Sermon on Luke 21:5-19

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

All three of our readings involve people struggling to remain faithful to God.

In our Malachi reading, the exiles had returned from Babylon, they had rebuilt the Temple, and then enough time went by for people to start losing that enthusiasm. People had lost excitement for following God.

The whole book involves Malachi exhorting God’s people to remain faithful and for religious corruption to cease. Our reading declares that God is active and will bring justice and healing to the world. Malachi was reminding God’s people to remain faithful as they waited for that day.

Then, our reading from 2 Thessalonians was reminding people that they still had a duty to love their neighbor even if Jesus was going to return right away.

But over the years, this reading has been used to justify exclusion and stinginess to any but the “deserving poor.”

The tricky thing about the Epistles is that we have only one side of a set of correspondence. We don’t know the exact situation being addressed.

What we can infer is that there was a group of folks who were so certain that Jesus was coming back soon that they stopped working and were taking advantage of others’ hospitality. This letter is speaking to that particular group of people, discouraging inaction and selfish behavior.

Certainly in other situations, there are people who can’t find work or have barriers to work. People deserve to eat because they’re human beings and they have basic needs like food and water, regardless of whether they have “worked” for it. Taking one line out of its context and applying it to every situation forever isn’t a faithful reading of the text.

And also, our 2 Thessalonians reading speaks to a group of people claiming to be Jesus followers who were not doing what they could to love their neighbor because they were so focused on Jesus’ return. Instead, they were to live faithfully while they waited.

Then, there’s our Gospel reading. Jesus and his followers had reached Jerusalem. There was the street theater, the political performance art, of Palm Sunday and then the cleansing of the Temple. Various groups of religious leaders tried to trap Jesus into saying something blasphemous or at least unpopular. We read one of those encounters last week.

Then, Jesus saw a widow give her last remaining money to the Temple.

Our reading opens with Jesus’ disciples admiring the Temple in all its glory. And Jesus rained on their parade by telling them it would be destroyed.

Not only that, but they should expect wars and persecutions and natural disasters and pandemics and starvation before “the Coming of the Son of Man.”

Indeed, the Romans would destroy the Temple a few decades from that time, not too long before the writer of Luke wrote this story down.

Jesus was preparing his disciples for how to be faithful in the coming difficulties, and the writer of Luke was encouraging Jesus followers to be faithful in difficulties that had indeed come.

And there have been difficulties and disasters and wars and tragedies in every age since then.

Christians in every age have faced trials. It’s easy to fall victim to distractions, disillusionment, or despair. Just because difficulties are common doesn’t mean they’re not daunting.

It’s easy to fall into judgment, taking perverse delight in the idea of “the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble,” as our Malachi reading puts it. Or becoming complacent and disengaged, like some in the audience of the second letter to the Thessalonians. Or giving into disillusionment and despair, like Jesus’ disciples might have after being told that the Temple would be destroyed.

And still, all of these readings encourage their audiences and us to remain faithful, to continue to choose life in the midst of difficult circumstances.

I met a young man this week who has faced terrible circumstances throughout his life.His isn’t my story to tell, so I won’t name specifics. But I will say that he has faced more deaths in his short life than anyone should experience in a lifetime, not to mention other traumas and struggles. His story broke my heart over and over again.

And still, he has worked really hard to make life-giving choices. He’s in a supportive living environment, has a job, has found a loving congregation, and even volunteers as a leader for their youth ministry.

And on Monday, his brother was killed. In his grief, he was sorely tempted to seek out former relationships, environments, and habits that were familiar but would be detrimental to the life he has built.

I wish I could have told him why the deaths and tragedies keep coming even though he’s following Jesus and making big, positive changes in his life, but it makes no sense in my limited understanding of the world.

It would be understandable if he gave up to despair. His struggles seem on par with the devastation Jesus talked about in our Gospel reading.

Sometimes there is every reason to give up: on the world, on human nature, on the circumstances of our lives, and even on God.

And Jesus knew that. He knew his disciples’ faith would be shaken by the destruction of the Temple, the fall of Jerusalem, and the deadly persecution by the Roman Empire.

He reminded them that God would be with them no matter their trials, not only accompanying them, but also inspiring them with what to say.

Knowing that many early Jesus followers were violently killed by the Roman Empire, Jesus saying that “not a hair of your head will perish” seems a little disingenuous.

Unless he meant something greater. He was preparing his followers for great trials, knowing that they had eternity to gain.

Just as we don’t always get the cures we pray for in this life, God still brings us healing: “the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings.”

The free will that God has given us allows us to do terrible harm to each other and ourselves, but God is still active, inviting us to help make earth a little more as it is in heaven. And, at the end of time, God will make all things as they should be and will surround us with God’s love forever and ever.

God was active in the past, strengthening and inspiring our persecuted ancestors in faith. God is active now, building our relationships with each other and calling us to love our neighbors near and far. And God will be active in the future, bringing God’s justice and mercy and perfecting God’s love in the world to come.

In the meantime, all three of our readings call us to be faithful.

And that’s exactly what I saw in the young man I met this week. Despite his grief and the other circumstances that would daunt the strongest heart, he didn’t give in to despair. He reached out. He sought out support and Christian community. He didn’t try to do it alone.

We’re not meant to do life alone. That’s why God chose a peoplein the Hebrew Bible and why Jesus gathered a community in the Gospels that he sent out into the world.

Our God is active, past, present, and future, and will bring healing to this world.We as people of faith get to co-create a world that has more healing, more mercy, and more truth in it.

Be faithful to our faithful God! No matter the trials of this life, we are not alone, and by God’s grace, we will not perish.

Siblings in Christ, do not be weary in doing what is right.Take heart, and do life together.