Episode 155: 32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time,Year C
In today’s episode, we focus on three apologetical details in the second reading and Gospel reading for this upcoming 32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C, which is the Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome. Two of the three are found in the second reading, which is taken from 1 Corinthians 3:9c-11, 16-17, both of which come up in discussions related to Purgatory. The third detail, found in the Gospel reading, taken from John 2:13-22, comes up in discussions about the literal interpretation of Jesus’ command to eat his flesh and drink his blood in John 6.
Hey everyone,
Welcome to The Sunday Catholic Word, a podcast where we reflect on the upcoming Sunday Mass readings and pick out the details that are relevant for explaining and defending our Catholic faith.
I’m Dr. Karlo Broussard, staff apologist and speaker for Catholic Answers, and the host for this podcast.
In today’s episode, we’re going to focus on three apologetical details in the second reading and Gospel reading for this upcoming 32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C, which is the Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome. Two of the three are found in the second reading, which is taken from 1 Corinthians 3:9c-11, 16-17, both of which come up in discussions related to Purgatory. The third detail, found in the Gospel reading, taken from John 2:13-22, comes up in discussions about the literal interpretation of Jesus’ command to eat his flesh and drink his blood in John 6.
Let’s start with the second reading, again, taken from 1 Corinthians 3:9c-11, 16-17. Paul writes,
You are God’s building.
According to the grace of God given to me,
like a wise master builder I laid a foundation,
and another is building upon it.
But each one must be careful how he builds upon it,
for no one can lay a foundation other than the one that is there,
namely, Jesus Christ.
Do you not know that you are the temple of God,
and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?
If anyone destroys God’s temple,
God will destroy that person;
for the temple of God, which you are, is holy.
The first detail that I want to highlight is Paul’s teaching about building on the foundation of Jesus. And as I mentioned in the introduction, this comes up in discussions about Purgatory. In particular, it comes up in discussions about Purgatory because the next few verses—verses 11-15—constitute the key passage that Catholics appeal to for biblical evidence of purgatory.
To state it briefly, Paul talks about the Day of Judgment (“the Day”) that comes after death (see Heb. 9:27). He speaks of “fire” as “testing” the quality of a person’s works and burning up his bad works—represented by the “wood,” “hay,” and “straw.”
Now, one might ask, “What is Paul describing here? If he speaks of “fire” it would seem perhaps he’s talking about hell.”
Here’s where Paul’s teaching about building on the foundation of Christ comes in. He continues with this idea in verse 12, which is not part of our second reading, which describes an individual who has in fact built on the foundation that is Jesus. This definitively excludes hell as the postmortem state of existence that Paul is describing in these verses. You can’t be in hell and have built your life on the foundation of Jesus. This is further supported by verse 15 where Paul says that the individual being tested by “fire” will suffer loss but will be saved.
But this just raises another question: “If this postmortem state of testing by “fire” can’t be hell because the person being tested is a saved Christian, then what is it? It can’t be heaven because the person is suffering loss.” Well, we call it “purgatory”—a postmortem final purification of those who die in God’s friendship yet have not achieved the perfect holiness necessary for immediate entrance into the Beatific Vision.
The second detail is Paul’s reference to the Corinthian church as “the temple of God” and his warning that whosoever “destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person.” As I point out in my book Purgatory is for Real, this helps us answer a question some Protestants might pose as a challenge to our appeal to 1 Corinthians 3:11-15 as evidence for purgatory. The question is this: How do we know that this passage applies to all Christians, since the text speaks only of the builder being purified by fire?
In context, so a Protestant might argue, this purification refers to ministers who build up the local churches after Paul (or another apostle) has laid the foundation. It doesn’t say anything about Christians experiencing this purification.
First, even if Paul were speaking of only the minister, it would still be reasonable to apply the passage to all Christians. Paul describes what happens on the Day of Judgment—either at the end of our lives or the end of the world, whichever comes first. And since all Christians will be judged (Rom. 2:6-7), it’s reasonable to think the same principles of judgment would apply: testing of works and purification.
But I think the wider context of the passage shows that Paul does have all Christians in mind, since he includes all Christians in his subsequent warnings about judgment. Here’s where our detail comes into play. In verse 16, Paul refers to the Corinthians as God’s temple. Then, in the next verse, he warns, “If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him” (emphasis added).
Paul has in mind the factions that the Corinthians were creating in their church. Some were saying, “I belong to Paul” and others, “I belong to Apollos” (v.4). Paul sees such factionist activity as destroying the Church, the direct opposite of building up the Church. If in verse 17 Paul warns the Corinthians—and by way of extension all Christians—about judgment, then it seems reasonable that he would intend the principles of judgment he lays out in verses 11-15 to apply to them as well, and not just to ministers.
Okay, let’s now turn to the Gospel reading, taken from John 2:13-22, which is John’s record of Jesus cleansing the temple of the money changers. I’m not going to read the whole thing. Rather, I will just highlight the portion that’s relevant for my purposes.
The first thing I will say that’s relevant for apologetics is the question of how to reconcile John’s record of this event occurring at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry and the Synoptic Gospels putting it at the end of Jesus’ ministry. Rather than reinventing the wheel, so to speak, I will refer to you Jimmy Akin’s podcast episode “Jesus Cleansing the Temple—Why and When?” He does a great job tackling this question.
The detail that I want to focus on is the Jews’ misunderstanding of Jesus’ statement and Jesus’ lack of clarification. Here’s what we read:
“What sign can you show us for doing this?”
Jesus answered and said to them,
“Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.”
The Jews said,
“This temple has been under construction for forty-six years,
and you will raise it up in three days?”
But he was speaking about the temple of his Body.
Therefore, when he was raised from the dead,
his disciples remembered that he had said this,
and they came to believe the Scripture
and the word Jesus had spoken.
Notice the Jews mistake Jesus’ comments to be referring to the physical temple and Jesus doesn’t offer any sort of clarification. What relevance does this have apologetically?
Well, many of you listening know the standard Catholic line of argumentation in John 6 that Jesus must have meant his words “eat my flesh” and “drink my blood” literally because he never clarifies or corrects the Jews’ literal understanding. Some Protestants try to undercut the appeal to Jesus’ lack of clarification by basically saying, “It’s no big deal. He does it all the time.” And the passage they refer to is this portion of the Gospel reading.
Protestant apologist Robert Zins, founder of the ministry A Christian Witness to Roman Catholicism, makes this argument and appeals to John 2:15-21 for support in his book Romanism—The Relentless Roman Catholic Assault on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For Zins, since Jesus didn’t correct their misplaced literal thoughts here, then there’s no reason to expect that Jesus would have done so in John 6, as Catholics claim he would have if his audience were mistaken.
Note that everything I say here in response comes from my book Meeting the Protestant Response: How to Answer Common Comebacks to Catholic Arguments.
It’s interesting that just a few verses later, at the beginning of the next chapter (John 3:3-5), John records Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus about being born again in order to enter the kingdom of heaven. Like Jesus’ critics in the previous chapter, Nicodemus takes Jesus’ words in a literalistic way, asking, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” (v.4).
Now, unlike with Jesus’ critics in the previous chapter, Jesus clarifies Nicodemus’ crass literalism, saying, “Unless one is born of water and Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (v.5). So, why does Jesus clarify the crass literalism of Nicodemus and not his critics?
One possible explanation is that the critics were hard hearted, and so merited to be left in the dark concerning the true meaning of Jesus’ statement. Having foreknowledge of what was to come at his trial, Jesus knew they would seek “false testimony” (Matt. 26:59) and twist his claims to provide grounds for sentencing him to death. Notice John records Jesus saying, “Destroy this temple,” but yet Matthew reports that those charging Jesus at his trial accused Jesus of saying that he would destroy the temple of God: “This fellow said, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God.’” (v.61; emphasis added). Jesus’ critics present in John 2 were closed off to embracing the truth that he would rise from the dead, and so Jesus, on this reading, leaves the ambiguity.
Nicodemus, on the other hand, was not hard hearted and thus did not merit being left in ambiguity. So, Jesus clarifies his misunderstanding.
Another possible explanation is that Jesus simply doesn’t clarify his critics’ thoughts because they weren’t his followers. It was common for Jesus to clarify things for his disciples but not for others. For example, Mark tells us in 4:34, “With many such parables [Jesus] spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; he did not speak to them without a parable, but privately to his own disciples he explained everything.” Matthew records a conversation that Jesus had with his disciples concerning this very issue: “Then the disciples came and said to him, ‘Why do you speak to them in parables?’ And [Jesus] answered them, ‘To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given” (Matt. 13:11). Given Jesus’ practice of clarifying things for his disciples but not others, it’s possible that Jesus doesn’t clarify the literalistic thoughts of his critics in John 2 simply because they weren’t his disciples.
Now, a Protestant might object, “This line of reasoning doesn’t help the Catholic interpretation of John 6 because if Jesus left his critics in the darkness of ambiguity due to their hard heartedness, then perhaps that’s what Jesus did in John 6. John tells us it was ‘the Jews’ (John’s label for those who didn’t follow Jesus) that said, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’
The problem here is that it’s not just those who didn’t follow Jesus who had a hard time with Jesus’ teaching. His “disciples” (John’s label for those who believe in and have been following Jesus) had difficulties as well. In response to Jesus’ six-fold affirmation that we must eat his flesh and drink his blood (vv.53-58), his disciples say to him, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it” (v.60).
Jesus doesn’t give any sort of explanation to his disciples that eases the difficulty they’re having with his teaching. Rather, his response underscores it: “Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of man ascending where he was before?” (v.62). In other words, Jesus is saying, “If you think this saying is hard, wait til you see what’s coming! It’s going to be even more difficult to believe!” Why would Jesus appeal to his ascension, something even more difficult to believe given its miraculous nature, if he were trying to ease the difficulty by clarifying the literal thoughts of his disciples concerning his teaching to eat his flesh and drink his blood? Such a response suggests that Jesus is not clarifying his disciples’ literal thoughts. Rather, he’s affirming them.
Conclusion
Well, my friends, that’s all I have for this episode of the Sunday Catholic Word. The second reading and the Gospel reading give us material that’s definitely worthy considering when it comes to apologetics:
- We have material that comes up in discussions involving the biblical support for the doctrine of purgatory, 1 Corinthians 3:11-15 being the focus,
- We have material that prompts the question of the reliability of the Gospels, and
- We have material that’s relevant for defending the literal meaning of Jesus’ words concerning eating his flesh and drinking his blood in John 6.
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You might also want to check out the other great podcasts in our Catholic Answers podcast network: Trent Horn’s The Counsel of Trent, Joe Heschmeyer’s Shameless Popery, and Jimmy Akin’s The Jimmy Akin podcast,” all of which can be found at catholic.com. And if you want to follow more of my own work, check out my website at karlobroussard.com
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I hope you have a blessed 32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C. Until next time, God Bless.