Notes1
Opening
We're still in apocalyptic / end times mode this week. This focus on end times is characteristic of the shift from the old church year to the new church year. It is characteristic of the transition between one era and another. From a Christian perspective it marks the transition from the old covenant of ancient Israel to the new covenant of the church founded on the Messiah named Jesus. It applies to the transition of other eras as well. For example from ancient Rome to modern Europe. For example the shift from the primary role that Great Britain had prior to the world wars and the increase of influence of the United States. It seems likely that it accompanies our own time as the influence of the United States declines and that of China increases. Great change brings with it dramatic anxiety and worry, fear, and imaginary enemies.
We live in such times. It applies equally well on a small scale. The transition from childhood to adult hood. The changes that occur when one marries or divorces or loses a spouse. The changes associated with major moves.
Such are the times we live in. It would pay us well to pay attention to the signs of the times.
Parable of fig tree
Be on guard, when you see these things you will know it's about to take place
With the new church year we shift from listening to the Gospel of Mark to hearing from Luke. We don't just start at the beginning though, we will listen to selected passages appropriate for each Sunday in season. Today it is from near the end of Luke's Gospel and we hear Jesus speaking in striking images, appropriate to the apocalyptic tenor of the season.
There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the > earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and > the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is > coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
"Your redemption is drawing near," he says.
The same Jesus as 2 weeks ago?
This seems utterly opposite (contrary) to what we heard from Jesus 2 weeks ago. When we first heard this apocalyptic theme, Jesus seemed unconcerned with the anxiety of his disciples. The disciples wanted to know about the signs that all around them pointed to an apocalyptic end of things. I suggested that Jesus’ seemingly cavalier attitude to their concerns was a way of saying, “Don’t be concerned about those things. Go forward in faith and trust, like a true child of God.
Here it is Jesus saying, "Look at the fig tree. Read the signs. Look at the evidence all around you.” “When you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near.
Two weeks ago Jesus seem to be saying, "Don’t pay any attention to the signs." Today it’s something like, "Pay attention to the signs why don’t you.” Some of that might be the difference in perspective of the two different Gospels Mark and Luke. But I think we have much to learn from a Jesus who doesn’t tell us what we expect, who surprises us at every turn when we are ready to listen with ears that hear.
Look Back – Look forward
Today Jesus is urging us to make the shift from looking backwards to looking forward. It is helpful and important to look backwards. We learn who we are and who we have been by looking backwards. But we are not only who we have been. We are much more who we shall be. Jesus call us from the nostalgia of looking out of the back of our head at what has been to looking forward with eyes of faith to what shall be.
I remember Soren Kierkegaard's pithy but profound quote: “One can only understand life looking backwards. But life must be lived forwards.”
The logic of that statement is that we cannot live with anything like ultimate understanding. We can only live by faith.
When I look for an image of that kind of faithful living I think particularly of my youngest daughter. We had a game where she would jump off the staircase into my arms. I suppose for her it felt a little like riding a roller coaster but she was only three or four at the time.
She was still small so that I had some confidence I would, in fact, be able to catch her. And she had not yet discovered that the world isn't fair and doesn't always respond with what we want or expect.
In those moments when she was flying through the air she was living by faith.
Looking back – Looking forward
It’s funny to me that those two similar phrases suggest quite different things:
- one evokes a mother in the front seat of the car who can see what her children are doing with eyes in the back of her head. There was a time when I believed that about my mother.
- But “looking forward”, is a phrase that means a number of things including the anticipation of something one longs for or hopes for. One “looks forward” to a birthday party or a long awaited vacation. It suggests a deeper emotion, an anticipation, a hope, an expectation of accomplishment. Those are very Advent feelings.
We can look back at what has been these past few years with some understanding. But we can only go forward, toward Advent and Christmas and a new year of unknowns -- only by trust and hope. The good news for us today is that Jesus is urging us to make just such a move.
Serenity Prayer:
… urges us to do just what I have been describing. Look back at what has been, to be sure. But over that we have no control. More important is that which awaits us. That we have some control over.
In its expanded version:
God, give me grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.
Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as Jesus did,
This sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it,
Trusting that You will make all things right,
If I surrender to Your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next.
Amen.
The days are surely coming (Jer)
… we hear from the prophet Jeremiah. We can certainly hear that as Christmas is coming. It surely is, Thanksgiving has come and gone. If we listen to the rest of Jeremiah’s words he’s talking about the fulfillment of God’s promise. It is surely coming he says. I could hear that as the birth of Jesus is surely coming, as it did two millennia ago. We could also hear that as God’s promise that our long hoped for future has arrived, almost. It is already but not yet.
We would do well to ask ourselves what is the promise of God for which we would stake our lives? What is it that we know in our bones?
In those days: (He) shall execute justice and righteousness in the land, the psalmist says. Is that the future we would stake our lives on? Is it political? In the psalm it surely sounds like it. Is it interior and personal? Many people through the centuries have understood it that way. Is it that are we all alone in the universe? Or are we all together in the universe? Perhaps it is, as I put it above, “both at the same time.”
There is a story about the people in Wyoming. One of my first priest-mentors said of Wyoming that it was Paradise on earth. He said, “You can tell when you'd crossed the state line from Colorado, because on the Wyoming side, if you waved at someone they would wave back.” I even found that to be true a few times. He said of folks in Wyoming that they were a living paradox. They were both fiercely independent and utterly dependent on one another at the same time.
- Fiercely independent. Nearest neighbor 25 miles away.
- Knowing also that at any moment their life and existence may depend on that neighbor.
Closing
We are bound together and survive together. At the same time each of us must live our own lives on the terms each of us has been dealt.
As Jesus has told us today, live it with hope and expectation, leaning with all you have on the promises of God, that surely are coming.
1 To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul;
my God, I put my trust in you; *
— Psalm 25 Ad te, Domine, levavi
... may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you. And may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints. Thessalonians
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