St. Peter Lutheran Church in Greene, Iowa. Sermon for Sunday, November 11, 2016, the week after the 2016 US Presidential election.
Apologies for posting last week’s All Saints’ Day sermon late! Here it is if you want to read it.
This week’s texts are Luke 21:5-19 and 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13.
People of God, I have good news. I have tidings of great joy for all the people. The election is over! No more political ads, no more debates, no more yard signs! We have a few years before it all starts again — well, at least a few months!
Some of us are thrilled by the election results. Some of us are disappointed. Some of us are hopeful. Some of us are afraid. Many of us are a little shocked by how far off most of the polls were.
I suspect we all are a bit exhausted and on some level, relieved just to have it over.
And so we gather in worship today, and we get lessons from Jesus and from Paul about the end of the world, about the apocalypse. I’m sure there are people who think Trump winning is one of those signs of the impending apocalypse Jesus is talking about. I’m sure others would say the same if Clinton had won.
Maybe these lessons are appropriate for today.
These teachings about the end of the world are not intended to tell us about the future, but about the present. Sometimes we read passages like these as predictions, a sort of guide to what the end times will be like. But that’s not what they really are.
Jesus describes these signs of wars, insurrections, famines, earthquakes, all this terrifying stuff…and then he says: don’t get too excited about it. People will point to what’s going on in the world and say, look, the end is near, but don’t be led astray by them. Do not be afraid, for in all this, not a hair of your head will perish.
Instead, these lessons are about how we should live today. They’re about the importance of remembering who we are as followers of Christ. They’re about the importance of staying focused on what it is we are called to, no matter what happens.
The church is called to share the joy of the good news that God loves the world enough to come to it, enough to live and die for us. We’re called to share the hope we have.
Last week, on All Saints’ Day, I talked about how we’re living in this in-between time, where we know how the story ends, we know Jesus wins, we know death and the grave have been defeated, yet right now, sin and death are all too powerfully real. We’re living in a time of uncertainty, and it’s really tempting to look for signs of Christ coming back, signs of the end of the world.
Living in the in-between time is hard, because it requires being present in the here and now, and sometimes, this might not be a pleasant place. Sometimes it feels like we’re just waiting for what comes next, whether we expect something good, or dread something bad.
And yet, we’re called to live in hope. Our hope isn’t just for the future, that Christ will come again, that one day we’ll be with God in heaven. Our hope is that Jesus has come to us, that God is with us here and now, even in this in-between time.
We’re called to live in the present. We’re called to face the problems we see in the world, to serve our neighbors. We’re called to reflect God’s love in our lives today, to reach out to our coworkers, our neighbors, our friends, our families.
Each of us knows someone in need. Maybe they need to hear God loves them, or maybe they need hope for the future that whatever they’re going through now will pass. We need to hear that message too. As we get closer to the holiday season, maybe you know someone who needs assurance that they won’t be alone on Thanksgiving.
Paul talks about the importance of getting to work, not growing weary in doing what is right. How will we use our lives, our gifts, our resources, our time to help others? Live in the present, not in the past or the future.
If we focus on the past, if we look back with nostalgia and remember what things used to be like, two things happen. First, we often look back with rose-colored glasses and we remember things as better than they really were. Human beings have an amazing ability to remember the positives and forget the negatives.
That’s a good thing, a survival mechanism that helps people survive terrible ordeals, but it also means we can think the past was better than it really was.
In terms of church, we’re sometimes tempted by a mystical time when everyone came to worship and Sunday School, when buildings were full, and life revolved around church. I think we often remember those times in a way that’s not quite accurate. We forget that as long as the church has been made of people, it’s had challenges.
Or going back to politics, many of us look back fondly on previous administrations, or on other elections when people got along better. Lots of things look better in hindsight than they do in the present.
Second, focusing on the past can mean getting stuck there. I know I sometimes fall into the trap of assuming something ought to be a certain way because it’s the way I remember it being when I was growing up. Remembering the past is important and good, but not if it means ignoring the present.
God’s not done with any of us yet.
God is not done with us as a congregation. One of the topics for the cottage meetings we’re going to have in a few weeks is where God might be calling us as a congregation. I hope you’re able to attend one of the meetings.
So focusing too much on the past can be a problem. The other temptation is focusing too much on the future at the expense of the present.
This one is maybe a little harder to see. In faith terms, what I mean is looking forward to heaven or to the second coming of Jesus so much that the present gets forgotten.
This is what seems to be happening in our reading from 2 Thessalonians today. The people to whom Paul is writing think the second coming has already happened, or that it is so close that nothing else matters. They think Jesus changes everything – which is true! – and therefore, they no longer need to work, because after all, what’s the point if Jesus will be back tomorrow?
They hear that God will provide for them – which is true! – and think that they can therefore live in idleness. In fact, it’s actually stronger than that. Paul accuses them of being busybodies, a word that here means spreading rumors. They’re falsely claiming to others that the end has come.
The problem isn’t that they’re looking forward to the second coming (we do that too!), but that they’re ignoring the needs of the present. They’ve stopped working, stopped doing anything, and so Paul, frustrated with them, says, “Anyone unwilling to work should not eat.”
Now of course, today there are many reasons people don’t work. There are people who are retired, there are people who can’t find a job. Paul is talking to people who can and should be working, but have decided they’re unwilling to work.
As the church, we also need to remember to contrast Paul saying, “Anyone unwilling to work should not eat” with Jesus elsewhere saying “Give to anyone who begs of you.” This isn’t talking about a social welfare net, or saying the church should stop helping people if they don’t work hard enough.
Actually, it’s saying the opposite. We as Christians, as the church, even though we know Jesus wins, even though we know the end of the story, we can’t get so caught up in looking ahead to that final victory that we stop working towards it.
God has work for us to do. The world needs to hear the hope we have in Christ. People need to hear they’re loved.
Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in doing what is right.
Living in the present is hard. Getting discouraged is easy. Getting stuck in the past, or jumping into the future — whether with fear or excitement — is easy.
In the midst of everything going on, let’s not forget our hope, the message of good news that God has come to us, here, now, as we are. God isn’t waiting for us in the future; God didn’t used to be with us and is now backing away from us. No. God is here with us, now, in our midst, calling us to get to work.