17 November 13 “Newness”

  It is rare to find someone who has lived in the same place their entire life. Sure, there are those who hold on to the old place. We still own the land and small house my grandfather built before my dad was born. But often the best we can do is hold that place in our memories. Memories make it easier to go back, if just for a moment.

  Mostly we ramble and move about settling in wherever we find convenience or circumstance takes us. Even when it is not our “dream” place, we make due. We find comfort in our things, setting up house the way we do, making friends, figuring out the way to the store, and church of course. We settle in and make home, home.

 Jesus seems to flip those feelings on their head this morning. Forget about settling in; forget about being content with the familiar and comforting. No, Jesus quickly moves us away from feeling grounded in the familiar and comforting. His story creates, quite honestly, a new level of discomfort in our familiar and settled place when we admit to what Jesus is promising. No matter where our life finds us, our familiar comfort has a very short future.

 During Jesus’ time, the center of religious life in Jerusalem was around the temple. It was vast, it was beautiful, and it was a familiar and comforting space for all who came there. Quoting from Isaiah, Jesus reminded everyone the temple is first and foremost to be their house of worship. The temple was to be that bedrock place where his followers should never worry about what it was for and its place in their familiar and comforting life.

 As our reading shows, those with Jesus understood this teaching. Indeed, the Temple was their place to worship. They revered it as they admired its physical nature, its stature. They were impressed by how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God.

  But, Jesus warned them, as he warns us, about being too closely attached to physical space or adornments, be they in temples holy or secular. Jesus’ prophecy is that they will all end. He says, “As for these things that you see, the day will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.”

 These first century folk understood about life and death, about how quickly the familiar can be taken away. Life for them was harsh. So, they did not argue with Jesus when he claimed that the world as they knew it would end. They accepted his teaching and asked the obvious question. When will it happen? How much longer do we have?

  Jesus’ answer was not so direct. He knew how vulnerable we can be to earthly influences and end-of-time predictions. Even in our time, we hear the prognosticators say “This is it, this is the end.” Thankfully, I suppose, we have always woken to worry another day. The truth is, the crisis in our lives have created a sense of doom about the future. All too often we have good reason to worry like we do.

  In a way, it may be easier to follow along with the doomsday prophets and their promise of a way out. If we will just listen to them, do what they say, turn our life over to them, and our money, we will be alright. They promise.

 But, Jesus warns us about short cuts. We are to beware, to not be lead astray by those who come into our lives and say, “I am the one.” I am the one with the truth about your life and future. I promise, I am the one, “The time is near.” So, come and follow me, for your time is running out.

 How often have we nodded in agreement when the futurists or political pundits predict a sure fired economic, or political, or personal end to life as we know it? Can we not count on the elections of the future to be like those of the past predicting doom and gloom if we do not vote a certain way?

 To be truthful, we are almost always disappointed with any attempts to correct the present or the future, aren’t we? Whether through our own efforts or those of others, we are left with some things that worked better and some things that were a bust. I suspect it is the unpredictable that catches us unaware. The time is near and our time is running out. We must surely do something or all heck will break loose.

 The theologian John Howard Yoder said the church needs to help people take a “minority perspective” about life. A majority perspective assumes that by power, wealth, organizing, or hard work we can get things to turn out the way we want. A minority perspective, on the other hand, never makes those assumptions.

 A minority perspective church seeks to embody and be witness to the way of Jesus, without embracing worldly powers, or wealth, or influence. A minority perspective church uses imagination and learns to survive over the long haul.

 Yoder says, “In Christendom, both optimism and despair are correlated with the direct reading of how it is going for us in the rising and falling of power structures.” But the minority perspective community learns to hope even when things seem to be going badly – “not only because we have heard promises from beyond the system, but also because we have learned that sometime our pessimistic reading for the present are shadowed too much by taking some setback too seriously.”

  There is a story about a visit a pastor had with a man as they sat on his patio looking out on a small lake surrounded by new and attractive town homes. The pastor commented about the beauty of the setting and asked the man how he had decided to move to this new place.

  He replied, “I didn’t. I was forced to move here. The highway department planned a highway that cut right through our farm, land that I inherited from my parents. Of course, he said, I never farmed the land. But I sure enjoyed living there. When he heard that the state was going to condemn the property, he was sick. He thought it was the end of everything. This land had been the only place he had lived his entire life.

 But then he and his wife moved by the lake. As he thought about it, he said, “Frankly, it was the best thing that ever happened to us. He and his wife loved it there.

 As he though a moment more, he said, “It is kind of sad that you have to be forced by the State Highway Department to do what you did not have the courage to do on your own. I thought they had just killed me. As it turns out, they gave me a whole new life.”

  Within this man’s new understanding we find the meaning of our gospel message from Luke. There is amazing grace and eternal hope for us when we have the courage to live with a new confidence about our endings and beginnings with God. We find the good news of the gospel this morning in the sure message that our God is a God alive in us and our lives. Our God is a God who brings life out of death, who creates new worlds out of old chaos, fear and trembling.

 In Luke’s truth, Jesus comforts us, “Do not be terrified, even though we will be thrust into this world where our worries may overwhelm us.” Not a hair on our head will perish. By our endurance we will gain our souls.

 A few years back I attended a symposium on the German theologian Karl Barth. One of the speakers reminded us that the word of God automatically places us in a state of crisis when we accept it. When we submit to God’s holy command, all heck breaks loose.

 It began when Jesus asked us repeatedly, “Do you love me?” Do you love me? Is it not the case that once we say yes our life is never the same, and there is no turning back. Do we love Jesus and are we prepared for the crisis that will come in our lives when we do?

 Jesus says, “As for these things that you see, the day will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.”

  “Do you love me?” Jesus asks. If so, create a crisis in your life and feed my sheep.

 The depth of our experience of God’s grace will mirror the depth of the experience of our sin, our pain, our suffering, even our cries to God for help. God responds to the depth of our despair with the power of God’s grace.

 Do you love me, Jesus asks? If so, create a crisis in your life, come and follow me.

 Jesus tells us, “You will be betrayed even by relatives and friends…you will be hated by all because of my name. But, not a hair on your head will perish.” Our God, as it turns out, will lead us to a new life.

 Do you love me, Jesus asks? With our answer, our halting, and trembling, yes, God calls us to be a servant to his son, Jesus Christ, our Messiah. A full time servant, living the full cost of receiving God’s grace as we join God’s prophetic work in the world. Bringing hope and health and calm in the midst of chaos and crisis. Bringing grace through Christ’s peace and our life as God’s servant. This, dear ones, is a new and frightening life!

 Each of us has been assured, temples will fall; there will be suffering and death. Yet, God will not fall. God will bring new beginnings, a new age to come. So, we let go of our familiar comfort and give a great sigh of relief. The State Highway department does not force the end of anything.

 But, loving Jesus does. Loving Jesus forces the end of everything. Yet, loving Jesus also brings about our final move and our new life. The beginning of everything that really matters to our life and to the world. The beginning of our prophetic hope, hope in our present and eternal life in the Kingdom of God, filled with God’s grace and God’s love.

   Loving Jesus brings us to God’s kingdom, where not a hair of our heads will perish. Where by Gods goodness and our endurance, we will gain our eternal souls, as we live in the power of our living God.

 Do you love him? I don’t know. But I do know he loves you terribly and with everything he has ever lived for, he prays you love him in return.

 

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen