Proper 28C; Isa. 65;
Malachi 4; Luke 21:5-19 St. Paul’s, NC 11/17/2019
Jim Melnyk: “Christ’s
Future is Now”
This Sunday we find ourselves
two weeks away from the close of the Season after Pentecost and the beginning
of a new church Year – the Season of Advent. Our Gospel lessons, beginning with
last week’s lesson, place us square in the center of Holy Week of all times and
places, and focus on a cataclysmic view of life after the death and
resurrection of Jesus.
But while Matthew’s and Mark’s version of the days to
come seem somewhat far off, Luke’s Gospel seems to focus instead on “the work
of the Holy Spirit that has transpired in Jerusalem and beyond.”[1]
The easy trap to fall into is reading today’s lesson from Luke as some sort of
prognostication of events far, far, into Luke’s future – perhaps with the
author thinking about the year 2019 or beyond rather than the realities faced
by the earliest of Jesus Followers in the mid to late first century. We miss,
or we ignore, that the passage we read today actually starts with Jesus talking
about the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem – something the Romans
accomplish years after the resurrection and prior to Luke taking up his ink
quill.
The disciples ask Jesus, “When will these things take
place?” and by the end of the Book of Acts, which ends with the death of Paul
just prior to the fall of the Temple, much of what Jesus is saying in today’s
lesson has come to pass for his followers.
Being concerned about what lies ahead has always been a part of
the human psyche. The profit Isaiah proclaimed the word of God to a people in
exile promising a world transformed by the hand of God. “For behold! I
am creating a new heaven and a new earth; the former things shall not be
remembered, they shall never come to mind. Be glad, then, and rejoice forever in
what I am creating; for I shall create Jerusalem as a joy, and her people as a
delight…. Before they pray, I will answer; while they are still speaking I will
respond. The wolf and the lamb shall graze together, and the lion shall eat
straw like the ox....”[2]
Unlike
many modern day readers, Israel did not see this as a description of some far-off,
indeterminate future. Rather, they understood this action of God as something
just over the horizon and already beginning to happen – it was a proclamation
about the return from exile and the reestablishment of their nation. They
believed the prophet was declaring God’s desire for a new creation – one that
mirrored creation as God first meant it to be, and the people of God saw
themselves as participants in that transformation – a transformation that
foremost included themselves and their own lives.
We
do our Jewish sisters and brothers a disservice whenever we fail to recognize
their expectation that God has always been alive and working in their midst to
bring about a new day – a new age – in every generation.
Even the prophet
Malachi, whose words we heard read just a few minutes ago, longed for the dawn
of a new day – a day the people of Israel hoped to see happen in their own
lifetime. As Christians, we see that promise fulfilled for the Gentile nations
in Jesus, and approximately two and a half thousand years later we, as
followers of Christ, sing of the fulfillment of that promise every Christmas –
recognizing that God has already come upon us and will continue to seek ways to
break into our lives. Malachi proclaims, “But for you who revere my name
the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings.”[3] Centuries
later we sing, “Risen with healing in his wings, light and life to all he
brings, hail, the Sun of Righteousness! Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace!
Hark! The herald angels sing glory to the newborn King!”[4]
We do ourselves and the life, death,
and resurrection of Christ a disservice whenever we consign today’s lessons to
some indeterminate future. Jesus tells his listeners, “The Kingdom of God has
come - it is at hand,” or in other places, “The Kingdom of God is within you.”[5] The Jesus we meet in the Gospels proclaims a
kingdom, or reign of God, that has already arrived and yet is still unfolding
around us. It has been said that the kingdom of God is here, but not in its
fullness – it is “already, but not yet.” Episcopal priest and author Frederick
Schmidt states rather poetically, “The Kingdom, like a sunrise, is on the move.
Light breaks across the landscape. In some places there is already a
considerable amount of light present and there is a great deal we can see. In
other places shadows remain, objects obscure the sun’s progress. But we know
that midday is coming and eventually the sun’s light will fill the landscape.”[6]
I will be the first to admit that
there are days when I wonder how in the world anyone can believe that the promise
of God has come upon us and lives within us. And it’s true that Jesus never
tries to explain to his followers just “how much of the kingdom is present now,
or how much of it remains to be fulfilled.”[7]
Some days, when there’s another school shooting or another social safety net is
cut, I think we have a long, long way to go. Other days, when a parishioner
stops by the church after delivering Meals on Wheels, or another one takes a
friend to a doctor’s appointment, or brings a parishioner a meal, I have hope.
When people take stands to end violence, invite dialogue and respect for one
another, or seek ways to heal the environment, I have hope.
The prophets call upon God’s people
to bring healing and wholeness – to practice tikkun olam – now, not sometime down the road. Jesus tells us to
live as though we can see the promise of God all around us – and to be the
light of that promise for all people always in our own time.
When
we treat the words of the prophets and the Gospel of Jesus as poetic words
about some unknown time down the road it gives us permission to step back and
not act in the world today. A century ago a German theologian said it like
this, “Christ’s future is not one single point in an absolute remoteness for
which we are to wait – a mere coming event…. Christ's future is now, or it is not at all.
It must become an experience of every individual believer and for every
congregation. God's deed through Jesus Christ must be your experience [- our
experience -], today and tomorrow and every day.”[8]
It’s far easier to
talk about a kingdom yet to come. It gives us permission to back off today. But
the truth of it is, if we’re not willing to live out the Gospel’s prerogatives
today, what makes us think we’ll be up to the task tomorrow, or next week, or
next year? Every tomorrow will have another tomorrow we can look forward to
rather than act.
What if we choose
to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength today rather than look
toward tomorrow? What if we love our neighbor and love the stranger among us
today? What would our world look like if we find ways to pray for our enemies,
feed the hungry among us, and care for those all too often treated as the least
among us, today rather than hope it all works out tomorrow – or next week – or
next year?
We are people who
live with a great hope in the fulfillment of God’s promise of a renewed heaven
and earth. We are living in the midst of God’s unfolding promise for creation.
“Christ’s future is now.”
[1]
Frederick W. Schmidt, Conversations with Scripture: The Gospel of Luke, 88
[2]
Isaiah 65:17-19a, 24-25a
[3]
Malachi 4
[4]
The Hymnal 1982, 87, v 3
[5]
Luke 10:9, 11:20 and 17:21
[6]
Schmidt, 89
[7]
Ibid, 89
[8]
Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, Action in Waiting (quoted in Synthesis CE,
11/17/2019
No comments:
Post a Comment