Prop 28 C + Re-gaining our Souls + 11.13.22 (ACL+)

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Malachi 4, 2 Thessalonians 3, Luke 21

St Paul’s, Ventura/ All Saints Oxnard
The Rev. Alene Campbell-Langdell

 

            Jesus’ disciples asked him, “Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this [destruction] is about to take place?” (Luke 21:7).  Yes, Jesus, please tell us!  I’d like to get it on my calendar.  Because if I just knew when the next disaster was going to happen, I’d make sure to get my vacation in first!  Ray Brown in his Introduction to the New Testament proposes that this is what is happening with those idle believers in 2nd Thessalonians.  After all, if there’s only a short time left before the end of the world, work seems a bit useless.[1]  Yet, instead of praising these Thessalonian believers for their practicality, the letter writer recommends discipline.  For his part, Jesus responds to the disciples’ question with advice about how to live through bad times rather than how to avoid them or even how to prepare for them.

            The first bit of advice Jesus gives for difficult times is not to follow those who claim to have secret knowledge.  Anyone claiming to be the messiah or have end-time knowledge is to be ignored.  I remember my first real experience of this.  I was probably 11 and a pamphlet began circulating in my small town (this was pre wide-spread internet days for any kids out there wondering why we were reading pamphlets!).  This pamphlet claimed that the date of the Jewish New Year coincided that year with some other happenings in the world or the stars or the calendar; and therefore, Jesus was certainly going to come at some point during those three days.  My parents, knowing this passage well, looked at each other calmly when I showed them this evidence and stated, “Well, at least we know which days Jesus probably won’t come.” 


 

Do not get distracted by those claiming to know the future.  The second bit of advice Jesus gives goes right alongside that, “Do not be terrified” (Luke 21:9).  In other words, don’t let yourself become so overwhelmed by fear that you can’t think straight.  Or that the fear itself causes you to do or say things you may regret later.  Bad things will happen throughout history, but responding out of fear will not make them better. 

So, don’t follow those claiming to have secret knowledge.  Don’t allow yourself to respond to situations out of fear.  And then Jesus adds one more “don’t” that may be the hardest of them all.  “Make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance” (Luke 21:14).  Don’t spend your precious time and energy planning what you might do if this or that happens.  Specifically, Jesus says that his disciples are likely to get called into court, betrayed by family and “hated by all,” but preparing an elaborate defense ahead of time is not a good strategy.  Instead, Jesus promises that we will be given wisdom. 

I used to read this passage and think that Jesus was referring to a supernatural word of wisdom and perhaps that is true in some cases, but the older I get, the more I think Jesus is talking about something quite different. 

Malachi spends a good portion of this short book talking about “the day of the Lord.”  It is a day that will be felt as a refining fire burning away all the impurities (Malachi 3:2-3).  Today’s passage comes as a specific response to a people who are tired of waiting.  Malachi quotes them in chapter 3 as saying that serving God is vain, it’s worthless, because they see that rebellious, arrogant people are happy, evildoers prosper, and those who put God to the test get off without any negative effects.  In response to this, Malachi proclaims, “Once more you shall see the difference between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him” (3:18).  It is here that our passage today begins—with a heat that burns up arrogance (with connotations of rebellion in Hebrew) and evil, but with an interesting twist.  For this same heat is also pictured as a winged sun providing healing and protection. 


 

Jesus tells us that the result of being persecuted will be an opportunity to testify.  Again, it is easy to think of that testifying as boldly proclaiming about Jesus.  But the Greek word here is the same as that translated in Acts 7:44 as “Our ancestors had the tent of testimony in the wilderness…”  This tent was the place where God’s presence was seen and recognized.  What if Jesus is saying that disasters and crises are the very places in our lives where we have the opportunity to be a sign of God’s presence in the world?  These are the moments where the fire can both purify and heal, but we have to be willing to stay put.

And here’s where Jesus’ message is too often taken in some really unhelpful ways.  At the end of today’s passage, we hear Jesus saying, “By your endurance you will gain your souls” (Luke 21:19).  Too often this is heard as a glorification of the suffering itself or simply a promise of eternal life.  But what if this is Jesus’ instruction about how to turn the burning into healing?  What if Jesus is saying that it is literally the “patient endurance” as this is sometimes translated that will turn the burning into healing?  It is not Jesus’ crucifixion that is holy and a sign of God’s presence.  It is Jesus’ willingness to go through that experience into the resurrection that brings healing.  And for us, it is much the same.  The Greek word for ‘souls’ here is psuche, which can also mean life or breath.  By your patient endurance you will gain your breath.  If you stop running around so worried about what might happen, you might literally find that you can breathe again.  And in that deep, cleansing breath, you might catch a glimpse of beauty, a glimpse of God’s ongoing creative presence sustaining the world.  By your patient endurance, you will gain your life.  You will actually live your life.  In another famous passage from Mark, Jesus asks his listeners what it will profit them “to gain the whole world and forfeit their life” (8:36).  In that space of waiting and endurance, we may discover what it is that we truly value and what is really important.  In that breath, in that re-evaluation, you will find what it means to truly live.  You will discover God’s presence and become a sign of that presence in the world.  And rather than being destroyed, you will find that the heat has brought healing, within and without. 


[1] Raymond E Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament (Doubleday: New York, 1997), 591.

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