Proper 28 (C) - November 13, 2022

Malachi - fire! It’s been long time coming

2Thess - idleness! Thrown at the poor - “job requirement”, not just free money x being poor is expensive! The poor can still have stuff...

Poverty - here x elsewhere

Luke - Temple…so dramatic 70 CE - fall of the temple, 80-90 or 90-100 - they are in the middle of the ensuing chaos, idleness - link with falling of the temple - complacency - churches used to be sponsors of culture, but now they struggle to keep up.

Good morning,

The midterm elections have happened and the good news is that we are still here, so the democratic project continues also and especially because of all those that turned out to vote! There were some apocalyptic predictions and that is quite suitable for this Sunday, when we do not have one but two apocalyptic-leaning texts. And we have to be careful with those because there are already far too many out of context interpretations that have little to do with the actual texts! And then we have the text from The Second Letter to the Thessalonians, where the community is warned against associating with believers “who are living in idleness” and as such reminded them of this command: “Anyone unwilling to work should not eat.” Again, a text that we need to consider carefully as we really do not want to feed into the misinterpretation that it advocates for the poor having to “deserve” to be helped, because they are somehow lazy.

So let’s look at Malachi first - the author allegedly lived in the 5th century BCE, a time of political instability and spiritual poverty in Israel, while also looking to the future coming of the one who will prepare the way for the Messiah. Malachi could have been the actual name of the prophet or he might have been simply a nameless “My Messenger”, mal’akh. The book is said to be set during the period of Persian rule and emphasizes the rebuilt Jerusalem temple under Zerubbabel and people’s disillusionment with God despite the religious and social reforms Haggai and Zechariah urged for. The land was a provincial territory of a huge empire, but the intersection of cultures also meant that Jerusalem was becoming the sacred city for various religions as we know it today. Our text today is located within the sixth dispute of the text, in which God through the prophet rebukes the people for their harsh words, when in 3:13-15 we read that:

The New Revised Standard Version Do Not Rob God

You have spoken harsh words against me, says the LORD. Yet you say, “How have we spoken against you?” 14 You have said, “It is vain to serve God. What do we profit by keeping his command or by going about as mourners before the LORD of hosts? 15 Now we count the arrogant happy; evildoers not only prosper, but when they put God to the test they escape.”

Then our text we have this Sunday makes a bit more sense, doesn’t it. God answers them that the Lord’s day is coming....maybe not at the pace they would prefer, but the day is coming!

And then we have our reading in Luke and perhaps some of you know that the Second Jerusalem Temple DID fall following the life of Jesus in the year 70 CE during the First Jewish Revolt and was never rebuilt after that. This then led to the development of synagogal, decentralized Judaism as we know it today - no central temple, similar to Islam’s Mecca is available and the center of a given faith community shifted around individual houses of worship and the liturgy and beliefs adapted accordingly. And given the dating of the Gospel of Luke (not written before 80 CE), we can assume the community of this gospel was already living the reality of the societal upheaval that followed the fall of the temple and it may have colored their composition of the gospel a little bit. We can assume that Jesus was talking both proverbially and literally about the fall of the temple - the fall of the actual building and the fall of the religious status quo as people knew it.

So here we are…some heavy, heavy texts this Sunday! I think what links them together is the reliance on status quo - in 2Thessalonians, people are rebuked for taking advantage of the community’s generosity while not contributing with their work and resources, in Malachi, people are reminded that the Lord’s day is coming and so is the judgement for the good and bad, and finally in Luke, there is the shake up of the temple that gives people a sense of security.

Ultimately, that is one of the roles of apocalyptic texts, to shake people up saying - hey, you feel like things are pretty stable and you have arrived or on the contrary, you feel a bit hopeless and disillusioned, but....different times are coming! Stay on guard, don’t be startled, but also be prepared! This message is valid as ever - the world as we know it is not staying the same forever. As a church community, we have to heed these warnings as well. The second Jerusalem temple was vast - it took up 450 acres of land and was about 45 meters tall. According to the historian Josephus, it had 10 entrances, several courtyards, ritual baths, a place for sacrificial animals, and of course, the Holy of Holies. And it came tumbling down anyway, proverbially AND literally. A congregation of any faith tradition cannot just function as a refuge from turbulent times, just trying to somehow be doing what they were always doing, only perhaps better. In the end, it only means continual flow towards one or another apocalypse.

I believe congregations of faith are called to be living in a creative tension of being in the world and yet not being OF the world. Thomas R. Hawkins wrote in his book The Learning Congregation - A New Vision of Leadership about what he learnt from a whitewater rafting instructor that applies to ministry in this world (Law - Sacred Acts, 27):

Rest in the calm spots, because there are always more rapids ahead.

When heading for a rock, lean into the rock rather than away from it.

Never stop paddling.

Let go of everything but your life jacket if you fall into the water.

What if we applied this face to face to an apocalyptic prophecy? What if, rather than trying to stay on a safe rock while the rapids zip by, we actually entered them? The boat may get wet and so do we, but it is sure still better than being IN the rapids without the boat. And it actually means moving forward, continually paddling with your crew. Jesus is our life jacket, the boat is the sense of community we have, and the rapids are the flow of our reality with its ever changing trends of many kinds. And the paddling is actually what we do, not just what we believe.

I think THAT is the appropriate response to an apocalyptic future that is actually coming, one way or another, sooner or later and trying to stay stagnant, frozen in time, is not gonna delay it. Again and again, we are told that times will change, but also that God loves us and cares for us and there is a way for us to go forward. As believers we are called to a forward motion, deliberate and planned, but also responsive and continuous. If we do that, I believe that we do not have to worry about falling temples or the day of Lord’s judgement - it is gonna happen when it is gonna happen, but until then, we will continue to praise God, love all people, steward the Creation, and never stop learning and exploring. Or as it is attributed to Martin Luther: “If I knew that the world is going to end tomorrow, I would still plant an apple tree.” Doing good is its own reward and we do not need to see a long term return of an investment - as freed and redeemed people of God, we are called to live and serve in gratitude and gladness, for we already have all that we need - Christ. Amen.