O (I)

O Antiphon for December 17.

O Wisdom, you came forth from the mouth of the Most High, and reaching from the beginning to end, you ordered all things mightily and sweetly. Come, and teach us the way of prudence.

Quoted in: Johnson, Maxwell. Benedictine Daily Prayer. Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2005, as quoted on p. 1365.

The Kingdom Has Come Near

The Kingdom Has Come Near
Matthew 3:1-12
December 9, 2007
2nd Sunday in Advent

© 2007 by Christopher D. Drew

Sermon Focus: John is called the precursor, the one proclaiming that the Kingdom of God has come near. The implications of John’s statement ought to cause us much discomfort, because we are closer to the final culmination of John’s proclamation that anyone who has come before us. The time of waiting continues, but we should be living as if that Kingdom has already come into existence. The present realities of our lives must reflect this reality, if we truly accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.

Sermon Function: To proclaim John’s message for the contemporary listener, who is otherwise distracted by the forthcoming secular form of the Christmas holiday. Are we really ready for Christ’s return? This is the question that ought to dominate our thoughts.

[Click to Show/Hide Sermon Text]

Introduction

We’re now into our second week of exploration of not just the first coming of the baby Jesus, but the second coming of Jesus the Christ. Luke records that Jesus and John where related due to the family relationship between Elizabeth, John’s mother, and Mary, Jesus’ mother. They were cousins.

John gives us words of warning in our text; words that, to our ears, might sound strange and even a bit off-putting. Imagine what it might be like to hear this strange man who, walking from the fields, comes into, say, the HEB, his words booming through aisles. To say that we would be surprised and shocked would likely be an understatement.

As we continue our preparations for Christ’s return, let’s listen to God’s Word and what it is saying to us know.

[Read Scripture - Matthew 3:1-12]

Opening Illustration – The Kingdom is Near

I have learned that it is possible to get at least a glimpse into what those of us in Portland are reading by examining the book and magazine sales racks at Wall-Mart. It is an interesting experience to see what is selling. I take it that Wall-Mart wouldn’t have what they have unless there was some prospect of selling a few copies.

Behind such titles as “Your Best Life Now,” multiple books by Beth Moore, and three of four books by Joyce Meyer – incidentally, how to these people have the time to write so many books? – are a few bibles (hooray!). Also in the mix is one of those “Left-Behind” novels that give a very dispensationalist interpretation to the end times to come and the arrival of Christ’s kingdom on earth.

I paused in front of that book and thought for a moment about our text this week, a text in which this wild preacher named John comes proclaiming that the Kingdom of God has come near. The Greek word ἤγγικεν, the verb translated as “come near,” is a perfect verb. In the Greek language, perfect verbs describe actions that have already taken place and which have continuing, full effect – a change of state that persists.

And as I sat there looking at the book from the “Left Behind” series, the one that purports to tell the story of the forthcoming arrival of Christ’s kingdom on earth, I realized that indeed, they have likely gotten it wrong. The kingdom of God has come near with continuing full effect. It might come as a surprise to you, but Christ’s kingdom has already come into the world. It’s here already! We live, right now, in a world in a condition where the Kingdom of God has come near to us. Right now.

Surprise

We forget this fact – the fact that we live in a “now and not yet” Kingdom of God. We miss the boat if we think that the kingdom isn’t here yet, but is promised to us at some point in the future. If we believe that, then I think we run the risk of living in some pie in the sky world, so that we might be manipulated into thinking that if we don’t fix everything right now, well hey, that’s okay! The kingdom will come and set everything aright.

But that’s not what John is saying, nor is it what Matthew says. One of the things that distinguishes the Gospel according to Matthew from the other gospels is that Matthew seems keenly interested in the intersection between faith and ethics.¹ Faith, our faith that God will ultimately set things right in final judgment is somehow merged with the need to do something in response to this good news NOW. That is, in fact, what John is preaching here. He is saying that God’s kingdom has been inaugurated already, and accordingly we need to, as he says, repent! This prophet, who materializes almost out of nowhere in the wilderness of Judea, dressed remarkably like the great prophet Elijah the Tishbite in 2 Kings 1:8, is telling us that we need to do something right now in response to the news that the Kingdom has been inaugurated on earth. For John, that process of doing something NOW takes the form of repentance and baptism.

The Nature of Repentance

Repentance is an interesting word. To the modern ear, to repent means, in some way, that we are called upon to apologize for a wrong committed against God or our neighbor. The New Oxford American Dictionary says as much. “Repent” is defined as the need to “feel or express sincere regret or remorse about one's wrongdoing or sin.”² And we should feel sorry for abrogating the covenant God has made with us. But John’s call to repent here is much larger than that. Again, we have to understand what the Greek word means in order to get the full gist of what John is asking us to do. The Greek word for “repent” is μετανοέω, which mean much more than just saying, “I’m sorry, Lord.” “Though in English a focal component of repent is the sorrow or contrition that a person experiences because of sin, the emphasis in μετανοέω … seems to be more specifically the total change, both in thought and behavior, with respect to how one should both think and act.³ Total change. In thought and behavior. John uses the imperative form of the verb, a decision that puts a sense of urgency on the action. Well, that makes more sense now, doesn’t it? If the Kingdom is already here, in some fashion that we usually don’t remember or see, then there is HUGE emphasis on responding to that reality now, with our thoughts and our actions – reforming our ways, and becoming new people.

Last week, we were talking about watching and waiting. And part of watching and waiting is responding to God’s wonderful work now by fundamentally rearchitecting our thoughts and actions so that we become proper reflections of Jesus Christ in the world. Paul rights to the Galatians and says “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ” (Gal 3:27 NRSV). We don’t belong to ourselves anymore – we belong to Jesus.

So, Now What?

Advent is a time of watching, of waiting, and now we see it is also an opportunity ripe for transformation, for putting our faith into practice in our lives.

Reverend Billy Graham was recently asked what he thinks the greatest need is in our churches today. Is it better preaching? More youth work? What is it? The writer asking the question is on the board of a church, and they are debating this subject recently.

Billy Graham’s answer is illuminating and motivating and encapsulates our response today to John’s imperative to repent by transforming our lives in the knowledge that God’s Kingdom has come near and is currently near. Here’s Billy Graham’s response to the concerned church board member:

I'm convinced that the single greatest need in most churches today is spiritual revival - for a renewed commitment to Jesus Christ and a greater desire to do His will, regardless of the cost.

How does this happen? It must begin with an awareness of our spiritual poverty - an acknowledgment of our sin and our emptiness before God. It is no accident that Jesus' first words in the Sermon on the Mount dealt with this truth: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:3). This must lead us to confession and repentance, asking God to forgive us and turn our hearts toward Him.

Spiritual revival also means seeing the world the way God sees it, with all of its brokenness and rebellion and heartache - and then asking God to use us to touch it for Christ. When we are concerned only for ourselves, our lives and our churches will grow cold and stagnate - but when we become burdened over a world that has lost its way, then God can begin to use us.

Spiritual revival cannot be manufactured or created by our own efforts; only the Holy Spirit can bring true revival to our hearts. But we can pray for revival, and we can ask God to remove anything in our lives that would create a barrier to God's work. May the ancient prayer of Habakkuk become yours: "O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years" (Habakkuk 3:2, KJV)⁴

The Surprise of Advent

This is the surprise of Advent – The Kingdom of God has come near and remains near to us, even as we watch and wait. We are called to fundamentally change our focus, to shape our thoughts and our actions in response to this great thing that has happened. John, the firebrand, warned the Pharisees and Sadducees of “the wrath to come” as they stood there awaiting baptism. John implores them to bear fruit worthy of repentance – the fruit of repentance is personal transformation. Again, Matthew point to the ethical implications of personal transformation. The Pharisees and Sadducees through that claiming Abraham as their ancestor would be enough to absolve them for their sinfulness. But it wasn’t enough. The fruit of repentance was missing. I think we run a similar risk if we think that we can sort of coast by as a body of faithful believers who claim Christ as their ancestor.⁵ We know that God works through us and calls us to discipleship before we are even aware of it. But if our lives do not reflect that reality, then of what use are we to God? We become as useless as that tree which no longer bears fruit. If you have such a plant in your own garden, you don’t keep it around, you cut it out and replace it with one that is productive, and fully lives into its function of bearing fruit. Similarly, we are called by God to live our lives in the reality that the Kingdom of God is here.

Implications

How are we called to bear fruit? Matthew 28 gives us a clue.

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matt 28:19-20 NRSV)

We are to extend the message of the Gospel to the entire world. This church is called to extend the mission of the Gospel to the entire world. And we should ask ourselves if we could be doing more? Does our church budget reflect the reality that the kingdom has been inaugurated and is awaiting fulfillment with the return of Christ? Are we doing enough mission and evangelism in our community? How is my own budget a reflection of the reality of God’s kingdom? How do my relationships with other need to change to reflect the reality of the kingdom? Do I need to seek reconciliation with a friend or a family member? Do I need to cut back on a luxury so I can buy a family a meal, or giving gifts to children in need through the Angel Tree program? I implore you to reflect this Advent on your own spiritual life and the spiritual life of this church! Are we bearing fruit worthy of repentance? And if we are not, what must we do to be transformed? Are there hungry people in Portland that we need to feed? Are we using our land and our money appropriately? We’re going to need to work together to discern that answer as we get close to the end of the calendar year. The Kingdom is here, and Christ is coming. And we need to get on with being the people God has created us to be, not just to look busy, and we need to get on with the task of bearing fruit worthy of repentance, worth of that calling and ministry into which we have been baptized by the Holy Spirit and with fire.

Let us pray.

Merciful God, you sent your servant John to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation. Give us grace to heed his warning, and to forsake our sins and transform our lives, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.⁶

Given at First Presbyterian Church, Portland, Texas.

¹Hare, Douglas. Matthew. Richmond: John Knox Press, 1993, p. 2. ↩

²New Oxford American Dictionary (2nd Edition) entry for “repent.” ↩

³Johannes P. Louw and Eugene A. Nida, Eds. “μετανοέω.” Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains. New York: United Bible Societies, 1989. ↩

⁴Graham, Billy. “My Answer: Spiritual Revival.” Christian Post. Nov. 30, 2007. Online here. ↩

⁵Hare, p. 20. ↩

⁶Theology and Worship Ministry Unit. Book of Common Worship. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1993, adapted from Prayer of the Day 1, p. 174. ↩

Technorati Tags: Presbyterian Church USA, PCUSA, Sermon, Matthew 3:1-12, Year A, Advent, Kingdom, Ethics

If You've Been Called...

... Then you will appreciate this paragraph, taken from the Declaration of Faith by St. John of Damascus (whose memorial is observed today by our Roman Catholic friends):

Now you have called me, Lord, through your bishop, to serve your children. Why should you do this? I do not know; the secret is yours. Lighten, then, the heavy load of my sins; cleanse my mind and heart; be a light to my feet. Open my lips and give me speech. Let the fiery tongues of your Spirit penetrate my being and make me walk every day in your presence. Feed me, Lord, so that my heart may not stray. Let your good Spirit guide me on the right path and teach me to act as you wish.¹

¹Johnson, Maxwell. Benedictine Daily Prayer. Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2005, as quoted on p. 1682. ↩

Technorati Tags: St. John of Damascus, Declaration of Faith, Call

Wait Just a Minute

Wait Just a Minute
Matthew 24:36-44
December 2, 2007
1st Sunday in Advent

© 2007 by Christopher D. Drew

Sermon Focus: Thematically, the Sundays in Advent are all about the second coming of the Son of Man. Despite our clamoring for his appearance right here and right now, Jesus makes it crystal clear that no one knows the day or the hour when he will return. And when he does, the results will be astonishing. Some will be “taken up along,” but others will be left behind. The chaff will finally be separated from the wheat. Divine justice is in the offing. Are we waiting and watching?

Sermon Function: To illustrate how those in our society, including many in the church, want Christmas now. We already think we are in the Christmas season, but the 12 Days of Christmastide do not being until Christmas Day. Why the rush? And are we anxiously rushing toward the right thing? How do we recover the wonder of this season?

[Click to Show/Hide Sermon Text]

Introduction

Happy Advent! You may remember that we changed out the color of our paraments last Sunday to mark the beginning of the change of the church season and the start of a new church year. This week, you can see that we’ve augmented that change with a few others.

Part of the change in the year means that the lectionary, the source for our weekly biblical readings, also changes. There are three years in the lectionary cycle, denoted A, B, and C. Last year, we were in year C, and the gospel readings for most weeks of the year came from the gospel of Luke. This year, we start over with year A, and Matthew is the gospel of emphasis. The theme of today’s reading is not the forthcoming birth of the Christ child, but of Jesus’ return – a return that promises to be sudden, swift, and unpredictable.

Let’s listen now to God’s word.

[Read Scripture - Matthew 24:36-44]

Introductory Story

I learned a very important lesson this week, and I’d like to share it with you.

Each Thursday, your intrepid pastor leads a short “children’s chapel” for the students enrolled in our Presbyterian Children’s Enrichment Center. We usually gather at the front of the church, and I sit with them on the floor as we pray together and sing, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” This week, however, I gave them a bit of a test. I asked the children if they had a great Thanksgiving. “Yes! Yes!” could be heard, along with the response “I’m five” and “look at me.” Then I asked them this question, “What season comes after Thanksgiving?”

To the child, the answer came flooding forth, “Christmas! Christmas! It’s Christmas!”

“Well, we’re getting close to Christmas, but Christmas doesn’t begin until late in the month, on December 25th. What season, then, are we in?”

Silence.

“Advent,” I said, “We’re in the season of Advent.”

I then gave them the oversimplified answer about Advent being a time of waiting and watching. One of the girls in our group told me her birthday was coming up on December 10th. I asked her if she got excited for her birthday, in the days leading up to it. “You can hardly wait for your birthday, right?” “Yes!” she answered. “But you have to wait for your birthday, don’t you?” “Yes,” she replied. “Well, during the season of Advent, we wait for Christmas like you wait for your birthday.”

Now, it’s generally beyond the competence of very young children to understand the concept of waiting for Jesus’ return, which is the subject of today’s gospel text. But that is what we are called to do.

But will we?

Advent: The Forgotten Season

The fact of the matter is this: Just like the kids in the PCEC, many of us think and act like Christmas has come already. The day after our Thanksgiving in Luverne, Minnesota, someone obligingly put on a CD containing Christmas music. Our society has more or less secularized Christmas, and the Church runs the significant risk of following suit.

So this Sunday’s sermon is a reminder of what the season of Advent is and how, by reclaiming the season, we just might be able to regenerate the sense of hope and wonder that ought to play a role in our faith lives.

I mentioned that Advent is a time of waiting. The concept of waiting for something is an increasingly hard sell in a culture where just about anything can be acquired with a few mouse clicks at Amazon.com. But waiting has some value for us, because waiting is, for Christians, a spiritual discipline based upon our Hope for the certain future that awaits us.

The big task for us, as we celebrate this time of waiting, is remembering that without our hope of Jesus’ return, there really is little reason to celebrate the birth of a boy in a Bethlehem manger. Jesus cannot be a figure of ultimate hope for us if we reduce who He is to a well-meaning philosopher who had some nice things to say. The claims that Jesus makes about himself and about the Father are such that we either accept that He is the Son, or we accept that he was a complete maniac.

Immediately before our text begins today, Jesus is talking to the disciples about the coming of the Son of Man. He anticipates the question about when this will happen when Matthew quotes him as follows:

“But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” (Matt 24:36 NRSV). Only the Father knows when history as we know it will we wrapped up, reformed, and reborn into a new heaven and a new earth. No special codes are available to render a definitive few about when these events will happen, despite what we made read in the pages of the successful popular serial fictional novels about the second coming.

So, we know he’s coming, but we don’t know when. Jesus then tells us something important – that when the time comes, we will be preoccupied with our earthly lives, just as the people were at the time of Noah and the flood.

And we are preoccupied. With our families, with our work, with buying the right gifts for the right people, by making the right connections at work, by doing all that we think we need to do to ensure our security and success in this life. As in Noah time, we eat and we drink. We marry and are given in marriage. None of these things are morally suspect or questionable. On the contrary, we need to eat and drink. We rely on families to sustain us and to afford the best possible environment for the care of children, the children that guarantee that humanity as a species won’t drift off into a distant memory. No, we are engaged, as those in Noah’s generation, with the tasks we are called to by virtue of the fact that we are created beings.

And yet, while we are preoccupied with those things that make us human, we are nonetheless called upon to keep watch. Because just as the flood suddenly came and took life, in a similar way people will be “taken” when the Son of Man comes. This is not something to dread – this is our hope! The hope that a final, full, completely fair and inarguable judgment will come at the time of the renewal of the world and the coming of God’s Kingdom on Earth as it is in Heaven. This is the certain future hope we have that gives us the real reason we will celebrate the 12 days Christmastide starting on December 25th. We anxiously await this time because we know that the ordinary things of this life, like the ordinary tasks of life at the time of Noah, are not the end. This future promise is what drives us now to remember that birth event two millennia ago.

It is very important for us to remember this fact. Advent is a time of great anticipation, a time when we should refocus our efforts to keep watch, not just for the big day of Christmas when, due to the cultural secularization of the holiday, we find ourselves all to often saying “That God that’s over.” Rather, we look forward to the very incarnation of the future Hope of justice, mercy, and the coming of God’s Kingdom in the person of Jesus, that baby of wonder, who enters into our condition to redeem us, once and for all, from the sinfulness that separates us from the Father.

I find that prospect very exciting, and I want to join with you in our watching. But how can we keep watch with all of the business of our lives? How do we keep plowing the fields, taking care of the kids, pay the bills, mow the lawn, balance the checkbook, prepare dinner for the family, suffer the commute to work, sweat through our labors, and keep our eye out for Jesus? Is it even possible?

Advent the Discipline

It is possible, if we remember that Advent isn’t just a season. It’s a gift, and a discipline. I’ll talk about the second item first.

Advent is a discipline. What does that mean? It means refocusing our efforts to reclaim the hope we have in Advent now, because we know that Jesus wasn’t just a nice man who said nice things. We know he is everything to us, and the key to our salvation. If we truly believe that Jesus is the Word of God incarnate, then nothing in our lives ought to remain the same. Instead, we need to do things differently. And doing things differently is difficult, time-consuming, and requires effort. That’s what I mean by Advent being a discipline.

If you, like me, want to reclaim the meaning and wonder of Advent for the church, then an examination of your life will, I think, quickly reveal what you can do to refocus your efforts on anticipating Christmas. Here’s something I’m going to do. Many of you know that I’m a dyed-in-the-wool capitalist. I like buying things just like anything else. But I’ve committed this Christmas to avoid the shopping mall. I will not, in fact, enter a mall between now and Epiphany in early January. Now, I’m not some Luddite who wants to live a horse-and-buggy existence. The reason I’m going to avoid the mall if very practical – I want to avoid the blaring Christmas music and the shopping hints that have caused Christmas in our culture to overwhelm the anticipation of Advent. Instead, I’m going to shop online, in the quiet of our apartment here in Portland. Quick, efficient, and back to anticipating. I hope to up my time in quiet reflection and prayer with the time I might otherwise have spent mall shopping. I’m also going to avoid FM Christmas music spectaculars until December 25th, and I’m doing that because I like the music so much. I would rather wait with some longing and start playing the music over the 12 days of Christmas. It’s not much, I know, but I hope that focusing on a few small things might help me reclaim the wonder of anticipation that I remember when I was a kid.

Second, I hope we can all remember that Advent is a gift, a time of reclaiming wonder.

Years ago, I purchased a small book from a discount rack called Wonder Tales. The book is a compilation of fairy tales written for adults during the reign of Louis XIV of France. The book was edited by Marina Warner. This is one of these books that looked interesting, but which I’ve never actually read, alas. But I spied the book on my shelf as I was preparing the sermon, and because it had the word “Wonder” in the title, I pulled it off and perused the introduction.

Here’s the first sentence of the introduction:

Wonder has no opposite; it springs up already double in itself, compounded of dread and desire at once, attraction and recoil, producing a thrill, the shudder of pleasure and of fear. It names the marvel, the prodigy, the surprise as well as the responses they excite, of fascination and inquiry; it conveys the active motion towards experience and the passive state of enrapturement.¹

That is about the best description of wonder as I’ve ever read, and it is the gift of Advent. Through deliberate, disciplined waiting we can reclaim that moment of wonder, the wonder of God Almighty, the Alpha and the Omega, the great I AM, the steadfast Rock and the Giver of Life, who, even now enfolding us with His Holy Spirit, through the incarnation was born into life in a broken world, THIS world, to be WITH us, so that he could SAVE us. Can you imagine that? How amazing! And it is through Jesus that ALL of creation will be renewed at the Second Advent of this coming. That same child, born on that same night, is the same Savior who will come again. The same person of the same Triune God. What a wonder filled miracle that is! And what wonder we will experience on December 25th, if we will just wait a minute first.

Let us pray.

Eternal God, you taught us that the night is far spent and the day is at hand. Keep us awake and alert, watching for your kingdom, and make us strong in faith, so that when Christ comes in glory to judge the earth, we may joyfully give him praise; who lives with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.²

Given at First Presbyterian Church, Portland, Texas.

¹Warner, Marina et.al. Wonder Tales. Oxford Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 1. ↩

²Theology and Worship Ministry Unit. Book of Common Worship. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1993, p. 173. ↩

Technorati Tags: Presbyterian Church USA, PCUSA, Sermon, Matthew 24:36-44, Year A, Advent, Hope, Wonder, Discipline

Interesting...

After reading this interesting post by Nathaniel Peters, I decided to check out Stephen Colbert's interview of Fr. James Martin talking about Mother Teresa here.

Here's an easy link if you're interested in purchasing the book Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light.

Technorati Tags: Stephen Colbert, Catholicism, Mother Teresa, Faith, God, Presence, Absence

Advent Tidings

My lovely wife preached last Sunday, so I don't have a sermon to post this week. Instead, here's my column about Advent for the church newsletter.

Dear Friends in Christ:

Preaching during the season of Advent is challenging. In our wider culture, Advent gets substantially consumed by Christmas. In the malls, in restaurants, even at home, we put on the wonderful music that marks Christmastide during the season of Advent. As a result, we frequently get to Christmas morning on December 25th tired of all the Christmas carols and worn out from our “holiday cheer” and shopping mayhem. The malls start their “post-Christmas” sales, and the 24-hour broadcasts of Christmas music vanish as radio stations resume their normal programming on December 26th.

All of this makes planning Advent worship a more complicated endeavor than in times past. The expectation is that our worship and music will reflect what the wider culture is doing. But the church, if it’s doing its job, should struggle against this tide. This year, your worship team has developed a deeply meaningful plan for how we’ll approach the Advent season, paying special attention to developing a sense of suspense and anticipation as we prepare for the season of Christmastide (yes, Christmas really is 12 days long!). When we get to Christmas Eve, we’ll be breaking out of joyous hymns of celebration. We’ll sing more carols the following Sunday, the first Sunday of the Christmas season. We get to continue singing until the Sunday of Epiphany, when we mark the baptism of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Remember that we get the wonderful opportunity to focus for an extended time on the birth of the Christ from December 24th all the way to January 6th. As we move through Advent, remember that Christ hasn’t come just yet. But when He does … wow!

Peace and blessings,

Pastor Chris

Technorati Tags: Advent, Tidings

An Opportunity

An Opportunity
Luke 21:5-19
November 18, 2007
33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

© 2007 by Christopher D. Drew

Sermon Focus: As the church moves to the conclusion of the liturgical year, our gospel texts for this week take on a more apocalyptic tone. This week, Jesus tells his disciples and others of the destruction that will come to the temple, and the persecutions and disasters that foretell the end of things. In this midst of this, Jesus offers words of astonishing reassurance. Jesus assures us that he himself will give us words (literally “a mouth”) to testify to the truth of the gospel, and that by our endurance we will gain our souls.

Sermon Function: To instruct listeners about Jesus’ presence in the midst of our own tumult and chaos, and that Jesus’ promises for the events to come translate into a present assurance in a world which is right now filled with war, famine, and pestilence.

[Click to Show/Hide Sermon Text]

Introduction

In theological and liturgical circles, Jesus is understood to hold three simultaneous offices: Prophet, Priest, and King. Next week is Christ the King Sunday, and my wife Sara will explore the Kingship office of Jesus. We celebrate the Priestly office of Christ when we remember his self-sacrifice on the cross on behalf of sinful humanity. This week, we get a specific look at the prophetic character of Jesus. In our text, Jesus announces the forthcoming destruction of the temple, and event that would actually happen about 40 years after the discussion recorded here by Saint Luke, and he offers us some startling reassurance.

Let us listen now to God’s Word to us.

[Read Scripture - Luke 21:5-19]

Opening Comments

Many people wonder how long it takes to come up with a sermon to preach on Sunday. The simple answer is: It depends. Pastors each have their own process for structuring a sermon. In my case, I usually sit with the text over a week in advance and give it a first reading. Then, I usually do some comparisons between English texts, and then I do my own translation from the Greek or Hebrew, depending on the text for the week.

Then the fun begins. Friday is my designated sermon-writing day. In addition to the language work, I also check a commentary or two for other interpretive guidance. Then I look for helpful illustrative material, from the news of from my life experience of from the events of the week at the church. Then, and only then, do I sit down, say a prayer, and begin to write. The actual writing process only takes about three hours, the rest of the preparation time varies according to the week.

This week, much of the preparation time has been addressing the question: How do I preach a sermon about wars, rebellion, famine, disease and pestilence, destruction, false prophets, betrayal by family and friends, and persecution unto death on the same week that we’re celebrating our national day of Thanksgiving, and on a particular Sunday when we will, following the offering, respond to the Word read and proclaimed with a wedding?

After a very brief fantasy consisting of me running away from Portland in a panic, I then thought about changing the text at the last minute. And the Holy Spirit intervened, and I was reminded of the Apostle Paul’s advice to Timothy:

All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work. (2 Tim 3:16-17 NRSV)

One of the ways scripture works is to equip us for all manner of obligations in life, including giving thanks for God’s manifest blessings and the gift of Christian marriage. Therefore, this scripture, while it seems to dwell on devastation and destruction to come, is nonetheless profitable for us because it gives us the opportunity, once again, to witness to the gospel. We talk a lot about God’s attempts to reach out to humanity, and that God is always the one who moves first, as we are caught in the nets of our sin. In worship, we respond to God’s Word in a variety of ways – thanksgiving, offering, baptism, and the Lord’s Supper. Marriage is also a response to the gospel, because we understanding Christian marriage as a covenant that resembles the kind of commitment that God makes to humanity.

Exposition

What does this text say to us today? Well, first off, it tells us something about ourselves. Did you notice how the reading began? It began with people, likely disciples and other interested parties, commenting on the beautiful stones of the temple, and the offerings that adorned it with fantastic beauty. These are worldly preoccupations of proud humans wondering at the achievements of other humans, especially the Roman puppet king at that time, Herod, who made it a point of transforming the temple into a spectacle of wonder. Jesus, the anointed one, Emmanuel, Christ-With-Us, is standing there with them, and the people are commenting on what a wonderful building the temple is! We do the same thing. We are all the time drawn to things we think point to God, but really point to ourselves or to the supposed magnificence of purely human creation. We’re drawn to our own preoccupations even in moments of personal prayer. I know that personal worries and distractions plague me in my own prayer life, and it take deliberate effort to quash these so that we can actually listen to what God may be saying to us.

Jesus seems to respond to this by saying, rather bluntly, enjoy these things while they last, because in a short time they’ll be torn to shreds. The seemingly solid things of life, the things that give us a sense of stability and safety, these can be swept away in a moment, can’t they? Anyone who has ever visited an older bank building will notice that the architecture of the building, with massive columns and huge granite stones, are meant to make the psychological impression on customers that their money was safe, and not subject to theft or destruction. But we know in our hearts, I think, that any building can be felled. All it takes is a big enough fire, a big enough earthquake, and the most solidly constructed building can be broken. And that is, in fact, what happened to the temple. Herod’s restored temple, it is thought, had stones that measured as large as 44 feet by 11 feet and weighing about 628 tons.¹ Most of the structure was laid to waste within a few decades of Jesus’ death and resurrection. The Western Wall in Jerusalem is all that remains.

Give Us a Sign!

After making his pronouncement about the future of the temple, the disciples and others present then ask Jesus for clues as to when the forthcoming destruction will take place. There will be, as Jesus says, lots of political and natural chaos: Warfare and earthquakes. False messiahs will come forth proclaiming that they know the answer. Don’t believe them, Jesus says.

Jesus gives them some pointers, but if you’re like me you will almost miss the reassurance in this part of our text. In the middle of all this chaos, Jesus tells those with ears to hear: “Do not be terrified” (Luke 21:9). In the midst of what is to come, do not be terrified. Jesus gives us words of peace and assurance, even in the worst of times, even in the midst of family struggles and personal uncertainty, even when times are tough financially, even when death is near. “Do not be terrified,” Jesus explains. For those God has called, the uncertainties and destructions of life are not the final answer.

But even before the natural disasters and political tumult to come, Jesus tells those listening, including us today, that we will be subject to persecution and betrayal, and brought before the authorities for the sake of the name of Jesus.

We live at a time when our cultural elites are intensely worried about those to profess deep religious belief. We live, for example, in a time when a Governor has been panned in the press for having the ridiculous audacity to ask citizens of his state to pray to God for rain in the drought-ridden state of Georgia. Ridicule is one thing, but persecution and betrayal by friends and family? That’s huge, but that’s part of living our fully our lives of discipleship. We live in a country were it’s common to be made fun of for our faith in Jesus, but at least we don’t face possible death, like many other Christians do even as I stand hear preaching to you in the safe town of Portland, Texas. Last week, seven men and two women were arrested as spies in North Korea for the crime of being disciples of Jesus Christ? Three members of a Christian group in Egypt were arrested last week for investigating the death of another Christian.² The threat is real.

But even under these conditions, there is reason to have joy. Jesus tells us that persecution and imprisonment will give us the “opportunity to testify.” The Greek word for "testify" is μαρτύριον, from which we get the English word martyr. Many folks, when they year this word, think of being martyred, which means being put to death for what one believes. But there is more to the word than that. We are all, in fact, martyrs for the faith. We witness to our faith in Jesus Christ each week in worship, when we celebrate the sacraments, when we give back our offering, when we pledge to the church, when we sing, when we pray. In all of these activities, we witness to all present the grace and wonderful gifts we have received from our heavenly Father.

Today, we will witness to the goodness of God in another way, through the marriage of Ray Rodriguez and Amy Yaffe. In our culture, most people think of marriage as an act particular to a given couple. And it is that. But in Christian marriage, we witness to the love of God in Jesus Christ. Marriage for us symbolizes the love Jesus has for the church. And in Christian marriage, the couple making the covenant promises to each other remind us of the covenant promises make to us by God. So yes, even the act of Christian marriage in worship is an opportunity for us to be martyrs, witnesses, for the faith and hope we have in Jesus Christ.

Called to Witness

We are called by Jesus to be witnesses to the good news, and not just during the good times, but also during troubling, challenging, disturbing times. The good news for us today is that we always have the opportunity to witness to what God has done for us, in our family lives, in our work lives, in our political lives, and in our faith lives. We may, as Jesus says, be hated for this. But we have the blessed assurance that Jesus Himself will be present with us:

“For I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict” (Luke 21:15 NRSV). Literally, this Greek phrase can be translated as “I will give you a mouth.” When the demand is made for an accounting of our faith, we’ll be able to witness to the power of God with words that aren’t just our own, but the words of Christ. The context may be the wonderful occasion of Christian marriage, but it also might be a tense thing, during a time of suffering or even pending death. But do not be afraid! “[N]ot a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your souls” (Luke 21:18-19 NRSV). I believe this with all of my heart. Even now, Jesus may be calling upon you to witness to the greatness of God. If you suspect that this is the case, I invite you to approach me or one of the Elders of this church to discuss more fully how this witness may take shape. Perhaps such a witness might be being baptism, or the reaffirmation of your baptism, or through becoming a member of the church, or through a public profession of your faith, or by changing your job, or by working for a Christian charitable organization, or by becoming a missionary, or by publicly witnessing to faith in Christian marriage. However you are called to witness to the faith, do not be afraid! “[N]ot a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your souls (Luke 21:18-19 NRSV)”

Let us pray.

Lord God of all the ages, the One who is, who was, and who is to come, stir up within us a longing for your kingdom, steady our hearts in time of trial, and grant us patient endurance until the sun of justice dawns. We make our prayer through your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.³

Given at First Presbyterian Church in Portland, Texas.

¹See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herod's_Temple for additional details. ↩

²Christian Post, November 13, 2007, here and here. ↩

³Theology and Worship Ministry Unit. Book of Common Worship. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1993, p. 393. ↩

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