Pentecost 23C
November 13, 2022
Luke 21:5-19
INTRODUCTION
Always on this last Sunday before Christ the King Sunday, we hear texts about the end of the world. The idea here is that this week we hear about how the end is coming, then next week we hear about Christ’s second coming, when the King will come and reign over all, and then the next week we begin traditional Advent, when we turn our hearts toward remembering Christ’s first coming, even as we still wait in hopeful expectation for that day when the Prince of Peace will come again. Cool, right? Lectionary for the win.
Our first reading today comes from Malachi, the very last book of the Old Testament. After Malachi’s prophecy, there is a 400-year gap before Jesus (aka the Sun of Righteousness) comes to save us from our sins. Our reading from Thessalonians takes us to just after the resurrection, when believers expected Jesus to return at any moment. As a result, they had ceased to work or do anything, thinking, what was the point anyway, if Jesus was coming back soon? Paul tells them this is the wrong attitude; instead, they should always strive to do the right thing, whether Jesus comes in 5 minutes, or 5000 years.
In our Gospel lesson, Jesus warns the disciples about the end of the world, and the signs that will make clear this is about to happen. Some of the signs sound uncomfortably like what we can see looking around the world today. But, Jesus assures them, even in this, God has a purpose, so trust in that.
It’s not a particularly warm-fuzzy message, from any of these texts, but then again, neither is life always full of warm fuzzies. As you listen, remember a time in your life (or it may be right now!), where it felt like life as you knew it was crumbling around you, and consider: where did God show up, or where did God’s purpose become clear in that? Let’s listen.
[READ]
Grace to you and peace from the one who is and who was and who is to come. Amen.
These end of the world texts we always get in November are always so unnerving. Every single year, I read them and look around and think, “it could be describing today!” And you know what? Every generation has felt that way. Every generation has had its own tragedy that they are sure is worse than any other generation’s. Remember, Luke was writing actually a bit after the events he is describing, after the Temple fell in the year 70 – that surely felt like the end times to that generation! And since then, every time period has had wars and insurrections and signs from heaven, and charismatic people claiming to be the one who knows “just what God is saying by this act!” and so people across time have thought, “This must be the end times!” Well so far, no one has been right. But it doesn’t keep these texts from feeling very unnerving.
So, what do we do then with texts like these? Ignore them? Stick our heads in the proverbial sand? Last week we talked about what happens at the end of our personal, earthly lives, but the end of humanity as we know it is, well, a much bigger concern, one that I know I have a very hard time wrapping my head around. And so yeah, I’d sometimes rather just shrug it off, turn the other way, and ignore it. But I don’t think that is faithful. So instead, let’s lean in, because there is something important to take from these end times texts; Luke’s account of Jesus’ words to a traumatized first century audience speak also to us in our own context.
Let’s start with the first move Jesus makes. After he describes the destruction that will happen, the disciples immediately want more information: “When? How will we know? Explain this to us!” We get that, right? Especially in very emotional times, as tragedy always is, we want more information, believing that if we could just know more things, that will help us understand and move past it. But Jesus doesn’t let them stay there in that false belief. “Beware that you are not led astray,” he goes on, “by those who promise to know everything.” Hmm. I know I am susceptible to following whatever or whomever will give me what I most crave at the time, and in times of immense pain or uncertainty, what I most crave is almost always understanding. Though if I’m honest, more understanding seldom actually helps. In these times, it can be all too easy to fall into despair, into feeling helpless in the face of something so much bigger than us.
But Jesus changes the question: he instead moves the disciples not to think, “When, why, and how?” but rather, “What does this struggle mean for my life of faith?”
And this is where we can find a way to move from falling into despair, to moving toward life. Since the end of the world is such a huge topic, let’s make it more personal: imagine with me that the destruction of the Temple, the loss of this consistent beacon of God’s presence with us, is a sort of metaphor for the ways our own hopes and visions for how we expected life would be sometimes crumble. With that image, a couple of questions come to mind:
First, are we willing to sit with the fact that sometimes things we had planned and counted on and trusted in… fall apart? I doubt there is a person in the world who can say, “I made a plan for my life, and everything has fallen exactly into place and turned out how I planned it.” Right? Even if you eventually get to where you hoped you would, undoubtedly the path had some unexpected twists and turns. Plans falling apart is a part of life, always. And yet if you’re anything like me, you fight against it when it happens, trying desperately to force things once again down the path you had previously laid out so thoughtfully and carefully.
So, what would happen if, instead of looking always to understand and fix, we were willing just to sit with this unexpected reality, and accept that sometimes things do fall apart… and consider that maybe God is using that to put us on the path we need to be on? If ours is a God whose purpose is to show us that death leads to life, then it seems pretty consistent with God’s character that things falling apart might be a necessary step toward building something new.
The other question that comes to mind is, can we accept and even embrace this journey of faith, this one that includes rubble, ruin, and even failure? Can we embrace that sometimes faith means saying, “I thought I had this figured out, but I don’t,” and then putting our trust not in our own skills and understanding, but in God’s own providence and wisdom?
If the answer to each of these questions is, “Yes, I can accept that. I can embrace that ruin and failure and plans fallen apart are a part of living a life of faith,” if we can admit that our carefully made plans are not always aligned with God’s plans… then we experience a little apocalypse. I don’t mean the world ends – though it may feel that way! “Apocalypse” does not mean “the end of the world,” so much as it means, “the end of the world as we have known it.” An apocalypse is an unveiling, a pulling back of the veil to reveal what was hidden beneath. And yes, sometimes, this process is incredibly painful. It shatters our perceptions, sets us off our balance, changes how we see everything. It disillusions us. But disillusion is not, finally, a bad thing. To be disillusioned is to be freed from an illusion, freed from a false truth that was doing more damage to us than good. An apocalypse frees us from these lies, and places our trust squarely where it belongs: in the one who always brings us truth, hope, and life, Jesus Christ our Lord.
What’s tricky about this is that sometimes, the illusions from which we need to be freed are the very behaviors that we thought were keeping us safe and doing us good. They are the coping mechanisms and approaches to life that we developed even as children to get through the difficult things life throws at us. For example, maybe you have told yourself that if you can always crack a joke and find the fun in any situation, then you can avoid pain indefinitely, and eventually the pain will just disappear. Or you’ve told yourself that if you strive always to be good, and do the right thing, and finish everything on your list, then you will find peace. Or that if you always put your needs aside in favor of serving others, you will be loved. Or that if you are prepared for every possible scenario, then you will feel safe.
Now, safety, and love, and peace, and lack of pain – these are not bad outcomes. But the stories we are telling about how to achieve them? These are, in the end, lies we are telling ourselves. They are – illusions. And living those lies will not bring us what we most dearly crave. Maybe sometimes, for a short time, but more often, they will cause us to suffer all the more in the long term, because – and we know this – we will never get what we need by our own devices. And as soon as we can recognize that the stories God wants us to live are stories of grace, stories in which God loves us and provides us exactly what we need – even when temples are falling – the sooner we can rest in the peace, love, and safety Jesus promises us.
I know from personal experience that when those stories we tell ourselves begin to crumble and fall, it can be painful and disorienting. It does feel apocalyptic! I’m sure you know it too, from your own experience. But it is also, finally, life-giving! That is the story of our faith – that whatever our temples are, they will fall. Our carefully made plans will crumble around us. And, that likely will shake us, even to our core. We will feel disillusioned and maybe even abandoned.
But know this: we are not abandoned. The Sun of Righteousness will arise with healing in his wings, and not a hair of your head will perish. Even when we sit in the midst of the ruin of our hopes, the shards of our broken stories, Emmanuel, God-with-us, shows up, weeps with us, and then takes us by the hand, and shows us the new life that exists just beyond the veil.
Let us pray… God of grace, when life is falling apart, when things no longer make any sense, when we are faced with uncomfortable truths, make us certain that with you as our God, not a hair of our heads will perish. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen
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