Luke 21:5-19
Those gospel words and images are rather strange as we are pointing towards Thanksgiving, Advent and the Christmas season. They would have served us better two weeks ago on (Halloween image) Halloween-beware that you are not led astray, do not be terrified, nation will rise against nation.
Whenever we encounter such troubling passages the place to start is to consider the context of what is happening before Jesus speaks these words.
Jesus and his disciples have entered Jerusalem. They are walking by the temple. (SCREEN golden temple) They disciples are blown away by its size and beauty. According to historian Josephus it was fifteen stories high, most of it was gold plated so when the sun shone on it you could barely look at it. Serving in the temple were a 1,000 priest dressed in golden robes. (SCREEN images of these three) It rivaled the Morman Tabernacle, Vatican, and the Taj Mahal. Besides its architectural wonder,
The temple symbolized God’s presence in the midst of his people, God’s strength and power, and God’s protection. Presence, power and protection.
As they walk by that amazing symbolic structure Jesus foretells its destruction saying “not one stone will be left upon another, all will be thrown down”. (SCREEN Temple destroyed)
About forty years after Jesus death and resurrection the Roman army does precisely that. In 70 AD the whole city of Jerusalem was attacked.
But we get ahead of ourselves.
After Jesus foretold its destruction and disciples asked ‘when will this happen?, what will be the signs?’
Jesus begins painting those word pictures of death, destruction, famines, earthquakes, and persecutions.
They happened then and those horrific tragedies are still happening today. (SCREEN four pics Haiti/starvation pic/Wall Street/homeless)
In the midst of all of this Jesus is saying “Beware”. We see images on the TV news and in the newspaper continually reminding of the frightening world in which we live.
Preaching Professor Dr. Anna Florence writes “let’s be clear about what Jesus is saying and what he is not saying for Jesus knows our fears can get out of hand. He doesn’t say to beware of these events but rather (SCREEN “he’s suggesting to beware of your reaction and beware of those people who encourage you to give in to a total fearful response” Dr. Florence)
In the midst of those images of terror, Jesus speaks words of encouragement and opportunity. Jesus is saying don’t let fear blind you to what God is about.
Some people these days obsess about end times and disasters of all sorts, they get so caught up in trying to interpret disasters as signs that they forget what God is all about.
So today we have a choice to make-we can either focus on the evil, the violence, the disasters even to the point of seeing them as signs of the end of the world drawing near or we can focus on the promise of Jesus, his encouragement, his promises, and his life giving way to life.
This is one of those Robert Frost moments. (SCREEN image of 2 roads)
One of my favorite poems is Robert Frost’s the Road Not Taken.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence
Two roads diverged in a wood and I
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Today’s lesson confronts us with a choice to make-which road will we take, do we focus on the fears of living in our world or do we focus on the faith we have in God and the faith that God has in us.
Jesus says (SCREEN “this will give you an opportunity to testify” Luke 21:13) this will give you the opportunity to live out your faith and to experience God in your daily life.
We live out our faith, giving witness to that faith in a number of different ways.
Let’s consider some:
1) Most of us do not like change. We want things to stay the same. Especially during the Thanksgiving-Christmas time. We want to hold on to the traditions, hoping that they will never change. But in reality we are changing all of the time.
Pastor Sam Candler writes this:
“People often ask me why the Church exists. (SCREEN One of the reasons I give them is that the Church is meant to teach us how to change gracefully” Pastor Candler)
How to change gracefully. That is one way we live out our faith-changing gracefully.
Think about what happens here in this worship area. The basic ministries of any congregation are associated with the inevitable changes that take place in human life.
Changes like birth, illness, marriage, death. In direct connection with those life changes we have baptism, home and hospital visits bringing communion to people who cannot be here, marriages, and funerals.
(SCREEN During those moments of change, whether they are joyous or painful, the Church announces God’s presence, power, and protection.) Those were the very same words I said the Temple in Jerusalem symbolized to God’s people.
During those times of change, the Church teaches us how to change gracefully because the Church reminds us God is in the change, God is present in times of joy and in times of sorrow.
We give witness to our faith by changing gracefully.
2) (SCREEN We give witness to our faith by living out our feelings of gratitude.)
During November we say thank you to God individually and together, during November we remember our veterans and say thank you to them as we did on Thursday of this past week, during November in our homes and at our tables we give God thanks and praise.
We live out that thankfulness in our relationships with each other and with God. That perspective of gratitude energizes us and renews us.
Pastor Rick Mobley tells this story about gratitude.
On a Saturday afternoon in the fall of the year a father says to his son-what should we do? The son thinks for a moment and says I could really go for some McDonalds French fries.
So they get in the pick up truck and off they go.
They get to McDonalds, son Jimmy has a big smile on his face when his dad says ‘super size it’. (SCREEN McDonald’s fries)
They sit down and Jimmy digs into the fries.
The father is so happy they are having this spur of the moment quality time.
The dad reaches across the table for a couple of fries but his son blocks his hand with his arm.
The father is surprised. He thinks to himself, I had the idea, I brought him here, I supersized the fries, I paid for the meal, I could go and get two orders of super sized fries if I wanted to.
Would a couple of fries make that much of a difference.
The gratitude analogy for us during November is this:
God is like that father. God has given us all that we have, including life itself.
God desires to sit down with us in companionship.
When God reaches over for a couple of fries, our arm goes up and blocks God’s hand.
These are my fries, get your own. God does not need our fries because
God is the source of all that we have just as the father was for the son.
God wants us to share out of gratitude for all that God has done for us.
God wants us to give because God wants us to know the joy of being like God. That is what it means in Scripture where we read they God created us in His image, created to be givers and not takers.
3) (SCREEN We give witness to our faith by living lives of purpose and significance.) We are not created to just consume and then die. We are created to give witness to who God is in our life.
Daniel Webster, that great American statesman and intellectual giant was asked towards t the end of his life-what has been your deepest and most profound thought? He thought for a moment and then said “I am individually accountable to the almighty God”.
That is the profound truth, we are all individually accountable to almighty God. (SCREEN “be do-ers of the Word not hearers only” James 1:22)
What does God expect-God expects us to live out our faith, to give testimony to our faith, to witness to our faith by living lives of purpose and significance.
In November, gratitude month, (SCREEN image of pledge card) we ask people to fill out a commitment card to show how they will live lives of significance and purpose during the coming year.
We could call these cards ‘testimony cards’ because filling them out gives testimony as to who God is in your life.
We could call these cards “gratitude cards’ because filling them out tells God how grateful we are for all that God has given to us.
We could call these cards ‘faith builder’ cards because filling out the card allows us to build our faith by being do-ers of the word and not hearers only.
Whatever we call them, if you have not yet done so, fill one out today, telling God how you plan to testify to your faith, how you plan to give witness to your faith, and how you plan to live a life of significance and purpose.
Amen.
