Today’s Gospel is a prophecy
about
a great cataclysmic upheaval.
We call this kind of prophecy
“apocalyptic.”
I first became interested in
religion
when I was 9 years old.
I got was inspired to read the Bible for the first time
from
listening to my father and my uncle Troy
arguing energetically about apocalyptic prophecies.
They were both fundamentalists.
But there is a great division
among fundamentalists
between
premillennial rapturists
and
post-millennial rapturists.
My father’s group believes the
rapture and the end of time
will
follow a 1,000-year period
in
which Christ reigns on earth
-- not by descending in the
clouds at that point.
Christ will reign through our
obedience,
our
practice of justice, mercy, freedom, and peace.
After we have set the stage,
Christ will step onto it.
My uncle’s group believes things
have
to
get a lot worse before they get better.
They don’t hope for any peace or
justice
until
after Jesus shows up.
Before Jesus, we need the
tribulation.
We need crime, war, famine,
disease, poverty, and misery.
Do you see the difference this
makes
for
how Christians engage in society?
For my father, the Christian’s
duty was to act
for
justice, mercy, freedom, and peace
–
because that’s how we welcome Christ.
For my uncle, that would just
delay Jesus,
keep
him out, because God wants a tribulation first.
If they had been Episcopalians,
we
might say they had opposing theologies of Advent,
different
ways of getting the world ready for Christmas.
Apocalyptic prophecies divide
people up.
It isn’t just the
fundamentalists.
The smart guy Biblical scholars
divide up too.
One group of Biblical Scholars
zeros in on these apocalyptic sayings
and
they conclude Jesus expected the world to end right away.
He expected history to come to a
screeching halt.
Humanity’s time had run out and
God was about to wipe out the earth.
That gives them a problem.
What do they do with the Sermon
on the Mount
prescribing
a new way to live in the world?
What do they do with Jesus
saying:
“The
Spirit of the Lord is upon me
to
proclaim good news to the poor,
liberty
to the captive, sight to the blind. . . .”
Most what Jesus said and did was
about
a
movement that would raise up the valleys and bring down the hills,
a
world in which sins were forgiven and ancient divisions overcome.
So there’s another group of
Biblical Scholars who believe
Jesus
was all about changing the world.
But they appear to have a
problem.
What are they going to do with
these apocalyptic prophecies?
If God is about to destroy the
world,
then
what’s the point of changing it?
These two groups have each
resolved their problems
the
same way.
They insist that Jesus actually
said the things
that
support their view,
but
the other stuff was just made up later.
The End of the World faction
claims Jesus didn’t really
preach
the Sermon on the Mount or forgive sinners.
The Social Justice faction claims
Jesus didn’t really
say
these apocalyptic prophecies.
They’ve been going at it over
this for decades,’’
Both sides use a technique they
call exegesis,
but
some of us call it Exit Jesus.
If anything doesn’t suit their
agenda, they argue:
“Jesus
didn’t say it.
If
he said it, he didn’t mean it.
If
he meant it, it doesn’t matter.?
But the believers among us have a
different set of principles.
“Jesus
said it.
I
believe it.
And
that decides it.”
Well the best recent Biblical
Scholarship goes with us believers.
It turns out Jesus said both
things.
They have studied 1st
Century apocalyptic sayings
–
not just the ones by
Jesus, but a lot of apocalyptic sayings –
and
it turns out they aren’t literal,
and
they aren’t about the end of the world after all.
When Jesus uses dramatic images
about the moon and the stars,
he
doesn’t mean the natural order is going fall apart.
It’s the social and political
order that is going to be turned upside down.
He means the words of Jeremiah
are going to be fulfilled.
What does Jeremiah say?
“In
those days I will cause a righteous branch to spring up . . . .
and
he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.”
If Jesus really is God’s promised
messiah,
then
he is about justice, like Jeremiah said.
His apocalyptic prophecy means
God will overturn
the
sinful and unjust structures of the
world.
Blessed are the champions of
God’s justice.
Woe to those who don’t want to
get involved.
God’s justice – as we see it in
Jesus -- isn’t about punishment.
It’s about peace and mercy,
reconciliation
and healing, standing up for the outcast,
caring
for the widow, the orphan, and the immigrant.
Jesus said that his words and
actions were ushering in God’s Kingdom.
When he stood up for the outcast,
he
was overturning the social and political order.
Apocalyptic prophecy is his
urgent call to us
to
get on board with the Kingdom Project.
When the Church is living up to
her name,
when
the Church is truly the Body of Christ,
we
are on board with the Kingdom Project.
We are overturning the present
order for the sake of God’s justice.
Last Thursday Nevadans for the
Common Good met in North Las Vegas
to
make plans for fighting Child Sex Trafficking here.
7 out of the 9 Episcopal Churches
in this Valley were there.
On Friday, the Religious Alliance
in Nevada met at St. Paul’s, Sparks
for
the same purpose.
All three Reno/ Sparks churches
were there.
St. Mary’s, Nixon sent me a
message saying “We want in on this.”
It’s good to see the Church on
the peace train.
Will it get us in trouble?
Did it get Jesus in trouble?
If we aren’t in trouble, we
aren’t following Jesus.
You know about trouble.
St. Timothy’s has been in trouble
just
for feeding the poor.
Dorothy Day said,
“When
I feed the hungry, they call me a saint.
When I ask why people are hungry,
they
call me a communist.”
But St. Timothy’s has paid the
price
for
just feeding the hungry.
Now your fellow Episcopalians are
asking you
to go beyond benevolence.
We are asking you to take a stand
for
children against those who
sell
them on the streets of Las Vegas.
This will not be our only issue.
It’s just the first one.
The treatment of our vulnerable
elderly
is
headed for the front burner.
This is the Kingdom Project, the
Jesus Movement,
the
Peace Train.
Those we confirm today will
promise
to
work for justice.
We will all take that promise
with them.
But do we intend to keep our
promise.
Jesus said, “Not everyone who calls
me ‘Lord’ will enter the Kingdom
.
. . . but those who do the will of my Father.”
God’s will is justice for the
pimped out child on the streets
and
the isolated elderly people whose basic needs go unmet.
Today we will promise action for
the children and the elderly.
Do we mean it?
