The First Sunday of Christmas --- 27 December 2015

It was an odd day at church. It was a Service of the Word (no Holy Communion) and I had not really prepared a sermon for the congregation. Our musician called Saturday evening and said she would not be able to make the service because of some unforeseen family issues - nothing disastrous, just unavoidable. All of our music was a Capella and led by me. The congregation was a mighty 17 people. We ended up singing about eight or nine Christmas carols as our Hymn of the Day. 

Anyway, here's the gist of my preaching, with no specific order:

• The finding of twelve-year-old Jesus in the Temple shows again the human side of Jesus. I imagine that the journey home to Nazareth after this incident must have been an interesting one, especially since Luke says Jesus was obedient to them from then on. 
• Twelve is roughly the age of the Bar Mitzpha, where a young Jewish boy becomes a "son of the Law." Jesus' question and answers among the teachers and elders in the Temple shows an interesting understanding of the Scriptures. It also shows that Joseph taught Jesus well, since Joseph would be the one to show Jesus how to be a up-right Jewish man.
• The other stories of Jesus' youth found in the apocryphal Gospels were excluded from the canon of the Christian scriptures because they don't teach us anything about Jesus and don't help us to understand him. They show wonder and miracle but they all glorify Jesus as a wonder-working child rather than a suffering Messiah. They show him as a fantastic revelation of the power of God to do "stuff" rather than revealing the love and mercy of God through a vulnerable and very human person.
• This story of the finding of the young Jesus in the Temple is worth remembering and meditating on because it shows a very human Jesus, studying and discussing the Scriptures, being "about his Father's business" in a way Mary, Joseph, and the rest of the people around them could not understand. He was not going to be the sort of Messiah people would expect; he'd be a better one.

A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all who read this!

The Festival of the Nativity of Our Lord --- Christmas ---- 25 December 2015

This was my sermon for the Christmas Eve Service of Holy Communion at St. John's Evangelical Lutheran Church in Aylmer, Ontario.

God be with all of you this Christmas. May Christ be born anew in you.

But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people; to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. 

·        Tonight we do what we have often done before: gather in our place of assembly after darkness falls to celebrate an event in which we find joy.

·        We celebrate with Word and Sacrament, with speech and song and silence, with both light and darkness. We remember those present and those absent from our celebration.

·        Is it odd that we gather at night? Is it some sort of conspiracy?

·        So what is it we celebrate? Do we celebrate the season? If so, have you seen the weather lately? There have been better seasons.

·        Do we celebrate some sort of great personal situation? Doubtful… because we’re here just as we are, with our failings and our triumphs, our wins and our losses, our health and our illness, our pains and our joys.

·        Do we celebrate power and glory? The story we’ve read tonight includes angels and a heavenly message. It includes a birth and parenthood. Still the message is given to a group of poor and maybe less-than-socially-acceptable shepherds out in the field, who are told to go and see the new born. They are given no mission to spread the word of this child’s birth, even though they do spread the news. The child’s birth appears to nothing unusual as births go, although it takes place in very poor circumstances since she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

·        The child appears to be simply a child. He’s powerless there in the manger with nothing exceptional there either. There are no angels attending his birth, no dignitaries awaiting the good news of his birth, no adoring multitudes waiting to celebrate. He’s an infant boy, doing what all infants do... and we all know what infants do. He’s been born in a place where the animals are kept and he’s sleeping in a feeding manger. If you turn to Matthew’s version of the Nativity, well, the Magi don’t show up for a while yet.

·        Lots of ink has been spilled and lots of discussion has taken place about this setting. The setting is quite ordinary and maybe even rustic, and some still see it as beautiful in all its rude simplicity.

·        Maybe it is a conspiracy. Maybe God is sneaking into the world God created. There are no angelic legions at the manger, although a multitude of the heavenly host sing praise… out in the fields, not at the manger. There is no display of riches and honour and power, just the poverty of a family of travelers with no place to stay and the vulnerability of a new-born baby, a mother who has just given birth, and a silent man.

·        Yet who know what is going on, our hair stands on end, our eyes tear up, and our breath catches in our throats. You see, we know the ending to the story, which lets us see the beginning differently.

·        We gather tonight because we know the story and we know the secret. We know where the story is going and we know how it ends. We know a cross is involved, but we also know that the story doesn’t end there.

·        Maybe this is a sort of quiet conspiracy where God has gathered the needy and the troubled and the outsiders to hear of their liberation and to remind each other of it.

·        Maybe this conspiracy includes all of creation and has been growing all these years.

·        Maybe this conspiracy includes the God of all creation whose glory was hidden in the straw and dirt of the manger and the apparently normal life of a Jewish man with an exceptional message and background.

·        You see, the conspiracy of Christmas shows us how far God is willing to go to bring grace, mercy, and salvation. He is even willing to send his Son to a very human situation all his life, starting at his birth.

·        Let’s just say that salvation is an inside job and that is the up-side-down truth of Christmas; the saving truth of what’s going on with all those poor people at the manger… including us.

·        God be with all of us at this festival of the Nativity of our Lord Jesus. The Good News of great joy is given to us and the conspiracy of the Word-made-flesh is renewed.

·        No need to keep it a secret, now or ever.

"Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people…

The Fourth Sunday in Advent ---- 20 December 2015

Luke 1:39-45, (46-55)

39 In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, ⁴⁰ where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. ⁴¹ When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit ⁴² and exclaimed with a loud cry, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. ⁴³ And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? ⁴⁴ For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. ⁴⁵ And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord." [46 And Mary said, "My soul magnifies the Lord, ⁴⁷ and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, ⁴⁸ for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; ⁴⁹ for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. ⁵⁰ His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. ⁵¹ He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. ⁵²He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; ⁵³ he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. ⁵⁴ He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, ⁵⁵ according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever."]

Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed

·        The long hymn of praise we heard today in the reading from Luke’s Gospel is referred to as Mary’s Canticle. In times past, it was simply called the Magnificat, which is the Latin term for the hymn taken from the first line, “My soul magnifies the Lord…”

·        We have all heard hymns of praise before. Our worship is full of them. Some are simple and some are less so. The Canticle of Mary can seem confusing and so, it really bears looking at.

·        The setting is important. This poem just didn’t come out of nowhere. Mary has gone to visit her cousin, Elizabeth, who is now pregnant even though she was believed to be beyond the age of child-bearing. Mary arrives and is met by Elizabeth with words of praise and a report of Elizabeth’s child had leaped in her womb at the sound of Mary’s greeting. “Why should you come to me, you who are the mother of my Lord? Blessed are you and blessed is your child!”

·        Elizabeth and Mary are both shamed women. Elizabeth because she was childless and Mary because she was pregnant while betrothed. Each accepted the other and showed openness to how God is acting in their world and in their lives. What appears to be shame and disgrace will be turned around and what they and the world around them believed to be their shame would become their honour.

·        Now, Mary has heard a lot of unusual things, such as the angel Gabriel’s message to her, so this is another one to add to the list. According to Luke, Mary responds to Elizabeth’s greeting and prophetic statement with a poem to praise God, who has done all these things. She accepts the idea that what is going on is beyond her comprehension and yet has turned the entire world up-side-down. She was low and had been raised up. She was poor and had received riches beyond imagining. She was nothing and from now on all generations will call me blessed…

·         As her song goes on, she blesses God for all God has done and will do, just about all of it unexpected and un-looked-for.

·        The proud will be scattered like chickens before a fox and the powerful laid low, tossed from their thrones.  The rich will go hungry as they are turned away from a banquet.

·        On the other hand, the lowly will be lifted up and the hungry will feast and be filled.

·        This sounds like a revolution, but rather than a violent rising of the under-class and the dispossessed, this will all be accomplished by the mighty power of God. In fact, it will be a continuation of the working-out of God’s promise to Abraham and his children, so this change has been brewing for centuries.

·        This is the message that Mary’s song carries – the praise of God for what is being done in her life and through her life to the entire world.

·        What is to come appears to be unexpected, especially since the rich and powerful are in control. Since they are in control, the lesser folk are considered far from God, from God’s mercy, and from God’s grace. Perhaps the biggest surprise contained in Mary’s song is that the reduction of the high and mighty makes them the poor and lowly, and therefore the inheritors of the promises and of the grace and mercy of God that is given to the raised-up lowly. After all, the promise was made to them, too.

·        It seems that none of us will be excluded, no matter how low or how high up we appear to be now. Just because a thing is unexpected does not mean that you will be excluded. Just because what will be is not what you’d thought it’d be does not mean that you are not part of it. This might be the good news to all the world at this time.

·        For those who depend on their riches and for those who desire riches to depend on, the message is the same: rich or poor, old or young, what you are before God is all that you are and nothing more. The realization of this is a point of true freedom and quite a revolutionary idea.

·        Mary’s song of praise speaks of what is and what will come. She speaks of herself in a very humble way: he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed… This has proved true and the Mother of Jesus holds a particular place in the history of salvation and the life of all the Christian churches.

·        As Mary received what she did not expect, we will be surprised at how and from which direction the grace of God comes to us. Whether it is seen in the unexpected person or a visit, in the spoken and heard word, from a line of a hymn, from the bread and wine, or from a sandwich and a cake, God’s grace and God’s love will be there and we’ll know it even as it surprises us. Like Ebenezer Scrooge in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol or George Bailey in the movie It’s a Wonderful Life, grace comes unforeseen in an unexpected way.

·        The up-side-down, the unexpected, the unlooked-for, the grace and mercy of God … all in the Magnificat, a song well worth looking at and remembering.

·        Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;  for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.  His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. 

The Third Sunday in Advent ---- 13 December 2015 --- Gaudate Sunday

Philippians 4:4-7

4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. ⁵ Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. ⁶ Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Luke 3:7-18

7 John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? ⁸ Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, "We have Abraham as our ancestor'; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. ⁹ Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire." ¹⁰ And the crowds asked him, "What then should we do?" ¹¹ In reply he said to them, "Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise." ¹² Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, "Teacher, what should we do?" ¹³ He said to them, "Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you." ¹⁴ Soldiers also asked him, "And we, what should we do?" He said to them, "Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages." ¹⁵ As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, ¹⁶ John answered all of them by saying, "I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. ¹⁷ His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire." ¹⁸ So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.

And the crowds asked him, "What then should we do?" 

·        Years ago, when I was a member of another congregation, we went to the Christmas Eve service at the church. When we went in and got seated, we noticed that the altar was not set, that the candles were missing, that the big altar book was gone, and the pastor was not vested.

·        The pastor began to ask if people were ready for Christmas. Many said “Yes”, but one woman said “No”, and the pastor responded with “That’s a good confession!” After some explanation of how the church was not prepared for Christmas either, he gathered all the children in the congregation and had them form a line from the pastor’s office to the altar. While he vested, the children set the altar with the candles, the big book, and the Communion vessels. Then the church was ready and the service began.

·        I’m not going to ask if any of us are ready for Christmas in the usual sense. I’d have to be the first to confess that I’m nowhere near ready. But there’s “ready” and there’s “ready.” I’d rather not discuss shopping, decorating, wrapping, cleaning, baking, and all the other frenzied activities this season brings. I rather look at what John the Baptizer is saying to the people who came to hear him preach.

·        John is not described in Luke’s Gospel, but we can imagine him as he is described in Matthew and Mark: the wild desert figure clothed in camel’s hair and a leather belt, eating grasshoppers and honey, shouting his message of repentance and preparation. Still and all, he is a very practical preacher. When asked "What then should we do?", he responds with very down-to-earth prescriptions: give your second coat to the one who needs it; share your lunch with a hungry person; stay where you are and do your job without arrogance and selfishness. Eminently practical advice, considering that the preacher is dressed like the prophets of old and has been living on bugs and desert honey.

·        So here we are, almost half-way through December and well into the season of Advent… and are we prepared?

·        Have we taken any notice of the Scripture readings and their message? Are we willing to be “winnowed” and have the wheat and the chaff within us separated?

·        It would do us good to remember that there is both wheat and chaff in all of us. Our Lutheran tradition tells us that we are both justified and sinful at the same time. A more recent writer, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said this about human nature: “If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.”

·        John goes on to tell his listeners that one is coming “who is more powerful than I” who will burn off the chaff from everyone.

·        This sounds frightening, but it really can be seen as good news. Purification will come to each person. The evil in each of us will be burned away by the “unquenchable fire” that John spoke of, which could be taken as a term for the sort of fire that will not be put out until it has accomplished its purpose. And we all know that fire can hurt.

·        Last week, we heard the words of the prophet Isaiah telling us that “all flesh shall see the salvation of God” once the rough ways are made smooth, the crooked way straight, and the mountains and valleys taken care of. We’ve applied this to John the Baptizer and his preaching. He is the one preparing the way for Jesus.

·        His words ring in our ears even today, telling us not only prepare the way but even how to prepare the way. For John, the time was short and he couldn’t pull any punches. He would offer direction and advice and tell his listeners just what repentance would look like in their own circumstances.

·        We can’t tell another person how to repent, just as we can’t tell another how to prepare. We all have our own ways and styles and situations in which we live. Yet, John the Baptizer’s word to the penitent people are just as true for us. Hear the words of the prophets and the good news; share what we can; continue to live in justice according to our own life path; do what is ours to do in humility and gratitude.

·        On the church calendar, this Sunday is called “Gaudate Sunday” or the Sunday of Rejoicing. In  times past, it was an up-beat break from the fasting done in preparation for the celebration of Christmas. Part of our own preparation might be joy as we anticipate and get ready for the soon-to-be-upon-us festival. We’ve heard what John the Baptizer has to say about preparation and repentance. Now hear what the Apostle Paul says about our attitude as we prepare in prayer and hope for both the celebration of Jesus’ birth and his eventual return.

·        Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

St. John's at Christmas

Just for the information of anyone interested.

The Christmas Eve service of Holy Communion at St. John's will begin at 7:00pm.  It will be a rather traditional service of Holy Communion.

Communion will be distrubuted by "tables" at the altar rail. Both wafers and "real bread" will be available. Some small cups of grape juice will be available as well for those concerned about alcohol because of medication or state of personal health, or because of age.

All are welcome at in our sanctuary and all are welcome at our table.

The Second Sunday in Advent ---- 6 December 2015

Luke 3:1-6

1 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, ² during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. ³ He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, ⁴ as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, "The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: "Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. ⁵ Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; ⁶ and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.' "

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius… the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 

·        I mean, who cares, really? Does it make any difference when, where, and under which crazed emperor of the practical, powerful, and repressive Roman Empire that the word of God came to John the Baptizer? Couldn’t the word of God have come just as easily and as powerfully to some person in Rome or in Damascus or in some other city?

·        As far as caring goes, we should care about a number of these things. Whether John began his ministry under the reign of Tiberius, or Augustus or even Nero does make some difference. The difference is time. All of the three mentioned were emperors of Rome, but at different times. To say that John began to preach in the fifteenth year of Tiberius’ reign gives an exact year. Tiberius was emperor from 14 AD to 37 AD, which would put the beginning of John’s ministry of preaching sometime in the year 29 AD.

·        Suddenly this becomes very real, doesn’t it? Many people don’t think about God’s action and God’s grace taking place in the so-called “real world.” So much of what we read in the Scripture appears to take place in some misty past without an anchor in our conception of time. Hearing that John the Baptizer began his mission of preaching repentance in the year 29 AD might be something new to us.

·        When Luke wrote this, he was telling Christians the story of the Good News as he had heard it, including the time frame based on the rulers of the area and the service of the high priests of the Temple. These were people that were celebrities of a sort and whose lives and actions might be common knowledge. To say John began his preaching at that same time places all this in a specific point in time. We also know the Jesus began his mission soon after John was arrested by Herod, the same Herod Luke told of. Why was John arrested? For taking Herod to task for marrying this brother’s wife, his brother being the same Philip that Luke mentioned. There seem to be a lot of hooks on which to hang this story.

·        Another hook is where this all takes place.  Luke says the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. The wilderness he mentions is a certain place, actually the desert to the east of the Jordan River or the barren places around the Dead Sea, the place where John is believed to have been living in a communal and almost monastic situation among exceptionally devout Jews. He preached to real people about real things in a real place. Of course, the idea of “the wilderness” is a loaded one, carrying hints and memories of the wandering years in the desert following the Exodus from Egypt, a time of special dependence on God and of special closeness to God.

·        Real times… real people… real places…

·        When Luke’s Gospel comes down to us, all these references – dry history as they might appear to be – serve to remind us that in Jesus, God entered into God’s creation. Note that God “entered” into creation, not simply “intervened.” There are many who see the power of God in storms, in floods, in the events of the day, any or all of which could be taken as divine intervention in the every-day doings of the world and the people of the world. However, in Jesus, the Creator becomes part of creation, becomes a creature within the world as we know it and experience it.

·        It’s quite a different thing. Intervention is temporary; entrance into (or in a more theological term for it, incarnation) is permanent. As John the Evangelist says in the first chapter of his Gospel: And the Word became flesh and lived among us… (John 1:14a)

·        For us, this means that God, who entered creation in a most intimate way, remains in his creation. For us, this means that God acts in the real world and more often than not acts and works through what and, more importantly, through people who have been created. The time is right and the time is real, all indicated by the listing of the earthly powers. The place is right as well, and John’s preaching in the wilderness calls the people back to their original relationship with the God of the Exodus and the God who brought them back from their exile in Babylon.

·        There is one last thing to be seen here. Luke lists the rulers and governors of the area, all of which have been imposed by a foreign power, and the high priests of the Temple, who were collaborating with the Roman occupiers for their own purposes. This listing does place John’s ministry (and Jesus’!) in time and space, but it goes beyond that. The names and places and dates are convenient milestones but neither honoured nor given much power. They are contrasted with the word of God that came to John in the wilderness, the word that heralds the Kingdom and Reign of God, where the real power is found.

·        In our own time, in this Advent and in this time of trouble, when we hear of atrocities and massacres almost daily, the message of Christians is that God is still present and active, often in and through his people.

·        I’m sure you’ve seen the news reports about the shootings in the United States. I mourn all that is happening in the land of my birth. You’ve probably seen some reports or editorials about the futility and ridiculousness of prayer in these situations. I for one think we should pray, especially for those suffering from these attacks. And we need to roll up our sleeves to work to end both terror and injustice. Maybe our greatest prayer would be to ask for the strength, the courage, and the wisdom to go out and act in such a way so as to heal the suffering and to find real solutions in this all-too-real time. Well, that’s just my opinion.

·        In any event, Luke places God’s action in our world and in our history. Real times, real people, real places, real grace, real faith, and it all gets more and more real until we see the star over the manger… and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.

The First Sunday in Advent ----- 29 November 2015

Luke 21:25-36
{25} "There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. {26} People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. {27} Then they will see 'the Son of Man coming in a cloud' with power and great glory. {28} Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near." {29} Then he told them a parable: "Look at the fig tree and all the trees; {30} as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. {31} So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. {32} Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. {33}Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. {34} "Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly, {35} like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. {36} Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man."

Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.

·        I have two children. I love them very much. I was present at their births. I’m not going to give you any details, but let me say that how I remember those events is not exactly the way they actually happened. I’m not saying that those births didn’t happen; all I’m saying is those births are remembered as somewhat different from the real facts.

·        Doctors and nurses may remember those births in a very clinical, factual manner. My wife remembers them and her memories of those events differ from mine. Oddly enough, neither of our children remember anything of the event. We’d all agree, however, that the births were life changing for each of us.

·        The words we hear from Jesus today are frightening. He uses words that carry a lot of meaning for his listeners, images based on the words of the prophets. These words evoke emotions, which could be either fear or hope, depending on the situation of the hearer.

·        We use words like those in our everyday speech. We might say we are hungry enough to “eat a horse” although we probably wouldn’t. We might say that a messy place “looks like a hurricane hit it”, even though we know that a hurricane would do far more damage.

·        Our languages are full of them. A person might be “moon-struck” or a “stick-in-the-mud.” A place might be called a “castle” or a “dump.” Politicians use these types of words to get their messages across. Some of the phrases are references to stories and even myths. What-ever the case might be, the words and phrases carry a content in a sort of verbal shorthand.

·        Jesus’ frightening words in Luke’s Gospel today just might be expression of just was we’ve been talking about. His hearers would be watchful for signs and portents in the skies and in the stars. They would be aware of the sounds of storms and just what storms can do. (I’ve been told that a tornado sounds like a freight train, or is it the other way around?) Those images would be expected and they’d know was Jesus was talking about.

·        When Luke was writing, the destruction of Jerusalem and the leveling of the Temple would be a fresh memory and a painful one. Surely, People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Everything comfortable, everything familiar, everything that had appeared unshakable was gone. Truly the powers of the heavens were shaken and everything was changing.

·        Jesus’ words here are for his disciples. All these signs would be visible to them and, as terrible as they may appear to us, they were meant for hope and comfort.

·        Jesus uses the example of the fig tree, saying that when the buds sprout, the summer is near. In the same way, when the signs are seen. God’s kingdom is near. What “near” means is debatable, but presence of God and the Kingdom of God is close and getting closer. The separation between heaven and earth is closing.

·        Jesus goes on to say that this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. A generation could be a cohort of persons, or a number of years, or even an attitude, such as the attitude of those who did not believe and those who continue to act in a self-centered way.

·        The warning not to give ourselves over to dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life is a reminder that we are meant for greater things than distraction from an empty and meaningless life, dedication to pleasure-seeking or the worried life. We all know how easy it is to become distracted by trivial things, let alone the much larger realities of modern life. It could be that this statement is the most important one we encounter this week.

·        So when the signs are perceived, we are to Be on guard… and  Be alert at all times, praying.

·        What is to come is laid out in words that are both symbolic and reflective. They speak of what is to come in the light of the words and attitudes of the prophets as well as reflecting the momentous event that took place shortly before this was written – the destruction of the Temple and the loss of independence for the Jewish people. The order of the world then – and the order of the world now – will be turned upside down and inside out. It will be upsetting, because change – even positive change – is upsetting and quite often fearsome.

·        Will we see these events? Have we already seen them? Maybe we have. Who knows? Perhaps it will take longer than we might think for all things to come to fruition.

·        Our place is not to predict, but to remain faithful and to Be alert at all times. What will come will be for all creation and for the faithful, it will be the fulfillment of promises… in God’s own time. Oppressions will be ended and wrongs will be redressed… in God’s own way.

·        For all creation and all time remains in the hands of God and Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.

At the end of my sermon, I added this story:  Two hundred twenty years ago the Connecticut House of Representatives was in session on a bright day in May, and the delegates were able to do their work by natural light. But then something happened that nobody expected. Right in the middle of debate, the day turned to night. Clouds obliterated the sun, and everything turned to darkness. Some legislators thought it was the Second Coming. So a clamor arose. People wanted to adjourn. People wanted to pray. People wanted to prepare for the coming of the Lord.

But the speaker of the House had a different idea. He was a Christian believer, and he rose to       the occasion with good logic and good faith. We are all upset by the darkness, he said,             and some of us are afraid. But, “the Day of the Lord is either approaching or it is not. If it       is not, there is no cause for adjournment. And if the Lord is returning, I, for one, choose         to be found doing my duty.

“I therefore ask that candles be brought.”

And men who expected Jesus went back to their desks and resumed their debate.