Sermon: When our temples fall apart (Nov. 17, 2019)

Pentecost 23C/Lectionary 33

November 17, 2019

Malachi 4:1-2a

2 Thessalonians 3:6-13

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 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?

         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 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 God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

         I’ll be honest: this Sunday always gives me a stomachache. Every year, when I read this Gospel text – always, on this Sunday, it is apocalyptic, describing the end of times, and the signs that we will know it is coming – I look out my window and think, “Is this it, then? Is this what we are experiencing now?” Hard not to think that: wars, insurrections, nation rising against nation, natural disasters, famines, plagues, signs from the heavens… it all sounds an awful lot like what we hear in the news each day, doesn’t it? California is on fire, people are fleeing their homes because the uncertainty of what lies ahead is better than the tragedy they leave behind, climate change, a very real fear of Civil War or insurrection right here in the greatest democracy on earth. Surely, this must be the end of time!

         But then, maybe it’s always felt that way. The original hearers of this text were no strangers to such difficult times. Here’s a little church history lesson for you, to give you a better sense of the context of this writing: Luke was writing this story several decades after Jesus lived, and in fact, after the Jerusalem Temple they are looking at had already been destroyed. So while the story we hear is about people gazing in wonder at that same Temple, the people hearing Luke’s version of the story already knew that this Temple had been torn down. This was a Really Big Deal. The Temple, you see, was the most profound and unshakable symbol of God’s presence that they knew or could imagine. So as the disciples gaze at it, they are admiring the gold and the size of the stones, yes, but they are also marveling at being so close to this epic symbol of God, and all the religious memory and sense of identity that goes with it. Luke’s audience, who have already lost that symbol, have suffered far more than the loss of a building. Without that Temple, their sense of who they are, and who God is, has been severely damaged.

         It makes sense, then, that as Luke describes the foretelling of this event that his audience has already experienced, that he would attribute some meaning to it. He is aiming to illuminate God’s purpose, even in the tragedy they are experiencing.

         Now, we are not experiencing that same tragedy in our time… but we are no strangers to tragedy, on a personal scale or a communal scale. Perhaps that seems especially timely this week, as the impeachment hearings have gone public and the division in our country as a result has grown even deeper. Plus all the other horrific news we hear each day. I know people who have stopped consuming the news altogether because it is simply too much to take. And in the midst of all this, we are all managing our own personal pain and suffering, in our families, with our friends, at our workplaces.

So I wonder – can 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, huh? Especially in very emotional times, as tragedy always is, we want more information, believing that just knowing things will help us understand and move past it. But Jesus doesn’t let them stay there. “Beware that you are not led astray,” he goes on, “by those who promise to know everything.” I know I am susceptible to following whatever or whomever will give me what I most crave, and in times of immense pain, what I most crave is almost always understanding. 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. 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, am I willing to sit with the fact that sometimes things I 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 what would happen if, instead of looking always to understand, we were willing just to sit with this unexpected reality and recognition 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 is 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 – not at all, 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 know 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.

         Friends, our temples, whatever they are, will fall. Our plans will crumble around us. It will be painful. 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 on your head will perish. Next week we close out this church year with Christ the King Sunday, when we remember that our Lord and King is ruler of all things – even when our politics are in shambles, and whole states are on fire, and no one can agree on what to do with refugees, and everyone believes their view is the right view. Christ is our King. And then we will move into the season of Advent, when we are reminded again and again that our God is Emmanuel, always God-with-us and never abandoning us. Even when we sit in the midst of the ruin of our hopes, God weeps with us, and then takes us by the hand, and shows us the new life that exists just beneath the veil.

Let us pray… 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 Lord, not a hair on our heads will perish. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sermon: Resurrected life... now? (Nov. 10. 2019)

Pentecost 22C

November 10, 2019

Job 19:23-27

2 Thessalonians 2:1-5

Luke 20:27-38

INTRODUCTION

         All of our readings today deal with the question of resurrection, of life after death, salvation after suffering, of the newness that follows endings. Job professes his certainty that his immense suffering will not last forever, that his redeemer will finally come and defend him and he will be saved. Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians offers encouragement amidst the confusion over what people believed would be the imminent return of Jesus. “Don’t let this possibility distract you,” he urges, “from the central teachings of the gospel in the meantime!”

         Our Gospel lesson requires some background to fully understand what’s going on here. It begins with the Sadducees trying to trick Jesus. The Sadducees, as Luke will tell us, are a sect of Judaism that does not believe in the resurrection. And so, they are trying to trap Jesus by describing a scenario and carrying it to its logical and absurd conclusion, thus disproving resurrection. The scenario uses levirate marriage as the premise, so I wanted to explain first what that is. In some patriarchal societies (such as 1^st century Judaism and some still today), the levirate law says that if a woman’s husband dies childless, she should marry her husband’s brother. At its best, this is a practice that protects the vulnerable widow, because she cannot support herself and this law requires the family to take her in and provide. But perhaps more than that, it is a property issue because it keeps the wealth in the family, allows for the possibility of heirs, and keeps the blood line going. The scenario the Sadducees describe push this law to its max, imagining 7 brothers who all die childless – in this case, they ask, to whom does the women belong in the resurrection? It’s a clever question, but Jesus of course has an even more clever response.

         The question of resurrection, what happens when we die, and what this all means for life right now, is a question central to the life of faith. So as you listen, think about how you would answer that question: what does all this resurrection talk mean for your life right now? Maybe our readings will offer you some insight. Let’s listen.

[READ]

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

         How many of you have ever wondered about or tried to imagine what happens when we die – where we go, what it looks like, who will be there, etc.? Yeah, I think most people have wondered about this, and especially people of faith, who have whole doctrines around what happens after death. I was a part of one weekly Bible study in which these questions seemed to come up at least once a month – people had passionate opinions on this, and these were some heated discussions! They were hungry for answers.

         Well, the good news, or maybe the bad news, is that we are not alone in having these questions! People have been asking such questions since our existence. Today we witness one example, as the Sadducees confront Jesus with a pressing question about the resurrection. Now keep in mind, this is the Jewish understanding of resurrection that they are talking about, not the Christian one (since that hadn’t happened yet, though at this point in the story, it’s just about to). This Jewish understanding of resurrection said that in the Messianic age, when the Messiah comes, the souls of people who had died would be reunited with their bodies and return to Jerusalem, where the temple would be reconstructed. The Sadducees, however, didn’t buy it. This sort of resurrection is only mentioned in the writings of Daniel and Isaiah, and Sadducees only believed in the authority of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, in which resurrection is not explicitly mentioned. (That’s why, if you wondered, Jesus mentions the story about the burning bush, because this points out justification for resurrection even in the Pentateuch.)

         But really, all of this is very interesting, but is not the point of this exchange. What is more important, at least to me and my faith, is that Jesus’ answer shows us that the Sadducees, and perhaps we as well, are asking the wrong question. The Sadducees are viewing resurrection life through their own earthly lens, assuming that eternal life would be like this life, but forever. And I think we sometimes fall into that trap, too. Perhaps we assume we will be enjoying all the best parts of this life, with all of our deceased loved ones, but to the nth degree, and of course with no pain and with Jesus around to ask all our questions about life on earth. I won’t lie, this sounds pretty good to me!

But Jesus is saying here that resurrected life will be qualitatively different from life on earth. Now I, having never experienced eternal resurrected life (no one still on earth has!), do not know exactly what it will be like, because I, like you, exist within a human framework. I have no more definitive insight than you do on this topic. But we do know this: resurrected life cannot be understood within the framework of our human systems and laws and logic, because it is qualitatively different.

Of course, that doesn’t stop us from trying to imagine! And there are a few things in this text that can help us to do that. But before we do that, let’s not stop there. Let’s take it a step further, and try to understand not only what resurrected life will look like in eternity, but what that might mean and look like for us now. Because even now, before we have died, we are a resurrection people. That happened when we were baptized – baptized into Christ’s death and into his resurrection, his life. So what difference does all this make for our earthly life, and what will we do with it? Ready to dig in? Okay!

Jesus tells the Sadducees that in the resurrection there will be no marriage. This might sound strange and even concerning to our 21^st century ears, but remember, marriage in the first century was not like marriage today. This does not mean we won’t see our loved ones again. It means that broken human systems, like levirate marriage, will no longer rule the day. Check out this scenario the Sadducees describe, in which a widow is shuffled between brothers like a piece of property. I mentioned before that at its best this system of levirate marriage protects widows, but it’s hard not to see the oppressive system in place here. So, in the resurrection, Jesus says, no one will be property of another person, because we will all belong equally to God. In the resurrection, no one will take advantage of the vulnerable for the sake of maintaining their wealth and property, and the poor will not be seen as expendable. Human suffering will no longer be used as a tool, for the sake of argument, debate, and theological comeuppance – indeed there will be no more suffering! Just picture that day when the hypothetical woman in the Sadducees’ story arrives in a place where her worth no longer depends on her husband, her dowry, or her fertility; she is loved just because she is. I can imagine her, basking in the glow of the eternal light and love of the God who created her. She is no one’s tool. She is only loved.

So if that offers us a glimpse of what resurrected life is like, then the next question is, what does this mean for us, resurrection people still on this side of eternity? We could just hold it, hope for it, trust in it, wait for it, and not really change anything about how we live… but I think it is more than that. I read this as a call, to work toward bringing about this reality of God’s kingdom, insofar as it is possible, right now, “on earth as it is in heaven.”

How do we do that? It starts with looking around and asking some questions. In what ways are people getting rich on the backs of the poor? What can we, as resurrection people, do to change that?

In what ways does patriarchy still persist, giving women less opportunity to thrive and serve God in the particular ways they are gifted to do so? How do we, as resurrection people, dismantle that?

Where are the poor, weak, or disenfranchised still treated as expendable, or as mere tools to make a point? How do we, as resurrection people, instead view them and lift them up as the beautiful and beloved and worthy people that God created them to be?

“Now God is the God not of the dead,” Jesus concludes, “but of the living.” That means that everything we do, as resurrection people, ought to be for the sake of life – life for us, and for all of God’s children. That, finally, is what these texts mean for us today, on this side of eternity: because God is and always has been about life, from the creation, to God’s continual providence, to the incarnation, to the death and resurrection of God’s own Son. So then we are to live as if we are ruled not by death, but by life, “for to God, all of us are alive.”

Let us pray… God of the living, our world is plagued by so many broken systems, and we are so often a part of them. Help us instead to live as your resurrection people, always seeking to bring about life for all your children. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sermon: The vulnerability of a saint (Nov. 3, 2019)

All Saints Day C

November 3, 2019

Luke 6:20-31 (Beatitudes)

INTRODUCTION

         Today we will hear a passage from Luke’s Gospel that you might recognize as the “Sermon on the Mount.” But it’s a trick! That’s not what it is. That is what it is in Matthew’s Gospel, where Jesus gives a sermon on top of a mountain that includes several “blessed are” statements. But Luke tells the story differently, and that difference is really important.

         First of all, he’s not on a mountain. He was on a mountain just before this, praying and choosing his 12 apostles, but now he has come down to be with the people where they are, and is preaching from a place level with them. Another difference is that where Matthew is sort of spiritual – “Blessed are those who hunger for righteousness,” – Luke is more concrete – “Blessed are you who are hungry now, in your bodies, empty bellies, right now.” And a third difference is that Luke does not just talk about who is blessed. He also talks about the other side of the coin. “Woe to you!” he says, about a number of conditions that many of us experience and enjoy – like being happy, rich, and full. In this case, “woe” is not a curse, as it is sometimes understood, but a warning, like, “Beware!” Slightly better… but still not easy stuff to hear!

         As you listen, think about these differences: that Jesus is level with the crowd instead of higher up, that his words are more corporeal than spiritual, and that he includes also the warnings. How do these differences change the way you hear or receive the message of Jesus’ famous sermon? Let’s listen.

 [READ]

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

         The lectionary leaves out the set-up for Jesus’ sermon today, so I want to read it for you. As I read, I invite you to close your eyes and try to imagine the scene: the sights, the smells, the feeling, the mood. Listen: “[Jesus had just been on a mountain, praying with his 12 apostles, but now] he came down and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And everyone in the crowd was trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them. Then Jesus looked up at his disciples, [the crowd gathered,] and he started to speak.”

What do you notice about this scene, as you imagine it?

Here are a couple things that I notice. First, it’s chaotic. I hadn’t really thought of that before, but the crowd is huge, and they are all in need of something. They are desperate, they are broken, they are longing for healing. I also notice that it is close – the people are all touching Jesus, grasping for his power and healing, and he is right there with them, right close enough to touch.

So, then I wonder: why do these things strike me? I think it’s because when I imagine the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew’s version of this sermon, I guess I always imagined Jesus as up, away, ready to help even as he is sort of safe from the needs of the crowd, but Luke does not let us go there. In Luke, Jesus is accessible, he is in it with them, in it with us.

And I guess this is both a comfort and a bit unnerving. It’s a comfort because of course we want Jesus to be accessible to us. That was the whole point of the incarnation, of God becoming human, so that God would be close to us and we to God, and we would know that love more profoundly than we ever had before. But it is also unnerving because if Jesus is accessible to me… then that means I am accessible to Jesus. And there are parts of me that I’d rather keep hidden – from you, from Jesus, even from myself. Having Jesus quite so close as this makes me feel a bit vulnerable.

Vulnerability. It’s not a warm fuzzy word, is it? To be vulnerable is to be unprotected against getting hurt, and exposed. It is admitting we don’t have it all together. It is recognizing in ourselves where there is pain and brokenness, and then divulging that to another. And while I am an absolute proponent of vulnerability and authenticity and making genuine connection with one another… vulnerability is still just a scary word.

Yet I wonder if it is what we are called to explore on this All Saints Day, for a couple reasons. The first is that, based on the sermon Jesus preaches to this crowd, it seems that vulnerability might be a part of what it means to be a saint. Usually when we think of saints, we think of people who have been particularly faithful. But in fact, in the Lutheran tradition, we believe that everyone who is baptized in Christ Jesus is a saint (even as we remain sinners), because we are all claimed and loved by God, and we are all, in our baptism, called into a life of faithful living. Faithful living means a lot of things. It means some of those things Jesus mentions in the second part of his sermon today – about loving your enemies, turning the other cheek, etc. It means reading scripture, and spending time in prayer, and study, and in fellowship with other Christians. It means being generous of heart and resources.

But another part of faithful, saintly living is recognizing our need for God’s grace and mercy. It is acknowledging that while we may put on a happy face and nice suit, we don’t have it all together. It is coming into God’s presence not to prove to God, ourselves and everyone that we are good, but rather to say, “I’m not, and I need God’s mercy.” And that is what Jesus is getting at in his sermon on the plain. Blessed are you who are hungry, poor, grieving, accused, he says, because it is only when we are so physically, mentally, and emotionally compromised that we are able to recognize and receive God’s grace and mercy. As one preacher asks, “What is the promise of mercy to those who are not weak, forgiveness to those who have not sinned, grace to those who do not need it, or life to those not dead? It is at best meaningless, and more likely downright offensive.” We can only truly appreciate the blessing Jesus offers, you see, when we truly need it.

The woes go on to seal the deal. Woe to you who don’t have these needs, because as long as you are surrounded in comforts, you cannot receive what God has to offer. It is not until we are vulnerable, and recognize our brokenness that we will turn to God and be in a place to receive mercy. Now, comforts aren’t a bad thing, inherently, but Jesus’ sermon, especially those woes, the warnings, push us to ask ourselves: what if the things in my life, the very things I thought of as blessings, are actually diminishing my capacity to know God and receive his grace and mercy with a truly grateful heart? Maybe they aren’t getting in the way – but Jesus asks us today to take a good hard look to make sure of that!

There’s another reason I think vulnerability is a good thing to talk about today, on All Saints Day. Each year on this day, we remember those saints who have gone before us, who have died in the faith. So each year we remember together the ultimate vulnerability that we all share: we all will die. We all have or will experience someone we love dying. It’s a fact we desperately try to avoid or deny. Yet on this day, we celebrate that this ultimate vulnerability, the one we dread, is not to be feared, because Jesus showed us that death leads to life. When we are baptized, you see, when we become saints, we are baptized into Christ’s death and also into his resurrection, so, as Paul writes, “If we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”

That’s a lot of churchy language – what it comes down to is this: when Jesus rose from the dead, he showed us that the ultimate vulnerability that many of us fear the most, death itself, is not to be feared. Not only is it not to be feared, but it is the very means by which God’s promise of new life comes to be. For the saints we celebrate today, and for us eventually, that looks like their entry into eternal life. For us day to day, as we still walk this earth and live this life, this ultimate promise gives us the courage we need to be vulnerable right now, in the more mundane things of our daily lives, to be real about our need for God’s grace and mercy in all those things we face. This sort of vulnerability leads to meaningful connection, with God and others, and that sort of connection gives us life. God’s promise of new life day to day looks like letting go of the things that keep us from authentic relationship with God and one another, all those things that drag us down – you know what they are for you. It looks like confession, and faith in the forgiveness God offers. It looks sometimes like feeling the grief we need to feel about our losses big and small, and then trusting that God is working in our hearts through it to bring us to something new.

All Saints Day is not just a day we look backward, remembering the saints whom we have lost. It is also a day for looking forward, toward the hope of new life that is promised to humanity in the resurrection, and to each of us when we are baptized into that promise. Thanks be to God!

Let us pray… Eternal God, we don’t like to admit when we are broken, even though you have told us and shown us that where there is pain and brokenness, there also is Christ. Make us courageous in our authenticity and vulnerability, so that our hearts would be ready to receive your grace and mercy. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.