Luke 21: 5-19
“Sooner or Later”
November 13, 2022
Darn that Karl Barth! When struggling this week with this passage from Luke’s Gospel that brings us to the time right before the crucifixion, Barth’s quote, “Preach with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other,” I kept repeating to myself, “Haven’t we learned anything in the past 2000 years?”
The Jesus story, as Luke tells it, that we’ve been travelling through every week since the middle of June, is coming to an end we all know.
Jesus here is warning about the terrible things that will happen – wars with one nation pitted against another, riots on the streets, earthquakes, epidemics.
When I read the New York Times this week I was quickly reminded of the ongoing war in Ukraine, the protests in Iran, the unusual-for-November hurricane that hit Florida and whether this winter will once again bring higher numbers of COVID cases, or it doesn’t even have to be winter – think the hundreds who tested positive on an Australian cruise ship this week.
So many of us don’t have to open a newspaper or turn on a television to hear firsthand of those who are struggling and deeply hurting.
There are the family members who’ve received life-changing health news.
The friends whose marriage is coming to an end.
The neighbor who lost a parent this week.
The parent we know who can’t find the support their child desperately needs.
The one we care about who is trying their hardest to stay out of prison and the other one for whom prison may soon be a reality.
Prayer feels like our only option and yet some days the list of who and what to pray for seems so long and never-ending that we might end up saying to God –
“Enough already with the bad news!”
After Jesus piles on one terrible event to come on top of another and it feels like too much to bear, with the possibility of losing family and friends, he takes a turn from all the terribleness and reassures all that follow him – then and now, “Even so, every detail of your body and soul – even the hairs of your head – is in my care; nothing of you will be lost. Staying with it – that’s what is required. Stay with it to the end. You won’t be sorry; you’ll be saved” as interpreted in The Message.
The temple that was the subject of so much admiration at the beginning of this passage had just been re-done by Herod the Great and he – or rather, his workers – had done a fantastic job over the course of 80 years.
There were new foundation walls installed and it was made much larger.
Money seemed to be no object as Herod used the most gifted artisans and the best materials like white marble.
There were linen Babylonian tapestries in blue, purple and red that formed a veil at the entrance to the temple and there were gold and silver gates and doors throughout the structure.
As those around him were oohing and aahing at the beauty of the temple, Jesus delivers the bad news that soon this masterpiece would be a pile of rubble.
When his stunned listeners got around to questioning Jesus, they didn’t ask how this was going to happen.
They only wanted to know when.
They already knew within them that God had sent Jesus and if he said the temple was coming down it was.
The interest in the timing was probably so they wouldn’t get caught inside it when it was destroyed.
The faith these followers had in Jesus was profound.
What Jesus was worried about was that others might try to get them as followers and then lead them to bad or dangerous places.
Indeed, the temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D.
But you know what wasn’t destroyed?
Judaism and the brand-new Christian movement.
In fact, both traditions grew and spread, not without growing pains and struggles.
They have both evolved and we still today are here as Jesus followers, definitely looking and sounding different from our founding fathers and mothers but still discerning what God is calling us to do and then leaning into the Holy Spirit to get it done.
Living here in Vermont, the most unreligious state in the U.S. (or tied with Maine – that statistic changes often), it can sometimes be disheartening to see the decline in Christianity and yet we continue, evolving and changing and holding on to the knowledge that God is with us through it all.
God remains when it looks like our world is going to hell in a handbasket.
Resilience is what Jesus is talking about here and that is when we lean into not a building but the people of faith.
Look around you right now, these faces and hearts and minds are what will continue to be with you when your inevitable troubles arrive.
So many of us have survived devastating losses, serious illnesses, loss of jobs, divorces, estrangement from family members, and still we find hope and courage
from those around us who pray for us when we’ve run out of prayer.
They stand by us when we’re feeling alone.
They prop us up when we don’t have the strength to continue.
That is what we offer as church to each other.
Of course, it is not all gloom and doom.
There are causes for celebration.
Glimmers of hope in the darkness that cannot overcome us.
The good news amid all the bad is that God is continuing to work in you and me.
In the places of the most devastation and loss God is creating a new heaven and a new earth.
We are part of his building team.
Each of us an artisan in our way, with our gifts and talents – not for creating a building – but of building up of the kingdom of God.
Let us then take these words for our strength from a site known as Unfolding Light:
Though the land go dry or the oceans rise
you are in the arms of the Beloved.
Though times my seethe and the air swirl with shouting
you are being held.
Though people around you may be angry or in a panic
the One who holds you is at peace.
Though people speak ill of you
the name you bear is mercy.
Though the streets may flow with hate
your heart is suffused with love.
Though people hurl fear at you
your soul will not be harmed.
Though you be threatened
you will not perish.
Nothing can prevent
your courageous love. Amen.