14 November 2010
Isaiah 65: 17-25, II Thessalonians 3: 6-13, Luke 21: 5-19

Sometimes it is necessary to review all the readings prescribed by the lectionary, to get the full meaning of each of the readings.

So it is on this Sunday, which we in this congregation call Remembrance Sunday… a time to embrace once again the memories we all share in this life. 

Memories of the people and the events that have been with us thus far on our individual journeys through this life on earth.  We remember people, our parents, our mentors, our first loves. We remember the events and relationships and places that have gone into making us what we are, here this morning.  All the myriad experiences that have shaped us, formed us, and brought us to this time and place.

As T. S. Eliot famously said, “Time past and time future are contained in time present”.  Time past and time future are contained in time present.  We will get a new perspective on this passage as we read Isaiah and Paul and Luke writing about Jesus’ discourse in the temple towards the end of his life.

As the Prophet Isaiah wrote, God said, “Behold I create a new Heaven and a new earth …  All the former things will not be remembered, but be glad and rejoice in that which I create, for behold I create a Jerusalem rejoicing and her people in joy.  In that day the wolf and the lamb will feed together; there will be no hurt or destruction in my holy mountain.”

Isaiah’s vision of the peaceable kingdom is one for which we shall not labor in vain.  We are the products of the labor of those we remember today, as our progeny will be the products of our labors.  The vision of the peaceable kingdom tells us what kind of labor we shall undertake so that the day when the wolf and the lamb shall feed together may be that much nearer.  Paul’s advice to the Christian community at Thessalonika: “If you don’t work, you don’t eat; work or you don’t have the pleasures and the joys of the common community.”  And what kind of work does Paul advise?  Work which nurtures, builds and supports the peaceable kingdom where there shall be no hurt or destruction in God’s holy mountain.

Isaiah and Paul are part of the Bible’s commentary on doing the right.  The future vision of the peaceable kingdom drives us in our efforts, and God assures us through his word that even though the kingdom is not yet, it is always just ahead.  The peaceable kingdom itself is the vision of what life will be like, when our work is done, and if we are faithful in that work.  Isaiah and other prophets give us a vision of what human life might be like when greed, death, disease, alienation and loneliness are abolished once and for all in the human story.

If God, with human help, can breed aggressiveness out of foxes and wolves  --as I learned on the television the other night--  he can breed selfishness, greed and cruelty out of even us, namely, build Isaiah’s peaceable kingdom. Dogs descended from wolves, now they think about 100,000 years ago. How? Aggressiveness was bred out by human labor and interaction with the animals. Amazingly, other traits appeared along the way: floppy ears and proud tails and soft coats, all of which happen to attract human love. More recently, Russian scientists have done the same things with foxes, breeding aggressiveness out, and adorableness in, through breeding many generations in a short period of time, in the laboratory. The resulting animals make wonderful, loyal, interactive pets.

Unfortunately, God is doing better with wolves and foxes than he is with us.  Paul would tell us simply to work harder.

That vision of the kingdom of God, that vision of the lamb and the wolf, feeding together will determine for us what it is that we are to do. Luke has Jesus assure us that whatever calamity befalls us, betrayal, imprisonment, ostracism, whatever, not a hair of our heads will perish. God will sustain us.  Beyond the personal tragedies in all of our lives, look at the present situation in the world:

• America seems to have lost its way
• The American dream is a nightmare for many
• The entire global climate is in danger
• No one has the political courage to do anything about it
• The Congress is stalemated
• The President is unable or unwilling to lead
• The Judiciary has become rabidly ideological
• We are fighting two purposeless wars
• Unemployment is at record high
• The US economy is no longer a growing pie in  which all share
• The rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer
• The know-nothings have ascended to power and the brown shirts are on the horizon

The whole tone of Jesus’ discourse is, in the biblical scholar Frederick Danker’s felicitous phrase, “vigilant composure”.

Time past and time future are all contained in time present.  The future vision informs our daily work and our relation with each other, and our outlook on the contemporary scene. The vision tells us where we are going if we are faithful to the vision.  And our best remembrances of the past tell us what we must be like as God’s creatures in God’s world.

In other words, in the refrain of one of the favorites hymns that we sign around here: “Trust in God, and do the right”.

Isaiah and Paul tell us our perspectives on doing the right.  Luke tells us how Jesus taught his disciples to trust in God.

Remember, Luke was writing after the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Roman Army. It is pointless to speculate whether Jesus predicted the destruction of the temple which took place forty years after his death.  Luke places Jesus in the temple in the Gospel lesson today, and he delivers his so called eschatological discourse -- Jesus’ commentary on the end-time and what his associates must be about until the end of time.  His discourse is interesting reading.  For our purposes it can be divided into five sections, all chunks of the 21^st chapter:

• Warning about false messiahs and great disasters
• Persecution of the disciples and their witness
• Judgement on Jerusalem
• Celestial disturbances
• Preparedness

 It is useless to try to hook this apocalyptic up with current events and leaders, as has been done by the church many times throughout its history. The apocalyptic stories we meet in Luke are used as symbols to show the disciples the extent of the catastrophic developments which might befall them.  Ezekiel, Daniel, Revelation all utilize such symbolic language to warn of approaching calamities.  These symbols are not the thing itself, albeit a literal use of them often is used to frighten people.  Jesus simply is using current Jewish myths to reassure his disciples that God will sustain them in all circumstances. As the ancient Greeks would put it, “God will give you a mouth to defend yourself, when the time comes”.

We cannot know whether any part of these apocalyptics is attributable to Jesus.  But Luke --Chapter 21:10-19-- are almost certainly Jesus’ own words. Luke edits and intermixes traditional Jewish symbolic language with Jesus’ words to his disciples in such a way that Christians can do their work, and trust that God will help them persevere.  In the swirlings and babble of alarmist rhetoric, Luke’s Jesus assures us that by putting our whole trust in God we shall gain our lives.

Trust in God, and do the right.