33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
MALACHI 4:1-2
See, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble; the day that comes shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. But for you who revere my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings.
The book is anonymous (Malachi simply means “the messenger”), and it seems it should be dated around 450 B.C., before the reforms of Ezra and Nehemiah.
The people have returned from exile, but the situation is lamentable, the new Temple is extremely poor, and the people are discouraged and lacking in spirit. The book collects prophetic preaching aimed at lifting the morale of the people, proclaiming again the love of God and threatening those who do evil before the Lord.
The last part (from which the text we read today is taken) collects some of the earlier teachings in the image of God’s terrible judgment, also with the intention of exhorting the people to remain faithful to the Law. The book ends this way:
Remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.
In our text, the expression “sun of righteousness” does not mean the same as it does today (a scorching sun), but rather a sun in which holiness shines. It is an image of the triumph of God’s holiness.
2 THESSALONIANS 3:7-12
Brothers, you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you. It was not because we do not have that right, but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate. For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies. Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.
We already know that the fundamental issue of the letter is to make clear Paul’s doctrine on the end of times, the Parousia, insisting that it is not imminent; those who refused to work on the pretext that the end was at hand are ridiculed. Paul sets himself as an example: he has always worked with his hands to earn his bread and not be a burden to his communities.
José Enrique Galarreta, S.J.