"Out Of Touch" - Advent 2A

Isaiah 11:1-10
Saint Matthew 3:1-12 

Did you ever wonder what it would be like to celebrate Christmas in the southern hemisphere where it is summer instead of winter? 
 

In Sydney, Australia yesterday the high temperature was 76 and the low was 65 with partly sunny skies.  Tuesday the high temperature will be near 90!  The average temperature for Christmas day is around 80.
 

What kind of songs would one sing in weather like that?  “In the Bleak Midwinter” seems a little, well, bleak.  The Native American “‘Twas in the Moon of Wintertime” wouldn’t ring true because it was summer.  “Cold December Flies Away” would fall flat because the coldest it ever got in December was in the low 60's.
 

I looked at some web sites for the larger churches and they looked like ours.  Lesson and Carol’s were scheduled with freshly scrubbed choir members in neatly pressed choir robes that looked like they could be singing for a church in the north of England.  The church’s pictures from Christmases past show the sanctuaries decorated with garlands and evergreen boughs as if they were in the Bavarian Alps.  

One church’s Christmas page even had a graphic of the night sky complete with snow flakes.   I’m no Tom Skilling but I think that those snow flakes would melt in the temperatures they were enjoying.

The closest I ever came with such a seasonal disconnect was the Thanksgiving I spent in Palm Springs.  For a Chicagoan it was really strange to be sitting pool side one minute and then rushing off to a traditional piping hot  Thanksgiving dinner the next. 
 

That year in the church we worship at - Saint Margaret’s Episcopal in Palm Desert  the rector, Fr.  Lane Hensley, mentioned that his blue Advent vestments were a gift on his departure from his congregation in Illinois and that, beautiful as they were, he was roasting in them even in an air-conditioned building.
 

There must be a certain disconnect in celebrating what is seen by western Christendom as a winter holiday during the height of the summer.  Even the thought of  carols about cold and snow amid summer’s heat seems odd to me.   It would underscore how much the message was out of touch with the climate and the culture.
 

Today we might be feeling the same way as we endure our annual encounter with John the Baptist right as we are preparing to celebrate Christmas.  He doesn’t come to pour cold water but rather hot coals on this very special season.
 

The rest of the world and even some churches are singing carols.  Their pastors are skipping over these passages, bailing out on John the Baptist for the more peaceful vision presented by the prophet Isaiah, and here we are with John wanting to burn everything down and start anew.
 

John is the speed bump on our road to Christmas.

Frankly, John the Baptist is not the kind of preacher I would venture out of my house to hear.   His whole persona is off-putting. 
 
We like our leaders to, at least, be presentable.  John has this wild man look going on.    He looked like he had never cut his hair and was combing it with a balloon. His wardrobe is minimalist and his diet is appalling.  He probably was never asked to go home for lunch with any of his listeners.
   
His preaching is severe, to say the least. He seems to have only two points to his sermons which he repeats over and over again.  Threat, repentance, repeat.  Threat, repentance, repeat.  There is not one glimmer of grace in his preaching.  But still they came.
 
Dr.  Fred Craddock invites us to think about this:

He was no politician trying to make yes sound like no and no sound like yes. He said, ‘The judge is coming, and I’m here to serve subpoenas.’ He was no candle in the sanctuary, he was a prairie fire with a stump or rock as his pulpit. The sun and moon and stars as chandeliers. And the Jordan River, his baptistry.1 

John saves his best for the curious religious leaders who come out and have a look.  They want to hear and see this guy who is out in the desert drawing big crowds with a “hell-fire-and-brimstone” message that they haven’t preached in a thousand years.  

The Pharisees and Sadducees had played it safe abided by the rules and kept life, faith, and perhaps even the people’s understanding of God manageable, controllable, comfortable.  They had this God stuff all figured out – play it safe and nobody gets hurt.

John will have none of that.  He saves his best verbal volleys on these guys who have been trying to keep the faith as best they can for as long as they can. 

He calls them snakes in the grass. “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”2 he says.  “Hey John!” we might ask, “Is that any way to talk to potential baptismal candidates.”

Then he goes on to insult their heritage.  Saying, in one translation, “And don’t think you can pull rank by claiming Abraham as father. Being a descendant of Abraham is neither here nor there. Descendants of Abraham are a dime a dozen. What counts is your life. Is it green and blossoming? Because if it’s deadwood, it goes on the fire.”3

Suddenly he is looking at us.  His words have drawn us in and we may not be happy with where we are standing.  Is my life in full flower or am I toast?

Will somebody pass John a note that Christmas is 17 days away.  Will someone tell him to chill.  Will someone please tell him to settle down and perhaps take up Yoga.  We have enough going on in our lives — both good and bad — without being yelled at or having our faith called into question.

Dr.  David Lose, amazing preacher and pastor of Mount Olivet Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, admits that he can’t figure out or warm up to the John in Saint Matthew’s gospel.

 But what if that’s Matthew’s point all along? What if  . . .  he wants us to be certain about who and what John is – the forerunner, the one who points to Christ, for sure, but also the one who not only calls our attention to Jesus but creates in us a hunger for him.4

John’s job is to point people to Jesus.  To call them to attention and you can’t get people’s attention by being subtle.  Something is about to happen that they need to see and be a part of.  And who better than a grumpy, poorly dressed guy who seems so out of touch with the world  around him to do that.  

John is reminding us what we are waiting for.  

We are not waiting for gifts under the tree, or a Christmas dinner, or winter to be over, or summer to come, we are waiting for Jesus, the Christ.  

For John the matter is terribly straightforward,  “it’s Jesus, always and only Jesus, the one who judges in order to forgive, accuses in order to justify, gives law in order to show grace, and dies that we might have life.”

That is the Christmas message and while it may seem really, really out of touch with all the other messages that bombard us every day it is the only message worth sharing. 

Our job in the Christmas season and every season is to point to Christ. 

This doesn’t mean you have to get all wild-eyed and fanatic about it.  You don’t have to emulate John and call attention to yourself like one man on my recent cruise through the Panama Canal did.  

 Every time, everywhere I saw him, he was wearing a “Jesus First” T-shirt and carrying a big bible.  That was fine and it probably was a whole lot more tasteful than the mismatched outfit I was wearing.

But he also had a sofar wrapped around his arm.  A sofar is an ancient musical horn typically made of a ram's horn, used for Jewish religious purposes.  If the horn wasn’t on his arm, it was on the table in front of him.  I never ventured close enough to find out whether the horn was real or a replica. 

I am sure he was walking around just waiting for someone to come up to him and ask: “Hey buddy!  What’s with the horn?”  At which point I am sure he told them in great detail.

I don’t doubt the guy’s faith but I have my doubts about his method.  

Most of the people I was traveling with had left the church because of bad experiences and were put off by the guy’s in your face — John the Baptist-like — approach.  It was heavy-handed, over the top and, most of all, easy to spot.  

We could avoid him, like we could avoid guys like John the Baptist because they made us feel judged, uncomfortable.  We were afraid that if we approached it would be all judgement and no grace.

What we are to do is reflect the grace we found in Jesus by pointing people to him not in judgement but in love.  

Nineteenth century author Edith Wharton said: “There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”

Jesus is the light that comes into the world.  He’s the candle and all we are called to be is the mirror that reflects his love.

That’s something that will work no matter what the temperature, no matter the climate, no matter the hemisphere.  

If we reflect God’s love not matter where we are it will be Christmas somewhere.  Don’t you think?   
__________

1.  Thoughts, Scattered. “Fred Craddock and John the Baptist.” hermeneuts, October 2, 2015. https://hermeneuts.wordpress.com/2015/10/02/fred-craddock-and-john-the-baptist/.

2.  St.  Matthew 3:7b.  (NRSV) [NRSV=The New Revised Standard Version]

3.  St.  Matthew 3:7-10.  (MSG) [MSG=The Message]

4.  David Lose,  “A Really Nice Guy.” A Sermon for Every Sunday. Accessed December 6, 2019. https://asermonforeverysunday.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/David-Lose-Matthew-3.pdf.

"What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?" - Advent 1A

Isaiah 2:1-5
 Saint Matthew 24:36-44 

May I be the first to wish you a “Happy New Year!”
 

You may think I have really put a rush on the season but the first Sunday of Advent is New Year’s Day for the church.  It is just another one of those things that makes the church such a counter-cultural movement.  

We start a new year before anybody else does and wait to start celebrating Christmas until we are almost on top of the appointed date.  It’s like we programmed Dick Clark’s “New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” before the Hallmark Channel Christmas movie marathon.  And, to make matters worse, instead of thinking about a pregnant Mary and a puzzled Joseph today’s New Year’s Day text places us right in the middle of Armageddon.
 

To add to the confusion we didn’t start reading Matthew’s gospel at chapter 1 but toward the end at chapter 24?  Who does that?  Certainly none of us who like mysteries would deprive ourselves of the plot development by reading the “who done it” part before we even found out what was done.
 

It’s New Year’s before Christmas and destruction before redemption. 
 

And to make matters even worse today’s gospel is the conclusion of the gospel we had before us two Sunday’s ago except that was Saint  Luke’s and this is Saint Matthew’s.  (For some of us two weeks ago seems like a very long time!)
 

You might remember that we talked about Jack Van Impe and that he was faithfully predicting that Christ was coming soon for the better part of forty years.  You need not remember the whole sermon (even I can’t do that) but you might want to remember what  his website said about his mission.
 Van Impe’s goal as being to alert  “Millions  . . .  to the fact that Jesus is coming soon-perhaps today! We all need to be ready.” Further it points out that he has been at this “since 1948 and continues to be a leading voice in declaring the soon return of the Savior.”

Strangely enough the late comedian John Pinette was spot-on theologically when he was talking about spending Thanksgiving with some members of his family who were always preparing for the end of the world.  “Doomsday preppers” he called them.
 

“As far as the end of the world goes, I believe you’re prepped.  There is nothing you can do.”
 

“If I wake up, look out my window and say, ‘Oh, it’s doomsday.’  I turn off the light and I go back to bed.  There is nothing to be done.”
 

“But my relatives, they say things like ‘We got about six months of water, some ramen noodles, and we got a lot of firearms.’
 

And I think to myself, ‘It’s a good thing you got those guns because after six months of nothing but ramen noodles and water, you’re going to want to use them.”

 “And, they think their cellar is in a different universe.
 

They say, ‘You know we got a two foot thick door.’  And I look at them and think, ‘Well, I’m sure that  will stop the 30 megaton nuclear blast.  I’m sure nothing will happen to you.  You’ll be safe.  You won’t be doomed like the rest of us poor suckers  . . .  scraping for a tomato.’”
 

The sad part Pinette’s comedy is that I have read about and maybe even know people who are anxious preparing for the end of the world.  
 

But Panetta was right, and strangely enough Jesus seems to be in complete agreement with this 21st century stand-up comedian.
 

Jesus could not have been clearer on the subject.  “But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”1
 

We don’t like the idea of not knowing. It makes us anxious.  We want to know what is going to happen to us.  We want to know not only what tomorrow may bring but the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that. 
 

We want our lives to be neatly planned out so that we will know what to do.  We want to know how many bags of ramen noodles we should buy thinking that if we have a six months supply of those things in our cupboard we will be less anxious.  But we won’t be. 
 

Even if we somehow knew with absolute certainty that the end of the world would come three weeks from next Thursday we wouldn’t be less anxious.  If anything, we would be more anxious. 
 “Should I make the rounds of visiting my relatives or take the trip to New Zealand I always wanted to take?  Gee, I feel guilty if I didn’t go see the relatives one last time but, gosh, I always wanted to see New Zealand.”  What to do?  Anxiety.
 

Listen! You know the exact day when Christmas day and New Year’s Day is coming, don’t you?  Are you any less anxious about all the stuff you have to do between now and then?
 

Continue reading the words of Jesus, not those who want to add to those words with their predictions, and you’ll discover what you need to be doing. 
 

He describes some pretty mundane stuff.  People who are eating dinner and perhaps having a glass of wine afterwards. Couples  preparing to get married. Men and women working at home or in their business.  Jesus is talking about people who wait for his coming not by building bomb shelters but living out their lives.
 

And here is where the next images Jesus uses which seem scary and cause even greater anxiety.   
 Two men in the field and suddenly one is gone and the other is left behind.  Two women grinding at the mill, one is gone and the other is left.  And we think this is some kind of disappearing act.  One moment one person is there. The next moment, poof! Gone!
 

A friend of mine was raised in a fine, faithful family Whose pastor often spoke about the rapture.  It is believed to be that moment when Christ came back to take all the faithful home to be with him while the unfaithful would be left behind.
 

He remembers coming home from first grade, walking up the driveway of his family’s farm and not finding anyone, anywhere. 
 

His mother was always home in the afternoon making dinner for the family but today she was gone. 

His dad could usually be seen somewhere within eye sight working on the farm but it appeared to the young man’s eyes that he was missing too.  None of his sisters or brothers were there either and so - believing that God had come and taken them while he was left behind - he plopped himself on the front stoop and sobbed.  He was crying his eyes out wondering why Jesus took his entire family but not him when his mother’s car roared up the driveway. 
 

She had just gone to the store and it had taken her longer than usual.  His dad had merely been in a far off field.  He didn’t much care where his brothers and sisters were because he knew that Jesus’ didn’t love them more than he loved him. 
 

The word rapture isn’t in Scripture but as it sure can cause anxiety in the mind of children and adults.
 I almost never do this to you but I have to share with you the original Greek word that appears in this text.  That word for “taken” is paralambanomai  and it doesn’t mean “to go up” or “to meet” but “to go along with.”  Same root as our word perambulate which simply means “to walk.”
 

The people who are with Jesus in the end are those who have decided to follow him now.  They are the ones who, like his disciples, decided to “go along with” him.  They are the ones who are walking with him.

Here is a message that serves to engender hope rather than fear among the faithful. We can work and strive in hope because we know that our actions are not the only actions, that God is faithful, and that God will bring all things to completion. Therein is our hope. Though we are not given a timeline for the future, we are given the ultimate end, the purpose, the goal of the future. Our future is with God who comes to us, in God’s own good time, even though we don’t have the means to come to God.

God is coming. Though time again we have shown our incompetence in moving toward God, don’t worry. God is moving toward us.2

 Christ is breaking into our lives repeatedly.  Not just at some unexpected moment but repeatedly, every hour, every minute, every second, every nanosecond, and our job is only to keep watching for those moments so we don’t miss them.

In his collection of Advent and Christmas Sermons called, Shepherds in Bathrobes, Dr. Tom Long tells the story of a Christmas pageant that took place when his was the interim Pastor at the First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta.
 
You know how those combination pageants and worship services go. 
 
The place was packed with parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts, neighbors and friends and when whatever age group had finished their presentation there was a mad dash back to their parents and families in the pews.  Like puppies they crawled over strangers to get back to their relatives.
 
The Session (read: Church Council) decided at their November meeting that the commotion in that worship was getting out of hand and so, being good Presbyterians, they devised a plan.  The children would wait on the front stairs of the chancel until one designated parent would come forth to get them.
 
As luck would have it one little girl’s father was the head usher that day and was way in the back of the huge church when her part of the program ended. 
 
He looked around discovered  he was stuck.  Hundreds of people separated him from his daughter. 
 
As he was trying to make his way to the front the other parents had retrieved their children and were already back at their seats.  Soon his daughter was there alone.
 
And as Dr.  Long reported, “Just as her lower lip was beginning to quiver and tears where welling up in her eyes her dad appeared.  It was then she preached the greatest Advent sermon ever.  She threw herself at her dad, wrapped her arms around his legs, looked up in his face and said, ‘I just knew you’d come.”3

When we rest secure in the knowledge that Christ will come its Advent, Christmas and New Year’s wrapped all in one.  So, Happy New Year!  
__________

1.  Jvim.com

2.  William H. Willimon,“What's God Up to Now.” Pulpit Resource. Ministry Matters™ | Christian Resources for Church Leaders. Accessed December 1, 2019. https://www.ministrymatters.com/all/entry/9827/december-1-2019-whats-god-up-to-now.

3.  Thomas G. Long, Shepherds and Bathrobes: Sermons for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany. (Sundays in Ordinary Time): Cycle B Gospel Texts. Lima, OH: C.S.S. Pub. Co., 1987.

"Juxtaposition" - The Reign of Christ C

Saint Luke 23:33-43

The year was 1925. 
 

On February 26 Adolph Hitler was released from prison.  He was charged with planning  a propaganda march through Munich to gather support for a coup against the local German government. 
 

On February 27, the very next day, the Nazi Party was allowed to publish its newspaper once again.
 

The “Roaring Twenties” were in full swing and the world seemed to be in the midst of a period of uninterrupted economic prosperity.  There was a certain social, artistic, and cultural dynamism to the times.  Jazz music blossomed, the flapper redefined modern womanhood, and Art Deco peaked.
 

Juxtaposed between a great economy, the high times of what the French called Annes folles, “The Crazy Years” and the possibility of another world war stood Pope Pius XI.  He wasn’t trying to be a killjoy he was merely pointing that many people caught up in the spirit of the day began to doubt the need for Christ. 
 

In December of that year The Holy Father would write:

Since the close of the Great War individuals, the different classes of society, the nations of the earth have not as yet found true peace . . .  the old rivalries between nations have not ceased to exert their influence . . .  the nations of today live in a state of armed peace which is scarcely better than war itself, a condition which tends to exhaust national finances, to waste the flower of youth, to muddy and poison the very fountainheads of life, physical, intellectual, religious, and moral.1

 The Pope then instituted a feast day, Christ the King Sunday, to remind everyone that their only allegiance was to Christ alone rather than to any earthly supremacy.  In doing so he juxtaposed Christ’s kingdom against the kingdoms of this world and invited us to take note of the differences.

Our linguistic sensitivities and social realities have caused us to change the name of this Sunday to “the Reign of Christ” rather than “Christ the King” mostly because  Americans began our life together as a nation in rebellion against a king and we proudly point out that ours is a democracy not a monarchy. 
 

But we may be a little delusional if we begin to buy into the notion that one scholar, whom I respect a lot, expressed when he wrote: “We elect our leaders. We aren't ruled by people simply because they were born into the right family or right social class -- they still have to be elected.”2

That may be the case but there is still a definite advantage to being a part of the “ruling class.”  MSN Money reported:  

About half of all U.S. senators are estimated to have a net worth of at least a million dollars. 

Forbes magazine did some research into the wealth of those currently running for the highest office in our land and discovered:

There were some surprises. Bernie is a millionaire. So is “middle-class Joe” Biden. Elizabeth Warren is richer than both of them, worth an estimated $12 million. [Not counting Michael Bloomberg or the current office holder both of whom claim a net worth in the billions.] The median net worth is $2 million. The poorest is Pete Buttigieg, who has an estimated $100,000.3

 Clearly while some may have entered politics to do good others have done very, very well.
 

There is a paradox here: We want representatives in government who are like us, who share our values, beliefs and traditions but the people we elect couldn’t be more different from us than the sun is from the moon.
 

I mention all this to underscore the strangeness of this day.  It is a paradox that we claim to be under the reign of a different kind of leader, one who was not wealthy but who certainly was wise.  The one we claim as King is vastly different from the kind of rulers Americans claim they want.

Robert Farrar Capon, in his classic book, Hunting the Divine Fox, paints a wonderful picture of the kind of messiah Americans would create for themselves and it doesn’t look anything like Jesus on the cross.

 “Almost nobody,” Capon writes, can resist the “temptation to jazz up the humanity of Christ  -- gentle, meek and mild, but with secret, souped-up, more-than human insides. 

The human race is, was and probably always will be deeply unwilling to accept a human messiah. We don't want to be saved in our humanity; we want to be fished out of it. We crucified Jesus, not because he was God, but because he blasphemed: He claimed to be God and then failed to come up to our standards for assessing the claim. It's not that we weren't looking for the Messiah; it's just that he wasn't what we were looking for. Our kind of Messiah would come down from a cross. He wouldn't do a stupid thing like rising from the dead. He would do a smart thing like never dying.4

  Jesus got nailed because he wasn’t the kind of messiah his people were looking for and he may not even be the king or ruler many people in our day would gravitate to either.
 

Some seem to gravitate to rulers who advocate a “you hit me, I hit back” philosophy. We should have a hard time juxtaposing that against what he taught in his life and teaches, even from the cross, where he somehow finds a way to say, “Father forgive.”
 

Others seem to be attracted to leaders that promise them everything:  the earth, the moon and stars not to mention bread and circuses!  Wait!  Isn’t that desire juxtaposed over and against the very same temptations King Jesus faced down in the wilderness?
   

Giving up on those two extremes we may be inclined to look for leaders - this time state and church - who simply stay out of our way and allowed us to make their own decisions, in their own time, in their own way.  But even this is juxtaposed over and against the way of Jesus.  He wants to be involved in all aspects of our lives keeping our hearts, and minds, and strength focussed on him and his teaching.
 

The biggest juxtaposition of all is what is going on when he is hanging from the cross.  The crowds are mocking him, and as if to underscore the difference between the kind of reign Jesus would usher in and the kind of Roman rule that he was up against Pilate orders that a sign be hung over his head.  “The King of the Jews.”

Here juxtaposition and irony are displayed in full force for all to see. 
 

Successful kings don’t get themselves crucified.  If they are killed at all it is as gallant heros on horseback in some great battle.  When kings die it is in a royal bedroom, propped up on pillows covered in the finest of linens.  When good rulers die the world mourns, when terrible rulers die the people heave a sigh of relief under their breath.  As Jesus is dying some are taunting.
 

Even so  Jesus is still teaching, still reaching out, still redeeming even in his dying moments. 
  

Luke alone speaks of the two being crucified on either side as “evildoers.” Amy-Jill Levine and Ben Witherington remind us that whoever they were and whatever they had done, they had stories, and families — and hope in Jesus. It’s not about deathbed conversions, but the way Jesus welcomes any and everyone in any and every circumstance into the life of his heart and hope.5

Just as one thief is mocking Jesus inability to save himself Jesus is being about the business of saving them both, us, and the whole world.
 

One of the thieves reaches out and only asks to be remembered.  That is a huge request for a condemned man to make because from the criminal’s viewpoint the resurrection was probably not a settled issue.  All the criminal has faith in is that Jesus will remember him.  And in return Jesus offers him “paradise.”
 

No earthly leader would dare to offer us paradise.  None of those who reign or wish to reign can offer us a life free of troubles but Jesus is showing us that his rule can even extend to death’s door with the offer of paradise. 
 

We have come to believe that what we receive from Jesus is a place as if our eternal address will be 3000 Paradise Lane. It’s not a place but it is a restored relationship with God.  That’s what the thief received that day and it is what we can receive every day that we claim Christ as King and enter into his reign.

Jesus has not come to take the world by force but rather to invite people to enter into a relationship with him.
 

Today we have two distinct views of what it means to reign and rule juxtaposed over and against one another.
 

One view uses riches to gain power not for the good but for more earthly gain.  Here authority  used to dominate and rile up the people even if it leads to the death of an innocent. 
 

The other view is the one we have of Jesus who uses his power to heal, forgive and save.
 The question this juxtaposition  of Christ the King Sunday and the ways of those who wield earthly power puts before us is whether we will follow the kings and kingdoms of this world or a different kind of King.
 

It’s a juxtaposition  worth pondering, don’t you think?

__________

1.  Pope Pius XI. Ubi arcano Dei consilio, December 1922.

2. Brian Stoffregen,  “Luke 23.33-43 Christ the King Sunday - Year C.” Luke 23.33-43. Accessed November 23, 2019. http://www.crossmarks.com/brian/luke23x33.htm.

3.  Dan Alexander, “The Net Worth Of Every 2020 Presidential Candidate.” Forbes Magazine, November 22, 2019. https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2019/08/14/heres-the-net-worth-of-every-2020-presidential-candidate/#60618f5837c5.

4.  Robert Farrar Capon, Hunting the Divine Fox; Images and Mystery in Christian Faith. New York: Seabury Press, 1974.

5.  James C. Howell, “Weekly Preaching: Christ the King Sunday,”, November 18, 2019. https://www.ministrymatters.com/preach/entry/9952/weekly-preaching-christ-the-king-sunday.

"It's Not Over Yet" - Pentecost 23C

Saint Luke 21:15-19

A couple of Wednesday’s ago in the meditation at our service of Evening Prayer I mentioned a televangelist by the name of Jack Van Impe.  Nobody, except Martin, had ever heard of him.  It is not a surprise because he plays to a really small segment of an increasingly diminishing audience base.

In the early days of cable televangelists could be found almost everywhere.  They usually broadcast from huge mega-churches with big choirs and even larger production numbers that would rival any variety show.  Slowly, one by one, financial or sexual scandals ended their programs.  Some were taken by the angel of death and their ministries collapsed soon after.
 

Jack Van Impe and his wife Rexella are survivors even through their weekly presentation is among the strangest of the bunch. 
 

It is just the two of them sitting at what could be a news set at any television station.  Rexella reads a carefully selected news story and then Jack, using what he claims to be his encyclopedic knowledge of scripture, comes up with just the right Bible verse to show how “Current international events reflect exactly the conditions and happenings predicted throughout the Bible for the last days of this age.”
 

His website proclaims his goal as to alert  “Millions  . . .  to the fact that Jesus is coming soon-perhaps today! We all need to be ready.” Further it points out that he has been at this “since 1948 and continues to be a leading voice in declaring the soon return of the Savior.”1

The juxtaposition of the word “soon” and the year “1948" makes the whole premise more than a little bit surreal to me.
 

As I told the group the other night, if you started waiting for a bus on Downer Place in 1948 and told me yesterday that you were sure it was coming “soon” I would certainly take you into the Parish House for a warm cup of coffee spiked with a little whiskey and call an Uber for you because clearly the bus wasn’t coming.
 

Yet people have been looking for signs of the end of the age since the beginning of time.  In fact, some of them were standing next to Jesus and admiring the temple.

What is important to remember about the temple is that it wasn’t built the way any church in our day is built.  From Our Saviour to the National Cathedral all of them have been built using the contributions of the faithful.  The temple Jesus and his friends were looking at was a public works project.
 

It was begun by King Herod who, Scripture tells us, was a despicable human being.  He was a misogynist, a slander, a bully, and a murderer of family, friends, and, after hearing about the possible birth of another king, a slayer of all the children three and under in Bethlehem.  He had no moral compass.  (Give this man a twitter account and he could have been someone we know!)
 

Still his people enjoyed a good economy that they believed he made possible for them and, like so many despots of our time and his, he   was passionate about building things. 
 

The Jewish Encyclopedia tells us: “He had adorned many cities and had erected many heathen temples; and it was not fitting that the temple of his capital should fall beneath these in magnificence. Probably, also, one of his motives was to placate the more pious of his subjects, whose sentiments he had often outraged.”2

The temple was part of a deal that Herod brokered with the people and their leaders: You let me do whatever I want and I will leave you alone. 
 

This kind of uneasy peace can only last so long and we know that it didn’t last past 70 A.D. when the Romans laid siege to the city in a brutal battle that left Jerusalem in ruins with only the western wall of the temple standing. 
  

For the readers of Luke, written 15 to 20 years after the complete destruction of Jerusalem, the days that Jesus said were coming, had arrived.
  

The temple had been destroyed. The stones had all fallen down -- actually, they had been burned up. For Luke’s readers the issue wasn't, "When is this going to happen," but, "Now that it has happened, what do we do? What does it mean?"
 

The first thing Jesus tells them is not to be led astray.  There will be false messiahs and those who claim they can predict the future and about them Jesus could not be clearer:  “Do not go after them.”3 “Do not fall for any of that.”4

 Even though it may seem like the world is falling apart when we see wars, famines, earthquakes, and people of faith betrayed and persecuted if we focus a question such as: ‘when the end will come? When will it all come crumbling down?’ we may be missing the main point. 

 I’m not sure that Jesus described the end of the world so that you and I can stockpile food, move to a bunker and live in fear, or stand around and wait. What Jesus is calling us to do is to live our lives to the fullest.  We are not waste our time trying to figure out when the end might come but to face the future with courage and hope.
 

That is what brought people to Jesus.

 It is the hope that was expressed by Isaiah when he heard the word of the LORD say to him and to his people:

“Pay close attention now:  I’m creating new heavens and a new earth. All the earlier troubles, chaos, and pain are things of the past, to be forgotten, Look ahead with joy. Anticipate what I’m creating: I’ll create Jerusalem as sheer joy, create my people as pure delight"5

Strangely enough while Jesus is painting a dark picture of reality the Old Testament prophet Isaiah is offering “enduring witness to the positive power of hope.”6

[The words are] meant to reassure and inspire hope in struggling believers. And yet that hope does not deny the struggles and the pain. There are signs of chaos in the world and in ourselves. And yet, just as the prophets of old read the signs of the times as both frightening and hopeful, so must we. What seems to the world as a terrible time of chaos and destruction can be an opportunity to hold on and stand firm.

Though the prophecies of Luke 21 sound harsh, and though they are honest about the struggles still to be engaged, there is a strong word of faith in the ultimate fulfillment of God’s purposes and in God’s presence with believers.

When asked, “What time is it?” Christians are able to combine both realism and hope, honesty about the pain of the present age and yet confidence in the ultimate fulfillment of God’s will for the world. What time is it? It’s always the time where God is moving for redemption of all of this groaning creation, though the how and when of God’s redemption may not be self-evident to us. 7

I Know that I began our time together today having some fun with  the biblical soothsaying skills of televangelist Jack van Impe but when I was searching for more information about him on-line I came across a website that reported that his program had been cancelled and he  had died. 
 

I was not surprised because he has been in wretched health for years and was 88. 
 

Then I went to the website of his program and discovered that there he and his wife were in a taping to be aired yesterday talking about things that did indeed happen this past week.  The crises he and Rexella were talking about were current!  And while Jack didn’t look so good I was relieved that he was still with us and that the thirty minutes of pure free-association between he and his wife would still be around.
 

However, in reading on further, Jack became a perfect example of what Jesus and Isaiah were talking about.  He was living his life between the now of this world and the “not yet” of the world to come.  He seemed to understand that reports of the end, or our end, may come but we are called to press on. 

 I hate to admit it, but Van Impe was absolutely theologically correct when, commenting on his reported passing and his ill health, he said with a laugh: “Until the Lord takes me, I’m going to keep doing what He commanded [me] to do.”8

 That’s right Jack!  May what you said of yourself be true for us all!

__________

1.  Jvim.com 

2.  George A. Barton, “The Temple of Herod.” The Jewish Encyclopedia. Accessed November 16, 2019. http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/14304-temple-of-herod.

3. St.  Luke 21:8c.  (NRSV) [NRSV=The New Revised Standard Version]

4. St.  Luke 21:8c.  (MSG) [MSG=The Message]

5. Isaiah 65:17-18.  (MSG)

6. Martin E. Marty, “Could a Revived 'Theology of Hope' Restore Faith in Hopeless Times?” Religion News Service. November 5, 2019. https://www.ministrymatters.com/preach/entry/9937/could-a-revived-theology-of-hope-restore-faith-in-hopeless-times.

7. William H. Willimon, “What Time Is It?” Pulpit Resource 48, no. 4. Accessed November 16, 2019. https://www.ministrymatters.com/all/entry/9825/november-17-2019-what-time-is-it.

8. “Jack Van Impe Dead Or Alive? Television Veteran's Health Status.” LIVERAMPUP. Accessed November 16, 2019. http://liverampup.com/entertainment/jack-van-impe-dead-alive-health.html.

"Tough Questions" - Pentecost 22C

Job 19:23-27a
Saint Luke 20:27-38

It would surprise me greatly if I found out that any of you were big time gamblers.

I just can see you down the street at the blackjack, roulette or poker tables of the Hollywood Casino.  I can’t imagine any of you wiling away hour after hour pumping quarters into the slot machines.

However, if you ever wanted to win a bar-bet I suggest you try this. Saunter up to somebody and say: “I’ll bet you that the verse of Scripture that says: “I know that my Redeemer lives” is in the Old and not the New Testament.

My guess is that more often than not your foil will take your bet not only because resurrection is such a dominant theme in the New Testament but because “I Know That My Redeemer Lives” from The Messiah will run through their head. 

It would have been impossible for them not to have heard Handel’s Messiah and, if they were really astute they would know this comes from the final section of the piece that speaks of Christ’s victory over death.  Must be in the New Testament would be their thinking as they took your bet and you came away with a small fortune.
This probably won’t happen.  I can’t imagine any of your - or anybody I know for that matter - approaching anybody in a bar and saying anything much less trying to place a bet on scripture.  The other person would probably back away slowly and try to turn the conversation to the Bears offence. 

However, it does strike me as strange that the most well-known affirmation of the resurrection comes not from the New Testament but from the Old and is found on the lips of a man whose life is a disaster.

It is important to remember that the book of Job is a sippur,  a story.  It was never intended to represent anything historical.  There may or may not have been a man named Job just as there may or may not have been a father who had two sons or a woman who lost one out of ten coins. 

To Jewish readers it was a story that had a moral or a teaching much like one of Jesus’ parables.

It is a story about a man who once had it all but then lost everything and what he, his family and friends did in the midst of that tragedy.

When we first meet Job he is exceeding wealthy, very pious, and the head of a happy prosperous family.  He is a good man in every sense of the word but his life is about to fall apart.
In his time all of his misfortune would be blamed on a demonic intervention.  Satan, the diabolical one, clearly has it in for Job tempting him to deny God and be unfaithful.

So, we are told, one dark day three messengers arrive.  The first tells him that all of his livestock have been wiped out.  The second tells him that all of his servants have been killed.  The third tells him that as all of his children were at dinner a great windstorm came and blew down the house.  There were no survivors.

Amid all of this tragedy Job utters what perhaps is his second most famous affirmation of faithfulness. “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, And naked shall I return there. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; Blessed be the name of the Lord.”1
 
Next Job is afflicted with sores from the top of his head to the soles of his feet.  He was such a sight that when his two friends came to comfort him they hardly recognized him.

It is at this point in the story his friends - three guys named Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar do one of the wisest things in all of scripture.  They just sit.  They don’t say anything, they just sit.  We are told: “Seven days and nights they sat there without saying a word. They could see how rotten he felt, how deeply he was suffering.”2

This could be our first take away from the story for our temptation, when we see someone is suffering, is to say something.  To try to find some words that will make it better.  But sometimes there are no words and maybe the best thing we can do in moments like this is not speak but keep silence.  To walk with the suffering person until they are willing or able to speak.

When Job speaks he curses the day he was born. 

The problem here is that his friends take his words as a sign that it is their turn and what they say is surprisingly unhelpful.

Eliphaz goes first and gives into the prevailing wisdom of his day and, to a certain extent, ours.  He speaks of his belief that righteous people seldom suffer, innocent people don’t perish, upright people don’t lose everything, it must have been something Job did.
 As many of you know I recently took a cruise through the Panama Canal. (Which now, because I mentioned it in a sermon, I can  take off on my taxes!)  It is hard to imagine as we cruised calmly through locks, Gallard Cut and the man made Gatun Lake that over 30,609 people died in building that passageway.

It is even harder to imagine that many of the time believed that “the odds of one’s survival were in direct proportion to the one’s moral fortitude.  The clean, blameless life was the secret to long life in the tropics.  Debauchery, sins of the flesh, moral or physical cowardice, were sure paths to ruin.”3

It was soon discovered that one’s demise from malaria or yellow fever had nothing to do one’s moral character and everything to do with whether or not you were bitten by a mosquito that carried the disease.

The rational for the individual disaster was the same: If Job or the innocents in Panama were morally upright they wouldn’t have suffered.

Job’s friend Eliphaz is more specific.  He says that it wasn’t just general immorality on Job’s part that has brought about his fate.  He says all that is happening to him in nothing less than a punishment from God.

We may think this as foolish as the 19th century thought that illness was brought about by some general moral shortcoming.  However, those of us who were alive at the close of the 20th century can remember at the height of the HIV/AIDS crises televangelist and full-time fool, Jerry Fallwell Sr., actually said:  "Aids is not just God's punishment for homosexuals, it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals."4

Not much changed in the years between Eliphaz’s fictional encounter with Job and the real words spoken by someone who was supposed to understand and represent the Gospel.

Bildad, Job’s third friend, suggests repentance.  This is Elizabeth- Kubler Ross’ bargaining phase of grief or loss.  

The bargaining stage is characterized by attempting to negotiate with a higher power... You may make promises to God in return for the painful situation not to occur or for things to go back to how they were before the loss or change. While these thoughts may help you begin to accept the loss or change by revealing the impact of the situation, [researchers warn] that these feelings can also lead to remorse and guilt that interfere with healing.5

Now we are talking about the present!  All of us have done this at one time or another.  It sends us off on the wild-goose chase of “if only.”  If only I had done this.  If only I had done that.  All of these “if only’s” get us nowhere. 

The problem for Job is that he can’t find anything to repent of.  As a matter of fact from the beginning he is described as somebody who “was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.”6

Perhaps the worse advice Job receives comes from his wife who surveying his situation comes up with the ultimate solution.  “‘Still holding on to your precious integrity, are you?’ she asks.7  ‘Curse God and die.’”8

While Job’s friends are blaming him and Job’s wife is acting like there is going to be a huge insurance settlement or like she has her eyes on another hot man who still has a future and a fortune, Job turns to the one who really can help him.

Job wishes aloud for a witness of his integrity and affirms his belief in the existence of a vindicator who will affirm his honor.  Not every suffering person has done something bad to deserve suffering.  Job’s hope rests in the certainty that he has a ... redeemer.9

 Job’s hope has been realized for us in Jesus, our redeemer.  It is in his resurrection we place our trust, our hope.

Jesus can blow off the  Sadducees’ question about who will be married to who in the resurrection because he knows that in a zillion years he would never be able to explain it.

To some it may seem like pure lunacy but it speaks to the fundamental belief that for far too long the world has been in the grips of suffering.  The same unjust, unfair suffering that Job experienced.

Suffering and death have ruled the world through fear, violence, hatred and lies.

Suffering and death may cause us to take our eyes off God and become transfixed by those in our midst who are trying to gain or hold on to earthly power by any means possible.

Suffering and death may cause us to reel in horror of the death of an innocent family being caught in the cross-fire of a gang on their way to a wedding.

Suffering and death may even cause us to lash out at each other - looking for faults, shortcomings, moral failings, and scapegoats for our current crises.

Jesus calls us to remember that the “resurrection is not something that has meaning some day, one day, in some distant place called ‘heaven.’ The resurrection is God’s victorious intrusion into the world here, now.”

The resurrection affirms that God is Lord not of the dead only but for us who are living in the promise expressed by Job when he said:  

 But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and that he will stand upon the earth at last. And I know that after this body has decayed, this body shall see God!  Then he will be on my side! Yes, I shall see him, not as a stranger, but as a friend! What a glorious hope!”10

 That’s a hope that is surer than any bet you could ever make for it is a hope that sustains through all of this life and into the next.

__________

1.    Job 1:21.  (NKJV) [NKLV=The New King James Version]

2.   Job 2:13.  (MSG) [MSG=The Message]

3.  David MacCullough, The Path between the Seas: the Creation of Panama Canal, 1870-1914. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1977.

4.  Christopher Reed, “Obituary: The Rev Jerry Falwell.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, May 17, 2007. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2007/may/17/broadcasting.guardianobituaries.
  
5.  Alexis Aiger, “The Bargaining Stage of Grief.” LIVESTRONG.COM. Leaf Group. Accessed November 9, 2019. https://www.livestrong.com/article/143100-the-bargaining-stage-grief/.

6.  Job 1:1.  (ESV) [ESV=The English Standard Version]

7.  Job 2:9a.  (MSG)

8.  Job 2:9b.  (ESV)

9.    Lydia Hernandez-Marcial,. “Job 19:23-27a. Commentary 1: Connecting the Reading with Scripture.” Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship 3 (Louisville: John Knox Press, 2019), p 420–23.

10. Job 19:25-27.  (TLB) [TLB=The Living Bible]