Pentecost 24

May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

SEASON: Pentecost 24
PROPER: 28 C
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: November 15, 1998

TEXT: Luke 21:5-19 - "You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. You will be hated by all because of my name. But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your souls."

ISSUE: Jesus deals with issues concerning the end, an appropriate reading for the near end of the church year. Luke has Jesus predicting the events of the Temple's destruction, and the emprisonment of various disciples as told in The Acts of the Apostles. But hope resides in the endurance of the faithful. They will gain their souls through endurance and by the Spirit will be given the words to speak. There is the implied promise that through faithfulness, even in the face of clamity, God will save his faithful people. In each of our own lives we face anxieties, calamaties, and uncertainties. Yet repeatedly in scripture that which fall is raised by God and made new. This message is at the heart of a resurrection faith.
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We are now fast approaching the end of the Church Year. Next Sunday will be the Last Sunday of Pentecost, Christ the King Sunday. Today's reading from Luke is a discussion of a time of great calamity which was for some an indication of the end of time. It is Luke's Apocalyptic writing. It is appropriately assigned as we do, in fact approach, the end of the Church's Year, and as we wind-up this year's emphasis on the Gospel account of Luke.
The passage is set in the context of a group of people commenting upon the beauty of the Jerusalem Temple. It was indeed an extraordinarly beautiful structure in its time. The Temple Gates were gold, and were reported to be so bright when the morning sun shone upon them that they were as blinding as looking directly into the sun itself. It's forty foot gleaming white columns could be seen for miles from the hills surrounding Jerusalem. Yet Jesus begins to prophesy that the day will come when all of the marble stones and the golden gates of the Temple will be torn down, and a time of insurrections and and wars. The time will come when those disciples that follow his way will be arrested, persecuted, and even put to death. Some will be brought before kings and governors to defend themselves. It will be a time when family members themselves, parents, brothers, relatives and friends, will betray them. Yet, the faithful are to endure the great tribulation, and they will gain their souls.
In order to be able to put this prophecy into proper perspective is to understand that Luke wrote this Gospel some years after the death and resurrection of Jesus, probably around 80-85 A.D. Whether or not Jesus literally and actually predicted the fall of Jerusalem it is hard to say. It is likely he had, as many perceptive people of his time may as well, a pretty good idea that Israel was a great risk. In 70 A.D. the Temple was completely destroyed, and every stone was torn and down, and it was and has never been rebuilt. The Roman seige of the city of Jerusalem and of Israel was horrendous. Many of the people were reported to have been reduced to cannibalism to surrive. The Romans did not deal lightly with insurrection.
What's more, according to Luke in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, the apostles were on many occasions arrested and persecuted. Saul before his conversion to becoming Paul sought out and participated in the death of members of the early church. St. Paul himself, according to Luke, after his conversion was brought before governors and kings to defend himself. Early church members had been persecuted and disowned, betrayed, by their own families, as they accepted new membership in the new family of Christians. Luke heightens the prophetic image of Jesus in his indicating that Jesus predicted that these things would come to pass, and they in fact did. Just as Jesus himself died on the cross, and suffered significantly, the early church and this world could expect the same. Yet Luke's close deep and profound appreciation of Jesus was a very positive one. Whatever happens, endure and be faithful, and through that faithful endurance though everything else seems lost and ended, you will have gained your souls.
The apocalyptic writing of Luke was not new. The Old Testament Book of Daniel is apocalyptic written at a time when Israel dealt with severe persecution at the hand of a foreign pagan king. John's Revelation in the New Testament is a vivid expression of the great horrors of the Roman regimes and their persecutions. Many ages had their difficult times, and religious leaders often called their people to repentance and faith to stand firm through difficult times and ordeals. Even in the reading today from Malachi (3:13-4:2a,5-6), God's people complain that the arrogant evil doers seem to be the prosperous. Malachi calls them to remain faithful, and God will send to renew the world. Repeatedly Scripture calls the people of God to a persistent and enduring faithfulness with the assurance that God's redemption will prevail even in times of great difficulty.
Today there are, I understand, some great concerns over our coming to the millienium, 2000 A.D. For some people this is a time of great trepidation. There are those who are concerned as to what is going to happen as a possible result of computers. Major power failures and possible economic collapse are the more frightening predictions. You may have even heard of people who after a serious earthquake, or volcanic eruption will begin to predict the end of time. Recent motion pictures prediciting the falling of asteroids have doomsday implications, and foresee the possible end of time. People are often inclined to take Biblical passages from the past and try to apply them in a literal way to the future.
What is really at the heart of Scripture is the fact that it reveals that every age does have its difficult times, as well as every person's life. Ancient people suffered under horrendously evil rulers. The Israelites and the early church suffered significantly at the hands of the Romans. Even today the world know significant suffering. Consider the enormous hardship of the people in South America, in Honduras and Nicaraugua. With a death toll of nearly 10,000 or more there is great mourning and grief. These are people whose countries are devastated by the Hurricane Mitch. Suddenly with a deluge of wind and rain their world is washed away.
Last week I was reading the Sunday Sun, the great difficulty that some of our American farmers in the mid-west are facing as world economies change and prices fall drastically. Many farmers are losing their livelihood for which they were trained and their traditional way of life. For these people it is as if the end of the world has come.
Many of us gathered here today who have lost people we love, or whose marriages have failed, or who have lost good jobs must have felt like the world was ending.
Persecution has been significant in our generations. We witnessed the terrible horrible suffering of the Jews at the hands of the Nazi's. In Saudi Arabia it is against the law to openly practice Christianity. Christians have suffered significant persecution in China and the former Soviet Union. At the same time Christians have not had a lily white record either when it comes to the treatment of Moslems, black peoples, and native Americans. All of us human beings are under the judgment of God, and all of us have experienced and are at the mercy of difficult times. The beautiful stones of every generation have a way of being torn down and tarnished. I often hear of people's great devotion to our church and its beauty, and its great meaning in our lives. But even it's great beauty and significance is at great risk. One match, a significant change in the economy, a natural disaster: any of these things can greatly change and effect our lives.
How do we live into a world that is constantly changing and where there is a prevailing climate of disaster, uncertainty, anxiety? How do we live into the end of time, when the bottom seems to fall our of our lives? For the church it has always been a matter of trust and loyalty. We trust that inspite of what happens God is with us, that amidst the valley of dry bones the Spirit of God shall prevail to raise them up. In the parables and the teachings of Jesus, there is a great reversal of thinking: the lost, the last, the least, the sinners, the lonely, the sick, the dying are the very ones who are being raised up. In the life giving sacrifice of Jesus, there comes the risen Christ and the new age. The ministry of Jesus is the constant claim that all who stand in the fallen world are being invited to step into the Kingdom of God. For us the way to God is found in the way of Jesus Christ as the way, the truth, and the life. In him we find enormous love, unfathonable forgiveness and great compassion. Thus, in the midst of shaking and uncertain foundations, when the rug seems to be pulled from underneath us. When the old is passing away, we trust in God's renewing presence to raise up and renew. We live into the way of God expressed in Jesus Christ. We continue to be a people who love peace and justice as opposed to shrines, museums, and temples. As we endure the varioius traumas of the world and of our lives we live like the people of Christ in such a way that whatever happens we still have our souls that cannot be washed away or taken away.