Embracing Our Frailty

Luke 21:5–19 NRSV

5 When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, he said, 6 “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.” 7 They asked him, “Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?” 8 And he said, “Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and, ‘The time is near!’ Do not go after them. 9 “When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end will not follow immediately.” 10 Then he said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; 11 there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven. 12 “But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name. 13 This will give you an opportunity to testify. 14 So make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance; 15 for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict. 16 You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. 17 You will be hated by all because of my name. 18 But not a hair of your head will perish. 19 By your endurance you will gain your souls.

Last week, we see Jesus wrestle with the religious leaders about who their possessions and allegiance belong to. What are we to do with taxes and laws and political engagement in an age when those powers and systems demand our full hearts? Who does the graven image on the coin belong to? And who do we belong to? These are important questions that Jesus pushes us to wrestle with.

And ultimately, we learn that we give away what Caesar has offered us, holding it quite loosely, trusting in God’s providing hand instead. We know that what we have is never our own, but belongs to the Creator who so abundantly blesses and sustains us.

This line of questioning leads us to realize how little many things the world tells us are important actually matter. Status, position, pride, notoriety — these are put into perspective as we consider what is truly ours to hold onto and what we must let go to celebrate God’s care for us. We let go of position and power and prestige, knowing that these are all fleeting. What we find, through this, is that our worth and meaning come from being beloved children of God, comes from bearing the image of God in us as we live in the way of Jesus Christ. We learn that systems corrupt, fall, and pass away.

And of course, Jesus then continues to amplify the teaching in today’s passage, pointing out the realities of the systems and structures of our world passing away.

Specifically, what we wrestle with here is the potential for even things like the Temple of God to pass away. Not a stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.

Jesus is challenging his listeners to reach a place of understanding that even the religious establishment that they place all meaning and purpose upon, even that will pass away and change.

Uh oh, that’s some uncomfortable territory, isn’t it? The religious establishment is our insurance plan for when all the other things fall apart.

Are you uncomfortable hearing that? Let’s put it into modern context, into our world: See this beautiful church, see all that we have constructed in our history and life together. It is wonderful, isn’t it? Jesus says: “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.”

Umm…we don’t like to consider that, do we?

A few years back, I came across a photo essay of abandoned buildings. It included inner city schools, with gymnasiums and classrooms gathering dust and decay. There were old factories, where production had long-since ceased, left like ghost towns. There were photos of wildlife and foliage, retaking public, indoor and outdoor spaces, overrunning buildings with ivy and vines, beautiful and apocalyptic all at once.

This also reminds me of an artist I always used to look for at the annual Edmonds Arts Festival. They were one of those folks who painted dystopian or at least dissonant versions of Pacific Northwest landmarks. A Washington State Ferry boat, washed upon the shores of the Puget Sound. A fictitious underwater painting of the old Kingdome, submerged and surrounded by pods of Orcas. A decrepit Dick’s diner sign, overgrown by Pacific Northwest underbrush, still poking it’s bright orange colors through, but greatly diminished.

I love these pieces of art, not for the despair of destruction that they may illicit from us, but for how they caused me to see the frailty of our world, the way that things pass on.

We look at the Space Needle or landmark buildings or brand new schools or humming factories and we think that such places and things could never fall away.

But we know it, deep in our guts, that that is not true, and that all will fade in the course of time.

Often, we see the replacement of older places with new, fantastic architecture and amazing buildings. The Kingdome is no longer a fixture in downtown Seattle. But now, we have T-Mobile Park and Lumen Field, bigger and brighter than their singular predecessor. We see this and we are captivated by the myth of progress, that things are going to keep getting better and better.

Or take the new Fairhaven hotel reconstruction down here in our neighborhood. With architectural nods to the past construction on its footprint, this new building houses shops and condos, a new fixture in the place of an old, destroyed landmark.

And yet, what we realize is that all things pass away. All things are frail, fleeting.

As the great wisdom teacher, Qoheleth, of the book of Ecclesiastes says:

The New International Version (1984) Everything Is Meaningless

2 “Meaningless! Meaningless!”

says the Teacher.

“Utterly meaningless!

Everything is meaningless.”

3 What does man gain from all his labor

at which he toils under the sun?

4 Generations come and generations go,

but the earth remains forever.

Wow, Seth, what a downer this morning, eh?

Can we all, just for a moment, chuckle and exhale in this reality: all that we hold dear, all that we are, it’s frail and fleeting. In line with Jesus’ teaching last week, about what belongs to us and what is passing, we see that all that we hold is like the wind, here today and gone tomorrow.

For his hearers, this pronouncement about the temple would have been far more than disturbing to their imaginations — it would have been blasphemy! The temple, which the people looked to as the site of God’s presence on earth, was to last until God came to be with them on earth, last until God’s justice had rolled down and liberated the people from their bondage.

And now Jesus is talking about it being thrown down? Pulled apart? The temple that was built over lifetimes of the ancient kings…in the days ahead not a stone would be left upon another.

Ok, got your attention?

Let’s back up and remember what kind of literature this is. Jesus is employing an apocalyptic teaching here, a prophetic tradition that speaks of a revealing of truth, an unveiling of what would otherwise be hidden from our minds. Jesus is speaking of an apocalyptic vision, when the temple would be pulled down, when the frail things of the world would truly be know for their frailty.

And then let’s consider this in the light of history: this was actually the 2nd Temple that Jesus is describing, Herod’s temple, a reconstruction of Solomon’s temple, which had been destroyed during the seige and occupation by the Babylonian empire in 587 BCE.

This 2nd Temple would go on to be sacked and destroyed in the year 70 CE, when the Roman siege of Jerusalem shut down a Jewish revolt, a powerful blow in the ongoing occupation of Palestine by Rome. Jesus is prophetically correct — the temple would be destroyed.

What we must learn from this part of the teaching is that while we hold our monuments and religious symbols to be eternal, they are ultimately frail and fleeting, just like our possessions. The temple will fall, Jesus says. The place where you believe that God dwells, it will pass away.

I can imagine being really frustrated with Jesus in this moment. Perhaps we’ve followed him all along his journey, hoping that he would be the one to restore a right order to the religious system, and now he’s saying it’s going to collapse? Not cool, Jesus, not cool.

Jesus takes up this particular frustration as he goes on:

“Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, ‘I am here!’ and ‘The time is near!’ Do not go after them.”

Wait, so you just told us that the center of our religious devotional life is going to fall apart AND you’re telling us that the people like you, who claim to be the leaders of a religious movement, we’re not supposed to trust them!? What?

And don’t worry, it gets worse. Jesus goes on to speak of wars and famines and earthly destruction — it seems that everything is going to be…changed.

Now, if we are a people who hold onto the certainty of what is here today to be here tomorrow, these are really disruptive teachings.

And it goes on…the people will be persecuted for following Jesus. They will be hunted down, imprisoned, even sentenced to death.

Is anyone here today thinking, wow! Sign me up!!

You will be hated by all because of my name.

What are we to do with this? What is the good news here, what is redemptive about this teaching? Or is it all to serve as a warning? Is there no silver lining, other than that we get to keep the few hairs on our heads intact?

I find that the final words Jesus speaks in this reading are the key: “By your endurance you will gain your souls.”

If we have learned anything from the signs of the times we witness now, in 2022, we realize that very little, if anything, stays the same. Buildings fall, governments collapse, tides turn, nations war, systems change.

What is God’s church called to do in this time?

Are we to rely on our buildings to hold fast, our footprint in the world?

Are we to expect that our leadership will remain the same, that our structures will weather the test of times?

Or are we meant to look out and see what the Spirit is doing, despite all that is in tumult and upheaval?

I believe that Jesus is inviting us to embrace our frailty, to recognize that all things fade and change.

I believe that Jesus is inviting us develop a deep imagination not for what is, but what God is doing out ahead of us.

In this season of gratitude, our call is to open our hands to give to God all our hopes and cares — it is God who sustains and makes all things to flourish. The Lord of all Creation is doing this creative, recreating work in and through us.

What is not fleeting, what endures?

Well, it is by our endurance that we will gain our souls.

We know this to be true, don’t we. When we weather trials or face, we deepen, we grow. The house of God is no longer built upon the stones of a foundation, but built in us, strengthed in us as we are formed to be more like Christ.

If we hear nothing else in this text today, hear this: All things are frail and fleeting. AND, in us, God is making a new thing happen. Temples and buildings, systems and structures will not last. It is the fire and heart in God’s people that will, the soul that will endure and strengthen through trials.

This is what we count on. Not structures, but souls. Not policies or religious systems, but faithful, steady, earnest love of our neighbors and each other.

Elsewhere, Jesus teaches that the Son of Man has no place to lay his head to rest. And this yet again teaches us of the frailty of things, at yet, also the faithfulness of God to provide what we need. That our soul’s will endure and strengthen even when there is not always a firm foundation under us in this world.

Take heart, beloved of God. That is not in structures, buildings, temples, systems, money, power, or position, but in God’s love alone that we are sustained, upheld, and bound together. When we release the need for those things (which will fail us) to be our Savior, in this space, we find great freedom and abundant joy. May we seek this freedom with all our hearts and souls.

The Temple was the house of God and the expected site of the Messiah’s coming. It was meant to endure the ups and downs of geopolitical and social upheaval and change.

You will be hated by all because of my name — what does this mean? What doesn’t it mean?

By your endurance you will gain your souls — what does that mean?