Jeremiah 33: 14-16

Luke 21: 25-36

Being Present

December 3, 2006

Rev. Elizabeth Macaulay

So here’s a preacher’s dilemma.

The text for this first Sunday of the new year bothers me.

I don’t like it.

I’m so tired of fear mongering and doom speaking in the culture we share here and now. I sure don’t want to trot it out as told in scripture. And on this first Sunday of Advent it feels just wrong.

I want to gloss over it, throw it over for something mangery sweet and still as the invitation to the season of Advent.

But, as with all things that make us flail about, this text has much to teach.

This morning’s reading from Luke is an example of apocalyptic literature. Maybe the most well known example of apocalyptic literature is found in the book of Revelation. But it is found also throughout the gospels and in the Hebrew Bible as well.

Apocalypsis refers to the uncovering of what has been hidden.

At the time the writers of Luke share this morning’s teaching, the people of Israel had experienced great devastation. Great war had swept the city of Jerusalem in the years 66-70 CE. The temple had been destroyed. As the writer of Luke has Jesus saying, stone was not left on stone, and the very heavens felt shaken.

So now, in the mid-eighties CE, they are looking back on the unthinkable and putting it within the realm of what it means to live. Not only through such times, but after such times of devastation.

As I read this text, I encourage us to know the sober realities of those who heard it thousands of years ago. I also encourage us to know that we live in a similar time.

We have known and know devastation. We have seen the Twin Towers fall. We invite into our hearts the awareness that war is being fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. We know that in Darfur bellies are distended. We know that children are afraid and hungry. We know that elders are lonely and too often made to choose between paying for medications and food.

We know fear, do we not?

So what does it mean, this text to we who encounter it? What remains to be uncovered?

(Read Luke 21: 25-36)

Karen Armstrong is a religious scholar. She shares in many of her books, including her most recent book The Great Transformation that the great religions of the world were brought to humanity during a time called the Axial Age - a time spanning 900 - 200 BCE.

At their core, axial faiths - Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish and others - share an ideal of sympathy, respect, and universal concern.

These faiths were brought to life in a world that was shifting cosmically. Fear and want and war rippled across the world. And that very chaos and a growing sense that the Holy calls us to more than suffering led to a changed understanding of being in the world.

That way became based, across the faiths, on the necessity of compassion and empathy, justice seeking and other-seeing.

Violence and disregard of others was literally threatening the world. So prophets and teachers emerged who proclaimed and taught that we are called to live by the Golden Rule - we are called to live into wholeness and mutual care. We are called to know each person as our brother or sister.

A text like today’s from the book of Luke, a text speaking of the fear and chaos of change, was a reminder to those who heard it. A reminder that in the midst of that chaos, there is more.

The terror must be peeled back in order for us to see what is all too often hidden:

Believers have ground. They have more than fear to guide them. Even if the temple is destroyed and war devastates, the writer of Luke wants his listeneners to know that the prophecy of Jeremiah persists: God will act to fulfill God’s promises. Justice and righteousness will be made real.

Armstrong maintains that we of this day and age are in the midst of the birthing or re-birthing of a new Axial Age. We share many of the same realities - the chaos and fear that stalk our hearts and relationships. The replaying images of towers tumbling and teens being shot for tennis shoes.

See if what she says rings true:

“When warfare and terror are rife in a society, this affects everything that people do. The hatred and horror infiltrate their dreams, relationships, desires and ambitions.” (The Great Transformation, pg 391)

There is a story that speaks this truth.

A man’s only son was reported dead in battle. Inconsolable, the father locked himself in his house for three weeks, refusing all support and kindness. In the fourth week the son returned home.

Seeing that the son was not dead, the people of the village were moved to tears. Overjoyed, they accompanied the young man to his father’s house and knocked on the door.

“Father,” called the song, “I have returned.” But the old man refused to answer. “Your son is here’ he was not killed,” called the village people. But the old man would not come to the door.

“Go away and leave me to grieve!” he screamed. I know that my son is gone forever and you cannot deceive me with your lies.” (Pema Chodrun, The Places that Scare You, pg. 20).

I think the text from Luke, the reflections of Karen Armstrong, the lesson of the man so barricaded behind his grief and fear that he could not see redemption when it presented itself have this to teach us.

Jesus calls us to newness of life. To hearing hope and new life when it arrives on our doorstep begging to be admitted.

Jesus calls us to be a people expectant, present always to the possibility that we can together bring to life a new way of living.

Jesus teaches us that we and our practices are called by God to be the antidote to the terror of our times.

So an apocalyptic text is perhaps precisely what we need to hear as we enter this new year together, this time of waiting called “Advent”.

Because we need an uncovering. The uncovering of hope. The uncovering of compassion. The uncovering of a new way of living that does not collude with fear and warfare but instead insists on living the Golden Rule as guide for living.

The vision of Jesus the Christ is outside the door of our hearts, offering newness of life.

May we in these weeks of Advent, practice letting him in.

Amen