READINGS

Luke 21:25-28 - The Coming of the Son of Man
Luke 21:34-36 - The Need for Watchfulness
Ex 22:2-3

HOMILY

Luke is more interested in the question of time. The intermediate time in which with live.

He is explaning things for a more gentile population who didn't have necessarily complete knowledge of how things worked.

He removes any notion of vengeance.

He talks about the notion of the new creation: Jesus' death is the moment of new creation.

The sun has gone down (complete darkness at noon) and Jesus breaths out the Spirit which is going back therefore outside creation for the whole of creation to start again.

25 Then there will be signs in the sun, moon, and stars; and there will be anguish on the earth among nations bewildered by the roaring of the sea and the waves.

26 People will faint from fear and expectation of the things that are coming on the world, because the powers of the heavens will be shaken.

Luke's talking about what we would now call intermediary cosmic forces: the notion of angels and bad angels toughing it out in heaven. We would talk more about shifts in human interaction that have worldwide consequences.

Luke takes out the divine causality of these things.

So here Jesus is talking about what is going to happen after his death (put to an end any possible notion of vengeance).

This new time will be difficult, because everything is going to be shaken up, because what he has done will become visible (make visible the innocence of the victim, which is the beginning of the undoing of all our systems of fooling ourselves about how good we are by blaming other people).

This looses up all our systems of belonging, makes it more difficult and makes us more tense and more inclined to more violent forms of belonging, which don't last for so long because we know they're fake.

27 Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.

This is the same as we had it in Mark (the same quote from the prophet Daniel).

However, here Luke is talking about the long-term process of the visibilization (something becoming more and more visible over time). In fact, the innocence of the victim.

28 But when these things begin to take place, stand up and lift your heads, because your redemption is near.

You will be the beneficiaries of this, because you will have learned from the crucified and risen one. How to receive love and grow in the midst of all this time.

34 Be on your guard, so that your minds are not dulled from carousing, drunkenness, and worries of life, or that day will come on you unexpectedly 35 like a trap. For it will come on all who live on the face of the whole earth.

The coming of the son of man is this constant process of visibilization which is coming everywhere to all societies (and not only a church thing).

For everyone who is caught in it, will seem like a trap, because they will have been something they assume to be good, and suddenly their world will be turned upside down, because they will discover the forgiving victim.

They will discover the one who has been telling the real story all along (and it wasn't them) and they will have to discover that they need to be forgiven.

Different than Mark, Luke leaves out the phrase (like the thief of the night), because a gentile public couldn't be expected to know the sort of trap that was being done in that very dense image of [the son of man will come like a thief in the night].

This happens because the thief of the night burrows through a hole in the house (house made of a rather poor mud brick).

What we don't remember as gentiles is that Exodus 22 has specific instructions about this.

Ex 22:2 If the thief is found breaking in, and he is struck so that he dies, there shall be no guilt for his bloodshed. 3 If the sun has risen on him, there shall be guilt for his bloodshed. He should make full restitution; if he has nothing, then he shall be sold[a] for his theft.

So when Jesus refers to himself as a thief in the night, he's talking about his forthcoming death and the fact that there's going to be no blood guilt upon the people who killed him (so the importance that the sun goes down when he actually dies).

The chances are we will be thinking of being good somewhere and not be aware of how we will have been hiding away not paying attention, not wanting to listen to the Son of Man as he comes into our midst.

36 But be alert at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place and to stand before the Son of Man.”

Again the notion of standing: it's the notion that by living without drunkeness, dissipation, worry, we keep our intelligence, our antennae, our constantly being alert to see where the Lord is coming in.

We are not caught, but gradually, as he comes close, we are able to stand.

So Luke talks about undoing vengeance, no threats, no good this way, bad that way.

It's much more of a vision of one coming in, wanting everybody to be seen and to be found.

It's the merciful coming in, even if it's in the midst of terrible things, but these are terrible things that are at the human level.

This is not to do with God being some sort of punisher anyhow.