19th Sunday in Ordinary Time

In the Gospel today, Jesus uses two images for God, one that is very familiar and altogether in keeping with our ideas of God - the image of a Master, and then one that is downright scandalously shocking, comparing God with a thief. In order to try to make sense of these two images and how they work together, it is important to try to get a sense of how these images would have been received, heard and understood by a first century Jew listening to this itinerant preacher from Nazareth. In order for us to do this, a brief synopsis of the history of Israel is necessary. In the year 586, the Israelite people suffered one of the biggest calamities in their national history with the deportation and exile to Babylon having suffered a massive defeat at the hands of the Babylonians. What made this calamity so profoundly devastating to the Israelites was the destruction of the Temple. The Israelites interpreted this to mean the Lord Adonai had abandoned God’s people because of their sinfulness. Fast forward to Jesus’ time in 30 AD, even though the Israelites had returned from their exile a half a millennium ago, in the year 538 B.C., they still considered themselves in exile and were still awaiting the time that God would intervene in their history decisively and vindicate them. Since the terrible abomination of the destruction of the first Temple and the Babylonian exile - the children of Israel had suffered a huge humiliation. they had accepted that God had allowed this because of their unfaithfulness. But even if they were unfaithful, God was always faithful and they still believed that one day God would vindicate them and establish God’s kingdom on earth by raising up for them a ruler from the clan of David who would restore the Davidic kingdom and would rule over the whole of the land. The Jews were still waiting for this end to their humiliation, for the defeat of their enemies, the Romans and indeed all the pagans.

The central theme of Jesus’ preaching that concerned the coming of God’s kingdom would have been heard by Jesus’ listeners in the context of the expectation of the restoration of Israel - the victory of Israel. Let us come now to today’s gospel and begin with the first familiar image: the return of the Master - Jesus listeners would have heard Jesus in the context of their own expectations of God vindicating them - reentering history in a decisive way and establishing his rule on earth with the nation of Israel as God’s primary instruments for achieving this purpose. They would have imagined God doing this in great style. Jesus’ listeners would have relished the idea of the Master coming at an hour they did not expect and catching people off guard [the Romans, the chief priests, etc]. This was the type of coming they were expecting.

But just when Jesus’ listeners are beginning to enjoy themselves and feel they are on familiar ground, Jesus subverts their expectations with an image they would have found wholly repugnant - God coming, not as the Master, but rather as a thief. Jesus’ listeners would have recoiled at this idea, because if God came in a hidden way, in the dark of night like a thief, no-one would see their vindication as Israel, their humiliation in the sight of the nations would still remain. This is why Jesus warned people: “And if they will say to you “Look here it is,” or “Behold there it is,” do not follow them.” (Lk 17: 23). The Kingdom that comes with fanfare and pomp in the way that most Jews were expecting it to come is most likely to be a false Kingdom according to Jesus.

But to those who were looking closely enough, God’s reign was arriving in their midst - Israel was being restored, made whole again and being brought out of exile. Jesus’ welcome of sinners, tax collectors, prostitutes back into the fold of Israel was making Israel whole again. Jesus’ healing of lepers and all those with various ailments that under the strict purity laws rendered them unclean and therefore outside the holy people of God was effectively redrawing the boundary markers of the people of Israel - bringing them out of exile and restoring the people to the covenant with God - a restoration that now no longer needed the Temple and its structures of sacrifice but rather that was mediated by faith in Jesus himself and his message. So Israel was being restored, but in secret, in a hidden way that was not visible to the whole world, especially not to Israel’s enemies. In fact, not only was Israel being restored in a very subtle, underground manner, it would have been downright embarrassing for many Jews. We know that some of the pagan people even mocked the way that Jesus’ new community included the outcasts of the world and had a Messiah who was crucified and rose again from the dead.

We have to take the full measure of the fact that what the Kingdom of God now looked like was a motely band of outcasts gathered around an itinerant prophet from some backwater town in a far-flung corner of the Roman empire named Galilee. The modern equivalent would be if you were promised a powerful army to conquer the world in order to spread liberal democracy and human rights to every corner of the planet - so picture battalions of soldiers surrounded by tanks and armored vehicles marching in lockstep saluting their commander in chief, as F-16s fly overhead - and instead of getting this what you actually got was a bunch of hippies dressed in hemp singing hallelujah and promising to preach yoga and veganism to all who would care to listen to them. You would feel cheated. In a similar way, the people of Israel may have felt that their nationalist dream of world domination was being stolen away from them by Jesus’ preaching. The Israelite people were still subject to the Romans, they were still regarded as a small and innocuous nation, incapable of defending themselves against the mighty powers that surrounded them. They longed for the day when God would demonstrate God’s power by giving them a mighty military victory against all their oppressors. But for those who understood Jesus’ message - God had come like a thief in the night and had changed everything - God was no longer just the God of the Israelites, but was now the God of all people and all people were welcome in God’s Kingdom - rich, poor, male, female, Jewish, pagan, crippled, lame, pious and sinner, tax collectors and prostitutes. Salvation was no longer mediated through the national Temple of one race, but rather through the name of God’s own Son who had visited us as showed us the real meaning of life and love.

So the message of the parable is that our expectations can often get in the way of us recognizing the different ways in which God acts in our lives. Our last experience of God is always the biggest obstacle to our next experience of God. Israel’s last experience of YHWH was as their national God – they were the chosen people and God had helped them overcome and defeat their enemies to establish the Kingdom of Israel under King David. They therefore expected their next experience of God to be much the same – that they would once again to be shown to be Yahweh’s chosen people by defeating all their enemies. It was for this reason that they failed to see God breaking into their national history in a different way – through Jesus Christ. It wasn’t that their dreams were too big though, wanting a glorious Messiah and only getting a suffering one, it was that their dreams were too small and too narrow – dreaming of a national Savior, instead of a Savior for the whole world.

The problem is that when we have an experience of God we latch onto it, thinking that we have God locked down. This is precisely why Jesus counsels us to stay alert, not to become complacent and think that we have God and God’s plans for the world all figured out. If we do fall into this trap - God can seem like a thief to us - stealing away our dreams and disappointing our expectations. However, if we are always alert to the fact that God can be working in our world in very hidden and unexpected ways - then when God does show up unexpectedly - we will welcome God as a Master and not as a thief. Hopefully, as we progress in the spiritual life, we will learn to welcome God more as a Master and less as a thief, as we learn to accept with joy the unexpected events in our lives as the in-breaking of an all-loving God.

Questions for reflection:

1. What was my last most significant experience of God’s salvation in my life? Has this conditioned my expectations regarding the next way God will intervene in my life for my salvation?
2. In which parts of my life might God trying to be breaking into like a thief?
3. Where might God’s Kingdom already have arrived in your midst in an unexpected way?