28th Sunday A

Jeff Bagnall • 12 October 2023

The first reading is a very upbeat announcement of the good times that the Lord will bring about for all nations. This is not just about the freedom of the Jews who have been in captivity, but it is a universal message of good times, with plenty of all the fruits of the earth and no fear of troubles. The destruction of death might be seen by Christians as the announcement of life after death, but when this message was first delivered, probably in the 6 ^th century BC, it meant no more will enemies kill each other. All these wonderful gifts from God are, however, delivered to all peoples “on this mountain,” a phrase that initially refers to the city of Jerusalem which is centred upon and around a prominent hill in the countryside; though the phrase was used symbolically to refer to all the people of Israel. So we see in this passage the basis for a future view of what God will do for all people on earth, but with the restriction of it being centred on the people of Israel; it is the vision of a prophet who sees the future darkly, reading it from the worldly state of affairs that he interprets from the standpoint of his assured belief that his is also the god of those who share his faith. We know ourselves that many of us Christians are caught in similar limitations in our vision of God’s relationship with the whole world and its people.

The Christians of Philippi made up the first community that Paul established about 50 AD in Europe. Though at first he preached to the Jews, it soon expanded into a mostly Gentile Christian church. They had on several occasions sent funds to him during his further missionary activities, and there was a caring friendship between him and them. The letter to the Philippians that is in the New Testament is most likely a conflation of extracts from several (maybe three) letters that he wrote to them at different times and about different matters. The resulting letter that we have comprises different sections with different tones and we can detect a number of different apparent endings in the last chapter. The two passages we have as our second reading today, are from one of these endings (verses 12-14 and 19-20). They reflect a situation where Paul has received more financial support from them brought to him by a respected member of the community named Epaphroditus; but while thanking them, he indicates that he can manage, for he has experienced both sufficiency and hardship, but has always been supported by God. He wants them to know also that God will see that they are all right (as He does us), and he gives glory to God for this – as we should.

The parable in today’s reading , seems to be drawn from a source used also by Luke, and even in a writing not in the New Testament, the Gospel of Thomas; the source is often referred to as Q (which is just short for the German ‘quelle’ meaning source). Matthew has altered the parable to have a somewhat different meaning that is more in line with his way of thinking. It is addressed specially to the priests and the Pharisees. The story is about a king putting on a banquet for his son; the invitations are rebuffed and the carriers of them ill-treated (even killed), so the king has his vengeance on them destroying their city. And then the commoners are invited and respond gratefully, yet some of them are ill-prepared and get thrown out (to hell). This is about God trying to win over the people (the Jews) with prophets and preachers, but they were not heeded at all. It is about the disasters that have befallen them – even the destruction of the Temple which happened in 70 AD by the Romans. It is about the Gentiles being invited, like the Christian communities open to all people. But finally it is about the need to repent sin and put on the new Christian way of life (like a garment) even if you are part of the community, else it will not go well with you.

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Jeff Bagnall was a lecturer for many years at Craiglockhart College teaching RE to many future Catholic Primary teachers.

33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time - 2025 - Year C

4 November 2025

The first reading is from the last section of the book of Malachi. In the Hebrew this is Chapter 3, but in the Greek version it is Chapter 4. Cyrus, the king of Persia who became the ruler of Babylon in the 6th century BC, had high ideals for society and a policy of returning deportees back to their homelands. We know of this from the Cyrus cylinder which was discovered in 1869 in the ruins of the city of Babylon and is in the British Museum. In the Bible, the book of Isaiah the prophet interpreted this return to their own land as brought about by their God through Cyrus. But those who returned were not all as good living as they should be and so, in the book of Malachi, we hear today of God’s punishment upon them, but for those who are good or repent, God will come “with healing in his wings.”

31st in Ordinary Time - 2025 - Year C

22 October 2025

The first reading is from the book Wisdom ( 11:22-12:3 ). This book was written less than a century before the birth of Jesus. It came from someone in the Jewish community in Alexandria in Egypt. Jews at the time were not just in the promised land and were quite aware of the ways of thinking in the wider community about life, gods and associated mysteries. The book of Wisdom is in Greek and its ideas are a development of earlier Jewish ideas, absorbing more contemporary notions from this wider community in which they lived. And so wisdom is very important; it is used by them to refer God Himself and their idea of life now extended to even life after death which was not previously held by Jews. Our reading exemplifies the literary quality of the thoughts poetically expressed in a theology of the relationship of God with the failings of humanity and the development of creation. The second reading is from 2 Thess 1:11-2:2 . The two letters to the Thessalonians are the first surviving documents about Jesus that we have – the oldest writings in the New Testament – prior to the gospels that tell of the life of Jesus. Paul was a learned Rabbi in the Jewish community living away from the Jewish enclave in the Roman empire. The story in Acts of him being quite against Jews becoming followers of Jesus is quite reliable. However, this learned man later became a Christian and worked mostly in Roman communities making converts of Jews but especially of Gentiles. He had established a community in Thessalonica but the Jewish synagogue there was not receptive of his message that God was happy with Gentiles, so a mainly Gentile community of followers of Jesus was established away from the synagogue. However after he moved on from his short stay there, he wants and needs to writes to them from prison. It seems from the text we have that he may have given them a wrong idea of God’s being present to them even now and this being the time of the fulfilment of God’s plan for creation. Some of them had given up their regular work and way of life and were just waiting for the End-time to come. And someone may have encouraged them with this view. So Paul has to tell them to get back to regular life – as good followers of Jesus – the final End has not yet come. We are reminded by this that Christianity is constantly developing an understanding of life and creation, and we should be warned not to be so certain of what are basically mysteries – a danger the church has always suffered from.