Thirty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C (2025) - Fr Joseph Vnuk, OP

We’ve all watched movies in which some possible disaster—a nuclear war, a gigantic meteorite, an unstoppable virus—causes the end of the world as we know it. After 90 minutes of tension and terror, we normally manage to do what we have been trained to do: we re-assure ourselves that it won’t happen to us in our lifetime, we get a good night’s sleep, and we get back to our jobs and our family life. Any adult who spent the night sleepless with fear and could not get on with life in the morning would be a cause for concern. Jesus, however, tells us that we should not dismiss that fear: we should learn to live with it.

In today’s Gospel Jesus puts before his disciples one of those end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it scenarios: the utter destruction of the Temple. The Temple was not just a building, not just an important building, not just a sacred building. It was the place where heaven and earth met. It was the place where the constant succession of sacrifices ensured the goodwill of God to keep peace and order on earth. In the Jewish imagination, its destruction could unleash an era of chaos and lawlessness. And so the disciples want to be reassured that such a disaster is only a remote possibility: when will this happen? And what will be the signs?

But Jesus’ response is not immediately reassuring. Rather, he explicitly names and confirms their unspoken fears. There will be wars and revolutions, earthquakes and famines and terrifying signs in the heavens. All the people you relied upon will betray you, and you may even be put to death. Only then does Jesus reassure: not a hair on your head will be lost.

Jesus’ predictions, as we know, proved strikingly accurate. Many of those who asked those questions of Jesus were betrayed, arrested, tortured and executed, and those who survived saw the destruction of the Temple. But more significant was the destruction of the real Temple, the body of Jesus himself.

All that I said earlier about the Jerusalem Temple—the place where heaven and earth meet, the place where God’s goodwill is established—apply to the Word made flesh who dwells among us, Jesus himself, the true Temple. Betrayed, arrested, tortured and executed, Jesus accepted it all out of fidelity to the Father and to us, out of love that was more pleasing than all the sacrifices in the Jerusalem Temple. As a sign of this, when Jesus’ act of love came to its end, the veil of the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom, and on third day the Father showed his approval of Jesus and his unbounded love for him by raising him from the dead, with not a hair of his head lost. And it was precisely because those disciples believed in Jesus, crucified and risen, that they could face their own death for his sake. For he had become their reassurance in the face of all their fears: not that they were unlikely, but that God’s love was greater.

And so, when St Paul is worried that some of the Christians in Thessalonica are not working because they think the world will end soon, we do not have a case of people so racked by fear that they cannot sleep at night or hold a job down by day. Rather, we have the opposite extreme of people expecting Christ to come and look after them so that they no longer see a need to do any work for themselves. Of course, such people simply end up being a burden on the community: Paul asks them to look at himself for an example of combining hope in Christ with hard work.

But we need to look at Paul’s constant labour a little more closely. After he had had his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus, and after Ananias had relieved his fears and baptized him, Paul did not return to his previous job. He did not slave away to become the become the most successful tent-maker in Tarsus. His efforts were now completely focused on telling the whole world that Jesus had died, and had risen, and would come again. And if he did occasionally turn to tent-making, it was only keep himself alive for the mission when money from his benefactors and supporters was running low.

All this leaves us with two points to ponder.

So far I have been talking about a large-scale disaster that would bring chaos to many. But there can also be small-scale disasters that might affect only me, such as the death of someone I rely upon greatly. Is my faith in Christ’s death and resurrection strong enough to support me in such a trial?

And secondly, what is motivating me to work? Is my work focused on the needs of this world only, which, as Jesus and Paul would remind is, is destined to end? Or am I, like Paul, working tirelessly in the vineyard of the Lord, and earning what money I need to keep God’s work going. Or, as Jesus puts it in another place, am I working for the food that perishes, or for the food that endures to eternal life?

We have come here, of course, to receive the bread that endures to eternal life, the goal of our labours and our sustenance. The Eucharist is also the assurance of our resurrection, when we shall be united with those whose loss we fear or grieve. And the Eucharist also presents to us Christ’s offering of love on the cross, the place where earth and heaven meet and we are reconciled to the Father who has always loved us. Here is the true Temple that can never be destroyed, so that we may give true glory to the Father, through Jesus his crucified and risen Son, in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Fr Joseph Vnuk, OP is the Regent of Studies and the Chaplain to Monash University, assigned to St Dominic's Priory, Melbourne.