Last Sunday after Pentecost
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. I don’t feel that I’m that old, but more and more the cultural things that seem part and parcel of my life are more and more disconnected from the youth today. For example, I remember the Maytag commercials, with the Maytag repairman sitting in his office, waiting for the phone to ring. For me, when I think of things that last and that don’t break down, I think of the Maytag man. I’m not sure young people today would even know who the Maytag man is.
But the last words of the Gospel today remind us, that while things will come and go as the end approaches (and the end is approaching; it’s closer today than it was yesterday), there is one thing that will not change. “Heaven and earth shall pass away,” Christ says, “but my words shall not pass away.”
The word of God is enduing; it lasts forever. It does not come and go based on empires and nations, based upon fads and societal norms. It endures forever. And if we wish to survive whatever trials and tribulations will come, whenever they come (which they will), we need to be grounded in the Word of God, which is the rock foundation upon which our house should be built if we don’t want it to be swept away with the floods.
When Catholics use the phrase “Word of God,” we can use it in different ways. We use it to describe the second Person of the Blessed Trinity, Jesus Christ. He is the Word through whom all things were made, the eternal Word of God, whom we profess every time we say the Prologue of the Gospel of John. Christ is the expression of the Father who reveals to us who the Father is. He is the Divine Word who speaks words that help us know the way to the Father, which is the desired destiny for all those whom God has created in His image and likeness. So when we talk abut the Word of God, we use that phrase par excellence to refer to Christ.
We can also use it to refer to the words of writing that were inspired by the Word of God. We speak of the Word of God as the Scriptures, the privileged communication of God throughout the centuries. Most religions are humanity seeking after God. In Judaism, and its fulfillment in Catholicism, God seeks after us, and communicates who He is, how He made the world, and how we are to find true and lasting happiness. While we are described by Muslims as people of the book, we are really people of the Word, who treasure what God has revealed to us in the Scriptures. The public revelation of God through the Scriptures leads up in the Old Testament to the coming of the Messiah in the Gospels, and then opens up the consequences of what the Messiah did for us through the rest of the New Testament. We find a sure guide in the Scriptures of understanding God and knowing how we are to live as disciples of Christ.
But the Scriptures need unpacking to help us understand which parts are to be taken literally, and which parts are different literary expressions of deeper truths. Sometimes the same grammatical structures express two different types of truth. For example, in the Gospel according to John, our Lord says that He is the Bread of Life. And that is what we believe He is, especially in our understanding of the Eucharist. We take that quite literally. In another place, Christ says that He is the vine, and we are the branches. But we don’t confess our Savior to be a plant. Same grammatical structure, different interpretation. And so the Word of God can also mean the authentically and authoritative interpretations of Scripture that we find in the teachings of the Church. From the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father, to the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, God’s word is also made manifest when the Mystical Body of Christ the Word, also known as the Church, teaches something as necessary for true faith or morals. Official Church teachings are also God communicating to us for our salvation, and are sure guides to being the disciples and saints that God calls us to be in baptism. Ecumenical Councils, and magisterial teachings of the Pope and the Bishops continue to open up the Word of God and help us to know who God is in Himself and in His works.
The Word of God does not change, and we can safely build our houses on it, really, on Him, since Christ is the Word of God. We don’t have to know exactly when the Son of Man will return. But we do need to be attentive to the Son of Man and what He revealed to us. And if we do, then we will be part of the elect who will survive the trials and tribulations that the Savior mentions in the Gospel. If we build our life on the Word of God–Jesus Christ, the Scriptures, and the official teachings of the Church–then the end is not a fearful time, but the consummation of our Lord’s love for us and our love for the Lord. If we build our life on the Word of God, and do our best to follow it each and every day, then it doesn’t matter when that great and glorious and terrible day of our Lord’s return is, because we are ready each day for Him to come back and take us to Himself.
Maytags were advertised as washing machines that were so reliable, that their repairmen had nothing to do. But even more as something that lasts is the Word of God, which is the same yesterday, today, and forever, because the Word of God is Christ the Son, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit live and reign forever and ever. Amen.