Br. Jamie Nelson

Luke 17:26-37

Spoiler alert: there’s no prediction about the date or hour of Jesus’ return in this sermon. If you looked up the gospel reading and came to the service today specifically to hear calculations based on this passage, I’m sorry to disappoint you.

However, given a well-publicized practice in some traditions of contemporary Evangelical Christianity to apply a predictive lens to this passage and others like it, to draw connections between particular Bible verses and current events as signs that can be decoded to predict that Jesus’s second coming is drawing near,[1] when we hear Jesus talking about fire and sulfur raining down from heaven and repeating phrases like “one will be taken and the other left” (Luke 17:34b, 35b), listening to today’s gospel likely brings to mind whatever images or associations you carry with you about the End Times.

But instead of wandering down that path, I want to get curious with you about a different part of this text, specifically, verse 33, which reads: “Those who try to make their life secure will lose it, but those who lose their life will keep it.”

What I hear Jesus offering in these words is acknowledgement that life is rife with uncertainty and change, that all our efforts to control the things outside our control are ultimately futile. Jesus’ description of the people in the days of Noah and the days of Lot speaks to me not of people who defiantly reject preparedness for the calamities that await them, but instead of people who bank on the false security that their way of life will remain ever unchanged.

Humans crave certainty. It’s part of the wiring of our psychology. We crave certainty because it provides a mental container that makes us feel safer, soothes our anxiety, and protects the illusion of control.

What does this look like in our daily lives? We have a hunger to know the outcome of a decision before we take the first step – for instance, if starting a new graduate program will lead to fulfillment and a better quality of life, if going on a low-key coffee date with a someone new will lead to marriage, if taking the plunge to enter this monastery as a postulant will affirm a lifelong vocation with SSJE. We desire assurance that relationships won’t fail, that jobs won’t end, and that our loved ones will be ok. Sometimes we exhaustively research something that ultimately is unpredictable so we can try to prepare for all possible outcomes to a situation or ways we might respond in a difficult conversation. But: deep down, we know that certainty is an illusion.

So, here’s your invitation today: to notice and gently sit with the discomfort of uncertainty, perhaps in tiny tastes of little consequence, perhaps in small bites of existential questions. Practice welcoming God into those moments, for you are not alone. You are witnessed by a listening and loving Creator. Pray to God for the peace and courage to help you to release the desire for answers carved in stone, and instead to follow an invitation to deeper relationship.

I certainly can’t tell you the date or hour when Jesus will return but I can offer one prediction: life will continue to remain uncertain and full of change, and our loving Redeemer is present with us in those moments.

[1] The current cultural discourse around eschatological speculation is a relatively modern focus in biblical studies and owes much to late 19th- and early 20th-century Bible interpretations by scholars such as Cyrus Scofield, who published the influential Scofield Reference Bible in 1909.