23 Pentecost , Proper 28
13 Nov 2022
This is it: the end of our liturgical year. Jesus has made it to Jerusalem just in time for Advent. Our final reading of the Luke cycle takes place after Psalm Sunday but before the Last Supper. These are Jesus’ last words of warning, advice, or teaching, depending on how you see it. They are strange words indeed and, like so much of what he said, they can be seen in many different lights. It all comes to who you believe, what you believe, and who you want to serve.
Jesus is spending a lot of time teaching in and around the temple. This is the time when he overturns the tables, debates with the scholars, and observes the comings and goings of the rich and the famous as well as the poor and unknown. He has just commented that the poor widow gave more than the rich folks. If you were present with him and closely listening, if you were at that point one of his followers, you would by this time realize he was not talking or teaching as others did. Yet these words of his still shock you; after all, the temple is one of the most magnificent places you have ever seen. His next utterances are even more ominous: false teachers, wars, nations fighting against nations, natural disasters and food shortages, and great persecution. Apocalyptic visions at their finest. Yet in the face of all this, and great betrayal, Jesus will be with his followers, which mean you and I, and we will know what to say because he will give us the words. Wow. I am not one who likes to speak extemporaneously; Sunday homilies would be exercises in silence if that were my only modus operandi. (Maybe you are thinking that would not be a bad idea.) Yet he has given us, and will give, the words and ideas we need. The Magnificat, the Sermon on the Plain, the great forgiveness and the great restitution. We are to love and love unconditionally. This is the true apocalypse, the great revealing. If you have been with Jesus this past year, you understand that Luke’s Jesus preaches the Gospel of Love like no other. Even our enemies are to be loved. Great texts for an election year!! Luke began his Gospel by having Mary say God is to bring up the poor and lowly and bring down the rich and powerful. If you have been with him this past year as he journeyed through the countryside, you now know this will happen not by God taking us by the hand, but rather by struggle. There will be persecution and adversity; Jesus himself is getting ready to face his own grim death. New life will come from death. Jesus will die; his followers (you and I) may die yet are not harmed. How can this be? Jesus says to his followers: you will not only survive but gain eternal life. Luke said to his first readers: Rome may be persecuting you, but you will survive and gain eternal life. The temple had been destroyed, but God was still with them. Luke is saying to us, this very day, you will survive and gain eternal life. Our own trials may not include the threat of immediate death for the sake of the Gospel, but life is perilous. There are Christians on the margins because of who they are and what they believe. I have heard stories from South Sudanese; persecution of Christians was, and still is, a grim reality. For some of us the struggles may be against the internal beasts of addiction, mental illness, or disease or the external ones of poverty and prejudice. It may be a struggle simply because of who you are or where you happened to be born. This is not an end time story to warn us to shape up or to acquiesce to a certain set of beliefs; this is a message of hope for a world wracked with disease, poverty, and dissension.
Isaiah sets before us a promise of a world where heaven and earth are one and it is a NEW creation. The Babylonian exile is over; the promise of a world where peace, justice, and the welfare of everyone are the foundation of this new world. The world holds promise and fulfillment. We can live in harmony and in safety. It is a reading well suited to what Jesus tells his followers this day.
Wouldn’t it be easy to proclaim the Good News if all was well? In reality it would be impossible. If the world were not broken, God might not be needed. Yet God is not out there to save us from our mistakes, nor is this not a prediction of end times and the swooping up of those with correct personal moral behavior and beliefs. This is the beginning of the indwelling of God, God working through Jesus and through us. This is the summation of everything taught to us; we are to live in an entirely different way.
Everett Fox begins his translation of Genesis 1 this way “At the beginning of God’s creating of the heavens and the earth”
God existed before creation itself; God has no age, no gender, no name. God is about order, wholeness, and goodness. In short, Love. God is with us; this is what Jesus says. God created us, God aids us and remains with us no matter what. Jesus will face death, but then death is defied, and the tomb emptied. There is new life. “By holding fast, you will gain your life.”
Don’t look for perfection in this world; wealth and power all pass, and the grave is in one way the ending place for all of us, rich and famous or poor and lowly. Jesus says “Look beyond that.” He never says give in, acquiesce, to violence or evil, nor does he say that if we are his followers we will be protected from that sort of evil. This very passage refutes those notions.
We are to keep our eyes on the prize. We are to join with Jesus, and therefore God, to become co-creators and citizens of this beautiful world that God is creating. The more we let go, the more we have.
So, my brothers and sisters, fear not. Look for that peaceable kingdom. We may not, will not, see it in our lifetimes but the more we live out the teachings of Jesus, the closer comes the Kingdom. Thy kingdom come.
As for me, I will struggle, but I know that the more I love my neighbor and love my enemies and the more I let go and let God, the closer comes the Kingdom. It is a beautiful way to close out the church year and prepare for Advent.
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