This blog follows the daily bible readings of the Catholic Church

Reading 1,  Ezekiel 28:1-10

Ezekiel energised by faith in God's kingdom

1 The word of the Lord was addressed to me as follows,

2 ‘Son of man, say to the ruler of Tyre, “The Lord says this: Because your heart has grown proud, you thought: I am a god; I am divinely enthroned far out to sea. Though you are human, not divine, you have allowed yourself to think like God.

3 So, you are wiser than Danel; no sage as wise as you!

4 By your wisdom and your intelligence you have made yourself a fortune, you have put gold and silver into your treasuries.

5 Such is your skill in trading, your fortune has continued to increase, and your fortune has made your heart grow prouder.

6 “And so, the Lord says this: Since you have allowed yourself to think like God,

7 very well, I am going to bring foreigners against you, the most barbarous of the nations. They will draw sword against your fine wisdom, they will desecrate your splendour,8 they will throw you down into the grave and you will die a violent death far out to sea.

9 Will you still think: I am a god, when your slaughterers confront you? But you will be human, not divine, in the clutches of the ones who strike you down!

10 You will die like the uncircumcised at the hand of foreigners. For I have spoken — declares the Lord.” ‘

Often prophecy is a mixture of wisdom and judgment. Ezekiel’s word rests on the wise knowledge, that pride goes before a fall, together with the judgment that Tyre is vulnerable to invasion. Prophecy, however, goes beyond its bases: it provides a limit in time beyond which injustice will not survive and evil will get its deserts. Today we still possess the wisdom and the judgment to question unjust power, but we no longer prophesy a limit, because we lack any sense of the imminence of God’s rule in the world.

I might criticise the insane pride and wealth of the USA or the comic-book dictatorship of North Korea, but I am unlikely to prophesy their earthly punishment by God.

Gospel, Matthew 19:23-30

23 Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘In truth I tell you, it is hard for someone rich to enter the kingdom of Heaven. 24 Yes, I tell you again, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for someone rich to enter the kingdom of Heaven.’

25 When the disciples heard this they were astonished. ‘Who can be saved, then?’ they said.

26 Jesus gazed at them. ‘By human resources’, he told them, ‘this is impossible; for God everything is possible.’

27 Then Peter answered and said, ‘Look, we have left everything and followed you. What are we to have, then?’

28 Jesus said to them, ‘In truth I tell you, when everything is made new again and the Son of man is seated on his throne of glory, you yourselves will sit on twelve thrones to judge the twelve tribes of Israel.

29 And everyone who has left houses, brothers, sisters, father, mother, children or land for the sake of my name will receive a hundred times as much, and also inherit eternal life.

30 ‘Many who are first will be last, and the last, first.’

The coming kingdom casts its light into the present: the last shall be first

Jesus’ prophecy refers to the time when everything is made new again (a good translation of the Greek ‘palin-genesis’) in which Galilean fishermen will sit on thrones and those who have made sacrifices will be rewarded richly. Scholars suggest that the life of the church is a fulfilment of Jesus’ words, which is not a daft idea, but something is lost in that interpretation: precisely, the making new of everything.

That’s realistic of course. Martin Buber the great Jewish teacher, commenting on the Christian concept that the world had been saved through Christ, said, gesturing to the window, “Does it look saved?”

Still, the ancient, irrational, prophetic consciousness of the coming kingdom of God is a reminder of what we may have lost: faith that we may see the goodness of God in the land of the living. (I need hardly add that speculations about rapture are loony tunes, not faith)