Scripture: Isaiah 65:17-25, Luke 21: 5-19 November 17, 2013
At first listen, our lessons this morning might sound absolutely contradictory, clashing, and mutually exclusive. How can a new creation coincide with a disintegration? How could God be doing a creative thing and allow destruction simultaneously? What does it all mean? What’s the point? What are we to think? The disciples are right to ask Jesus for a little help. I love the fact that these two lessons come on the same Sunday. They make us face the very real dissonance of living a truly faithful life, of being a person of faith when there seems to be so much evidence pointing to the pointlessness of being such a person.
Let’s look at our two visions and see what’s actually there. First, Isaiah. Just before Isaiah had this vision, he had an extensive insight into the state of things in Israel at the time, a background of rejection, rejection of God and God’s intention for God’s people by God’s people. Israel, “those who struggle with God,” for that is what the word Israel means, “those who struggle with God,” had stopped struggling and just turned their backs. But God did not turn God’s back. Fed up with false worship, lukewarm devotion, conflicting loyalties, misplaced priorities, desertion, betrayal, God speaks up, “look what I am about to do, a new creation, a new heaven and a new earth.” And then God spells out what that means, makes the vague utopia of a new heaven and a new earth very detailed and concrete. This is what's coming: a swath of creativity, joy and rejoicing, joy and rejoicing both in God and in the creation; a time of no more sorrow, of health and longevity, of fullness of life; a place of just labor in which people reap what they sow in their own place; a place that is their own (this to a people continually displaced and exiled); a place of enjoyment of the fruits of our labors; a place of possibility for future generations; a time when God will be readily apparent, hearing and responding to intention before words are even spoken; a state of creation in which former enemies, natural enemies, the wolf and the lamb for example, do not just coexist but feed together; when there will be no more injuring or destruction within God’s reach.
What more could anyone ask for? A return to the original paradise, God rebooting the garden of Eden. Some of you may struggle intellectually with a divine instigation of and/or participation in the formation and sustenance of “the earth and the fullness thereof” as it goes in Psalm 24. I have given this considerable thought, I think evolution is pretty obviously the way things got to be the way they are, so I agree with scientific thought, which is actually pretty arrogant of me, as if I am informed enough to state such a parity of wisdom! BUT, and here is the big but for me, I see God’s role in the instigation and propagation of life in all its abundance, wonder and interconnectivity. While I am continuously amazed at how scientists can explain more and more about life and its processes and particularities, there is still so much that seems too marvelous to chalk off to either chance or gradual augmentation and specialization. It looks to me like the deeper scientists are able to probe, the more delightfully purposeful it looks. As for the outrage of the anti-evolution fundamentalist who will be damned to be descended from monkeys, I can only look to my own family tree where evolutionary progress is circular rather than linear.
The word is badly over and misused these days, but there is something essentially “awesome” about the wonders of life and living to not feel a mindful presence there. Throughout the whole human experience, every culture and most people have sensed the divine behind it all, making us an anomaly. I don’t see God in creation as in infantile dependency or cop out. If God is everything God is cracked up to be, then that’s just what life feels like to me. And moreover, everything in Isaiah's vision has already been my lived experience, probably yours too. Not consistently. Not uniformly. But at some point every day of my life I have known the joy and rejoicing, the pleasure in labor and place, the fullness of life and delight of generations. The fact that it all feels like a gift to me is yet another reason why it makes me think of God.
And then to Jesus, who is starting his vision from a very different point. Here people are excited about the temple, how marvelous it is, how dependable and permanent it feels. They feel like they are copacetic with God. And then, Jesus just pulls the whole sense of satisfaction apart. Every stone of the temple will be pulled down. The Romans did that in 70 AD. The disciples want to know how they will know when that is about to happen, a sign. Jesus gives them a litany of disaster: false Jesuses will come leading people astray (check – that’s happened), wars and insurrections (check – been going on almost non-stop since Jesus), earthquakes, famines, plagues (check), dreadful portents and signs from heaven (check – sunspots and rogue asteroids on the way), religious strife (check). Jesus runs through a list that sounds a lot like the evening news.
Not to contradict my earlier euphoria about how great life is, but it’s really a disaster too, isn’t it? I mean, the news is just so bad all the time, and that's not just my Scandinavian American spin on it. There is no depth of depravity to which people won’t go. The natural disasters are astounding in their tragedy. The violence and warfare. The prospects for the future with population growth and environmental degradation are not rosy. And while bad things have been happening forever, the scope of tragedy has increased: more people killed in wars in 20th century, largest measurable storms ever, more people dying or preventable diseases, etc. And now we think, “where’s God? If God’s so awesome, why doesn’t he do something about this? Why does he allow this to happen?” Funny how we move more quickly to blame than praise.
What we have essentially is two contrasting visions: one of the infinite capacity of God’s creativity, which, if scientists are to be believed, we know to be true – they just keep on learning more - from the macrocosm of the Brazilian rainforest or the Great Barrier Reef to the microcosm of the human body and DNA; and two, the finite capacity of humanity’s capacity for sin, which, if our eyes and ears which look and listen around us, are to believed, is true – humanity breaks relationships, promotes injustice, allows starvation and famine, starts wars, strikes out in violence, and all of this sin makes life more finite. It’s true, human ingenuity and hard work has achieved great good, but many of these great goods have also been turned to great ill. There has always been a shadow side to our technological triumphs, right from the moment to first human picked up the first stone as a tool. That stone improved the quality of life, but it wasn't long before our ancestor realized he could use that stone to smash his neighbor in the head and take his stuff. So many of the technological advances which make our lives so full are developed by the arms industry which sells to any warlord anywhere. The marvels of modern agriculture which have allowed us to feed ever growing populations have also created super pests and viruses, as well as made us dependent on petrochemical fertilizers and pesticides, which pollute the ground water, all of which is very expensive and drive the family farmer off the land in favor of agribusiness. The internal combustion engine - pollution. Everything - overpopulation - we are the invasive species.
The point is, it can be very confusing. It is very confusing. As people of faith, we feel like we ought to have some irrefutable answers, a clear plan of action, a less ambiguous God. And what do we have: a vision of God’s steadfast love which is both now and not yet and a world in disintegration.
And what does Jesus say? Life in all it's disturbing reality “will give you an opportunity to testify. By your endurance you will gain your souls.” An opportunity to testify? What can he possibly mean by that?
All of us know the history of Christians testifying to Jesus and some of it is quite horrifying. The certainty with which Christians throughout history have proclaimed God's will for everyone has been lamentable. All too often our intentions and actions have made life more finite. I'm just glad much of it has not been my name. I think this history and present reality is one reason why so many Christians in our tradition are shy of admitting their faith...don't want to be associated with that.
If, however, you think of the vision from Isaiah, the vision of God's infinite capacity for creativity, well then I think you can see what Jesus might have actually meant by testifying. After all, we are to testify to the one who came to confront the sinfulness of the world head on, to the one who held nothing back to the point of being killed and buried, to the one whom God brought back from the dead, to the one who said, "whoever gives a cup of cool water to one of the least of these in my name, truly that person shall not lose his or her reward." Think about it. What does the misery and tragedy of the world as it really is right now present us with, if not an almost infinite number of opportunities to offer cups of cool water. We can testify by doing acts of mercy, love, kindness, justice, and they don't have to huge. A cup of cool water. A ride to work. A room for a night. Groceries which support the family farmer and the environment. Letters to human rights groups about working conditions in the factories that make our clothes. Buy American, not out of nationalism, but because we know that our fellow citizens will be getting a decent wage and work in a safe place. Plant a tree. Make friends with someone from a another faith. Invite someone new over for supper. Reach out to an enemy.
The genius of Jesus is his transformative vision of life. Everything, everyone, every moment is an opportunity rather than a limitation. All of the bad in the world is opportunity to do good, simple good, generous good, small scale, local, one on one, good, good within each of our and all of our capacities. And if anyone ever asks you in amazement why you do what you do, why you bought them a coffee and donut, why you came over to take their lawn, why you are down on your knees helping them tie their shoes, why you're not a pessimistic, down in the bunker nihilist, then you can say, "well, Jesus did it for me first and I want to pass it on." And leave it at that.
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