33^rd Sunday of Ordinary Time

So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. (1 Thess 5:6 )

How often must Christ warn his followers that they must not fall asleep and be unprepared to meet Him when he returns to judge us personally and at the end of time He returns to judge us together, the whole of mankind, as human societies and institutions, to judge human history? Jesus warns us in various parables and other forms not to fall asleep waiting for him to come as judge, to be always prepared lest we be found wanting so as to be excluded from the kingdom. We heard it last week in the parable of the Virgins, today again in the parable of the talents. We hear it in the parable of the rich fool in Luke, the man who builds up his storehouses rather than using his riches to store up treasure in heaven. We hear this warning in Matthew 24 where he speaks of the end time directly; and again in Luke 12, the same warning, again and again. The way Jesus repeats this warning, and the way Paul picks this warning up in his warning about the end of time in today's second reading, and the same warning appears in 1 Peter makes it clear that something awful is at stake here. That something awful is clear to those who have "eyes to see and ears to hear" for what is at stake is nothing less than the eternal destiny of each and every man, the eternal happiness or damnation, which will be determined by this judgement of the Lord.

Why, then , do so few people seem to pay much attention to this urgent warning of Jesus? How many people seem to take this warning seriously, really recognize its urgency for their own personal destiny? Do we? We hear it year after year in the Gospels, and how do we respond to its urgency? Or do we think its not intended somehow for us, is not to be taken as all that urgent, for us, just a kind of scare tactic on Jesus' part to keep us generally alert, but not really to suggest that we might be among those who are asleep, as Paul says. Are we not children of the light? Are we really in all that much danger of falling asleep, of being unprepared to meet the Lord when he comes again to be our judge, or to judge mankind as a whole?

Perhaps one reason few people, few Christians in fact, seem to take this warning of Jesus all that seriously, is because so few people today really believe there is eternal punishment, even if many of these same folks seem to believe there is an eternal happiness. I mean if one believes only in Heaven, then what really is at stake in Jesus' returning, sooner or later, since there is only one possible outcome; everyone is going to enjoy eternal bliss. That is what the religious surveys show us most people today believe. Is it any wonder that today's readings do not resonate very much with most Christians? Indeed, most Catholics will not even hear today's readings, or next week's, or any week's, because having absorbed the prevailing popular orthodoxy of "heaven only" it logically follows that it does not really matter much how one lives in this world, including whether or not or how often one attends Church and worships God, or ever hears His Word on anything.

The denial of Hell's existence, or denying the practical possibility that anyone including ourselves could end up there by God's judgement even if it does exist, is this denial perhaps the ultimate form of "falling asleep" that Jesus had in mind in his warnings, or that Paul was speaking about in today's 2^nd reading? Paul speaks about people assuring themselves they are safe from all harm: When people say, "There is peace and security," then sudden destruction will come upon them. We might associate this at first glance with the security in the parable of the rich man, economic security, but that is surely not the ultimate danger for man, the ultimate form of self-deceiving peace and security that is tantamount to "falling asleep" when it comes to the judgement of Jesus. No the ultimate form of false security, the kind of peace and security that allows us to ignore God and his judgement, is surely the denial of Hell, in one of its two forms, its very existence, or its existential weight by denying anyone really ends up in that state of eternal damnation.

Back in the eighties I attended a conference where one of the truly brilliant Catholic theologians of the 20^th Century was speaking. He was asked about his position on hell, since he had been unfairly accused by some people of denying its reality. He simply responded that since most people do not believe in hell, which he in fact did, it was simply not going to be a very effective evangelical theme today in the work of evangelization or re-evangelizing the masses of Christians who had largely lost their Christian faith in such matters. In fact, this great theologian taught that we had to keep the option of universal salvation open to guarantee the full scope of Christian hope, based upon the full depth of our faith in the redemptive power of the passion and death of the Lord.

In one sense of course this seems quite accurate enough, for belief in hell certainly depends upon believing first in the Lord who came to deliver us from that real possibility. There is a certain hierarchy of truths and a certain pedagogy of evangelization which never has begin with the preaching of hell, or the preaching of heaven. It begins with Jesus and man's wretchedness, which he came to deliver us from by his own saving mission. But inevitably the very real and pressing possibility that man can be lost forever through his own fault cannot be left aside, or existentially downgraded, without at the same time calling into question the very urgency, if not necessity, of Christ's mission itself.

Now I am not all that sure that the Pharisees fully believed in hell themselves, or at least a real possibility for themselves, and Christ referred to them precisely as blind guides. He warned them they would "die" in their sins if they did submit to his Word and rule. But what kind of death could he have had in mind if not the same one he warned his followers to stay on guard against, to stay awake to avoid, not to fall asleep, except the death which is the only one we can avoid, and the most awful one we best avoid, the death of hell?

But if all this is now passe, then sleep becomes a way of life. Why bother? That becomes the motto of religious life. While it's true that the fear of hell is certainly not the summit of religious faith and life for the true Christian, still the reality of hell and the attitude of always staying prepared to meet Christ for our judgement is clearly part of Christian wisdom. The drama of human existence is ultimately measured against the horizon of eternity and the eternal consequences of our life in this world. The measure of Christ's love and sacrifice has to be not only what he saved us for, but what he saved us from. The former is infinitely greater than the later because beatitude is ultimately God, while the latter remains in the created order. But the reality of God remains hidden from our ability to see this disproportion, and the alternative destinies must be seen together to appreciate the drama of human existence.

As the Christian life deepens the concrete fear of hell inevitably lessens, not based upon its being reduced in its intrinsic horror, or the denial of its possibility as our own destiny should we "fall asleep" and abandon the way of the Lord Jesus as our way of life, but simply because we are drawing quite consciously and steadily closer to the Lord in his way of life. It is His Grace that gives us confidence, not our very real weakness and ever present possibility of drawing back from his Grace. But this is not what is happening when men lose the fear of hell altogether and become convinced that life in this world, no matter how it is lived, and regardless of our effort to follow the way of the Lord who lived, died and rose for us, will end up gaining us eternal happiness. That makes a mockery not only of the warnings of Jesus to stay awake, but of his very mission and person. It is a certain sign that faith is no longer present, no longer driving and guiding our existence.

The people who claim to be Christians cannot be given only partially the truth of Jesus redeeming love. Yes, the greatest part of that truth by far is the love itself and the call we have to make it our own way, our own life in God. But the other side of the truth cannot be omitted because they don't seem to "believe in it" any more, because that truly indicates that they really do not believe in the greater part of the redemption either. The evangelizing mission of Jesus began with that unhappy aspect, first in the preaching of John - Therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire - and then in Jesus own preaching, Repent. The warnings Jesus will repeat in his teaching are tied to his urgent call to repentance, because the failure to repent is what causes one not to be prepared for the judgement that is coming. The Church cannot but follow the way of the Lord which includes His way of evangelizing. When it does it not ought to be surprised that the Church and Christ himself are soon of little importance in the lives of most people.