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Wednesday, November 22, 2023

November 17, 2019

 November 17, 2019         Luke 21:5-19       Malachi 4:1-2a                   2 Thessalonians 3:5-13

                When I worked at Hospice, before I came here, we had a saying you may have heard, “People die the way the live.”  If people were bossy in their life, they were often found ordering everyone around on their death bed.  If they were warm and kind, they were the same as they were dying.  If they were anxious, they were often anxious about death.  And if they were chill, they often died peacefully.

                When we face difficulties in life, we all react in different ways depending on how we were raised and our life experiences and sometimes our genetics and body chemistry.  Some people panic at the slightest thing, and some people can’t be phased by anything.  Some people tighten their control, and other people give it to God.  I think all of us would say, that our Christian faith has helped us to accept some hardships and difficulties and not to panic at any little warning or difficulty.  We have a community at Spirit of Life, for one thing that helps us through hard times, forgives us, loves us, helps us, and hopefully occasionally corrects us.  And we have a bigger story of God’s plans for building the Kingdom of God here on earth, a more just, peaceful, loving world where everyone belongs and everyone’s gifts are needed.

                Today’s readings might sound like a lot of bad news.  Since we’re coming up the end of the church year, the readings are getting more intense.  As we talk about the end of the year, we also consider other endings: The end of the temple, the end of our own church buildings, wars which end many lives, the ends of kingdoms and nations and empires, earthquakes, famines, and plagues, natural disasters, persecutions, arrests, betrayals, and even the end of friendships and family relationships.

                The readings don’t stop with all this bad news, though.  They seem to say there is a bigger picture and something more.  The Gospel starts with a cheerful comment, “Look at the beautiful temple!”  But Jesus points out this is temporary.  It is nice, but it doesn’t last.  Then he goes on with a lot of what sounds like bad news.  Then at the very last he finishes with the real good news, “By your endurance you will gain your souls.”  There is something to be gained that is permanent and matters and worthwhile.  There is good news!

                In the reading from Malachi, too, it’s a lot of bad news.  “The day is coming, burning, people will be stubble, burned up, without roots or branches.”  Bad, bad news.  And then good news, “But, the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings.”  Whoa!  There is a bigger picture, a longer journey through pain and suffering and death, and the story goes on and because of our relationship with God we know new life, and hope, and something lasting and truly beautiful.

                All this bad news might also be seen as good news.  That nations fall and temples are destroyed and people are arrested, isn’t all bad news.  It is good news to any who have been oppressed by the nation, who were kept in poverty because of that nation, who were overtaxed, who were required to jump through impossible hoops.  That a religious institution should fall would be good news for those who were told by a twisted religion that they were to blame for their illness and poverty, for those who were kept in ignorance of the power structure so they could never challenge it or understand and share in religion’s true liberating power.  It isn’t that people want wars and famines and earthquakes and crumbling nations and people to die, but since these things do happen, can God make something new out of that, and give a fresh start, give life to all the people instead of a few?

                That was the situation for Luke’s audience.  They watched their temple looted and burned.  They watched wars and insurrections take the lives of good and bad people.  They had been betrayed and handed over by family members.  But they knew this was not the end of the story. 

                The good news for this morning is that God has a way of taking what we would call an ending and making new life out of it.  This is death and resurrection.  This is the story of the liberation of the slaves in Egypt and bringing them through the wilderness to new life.  This is the story of Noah and the flood and the new life that flourished after with a fresh start, not only for all people, plants, and animals, but with God promising never to do that again.  This is the story of the woman at the well who was snubbed by everyone in town, and how when it seemed her life was meaningless and hopeless, she met Jesus who told her everything she had ever done.

                Earthquakes—not the end!

                War-- not the end!

                Betrayal--- not the end!

                Wildfires-- not the end!

                Nations falling-- not the end!

                Impeachment trials-- not the end!

Church roof leaks-- not the end!

                Death-- not the end!

                We have God, the Spirit of Life, which cannot be killed.  This Gospel says that people will cry out that it’s the end and they will say they have the answers.  Don’t listen to that.  That makes more anxiety and makes people do things in anxiety that are not the will of God.  Instead, stay calm, and remember the God of new life.  Remember all the stories of God bringing the people through crisis after crisis in the Bible.  God is still doing that today.

                To me the little things add up and cause me a lot of stress, until I read the good news in this Gospel:

                Late to a meeting-- not the end!

                Forgot someone’s name-- not the end!

                Had a disagreement with a friend-- not the end!

                Burned dinner-- not the end!

                Lost my temper with my kid-- not the end!

                The candles wouldn’t light in remembrance of the saints-- not the end!

                Even divorce and terrible illness, pain, kids who have wandered from the church or made one bad decision after the other, family members not speaking to each other—it’s still not the end!  God is on this painful journey with us and there is still more of this journey to go.  It’s not the end of the story that God is still writing.

                God has written the end of that story and in that story all creation in heaven and on earth are gathered together and united, nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, all tears will be dried, all prodigal sons will coming running home to dad, all the prison doors will spring open.

                It is wonderful to build beautiful places of worship and welcome and to use God’s gifts to repair old roofs, as long as we remember that isn’t the point to benefit mostly ourselves.  God requires that we use the gifts that God has let us borrow for a little while, to relieve the suffering of the little people, the hurting people, the invisible people, the despised.  I do think you’ve got a good handle on that, Spirit of Life, and I’m excited to enter this time with you, that is in some ways an ending, the old year passing by, all the endings, griefs and losses, all the hurts you’ve experienced here and at other congregations, and looking at all of them and saying, that is not the end.  There is new life, there is hope, let’s see what good God is doing, freeing, forgiving, loving, and forming into community.

 

 

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