First Presbyterian Church

 

First Presbyterian Church

Rev. Sam Pendergrast

November 18, 2007

Luke 21:5-19

 

 

“What Do You Expect?”

 

If I were the disciples, I’d a little annoyed with Jesus at the end of this conversation. In fact, I’d be more than annoyed. I’d be irritated. I’d be angry. And I’d be afraid. I mean, can’t he answer a simple question? There he goes talking about the Temple being torn down – the Temple, that took generations to build – and he can’t give a straight answer to their question about when it would happen and what signs would tell them it was coming. What's going to happen? What does this mean?

 

“Don’t be led astray,” he says. “False prophets are coming. You’ll hear a lot of bad news. All kinds of bad stuff will happen – wars, earthquakes, forest fires, hurricanes.” Today we might respond, “And???” Tell us something we don’t know, Jesus. We’ve had two thousand years of this nonsense. Can’t you be a little bit more specific? We see it every day on the news. We’re used to it. We're tired of it. We expect it. War, that is. Probably there will be another one before too long – Iran, Indonesia, Central Asia, some other place in Africa – who knows? That’s the way things are, isn’t it? And don’t tell me about disasters. They all just run together anymore. Hurricane Hugo, Mitch, Rita, Katrina; the drought, floods in Mexico, fires in the West, the tsunami; and now this disaster of an election with no good choices. Disaster is about all we expect any more. What I want to know, Jesus, is when this is all going to end.

 

Not only is he evasive, but he’s making me pretty nervous here. Not only does he predict more bad news, but now I should expect to be betrayed, arrested and imprisoned; I‘ll be hated and maybe put to death. But it’s O. K., he says, because this will give me an opportunity to testify. God will give me wisdom so I’ll know what to say. And even though they kill me, through my perseverance and patient endurance I will gain my soul. All of this, just as we’re preparing to install new carpet. I don’t know about you, but I think Jesus needs to lighten up a little.

 

 

Apparently there are losses that worry Jesus a lot more than physical ones. Do you suspect, as I do, that Jesus is not really concerned about foretelling a date for the destruction of the Temple? Do you suspect that, just maybe, he is teasing us? Do you suspect that maybe he is more interested in our attitude toward the future than he is in the details of coming attractions? There is something far larger at stake here than the future of a building. That larger something is what he alludes to in verse 19 when he says that “By your endurance you will gain your souls.” This section of Luke’s Gospel, the last public teaching of Jesus before his passion and death, ends with the warning, “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.”

 

That’s the bottom line. Jesus is interested in what we expect. He wants to have some influence over what we hope for and the kinds of things we make our priorities, the kinds of choices and commitments that shape our lives. Jesus is not interested in predicting the future. He is interested in the kind of  people we are becoming. He wants us to think about the decisions we make, the kinds of things we hold on to and what we are willing to let go of. He has this crazy idea that what we expect, what we hope for, the way we live our lives can have something to do not only with our own individual lives but with the shape of the future and the witness we bear to what God is doing in the world.

 

Jesus spoke of the destruction of the Temple as a sign of something new coming, something better. His words to the disciples remind us of John the Baptist (who reminds us of Isaiah) and his proclamation that the hills would be leveled and the valleys lifted up to prepare the way for the coming of the Lord. Jesus is telling his disciples that the way will be cleared for a new order, a new creation. The only trouble with the coming of something new is that something old has to die to make room for the new. At the very least, new birth is accompanied by pain, whether it is the pain of childbirth, the pain of change when a couple renews a marriage after conflict or infidelity, or the pain of change in a church when a congregation commits to new growth.

 

 

Lord knows, we all want something new – whether it's something trivial like a new car or a new hairstyle, or whether it has to do with a new start in a broken relationship or new hope for peace in the Middle East. We need a new start. We're in a fix. We've tried about everything we can think of. The Presbyterian Church is conflicted and losing members. Congregations like this one are slumping despite the faithful efforts of many dedicated people. We appear to be wearing out this old Earth. The massive slate of presidential candidates seems like more of the same and is not terribly inspiring to most people I talk to. All our choices seem like the same old choices. We need something new.

 

Meanwhile the shelves full of self-help books multiply. Dr. Phil and friends are ready with advice so that we can fix ourselves. But we're caught in our old habits and patterns. Most of the time we can't even see ourselves and our world clearly enough to figure out what needs to be changed, and even when we can see it we are unable to change. Newness, genuine change is rare. The reason, I believe, is that what we want is to add something new to what we already have without letting go of what is old. We don't want to anything to change. We don't want anything to die.

 

I suspect that if Jesus were to walk through downtown Maysville, and if we were to say, “Look, Teacher, what beautiful buildings,” and Jesus were to respond as he did to his disciples long ago: “As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.” we would not be pleased. We would hear his words as a threat and not as a promise of good things to come. We would resist his invitation to prepare ye the way of the Lord. Our trouble is that we want to keep what we've got and simply add something new to it – make it a little better. We want to avoid the pain of real change.

 

Jim Harnish, a United Methodist pastor in Florida, wrote a book a few years ago titled, You Only Have to Die. In the book he tells the story of his once-dying inner city church and how it was renewed. Honestly, it is the story of how one church died in order for another to be born. Harnish tells of how he began to plan for change and the time he told his church board what he believed was necessary in order for the church to grow.

 

 

The bishop sent me to an inner-city church that had been in a process of steady decline for two decades. When I got there, I realized that things were worse than I thought. I panicked. I saw no way to reverse the downward pull. But I set to work, studied the situation, analyzed the neighborhood, tried a couple of new strategies, and I was filled with hope.

 

How well I remember the board meeting when I said to the assembled leaders, “I've got some good news for you tonight and some bad news. The good news is that despite what anyone things, this church can grow. After nine months here with you I can promise you that there are some things we can do that will make a difference.”

 

One of the board members asked, “What is the bad news?”

 

I responded, “The bad news is that we can only be born into a new, fresh congregation if there is some death. The good news is that there can be growth; the bad news is that it won't be painless.”

 

As providence would have it, we did grow, but not before something died in order that something new might be born.

 

I think that's why Jesus said that the Temple would be destroyed. The Temple was the center of the life of Israel, the place where the people met God, the place where everything hung together. Jesus knew that the old way had to die in order for the people to be born into a new relationship with God. He knew that he had to die. He wanted his disciples to know and you and me to know that we have to die in order to be born again. He knows that we resist it tooth and nail. We don't want to let go, even when we know what's good for us.

 

Another pastor tells the story of sitting on the patio of the home of a church member, looking out on the small lake surrounded by attractive homes. He remarked on what a beautiful place it was and asked, “How did you decide to move here?”

 

He replied, “I didn't. I was forced to move here. The highway department planned a new highway that cut through our farm, land I inherited from my parents. I never farmed the land, but I enjoyed living there. When we heard the state was going to condemn our property we were sick. We thought it was the end of everything. This was the only place I had ever lived.

 

But then we moved here. Had to move somewhere, so we moved here. Frankly, it was the best thing that ever happened to us. We love it here.

 

Then he was silent for a moment before adding, “It is kind of sad that you have to be forced by the State Highway Department to do what you didn't have the courage to do on your own. I thought the highway department had just about killed me. As it turns out, they gave me a whole new life!

 

Other people have lost jobs and then discovered in the loss the doorway to a new beginning they had never imagined, better than they had ever dreamed. That's the way it is with resurrection. God brings life. The frightening thing of us is that God brings life out of death. Death is the thing we resist, even when we are desperate for a new beginning.

 

We need help. We know we need help. We are facing huge problems – as a church, as a denomination, as a state, a country and world. The dilemmas before us seem insoluble. What we need is something new, from outside our management system or habitual patterns of behavior. We need something from beyond what we have come to expect. We're coming to the end of the church's year, and in a few more weeks to the end of the secular year. But within endings, even in the ending of death, so promise the Scriptures, is the promise of new life and a new beginning. The God who tears down also builds up. The God who kills also makes alive. The God who pops the bubble of our puffed up expectations of ourselves also will bring about a new heaven and a new earth.

 

Therein lies our hope – not in ourselves, but in the unexpected gift of new birth. Thanks be to God.