Pentecost 23 – 2019
Luke 21:5-19
Marian Free
In the name of God who loves us unconditionally, who forgives our worst offenses and who offers redemption in this life and the next. Amen.
I have my own, slightly unorthodox, précis of the faith for the uninitiated. Though it does not include the Trinity, it sums up what I believe to be some central tenets at the core of the Christian faith and does so in such a way as might make it accessible to those who have no knowledge of it or to those whose experience has been negative or destructive. The wording came to me at a time when I was teaching a multi-level class at Grandchester, west of Rosewood. The year had been particularly rewarding for me, because these children, aged from 9-12, who might never see the inside of a church, had been insightful and challenging. I wanted to be able to leave the Year Sevens with something simple and affirming. In other words, if they knew nothing else about the Christian faith, I hoped that they would remember that: “God loves us unconditionally, that there is nothing that we can do that cannot be forgiven and nothing so bad that it cannot be redeemed.” In my mind this covers the Incarnation, the crucifixion and the resurrection.
On reflection, I realised that this basic statement needed a rider. As someone who lives in the first world, I had had blinkers on when I wrote the last phrase. I was thinking of my own experience. I live in a wealthy, first world country in which it is possible to rebuild one’s life after a disaster and in which there are resources to help most of us weather difficult times. I had failed to remember that there are millions of people throughout the world who live lives of unrelenting hardship, poverty and grief; who are subject to war, famine and terror and who are oppressed, if not by their governments, then by unscrupulous money-lenders, employers or people traffickers. For such people redemption or resurrection in the present is an impossible dream. Survival is all that they can hope for. So I have adjusted my mini-creed to: “God loves us unconditionally, there is nothing that we can do that cannot be forgiven and nothing so bad that it cannot be redeemed, if not in this world then in the next.”
I mention my little mantra today, because the excerpt from Luke 21 ends in the middle of Jesus’ reflection on what the present and immediate future might hold. It suggests that Christians are to expect unrelenting suffering and persecution. Worse, read out of context, today’s passage seem to imply that endurance is some sort of Christian virtue. Our reading ends: “By your endurance, you will gain your souls” which gives the impression, that as believers, we are simply expected to put on a smile and to hold on no matter how difficult the circumstances in which we find ourselves.
It is one thing to continue to trust in God when the world is falling down around us, or when we are experiencing unimaginable hardship or grief; however, it is quite another thing to believe that endurance – perhaps for a lifetime – is a quality desired or demanded by God. Such a view of the faith can lead to an attitude at best of resignation and at worst a smugness and self-righteousness. (‘I am suffering so much everyone must know that I am virtuous’.) When endurance is seen as a necessary concomitant of faith, it suggests that God is responsible for our suffering or even that God inflicts suffering on us so that we have an opportunity to demonstrate how well we cope.
As I have said before, and no doubt will say again, when we are reading the scriptures it is important to see our passage in context. Holding fast when the world is falling apart around us not a bad thing in and of itself but when it takes on a life of its own it can become onerous and destructive. Endurance alone does not offer hope – only more of the same which, apparently, we are to accept with grace. Thankfully verse 19 is not the end of Jesus’ saying. Today’s passage, which began with a discussion of the Temple and which lists a number of occurrences that are bound to happen is a preliminary to the main event – the coming of the Son of Man. In verse 27 we read: “Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory. 28 Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” Endurance is not an end in itself, but a way of standing firm in the chaos and disruption of this life as we wait with eager anticipation for the world to come, a world in which all of us (no matter the circumstances of this life) will be set free from those things that have bound us, damaged us and impoverished us and will be raised with Christ to a life that is free from grief, from pain and from all that limits us.
For all those who labor under unrelenting hardship and pain, the future resurrection is their only hope for release.
In today’s gospel, Jesus is not extolling endurance for endurance sake, nor is he suggesting that negative circumstances are sent ‘to try us.’ Rather he is reminding us that this world simply is a place of uncertainty, violence and natural disasters. At the same time he is pointing forward, reminding his listeners that there is always hope – if not in this life then in the life to come. When things seem impossible to bear “stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”
Swallowsrest 