Rev. Dr. Les Martin

Pentecost+23
Rev. Dr. Les Martin
Luke 21:5-19

By your endurance you will gain your lives. – Luke 21:19 NET

In the Name of the Living God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

When I was a kid, I would always get to the movies early to see the previews. They meant so much to me in fact, that the day was kind of ruined if I missed them.  I don’t go to the movies all that often anymore, but I do know that they still have previews- often more than a half an hour of them.  Maybe I’ve changed, or maybe the sheer volume of them has become a kind of overkill, or maybe they’re just not as good, but it all seems different somehow. Those few, select previews of my childhood, for movies I so wanted to see, and cut in such a way that they didn’t just give the plot away seemed somehow more monumental, more magical.

Coming attractions. The end of the church year is all about coming attractions. From All Saints Sunday onwards through the last Sundays of the church year and right through the season of Advent, the focus of our lectionary readings turns to what is to come. Our gospel reading today from Luke 21 is no exception. What is coming? It almost plays like some Hollywood thriller.

At the more global level, verses 5 and 6 point to the future destruction of the temple, the religious and cultural center of the Jewish nation. Verses 7 and 8 describe all the false Christs, coming to lead the people of God astray. In verses 9 through 11 we hear of war and worldwide sociopolitical turbulence.  Then, versus 12 to 19 take a more personal turn for the Christian community, describing the persecution and hatred that individual Christians will face in this coming time.  I suppose it might make a good movie, or a poor mass-market series of apocalyptic novels, but as a description of what is coming for the church- thus, for you and me- it is perhaps less thriller and more horror show.

As such, it can provoke fear in our hearts. We feel it in our culture, don’t we? That pervasive anxiety, that sense that things are out of control, not, right? Cultural commentators Peter Thiel and Paul Kingsnorth are both spending a good bit of time musing on the coming of the antichrist these days, although one ironically thinks antichrist will keep us away from a promised AI paradise, while the other thinks that AI is the antichrist.  That’s the thing about end-time anxiety- it is vague and diffuse. We have the sense that something’s going very wrong, but we’re not really sure who the heroes and villains are.  We aren’t often correct, but that doesn’t stop us trying-  we read the tea leaves, consult the political pundits, and dust off the ancient apocalyptic, all in the attempt to gain some measure of understanding, if not control.

Absent such understanding or control, our fear and anxiety may just cause us to give up on the whole project of the future. To surrender ourselves to some form of pleasurable numbing in order to get by. This is the old and yet always new answer found in our human nature. Both Isaiah 22:13 and First Corinthians 15:32 quote the old maxim “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”  Glance around- many are facing the uncertainty of this age by taking this route as well.

Our lessons today suggest a third option in the face of what is to come.  Instead of giving in to the endless conspiracy theories, end-time speculations and the bottomless anxiety they provoke; instead of drowning our sorrows beneath food and libations and online distractions, Scripture suggests enduring as the most profitable response to what the future may hold.  Not as a works-based way of salvation for believers, but rather as a practice-based focus that will keep us from getting lost in the fear and confusion of both this present age and the age to come.  Lives built on the fruit of the Spirit- love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal. 5:22-23)- lives centered both on the practices of Christian living and our own particular vocations, this is what is commended today as an antidote to the fear, uncertainty and yes, suffering- of both our present reality and the coming days.

In the Gospel, we see that the followers of Jesus are to keep their hearts fixed on their one main purpose, which is to testify and to trust in Jesus, both for what they will say, and for their own long-term salvation. What Jesus invites us to is a kind of single-mindedness in our vocation as Christians. This same strategy is what is recommended by 2 Thessalonians, as well. The letters to the Thessalonians suggest that they, like the disciples in Luke, are tempted to waste their time and energy prognosticating about the future. Paul, like Jesus, is clear: It is all about getting on with their daily work. Instead of trying to second-guess God, or even persuade him to do what they want, the call is to patiently and faithfully continue with their lives in Christ. Our Malachi reading suggests that following such an ordinary way of life has an extraordinary outcome. It may look undramatic—even, at times, unfaithful—simply to get on with working, praying and testifying when the world around is in chaos, but Malachi suggests living this way allows you to see things differently. For the ‘arrogant’ and the ‘evildoers’, the presence of God burns like fire. Their lives have been built on straw and so they burn like straw. But to God’s own people, who have accustomed themselves, faithfully, day by day, to his nature and his will, his presence is like the sun, bringing warmth, healing and life.

Disciples are instructed to follow Jesus under all circumstances, never allowing themselves to be distracted, whatever is going on around them.

Beloved, the truth is this:  the end of all things is not our end, Christ is. In our own strange and anxious times, we are called to endure in our work and walk as Christians.  To live as he died- faithful and obedient, no matter what hell may be breaking out all around us.  As our friends in Alcoholics Anonymous remind us, when in doubt, all that is required of us is “To do the next right thing.” Endurance in our Christian discipleship looks like that as well.

This kind of endurance requires of us one other thing: to willfully and deliberately turn our eyes away from the cultural hype and sensationalism and terror marketed by our current coming attractions reel.  To make it an effort of our mind and wills and attention to pay no heed to the chaos-industrial complex that is the true pandemic of our age.  Rather, as Hebrews 12:2 encourages, we should be “keeping our eyes on Jesus, the source and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that lay before Him endured a cross and despised the shame.” (HCSB). Seeing him, we see our future, despite what the fear mongers whisper, no matter what happens in or to this world.  As legend has it, when Martin Luther was asked what he would do if he learned the world were coming to an end, he said, “If tomorrow is the Day of Judgment, then today I want to plant an apple tree.”  This, friends, is to pay the fear and chaos no mind, and to endure in the hope that is ours as daughters and sons adopted in Baptism.  Such hope and endurance speaks the truth we need to remember:  Christ and his kingdom are the real coming attractions and we are alive in them already.