23rd Sunday after Pentecost
Year C
November 16, 2019
Luke 21:5-19
I’ve always loved travelling. And I love to visit houses of worship when I travel – whether domestically or internationally. I’m fascinated by the National Cathedral in DC. I’ve been in awe of the ornate and spectacular cathedrals in Germany – and with how they morphed throughout the protestant reformation. These buildings are adorned with beautiful stonework. The altars often are adorned with exquisite paintings. These buildings were dedicated in the name of our God. While these buildings are not in my typical worship style (this worship space is much more “my style”), every once in a while, being in ornate worship spaces bring me to awe before God. Every once in a while, that style “does something” to connect me to the majesty of God in a way that I don’t typically experience. It’s the kind of awe that I experience standing on a beach, looking at the vastness of the ocean. Somehow, someway, it connects me to the greatness and the breadth of God. In 2012, I was on a University of Richmond trip to Taizé – a monastery community in France. The trip was bookended by days in Paris. On our first day in France, we were able to go to Notre Dame. I have a great picture of me standing in front of the majestic building. In April, I saw images of the building engulfed in flames. As silly as it sounds, a building that I (at least on some level) thought of as indestructible was on fire. It was a disorienting and disturbing thing to watch.
I can only imagine the feelings of crisis and calamity that would come with Jesus announcing the destruction of the Temple. There are hundreds of cathedrals and thousands of churches spread across Europe. Here at home, we have roughly 9,000 congregations in the ELCA alone. But for Jesus’ listeners, the temple was the place where they understood God to reside. It was the place of connection between heaven and earth. This Temple is at the center of the people of Israel and of the nation. Seeing those adorned stones fall to the ground again represents a calamity and chaos that their ancestors knew so well.
The readers of the Gospel of Luke, living near the close of the first century, lived the chaos that Jesus envisioned in this text. During the Jewish-Roman wars, the Romans destroyed much of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70CE. Josephus, a first century Jewish Historian, claimed that as many as 1 million people were killed and 100,000 were captured and enslaved. While those numbers are likely somewhat inflated; the chaos and destruction that they lived through is unlike anything I can imagine. Many, if not most, of Luke’s hearers would have lived through this and were well acquainted with terror and chaos. Above and beyond the chaos of the nation, the budding new Christ-believing community faced rejection and (in some cases and places) persecution for their proclamation of the Gospel. They were rejected by their families, and some were indeed put to death. The world as they knew it was falling apart. I can only imagine how their world suddenly became something so disorienting. These early Christians knew well the brokenness of this world as it is. And for this audience, Jesus’ words are less of a prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, but more of a reflection on it.
The Thessalonians experienced a different chaos – chaos and division within their community. This text is widely misused and misunderstood as condemnation against those living in poverty, especially against those on SNAP and other social safety nets. The text says: “For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat. For we hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work.” The word here for idleness is more accurately translated as “disorderly” or “disruptive” or even “unruly.” It isn’t failing to work that is the problem that the author of the letter is pushing back against; he is seeing the actions of some that undermine or disrupt the larger work of the community – a community already stressed by the threat and trauma of persecution. In other words, the problem is that people are meddling with or actively working against the work of God in that community, which contributes to the chaos of their world as it is. This community also knows well the brokenness of the world as it is.
The end of this age, the end of this world as it is comes when the Kingdom of God is finally fully established in this world. Jesus’ words today are not prescriptive, they’re descriptive; they describe the brokenness of this world. And the thing is: so often the work of the Kingdom of God is at odds with the kingdoms of this world – past and present. Of course when people rise up and challenge the authority of Rome, Rome will come in and try to hold onto that power. When the powers that be are challenged, when the powers that be are brought down and the lowly are lifted up, there will be push back. The powers that be will arrest and persecute those who preach the Kingdom of God over the kingdoms of this world. Not because that’s what God wants, but because of the sinfulness of humanity. We, like the communities of Luke and Thessalonica, are living in this in-between time. A time where God’s reign is coming into this world as it is, but it isn’t fully here yet.
In this in-between time, the message is clear: Do not be terrified. God is bringing about something new. But God is in the inbetween times too. God promises to be with us in the prisons, in the rubble, in the brokenness of the world, in the brokenness of our hearts, in the brokenness of our relationships, in the brokenness of our humanity. In becoming human in Jesus, God chooses to identify so fully and completely with humanity and all that being human brings. On the cross, we see a God, in Jesus, that doesn’t remove godself from pain and suffering, but instead dwells there. We see a God, in Jesus, that is in total solidarity with the pain and brokenness of God’s beloved people. On the cross, we see a God, in Jesus, so committed to us that not even our own sin, our own brokenness can separate us from the God that so loves us. When the world seems to be ending, when everything we think we know is turned upside down, our God promises to be with us. When we feel lonely or abandoned, on the cross, we see a God in Jesus that tells us that we will never be alone. Nothing about our humanity or the brokenness of this world can separate us from the love of God we’ve found in Jesus. And in the resurrection of Jesus, we see clearly God is still in charge and that brokenness, heartache, and destruction will never have the final word. When the powers of the world seem to have the upper-hand, in the resurrection, God shows that it is God’s reign that will have the final victory. When the world is chaotic and disorienting, in the resurrection, we see a glimpse of the new creation, the restoration, the new life that God is bringing about in this world.
In our baptisms, we are grafted into the cross of Christ. It is in the cross of Christ that we find hope in a broken world. It is in the cross of Christ that we find the promise of restoration and new life. As Christians, It is in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ that we put our trust and our hope in. Not the powers of this world, not the kingdoms of this world, but Christ. This is the faith that God calls us to this morning. Grafted into the cross of Christ, we are called into this world as it is, participating in God’s work of establishing God’s kingdom fully and completely in this world. Grafted into the cross of Christ, we are called into this world as it is, sharing God’s love with all – especially to the ones who need it most. Grafted into the cross of Christ, we are called into this world as it is, proclaiming the promise that the current things aren’t the last things, and God is at work bringing about restoration and new life here and now.Amen
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