23rd Sunday After Pentecost
Malachi 4:1-2 Psalm 98 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13 Luke 21:5-19 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who offers hope in the midst of chaos. Amen In the calendar of the church year we are nearing the end, next week we will observe the festival of the Reign of Christ and the church calendar will click over into a new year. And as we’ve been approaching the end of the year our readings have also been dealing with the end. whether we call it the end of the world or the end of life as we know it or even judgement day, this is a topic which we humans are fascinated with, look at all the depictions we see in movies and literature, where something catastrophic has happened and what happens next is imagined. Whether it is hunger games or zombies or differently ordered societies we keep coming back to what have been named apocalypses, and however they are told they have an element of fear running through them, they are to be avoided. Now the name apocalypse or apocalyptic comes from a genre of writing that is found in several places in the Bible and while these writings do tend to come up with some odd images their purpose is the exact opposite of fear, they, in all their weirdness are intended to offer comfort and hope for people in the midst of situations that may feel like the end. Apocalypse after all just means revelation, these messages are meant to reveal hope to the oppressed, whether it was Jews in exile or facing the loss of the temple or Christians living in secret in Rome or people facing the loss of the way things have always been and that’s what our apocalyptic texts for today do for us, they point to hope. The hope that God is in control of the end, whatever that happens to look like and with God in control the people of God will be okay. Now as good as that news is, it does leave a question for us humans, what is our role? We like to control our surroundings and we have just been told that it is out of our control, so we wonder, what are we to do? and each of our texts for today offers insight to that question as well. Malachi is short and to the point with an image of evildoers burning up, which, if you have been oppressed by the evildoers is good news, hope is found in the promise of justice for the oppressed and God continues “for you who revere my name the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings.” God will bring the justice, the role of humans is to revere God’s name and this sounds good until we start to think of all the times when we have not done that, when we have forgotten God’s name, the times when we have been evildoers and we start to get worried again But that’s where our Psalm comes in, a song of celebration at the victory of God, once again the promise is that judgement is God’s work and the hope is found in how God will judge, “O Lord, you have made known your victory, you have revealed your righteousness in the sight of the nations. You remember your steadfast love and faithfulness to the house of Israel...The Lord will judge the world with righteousness and the peoples with equity” Judgement is God’s work and God will judge out of steadfast love and faithfulness, this is not some impartial deity but one who loves us, one who loves us so much that God became human and died for us, and so joined to Christ in our baptisms, when God judges us what God sees is not all the times we’ve messed up, but Christ, the perfect one who has already forgiven us. God’s got it all taken care of, and so what is our role? Our role is to sing praises to God, to shout with joy, to sing to the lord, to make joyful noises on trumpets and tambourines joining with the sounds of creation that also praise God. God’s got it under control and our role is to revere God’s name and praise God. Sounds pretty easy so far but having lived in the reality of the world we know that’s not the full story, which is where Jesus in our gospel for today comes in as he anticipates the difficulties in store for his followers before the end. The conversation starts out innocently enough with some followers marveling at the temple, it is the grandest building they have ever seen, it is the home of God, look at it! And Jesus tells them that one day the temple will be destroyed. Now it’s important to note that the temple in Luke is seen as a good place, it is the place of worship, Jesus teaches there all the time, he tries to clean it up, he stayed there debating when he was 12, the disciples go back after the resurrection and worship there. The temple is the center of religious life, Jesus is pro-temple, so why would he be saying it will be destroyed? Because Jesus knows that in between now and the end which God has taken care of living a life of faith will be difficult and that even good centers of faith will be destroyed and he warns his followers not to focus on the wrong thing. the life of faith while aided by places like the temple is not defined by it rather the promise that there is another way of living apart from the values of the world, a way of living where all are valued and cared for, a way of peace where death does not have the last say, and when bad things happen to good places the role of the followers is to testify to this promise and vision of God. Don’t get caught up in fear trying to predict when these bad things will happen Jesus tells his followers, don’t look at the strife in the world as signs for something more than what they are, a reflection of the brokenness of this world, instead you are to cling to the promise of God and tell others of that promise. I promise to be there with you Jesus says to take care of you, in the end not a hair of your head will perish, remember God’s got it under control. And I think Jesus is speaking directly to all of us with this conversation. We are living in a time where our temple is coming down, the institution of the church as we’ve known it, is being dismantled before our eyes even if we haven’t named it as such we’ve felt the effects, fewer people finding value in participating in a life of faith and the changes in society that support that people being scheduled to work on Sunday mornings, youth activities scheduled then as well things are not going the way they used to. And I think despite Jesus’ warning we’ve gotten caught focusing on the walls coming down when really our role is to testify, to testify to a life different from the kind valued by the world, to live out that life to the best of our ability and most of all to trust God’s promise of salvation and redemption. And yes that will mean change from how things always were, there will be grief and a time where we don’t quite know where that next center of faith will be, we will experiment and fail but as long as we continue to hope in God and testify to that hope faith will continue, and while it might be tempting to just give up on the testifying and rest only in the hope, that’s not what God wants for us either. That’s why Paul had to write to the Thessalonians, some of the community decided that their sole focus was to be waiting on the day of the Lord, and since that was coming soon they didn’t need to do anything in this life, especially if they had some resources stored up. That’s not how this works Paul writes, yes we’re living in hope of the day of the Lord but we still have to attend to this life that we’re living now and that includes meaningful occupation and contribution to the community, “do not be weary in doing what is right” Paul admonishes them And yet sometimes we do grow weary, weary of waiting, of testifying to a world that doesn’t seem to hear, of singing praises with a hurting creation of revering the name of God even, and that’s when Jesus brings us to the table with the saints of all times and places, forgives and feeds us with his body and blood and sends us out no longer weary renewed in hope to praise God and testify, sharing the good news of God with a weary world. God has claimed us, nothing, not even the brokenness of the world can change that and so we set our hope on God, we praise and we persist knowing that in the end God’s got it under control. Amen
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22nd Sunday After Pentecost
Job 19:23-27 Psalm 17:1-9 2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17 Luke 20:27-38 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the God of the living. Amen So we’ve got a hot debate running throughout all of our texts for today, it’s the debate over what happens next. Now we all I’m guessing have wondered about this at some point in our lives, we may have even had some serious questions even though we live in a pretty doctrinally settled time, the institution of the church settled on the answers a long time ago, found when we recite the creeds, the statements of belief, what happens next? According to the creeds the crucified, resurrection and ascended Jesus will return to judge the living and the dead, and we believe in the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. But in time our readings were written these were not settled questions, and though on the surface the debate is about what happens after death, the whole discussion is really about how what we believe about the next life affects how we live this life, something that is important for all of us to consider and our readings give us a few examples and thoughts on the matter. In our gospel Luke tells us that some Sadducees come to debate Jesus, Luke helpfully provides the information that the Sadducees, who are scholars and officials in the temple, are on the side of the debate that says there is no resurrection, we live and then we die and that is it and if there is any living on after death it is in the memory of ones descendants so with this view in mind the debating approach they use takes the logic of the other party, hyperbolizes it and then criticizes the results. In this case they give an example of levarite marriage - the law that says that if a man dies without children and he has a brother, his brother is to marry his wife to produce offspring to keep his brother’s name alive. This law takes care of several things, the issue of heirs and inheritance but also the care of the woman who has been widowed, This of course assumes that a woman is owned by her husband or father which presents other issues but that’s the structure they were working with. Now the sadducees before Jesus imagine a scenario where a woman is widowed by seven brothers, if there’s a resurrection they say, whose wife will she be? She married all seven. The undertone is that it would be ridiculous for this woman to have seven husbands in the resurrection. And Jesus responds that the scenario they have envisioned is completely beside the point. They’ve gotten caught up in the little details that frankly are ridiculous when played out to the end and these little details get in the way of seeing the bigger picture which is that God is not God of the dead, but of the living Marriage is for this life Jesus says, it is one way that is used to make sure that people take care of each other, but in the resurrection there is no need for these relationships, especially ones where a person has status based on another, I think we will still be in relationship with our loved ones from this life But there will be no need to put boundaries like marriage in place all are worthy, all are children of God, all are cared for So, what does this mean? It means that what we do in this life matters not because of what happens next but because of what happens now God is concerned with the wellbeing of all the living and we should be too, in a way, Jesus is telling the Sadducees, ‘focus on how you live this life, God’s got the next one all taken care of.’ Now there are times when that’s easier said than done, look at Job, we only get a snippet of his greater story but the jist is that Job is a good person who loves God and was doing really well in life and it was all taken away as a bet between God and the accuser to see if Job would turn away from God when times got tough, Job’s wealth, his children, even his health are taken away and yet he refuses to curse God, he curses the day that he was born, and he certainly complains of his many sufferings, and then to make matters worse, his friends come and give him really bad advice, they place the blame on Job in various ways saying that he clearly must have sinned to be on God’s bad side, that he should repent for his wickedness, and yet Job maintains his innocence, yes he wonders about that age old question of bad things happening to good people but he doesn’t give up on God, to the point where even in the midst of all the terrible things in his present life Job still proclaims “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth;” Sometimes when the present is unbearable, we need the hope for the future to carry us through, we need to believe that something better is out there for life But this view can be taken too far, to the point where we despise this life and get caught in the trap where we live just biding our time until the next, better life, the focus of this life becomes consumed by the vision of the next and that is no kind of life, especially because if questions arise as to what happens next as they inevitably will in the course of human life, it then calls into question the whole meaning of life and can be a cause of great anxiety. This is apparently what happened to the community at Thessalonica to whom Paul is writing in our second lesson, they are so focused on waiting for the day of the Lord that when something happens to put that in jeopardy they get really concerned, Paul is writing to calm them down, begging them not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed when the day of the lord is brought up. It sounds like someone had come and told the community that the day had already come, so they’re afraid they missed it, Paul reassures them and then reminds them “for this purpose (God) called you through our proclamation of the good news, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. So then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught by us...” What are these traditions? A bath as entrance into a community, regular meals with Jesus, the gathering together in community to hear the word of God, caring for the vulnerable in this life and sharing the good news of God. Traditions, that make a difference our life now and in the lives of those around us. We as a community believe in the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, the life everlasting and that God is the God of the living, which means how we live right now matters, not because of what will happen next, but because life is precious to God. and yes there are times in this broken world when we need to focus on the hope to come and there are times when we get caught in the details that don’t really matter, and times when we worry and that’s when Jesus calls us back to himself, his life lived among others, his death for all, his resurrection defeating death and most of all his love for life. So as you continue on in this life Hear this benediction: “Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and through grace gave us eternal comfort and good hope, comfort your hearts and strengthen them in every good work and world.” Amen All Saints
Daniel 7:1-3, 15-18 Psalm 149 Ephesians 1:11-23 Luke 6:20-31 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from Christ who is all and in all. Amen There’s more to this world than meets the eye, I think sometimes we forget this, wrapped as we are in a world that requires proof for belief. Now don’t get me wrong, I think the scientific method is fundamentally important, observations leading to conclusions about how life works, and of course proof is very necessary in courts of law when the freedom of someone is on the line, but there’s more to this world than meets the eye this is not an either or situation, this is a both and situation, there are many things we can and should observe before we make conclusions, and there are things beyond what we can see, and there is truth in both. And it’s this second part that we have lost touch with, the truth that exists beyond our five senses, and that gets to be dangerous for us because we start to believe that we can figure out and manipulate everything, and if we can do that we become responsible for everything and that is overwhelming, if everything is up to us we quickly get in over our heads, This is why the second step in the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, after the first step of admitting powerlessness, is to come to believe that a Power greater than ourselves can restore sanity. (Step 3 is to turn our lives over to the care of God). If we are responsible for everything we quickly lose perspective, There is more going on in this world, in life than we can see This sense of more pervades our readings for today Daniel is having visions, terrifying dreams of kings and beasts but in the end it is the Most high God who will possess the kingdom forever—forever and ever. A song of praise in our psalm turns into a celebration of the triumph of God on behalf of the poor. Jesus speaks of blessings and woes that are the exact opposite of what we would call blessings and woes. There’s more going on than meets the eye, there’s more than just right now and God’s the one who is in charge of it all, the truth of what we see and the truth that exists beyond. And God has promised to take care of us, right now, and beyond, forever, forever and ever. That’s what Paul is telling the Ephesians in our reading for today, reminding them and us that even death is unable to hinder God’s will, God raised Christ “from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come.” in our baptisms we have been joined to Christ and marked with the seal of the holy spirit, the mark of the cross on our forehead as we entered the community of the saints. We often use the title saint for those who have died but the title saint belongs to anyone joined to Christ, and in Christ not even death can get in the way of the gathering of the community of saints. Today we take a moment to pause and remember that, along with the saints who are no longer with us in body but who are still a part of the community, saints with whom we gather around the table each time Christ feeds us, Our liturgy invokes the presence of the whole community as we approach the table, in the words of the preface we acknowledge that it is our duty and joy to give thanks and praise to God who saved us through Jesus Christ and we conclude “and so, with all the choirs of angels, with the church on earth and the hosts of heaven, we praise your name and join their unending hymn” and then we break into that song, holy, holy, holy, we sing with the host of heaven as they gather to join in the feast as well. communion is the meal of a community that is not bound by time and space though that can be hard to sense at times, which is why Paul prays for the Ephesians, and us this prayer: “I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you” When the eyes in our head let us down, it is the eyes of our heart that reveal the truth beyond, the eyes of the heart that hold on to hope when everything seems hopeless, the eyes of the heart that see the seal of the holy spirit that marks us as a saint, a member of the community in Christ that stretches beyond time and space. Today, as we observe All Saints day, we look with the eyes of our heart at our community and all its members, especially the ones we no longer see with the eyes of our head, we remember them and their lives lived among us, how they impacted our lives and then we join them once again as we do each Sunday, in singing the praises of God and sharing a meal once more. And we are left knowing, the kind of knowing felt in our hearts, the truth that there is more to life than meets the eye, that we are loved beyond time and space, that we are part of a community called to hope. Amen |
AboutPastor Emily Johnson preaches weekly at Christ Lutheran. These are manuscripts of her sermons given at Christ Lutheran. Feel free to engage with them in the comments section of the blog. Archives
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