, which is to say ‘fallen asleep’, before the Lord came the second time at the end of the world, would not be taken up to heaven because they did not stay alive to wait for the Lord’s arrival.  Paul assures them that all, both those who died in Christ and those who remained on earth alive in Christ “shall always be with the Lord.  Therefore, console one another with these words.” November is the end of the liturgical year when we must contemplate our spiritual readiness to greet the Lord as we get closer and closer to our last days here on earth.  Now especially we ought to consider his call to stand before him in judgment.  May our life in Christ grow and strengthen daily.

32A.   Wisdom 6:12-16.  This reading & the psalm calls upon us to see religion far more as a warm relationship that is to be nurtured and developed and grown in our hearts.  I personally see growth in wisdom as primarily the work of God the Holy Spirit so to lead us by union with Jesus to God the Father.  The more we seek it, the more we will find it.  In turn the more we use the wisdom of the Spirit to gain knowledge of the Will of God the Father and in light of that knowledge to become ever more obedient to God’s Will, the closer the Spirit will come to us  to enlighten us even more.  The Spirit will breathe God’s divine life into us so that that is the life we actually live daily.  Jesus in the Parable of the Talents (Mt. 25:29) said: “For to everyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich; but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”

Matthew 25:1-13.  What is this oil that the five virgins had and the other five did not have?  It is the holiness that they have tended to and nurtured over the years that shows that the light or flame of the presence of the Spirit is within them.  They were prepared for the coming of the groom, Jesus, when he was to finally come to call them to be his own in heaven.  The foolish ones had no oil, no holiness because in their foolishness they did not seek the wisdom of the Spirit to grow in the grace or holiness that would show that the flame or the life of the Spirit dwelled within them.  Because the oil of holiness was lacking in the life of the foolish, the Lord, the groom said, “I do not know you.”  In ending Jesus said, “Stay awake, for you do not know the day nor the hour.”  To be awake spiritually is to have the life of holiness that comes from Spirit to be our life day in and day out.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18.   In the Gospel we are called upon to stay awake and be ready at any hour for the call to judgment, in other words, to be holy always.  However, in the Epistle reading, the reference to “those who have fallen asleep” is to those who died before the Lord has come in the Second Coming, the end of the world, to call his own to heaven.  The belief among many Christians not long after the Ascension was that Christ was to come soon and call his holy ones to heaven but that one needed to be alive to be called.  Paul reassures the Thessalonians and us that at the Second Coming “the dead in Christ will rise first” and then those “who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.”  November is the month for us to bring strongly to mind the universal ‘end time’, the Second Coming of Christ and the ‘end time’ for each individual, i.e., our death.  The Lord is the loving God the Father who gives us the Holy Spirit who, with our loving cooperation, sanctifies us to prepare us to be called to heaven.   Jesus assures us when he said to Nicodemus in Mt. 3:16-18: “For God so loved the world the he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”

 

PS: The Holy Spirit gives us the spiritual knowledge/guidance of where we are going, what we are to do, the will to do it, and the strength to follow through and maintain the course.

31A23.   Malachi 1:14b-2:2b, 8-10.  The Jewish priests were not remaining faithful to the Torah and were leading the people away from the practice of true Judaism.  The Lord says to them for their infidelity: “I will send a curse upon you.”

Matthew 23:1-12.   The scribes and the Pharisees had the position of religious authority.  So Jesus says, “Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example.  For they preach but they do not practice.”  They used the Jewish religion for their own personal advantage and not to promote the love of God and neighbor.  Make of God your only true religious authority.  Serve him alone. Stand humbly before him as his servant and God will see you as righteous in his sight.

1 Thessalonians 2:7b-9, 13.  Paul reaches out to the Thessalonians with a love from the depths of his heart.  The fullness of love is giving not only some things that we have but giving one’s very self.  Through Paul and his companions God gave his very self to the Thessalonians.  The word or gospel of God that they received was presence of God working in their hearts.

31A.   Malachi 1:14-2:2b, 8-10.  God comes in this reading in divine authority and omnipotence to challenge the Hebrew priests who have been unfaithful to his covenant, the covenant made with their fathers (ancestors).  Their unfaithful leadership has caused many followers to no longer follow God’s ways.  They have become contemptible and base in God’s eyes for using their responsibility of leadership to lead the people away from God and God’s covenant.

Matthew 23:1-12, Jesus recognizes that the scribes and Pharisees, receiving their authority as successors to Moses, have the right to command observance of their teachings but not the right to have the people imitate their actions.  As Jesus says in this gospel, “For they preach but they do not practice.”  “All their works are performed to be seen.”  “They love places of honor.”  In their actions they seek to give glory to themselves, not to God.  Jesus preaches not to seek to be addressed by terms of respect as a way of seeking honor for oneself but not for God.  Jesus says, “The greatest among you must be your servant,” as a way of serving God by humbly serving one another and not be the one who wants to be exalted above others and in others’ eyes.  The position of authority they have received is to serve others and not themselves.

1 Thessalonians 2:7b-9, 13.  Paul in the first reading starts off, “We were gentle among you, as a nursing mother cares for her children.  With such affection for you, we were determined to share with you not only the gospel of God, but our very selves as well, so dearly beloved had you become to us.”  Paul, along with his fellow missionaries, Timothy and Silvanus, emphasizes the depths of their love for the Thessalonians in sharing the nurturing milk of life-giving Gospel of the Lord.  In sharing the gospel they were giving some of the life force that was their life too.  So much did they give of themselves that they depended not on the Thessalonians for material support but, “working day and night in order not to burden any of” them, they supported themselves.  “In receiving the word of God from hearing” them, they “received not a human word but, as it truly is, the word of God, which” continued to work in them to build them up to be the people of God.  The gospel of God, which is the good news of Jesus, who is the way, the truth and the life within us, was so much a part of the people  Paul, Silvanus and Timothy had become, that in sharing it they were sharing something of themselves as a mother shares the milk from her breast.