Friday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time
The words from today’s first reading (Revelation 10:8-11) are a bit of a puzzle: how is it that God’s words can taste sweet but yet make John’s stomach sour? It is perplexing, too, to turn from that reading to the Psalm (119), which proclaims that God’s promises are sweet to the taste! Surely, if God’s promises and God’s words are sweet, won’t the effect be sweet as well?
Deeper reflection on food, though, reminds me that it does not always feel good even if initially it tastes good. Ice cream, eaten in too great a quantity, makes me feel quite ill. Or, when I am trying to lose weight, I might eat a piece of chocolate cake but then later regret it. When I eat in these ways, I’m trading the long-term good thing (feeling good, or losing weight) for something that is good only in the moment.
Good tasting food doesn’t necessarily lead to good results. In John’s revelation, the “sour stomach” feeling comes from the results of the words of God that John has eaten. It is a reminder to John and to all of us Christians that just because we see Jesus Christ as our savior and our healer, it doesn’t mean that salvation is, in human terms, a peaceful (or tasteful) event in the immediate present. Despite the sour feeling the scroll leaves in his stomach, John still knows that Jesus’ way leads to everlasting life.
In today’s Gospel (Luke 19:45-48), we see that salvation is sometimes hard and difficult and sometimes even leads to death. But Jesus is again reminding us: rather than focus on the things that seem good in the moment, think about what will bring lasting happiness and peace. In today’s reading, Jesus is teaching in Jerusalem a few days before his death. One day he comes to the temple and sees that there are people who are buying and selling things that are necessary for worshipping God at the temple (the animals for temple sacrifice, candles, etc), and essentially making money off of God. It would be a bit like our coming to mass and discovering that if we wanted to attend, we would have to pay a small sum just to walk through the door, then another small sum to sit in a pew, then another sum to get a hymnal to be able to sing along with the congregation. The people at the temple are in need of salvation: rather than living like “thieves” stealing from God’s house, they need to recognize that God’s “house will be a house of prayer.”
Restoration of the house of prayer should be seen as something good: a place for people to encounter God without having to pay for it. Yet this action will not bring immediate happiness. Most of us today are reluctant to make even necessary changes to our lives, if those changes are difficult and require some sacrifice. The temple priests are no exception in Jesus’ day and they resent that he is trying to change their well-established, and rather successful business, even if it is wrong.
As we look forward to the Feast of Christ the King this Sunday, let us reflect on all the ways we seek momentary comfort rather than doing the difficult work that brings more lasting results. Let us pray for the grace to make the necessary, if difficult, changes we need to make in our lives, in order that we can welcome Christ the King into our lives.
- Jana M. Bennett