What are we Paying Attention To?

You can listen to this sermon here

Gate Pa – 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time- Year C - 2022

Readings:
Psalm -                      Isaiah 12:2-6  (God Is My Salvation)            
First Reading-           Isa 65:17-25                                           
Second Reading-       2 Thess 3:6-13                                 
Gospel-                      Luke 21:1-19    

What I want to say:
Begin by reminding ourselves that the questions we ask, what we look for and how we look, determines what we see, even when we read scripture. What questions are being brough to the gospel, and what might Jesus in Luke be inviting us to see?

What I want to happen:
What stood out, what did you hear and see, and so what?

The Sermon

     1.     Post-modernity

Talked a lot about how the maps we use to understand how to be church no longer work
And how we have moved from modern world to postmodern world
-         Philosophical underpinnings have radically changed
Long time ago Bonnie and I led workshops around country help people understand some of these changes
One those changes is in how we understand truth
Modernity truth became fact
Fact was something an objective observers could see
Which is what science is all about
è objective truth
-         So for reading bible
-         For bible to be true it had to have happened that way
-         Creation had to have happened as described by Genesis
-         Resurrection exactly as described in gospels etc..
Postmodernity influenced by newer branches science like quantum physics
Questions idea objective observer
“The questions we ask, what we look for and how we look, determines what we see”
e.g light
is it wave or particle?
What then is truth?
So what questions do we ask about this reading?

     2.     End Times

I have to admit that this passage and others like it in the gospels make me nervous
because they are often read to be about end of times – when Christ returns
People often bring questions and look for things that I don’t
ð So I feel uncomfortable
So let’s pull back a minute
When we read the gospel we need to remember that there are always at least 3 audiences
-         Those with Jesus in the story
-         Those Luke was writing for
-         And us.
And we all bring our own questions and hear different things
I wonder how Jesus words to those first disciples would have been heard?
This astounding refurbishment
It was by all accounts awe inspiring
-         And those disciples were overawed
Would be destroyed
What would they have heard in Jesus words.

In Luke’s telling of the Jesus story the temple was an important place – a good place
Nothing anti-temple in this gospel
-         Jesus may have been less enthusiastic about some of the leadership and those involved in it’s massive refurbishment
-         Overall it was a positive place
-         Luke tells us in Acts that it remained central early church in Jerusalem
So what would have those disciples heard?
Wonder how Jesus’ words would have been heard by Luke’s hearers 50 odd years later
-         After the fall of Jerusalem and all that is spoken of has happened
-         After this amazing building that spoke of God’s permanence was destroyed
-         With all the grief and trauma both for the Jewish and Christian communities
Wonder how we hear those words 2,000 years later
-          the trauma of those events mostly forgotten
 

      3.     Apocalyptic

Some of my nervousness is shaped by the left behind movement within some strands of Christianity
Which read these passages as predicting what will happen in future
-         Especially those who read this as objective truth.
o   It will happen this way.
o   And when it will happen
There are a number of styles of writing in the bible
-         History
-         Law
-         Poetry
-         Story
-         Letters
è All read differently
Style of this passage is apocalyptic
-         Book Daniel one earliest examples
-         Book of Revelation last one in bible
A lot has been written about how they are predicting the end of time
-         And what will happen
-         And how that time is now.
But Apocalyptic literature wasn’t about predicting future
Its unsettling language and imagery were designed to challenge peoples understanding of now
Know God’s presence with them in whatever is happening
And to help them let go status quo
And to embrace the new thing that God is always offering
Imagine how unsettling Jesus words to his first disciples would have been
-          would have been almost incomprehensible.
The temple was so huge, so imposing, so magnificent
But as important and impressive as the building was
As central as the temple was to the Jewish faith as expressed at that time
-         And to be clear there is nothing in Luke that says the Jesus did not think the Temple was important or good
Maybe there was more to the reign of God than the temple.
Maybe Jesus is redirecting the disciples’ attention somewhere else

     4.     Back to the beginning

We are nearly at the end of our year of Luke
We have spent most of the last 12 months crisscrossing our way through this wonderful gospel
In light of all that what do we think Jesus is drawing attention to?
-         is he giving them at timeline for when he would return?
This and other passages like it have often been read that way still today
Commentators I read think that there are other options as well
These are Jesus’ last words to his disciples before his arrest, trail and death
 Last words are important
They do come from a thin place that allows people to see into the future
But they are also the words that in many ways define what his ministry has been about.
They are not randomly placed in this way of telling the story.
Overarching theme in Luke’s Gospel
-         All gospels
-         Is Kingdom of God
-         reign of God
Mary’s song signs of it
The reading of the scroll in Nazareth in Luke 4 describes it
His teaching in Luke 6 on blessings and woes lays it out
-         Don’t be distracted from the reign of God.
Gospel is about Jesus making visible reign of God
-         makes invisible visible
-         treats those deemed beyond God’s compassion with compassion
o   for example when offers or accepts hospitality to or from those condemned as no longer belonging
-         lives justice those seen outside of God’s justice
How then reign of God made visible in this story
-         begins with widow made visible
-         the disciples are invited pay attention to widow
but the disciples then marvel at grandeur of temple
Jesus responds with
-         don’t be distracted by this grandeur
-         it is temporary
-         but also don’t be distracted by looming calamity - temples destruction

-         don’t be distracted by wars
o   famines
o   natural disasters
o   or your own fate
pay attention to reign of God
pay attention to outbreaks of compassion,  hospitality, generosity, justice
pay attention to outbreaks of way of God
pay attention to life not brokenness
when all seems lost
pay attention to God always present in our world 

      5.     Isaiah

we live in world with much to terrify and distract
with much brokenness
not being distracted is not same as ignoring it
it means don’t be weighed down by it
live another way
live for another vision
and the words in Isaiah offer us a glimpse of that vision
world where God’s purposes for all creation are fulfilled
-         Where all interconnection and relationship are renewed
-         All life thrives
At this time of war and climate crisis
o   We need that vision more than ever
o   We need people to live for that vision more than even.
So yes, we can read this as a timetable
But we can also read this as an invitation to those first disciples
-         To those Luke was writing his gospel for
-         And to us
To pay attention to signs of life
join that work
living in the reign of God

      6.     Conclusion

1. What stood out, what did you hear and see, and so what?
2. Discuss