Don't Stop Now

11-13-16 (Proper 28/Ordinary 31 C, Semi-Continuous)

2 Thessalonians 3:6-13; Luke 21:5-19

Don’t Stop Now!

This week’s gospel reading invites us into yet another tricky bit of exegesis as we come full swing to the end of the lectionary year and meet head-on with Jesus’ apocalyptic teachings.  These are the passages where Jesus, perhaps himself reading the “signs of the times” and knowing that the end of his earthly ministry is coming closer and closer, shifts modes from moral-ethical teacher and parable-teller to street-corner doomsday preacher with a sandwich board hung over his neck proclaiming “The End is Near.”  They’re passages that, yet again, don’t always make us the most comfortable, and yet they’re still lifted up as important for our study, as important to the development of our faith, and as being worthwhile for hearing God’s good news for our lives.

While it’s useful in the study of really any biblical passage, it’s particularly helpful to us in this instance to back up a little bit and take stock of the context of the narrative into which this passage is inserted.  Jesus has already entered Jerusalem.  He’s thrown the money-changers out of the temple and then promptly set up shop for himself, teaching and proclaiming his message of the Kingdom to anyone with ears to listen.  In the course of events unfolding at the temple now, he has been challenged by the scribes, the chief priests, the elders and the Sadducees.  He has, in turn, challenged them and shown his own superiority and knowledge of the scriptures.  And then right before today’s passage, he witnesses the widow giving her offering.  After all this conflict with the structures and offices of power and authority in the temple, he sees this singular woman giving “out of her poverty all she had to live on.”

So when these people - we typically assume they are the disciples, but it’s not necessarily the case - begin praising and admiring the very symbol of authority and power from which the scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees and elders sought to challenge him… it seems to spark something within him, and so we hear him make that shift, to proclaim this apocalyptic vision of the temple being torn asunder and the persecution and betrayals that await his followers.

I said a few moments ago that this is yet another passage that leads us to some tricky exegesis - the passage seems pretty straightforward, and yet in some ways, it’s a little peculiar that Jesus gives such a clear and prophetic vision of the not so distant future for the temple.  This is a passage of scripture in which Jesus accurately predicts an historical event that won’t happen for another 40 years - he predicts wars and famine, tells his disciples to expect persecution, betrayal, and death, and yet the Jewish officials have only just begun their plotting to destroy him in the first place, really.  While it’s not beyond the scope of the gospels to attribute this kind of prophetic power to Jesus, we also do a disservice to the actual authors of the gospels if we don’t also remember that they wrote to specific communities, specific churches and groups of believers who existed decades after Jesus’ death and resurrection and who were themselves in the very midst of the events of which Jesus is portrayed as warning his followers.  And it’s when we remember this that we see how intricately the gospels are composed in the first place - that in this scene, we encounter what Fred Craddock calls a situation in which “what is going on is mixed with what is really going on, history being set in the larger context of God’s purpose, the whole being an extraordinary writing with historical descriptions laced with symbols, signs, and mysterious figures of speech.”

The people in the early Christian church were facing persecution - they had already witnessed the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem.  The great institution that had stood as the focal point for both Jews and Jewish Christians was now a pile of rubble. They’d weathered persecution from the Jewish authorities and were facing a new storm as the Roman Empire began to persecute them as well.  In a lot of ways for these persecuted and fearful communities, it felt like their world was ending - the signs that Jesus was describing were happening in their midst.  In situations like that, it’s easy to find yourself in despair.  It’s easy to lose hope, to not just feel that “the end is near,” but that the end is already upon you.  In Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians, he addresses members of a church community who are caught in the tension between the hopelessness of the world and the hope of the Gospel.  Some members of the Thessalonian community had subscribed to false teachings that said that this “Day of the Lord” was already upon them - and in doing so, they gave up.  The mentality was one that asked “Why bother?”  People were sitting back on their haunches, just waiting for Jesus to come back any minute now so that they could be taken away from everything that was going on around them.  They became what Paul called “mere busybodies, not doing any work.”  Sure, they kept coming to church, kept putting their gift in the offering plate, kept making sure they were meeting that bare minimum that they felt would have been required of them to stay within the grace of Christ… but that was it.  They were tired, broken down, and disheartened. They felt they’d done their part and Jesus was coming back any second now, so what was the point in doing anything more?

And yet the message that both Jesus and Paul give to their audiences is exactly the opposite: the time is not now, but still to come - we may be seeing the end of an institution, the end of things as we feel we’ve always known them, but this is not the end of the world and our job is not done yet.   No matter what the world is about to throw at them, Jesus tells the people gathered and asking him questions that there is still a message to proclaim, and that God is going to provide them with that message.  He says, “I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict.”  Paul tells the Thessalonians to keep away from those who are practicing idleness, and to instead take up Paul and his own companions as examples to follow in diligence for the gospel.

It is this same sense of urgency and expectation that we are still encouraged to carry within ourselves even today as we sit here over a millennium later in this church.  There is still work to be done for the Gospel.  We’ve been through a difficult week together in so many ways - we’ve sat in anxiety and stress.  We’ve felt the pangs of loss and grief.  We’ve gathered together to give thanks, remember, and find hope in the promise of the resurrection.  And as we gather together again today as a people caught in the in-between, a time when we still hear the message being proclaimed that “the end is near,” that the signs of the times are there for us to read plain as day.  It’s tempting to lose hope, to give in to our own feelings of tiredness and frustration, to just mail it in or stop participating altogether, and just let the end come sweeping down upon us.

But the message still hasn’t changed - we are still never to lose hope, never to stop working on behalf of the gospel and in the name of Christ.  This is our most sacred task as Christians - to keep proclaiming that gospel of hope, no matter what the cost, no matter how the world around us may change, no matter how desperate things may seem.  Because at the end of the day, Christ reminds us to not give up, to not give in to the message of hopelessness, but to hold on, to labor on, to fight the good fight and strive for the prize that is promised in the coming Kingdom.  May we ever find our hope in that promise, and may we strive together in the name of the gospel today, tomorrow, and each day still to come.  To God be the Glory.  Amen.