Pentecost XXV

By The Rev. Martha Frances+
Year C, Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Pentecost; Proper 28
18 November 2007

Text: Luke 21: 5-19; Other Readings: Isaiah 65: 17-25; 2 Thessalonians 3: 6-13; Canticle 9



Today's collect is one of my favorites & reminds us of the foundational place our Sacred Scriptures play in our Christian life. Each week the Collect for the Day calls us together to worship as a community, & in this one, we ask God to help us hear, read, mark, learn, & inwardly digest all holy Scriptures so we may grab onto & trust the blessed hope of everlasting life. Every Sunday we read 4 scriptures in church: we Episcopalians take Bible reading & study quite seriously. Both in my sermons & in our weekly noonday Bible study, I pray that we may hear, read, mark, learn & inwardly digest God's guidebook for the daily living of our Christian lives.

Here at the end of the Pentecost season, the lessons are focused upon the end times. Sunday after next, we begin a new Christian year with the 4 weeks of Advent in preparation for Christmas. Here at the end of our church year, scriptures emphasize "eschatology," a fancy Greek word fulfilling the end of the world as we know it. After Jesus' death, resurrection, & ascension, Christians believed he would return very soon in glory & this world would be over. People sometimes just quit their jobs & waited for that time to come. Today we see evidence of this belief on bumper stickers which say, "In case of rapture, this car will be unmanned."

As years wore on, & especially after the Jerusalem temple was destroyed in 70 A.D., it became evident that the 2nd coming of Jesus wasn't to be as soon as the 1st Christians had believed. Therefore, new believers had to learn to live in the long run, in the in-between time, to which our two New Testament passages refer today.

We live in the in-between time now, don't we? Life has been different for many of us, in many ways "new," as we have allowed Jesus Christ to progressively become Lord of our lives. For some of us, that conversion was very sudden & spectacular, yet for many, transformation has come over a period of time as we fell in love with Jesus & turned our will & lives over to the care of a loving God. Little by little, our lives are being made new as we let Christ work through our hearts & minds & souls. Let's see what our Scriptures today have to say about living in these in-between times.

First, Jesus predicts the destruction of the temple, not because of a vengeful God but because the Romans thought that by desecrating the holiest symbol of Judaism, they could destroy the spirits of the people. Jesus warns the Jews that nothing earthly is permanent, not even the beautiful temple, but that God's love & God's power will endure even the destruction of this most sacred shrine. The crowd clamors to know when all this will happen & how they'll know ahead of time the destruction is going to happen. Jesus explains that such things are not for them to know. They aren't supposed to spend their time & energy trying to guess the future. How much of our time do we waste trying to guess what will happen to us in the future? Occasionally, we hear of groups of people who have figured out when the end of the world will come, & they hold up with supplies & protection on the top of some mountain, I suppose to make the trip to heaven a bit shorter. Jesus says, "Give it up. Trust the future to God. God will take care of you." Can you & I really trust our future to God?

Jesus names many catastrophes which sound much like our own day—false prophets, wars & insurrections, nation rising against nation, earthquakes, famine, & plagues, even families going against one another. Do you know people who point to terrible events & swear that any one of those events signals the end of the world? Well, Jesus is pretty clear here that, "the end will not follow immediately" & further, we're not to know the day or the time.

So what should we be doing in the in-between time? Both our Gospel & our Epistle for today address this question. Jesus doesn't promise a bed of roses, does he? He tells the crowd they will experience all kinds of nasty things happening to them. None of us would be thrilled to be arrested or persecuted, handed over to authorities & placed in prison, all because we are Christian. Nor does this happen very often in our country, but we hear about people being persecuted for their faith beliefs in other parts of the world even today, don't we? So this isn't just about New Testament times.

Look what Jesus tells the new Christian community: these hardships will give them an opportunity to testify. Now I might just say, "Thanks but no thanks, Jesus. I know what can become of me if I testify." Jesus tells them not to worry; he assures them he will give them words to say & wisdom to act. Of course, he recognizes that they may die, but he says their endurance will gain them their souls. So it sounds like we're to keep on keeping on in sharing the Gospel, no matter what.

Now we come to the 2nd letter to the Thessalonians which was probably written by one of Paul's disciples using Paul's name so the people would pay more attention. The writer admonishes this community from afar. Yes, the end is promised by God, but no one can predict when it will happen. Some believers have given up & quit working because they think the end times are almost here. In the Thessalonikan community, some people expect the others to take care of them.

What does this mean? Does this mean that someone who really gets out there & tries to find a job but hasn't been able to do so shouldn't have breakfast? Absolutely not! What about someone who is disabled & cannot work? Should we turn that person away from our feast today? No! This is a call for us to examine our hearts & ask ourselves how & what we can do to provide for ourselves & contribute to the larger community. This invitation is for us middle-classed Christians to explore how we can be better stewards of what God has given us. How can we live our lives more simply so we can share more with others? In case you would like to make contributions to Episcopal Relief & Development or the Heifer Project in someone's name for a Christmas present, we have catalogs in the parish hall.

Today, we anticipate this time of Thanksgiving in our country by taking up an extra offering in baskets for the United Thank Offering. UTO grants have provided both in this country & abroad grants to improve the quality of life for those who are often underserved. When you place your UTO box or envelope in the basket today, pause to offer thanks once again for all those blessings that you sometimes take for granted. Not only does such an offering begin a habit of thankful giving, but your coins join others to provide those grants. For those who have forgotten your blue boxes, we'll take them next Sunday.

In addition, although our pledge campaign for 2008 has garnered over 40 pledges for over $110,000, many have still not pledged, & we are still about $70,000 from a balanced budget. Hope is not yet able to sit back & relax. We still have a long way to go. The endings of both New Testament scriptures give us nourishment & hope for the in-between times ahead. Paul's disciple tells the new Christian community & tells us, "Brothers & sisters, do not be weary in doing what is right." And Jesus assures us, "By your endurance you will gain your souls."