sermonboy.com

Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 21
5 Some of his disciples were remarking about how the temple was adorned with beautiful stones and with gifts dedicated to God. But Jesus said, 6 “As for what you see here, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another; every one of them will be thrown down.”
7 “Teacher,” they asked, “when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are about to take place?”


You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world

Uh-oh, now you have an earworm. You know, those sticky how-will-I-get-this-song-out-of-my-head moments that can stretch into hours? And you’re not alone. According to researchers, 98% of of us get earworms, and they tend to involve snippets of popular songs between 15 and 30 seconds long. Only 8% of us get instrumental earworms, and I expect they now regret buying the Star Wars soundtrack.

Oddly, the research shows that for women, earworms last longer and irritate them more (I’ll let you construct your own clever comment here). The good news is that there are cures, including chewing gum, Sudoku and other puzzles, or finding another song to replace the song in your head. I think we know how that ends. The ultimate cure, it would seem, is to avoid popular music, the source of most earworms. Alas, I expect it’s too late for most, since you’re already down to the last verse:

But if you go carrying pictures of chairman Mao
You ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow
Don't you know it's gonna be
All right, all right, all right
All right, all right, all right
All right, all right, all right
All right, all right

Curiously, the young radicals of 1968, protesting in the streets of Paris and Chicago, saw the song as a betrayal. The New Left Review call the song a "a lamentable petty bourgeois cry of fear,” and another publication suggested the Beatles had become enemies of the revolution.

Meanwhile, John explained that he began writing the song in India while studying Transcendental Meditation. He “would later say that the phrase repeated in this song, ‘it's gonna be alright,’ was borrowed from something the Beatles learned during the course. They were taught that God would take care of the human race no matter what happened politically.* Amen to that.

Meanwhile in Jerusalem, another revolution is brewing. Some of his disciples were remarking about how the temple was adorned with beautiful stones and with gifts dedicated to God. But Jesus said, “As for what you see here, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another; every one of them will be thrown down.”
“Teacher,” they asked, “when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are about to take place?”

They got the when and the what, but they didn’t ask the how. The actual destruction of the Temple happened late in the summer of AD 70. The conflict is called the First Jewish-Roman War, when the Romans besieged the Holy City, eventually destroying the Temple and altering the course of Jewish history. It seems the Roman general Titus had no intention to destroy it, instead wanting to rededicate the Temple to honour the Roman gods.

The fact that the Gospel of Luke was written after the destruction of the Temple remains an important point in our look at this passage. What was Luke trying to say by giving the Temple such a prominent place in his telling? The destruction of the Temple was top-of-mind for his audience, and remains an important part of Jewish consciousness. Maybe Luke wanted to underline the events of AD 70 as he promoted the Jewish-Christian movement that would become Christianity. Or maybe he just wanted to signal the start of a revolution.

“Watch out that you are not deceived.” Jesus said. “For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and, ‘The time is near.’ Do not follow them. When you hear of wars and uprisings, do not be frightened. These things must happen first, but the end will not come right away.”

Jesus goes on to describe conflicts and famines, “fearful events and great signs from heaven.” He describes persecution, and trials, and in an obvious reference to a post-70 timeframe, he suggests people will be “handed over to synagogues and put in prison.” In other words, it seems Luke is trying to do two things at once: comfort his audience in the midst of trouble, and point to the dawn of a new age.

And this might be the moment to meet N.T. Wright once more. I had occasion to hear him speak back in 2015, and his message was all about understanding the times and recognizing that we live in a new age that began on the Day of Pentecost. Let me explain.

Dr. Wright began his talk with this: “The God who made heaven and earth intends to draw them together at the last.” He argued that the petty squabbles that divide Christians get in the way of the real story that God wants to tell: the creation of a new Jerusalem here on earth. When Jesus said “thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” he was expressing his entire project, that God’s realm and our realm someday become one.

So how does it begin? Wright argues that this is a story with five acts. It begins with creation, the first act of our life with God. Then disaster strikes in Act Two, as we are forced from the garden and reminded to never trust a talking snake. Act Three is the the call of Israel in two very unlikely people—Abraham and Sarah—the father and mother of three great religions. Act Four is the sending of Jesus, including his death and resurrection, and finally Act Five, the time after Pentecost—the time defined by the work of the disciples. According to Wright, we are in this last stage, the fifth act of God’s story of us, disciples acting for God in the world, seeking to ‘put to rights’ all that is wrong.

And based on N.T. Wright’s telling, our opening dialogue about the Temple can be either speculation about the end of the Temple-cult or a message about the age to come. Both are revolutionary. Judaism will reinvent itself and find new ways to honour the Most High, and Christianity will enter a pentecostal age, beginning with the Acts of the Apostles. We often speak of finding yourself in scripture, but Dr. Wright is more direct: the Book of Acts continues, and we are simply the latest characters in an unfolding story.

Now, I expect that if we took our roving microphone out to Weston Road and asked people to name the age we live in, the Age of Pentecost might not come up. We might hear Age of Terror, Age of Environmental Crisis, or (Lord help us) the Age of Trump—all sorts of names and ideas that are top-of-mind, much like the first readers of Luke thinking about the destroyed Temple. And I must confess I might be the first to say Age of Populism or Age of Disruption or some such rather than the age that God would claim for us.

What we need (what I need) is some good old-fashioned Lennonism—that would be John Lennonism—and the belief that ‘God would take care of the human race no matter what happens politically.’ And here is how I know: throughout the Acts of the Apostles there are shipwrecks and setbacks, conversations and conversions, baptisms and believers coming to Christ and changing the world. And at the same time, there are governors and emperors, world events and political episodes, but they play virtually no part in the unfolding story of the age as recorded in Acts.

Yes, the apostles seek to ‘put to rights’ all that is troubling, and yes they seek to promote God’s will on earth as it is in heaven, but their primary job is to love and serve others, and live with the confidence that God will take care of the human race, no matter what happens. The revolution they represent is a reunion, standing with the God who made heaven and earth and intends to draw them together at the last. It is a revolution of the age to come, and ‘don’t you know it’s gonna be alright.’ Amen.


*https://www.mprnews.org/amp/story/2018/05/30/beatles-music-inspired-by-transcendental-meditation

posted by michael jacob kooiman @ 6:04 AM