Sermon December 11, 2011

Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11

Psalm 126

1 Thessalonians 5:16-24

John 1:6-8, 19-28

“Hope Restored”

What do we know about faith until we find doubt? How can we answer the pain, sorrow or doubts that plague us until we realize that God is who is there in the need and the desire? How do we dream of the realm of God until we understand that all we desire here and now will fall through our hands and only the love we share with all of creation by the grace of God will last?

The bible was written in an arid land where the return of the wet season meant that flowers would bloom and crops could be grown. People could then count on food to be grown for another season or year. So, in Psalm 126, when the psalmist describes good fortune restored as “ like the watercourses in the Negeb” it can be hard to imagine in a place where overflowing rivers and floods are a bigger problem most years than regular times of drought. We are called to remember that one person's curse maybe another's blessing—and vice versa.

[In South Africa,] “the train which travels from Pretoria to Cape Town takes one through a desert region which can seem very barren. In the spring, however, when the land has been moistened with rain, the landscape changes. Beautiful, brightly coloured flowers cover the round like a mat – an image of abundance, and an image of the metaphor of Psalm 126 – seeds sown in arid soil and watered with tears.”¹

And because it is metaphor, we can understand that times of tears water the soil of our lives and reveal more pleasant times, times of joy. It is not, as some say, that God will not give us more than we can handle—many people have received more than they could handle—but that God's hope is in the everlasting promise of renewal and new life in the face of death and barrenness.

But if good begins to be seen in the midst of the tears, in the seat of sadness, sometimes the joy is hard to imagine. The psalmist begins, “When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream.” Last week I described how the people of Judea—of Judah and Israel—had been in exile when Isaiah wrote of God's comfort and peace for them upon their return. In the psalm for today, several years after that return, after the joy of going home and rebuilding their cities and lives, they are told to recall that joy in circumstances of loss and sorrow. Remember, the psalmist sang, “We were so happy that we couldn't believe it—it was like a dream.” Remember, the psalmist sang, too, “Our mouths were full of laughter and joy!” Though they had been in exile for years beyond just consequence—according to God—they were returning home with incredible joy and justification. They were happy, full of joy and their restored lives were testimony to God's actions in their lives once again. Once again, they could say, look at the good that God does. Once again they could say, God is good and really believe it.

The psalmist writes this reminder, “We rejoiced,” then, remember. And continues to talk to God directly, “Restore, like a flood in the dry waterway.” It's been so long, God, restore us. Remind us, that if we sow tears, we will reap laughter and joy. We must sow who it is that we are today to reap God's gift of tomorrow and all of the coming tomorrows.

Like before in their life as a nation and in their lives as tribes and communities, horrible awful things had happened and God had restored them, again and again.

Much of the biblical story is spent telling us the same thing over and over again. The bible reminds us in different circumstances and with different words of God's never-ending, constant and insistent movement toward our redemption (salvation from some sort of slavery or oppression) and our happiness and joy (which in its purity comes in our relationship with God.)

In the biblical story, humanity is pursued by God so that our lives can be redeemed from slavery and oppression. And in the biblical story, the oppressor was the one who changed—Israel stayed the same: human, flawed and ever in need and God remained constant: ready to discipline, love and redeem. So slavery and oppression was the evil from which God's people needed rescue.

Where do evil events and systems come from in today's world? Every time I begin to contemplate the existence of evil in the world, I can't help but go back to a couple of sentences I first read a few years ago, “If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”²

I do believe that humanity is redeemable through the power and grace of God—but we cannot keep pointing fingers at the violent destructive oppression of other people or nations when violence destructive oppression comes from the choices we make, too. Even when we do not intend it, systems that benefit our ways of living cause others pain. And when the responsibility for recognizing the injustice in the world is in large part ours, the mantle is heavy and difficult. “To those whom much is given,” Jesus said, “much is expected.”

This week I read, “When I die and stand before God, I believe I will rail again him for allowing so much suffering and pain, so much injustice and inequality. Like the author of Lamentations, I will ask: “How?” “How could you allow so much pain and inequality.” Only to hear God reply: “How could you?”³

We are given an opportunity to experience the joy that comes from the kind of freedom and restoration the psalmist describes and we do that as we participate in the life and ministry of Christ. When Luke told how Jesus described his own anointed ministry he used part of the text from Isaiah today, bind up the broken-hearted, proclaim liberty to the captive, release to the prisoner, etc. and Isaiah continued, “provide a mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.”

This mantle of praise reminds us that the responsibility of Jesus' ministry is also our own, brought into our lives through the baptism that we share with him—and shared among all who also share the spirit of Christ in their lives. This is our sharing in the joy of the freedom and restoration for people here and everywhere.

God is at work in every human endeavor that strives for peace and wholeness, even if that peace is partial and that wholeness only glimpsed. [Whatever tiny step we take to make the world more just and whole is all that we need to do. We can't feed the whole world, but we can help a few in this country and also reach out into lands and peoples who don't have this country's resources.] We are leaning toward that day when all things will be whole, not just restored but made new. And this promise isn't for just one nation but for all of God's children; one commentator reminds us that God made promises to Abraham and Sarah about being a blessing to "all the families of the earth" (Genesis 12:1-3). So the healing and compassion will encompass all those who suffer, and the rebuilding will make our social systems as just as our bridges will be made sturdy.⁴

The joy we experience in God's restoration, God's justice, God's wholeness and peace are incredible, but we all know that we cannot accomplish anything alone—not without God and not without our sisters and brothers in Christ and truly, not without the willingness to recognize all people as God's children.

The mantle of praise sound wonderful and exciting, but every mantle that is given by God requires our willingness to wear it with sincerity and with hope—to carry it so that it is not just our own, but it is a gift for all the world.

To God's glory and wearing our mantle of sincere and joyful praise. Amen.

1Seasons of the Spirit Fusion, December 11 Biblical Background.

2 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago

3http://adventretreat.org/

4http://www.ucc.org/worship/samuel/december-11-2011-third-sunday.html Commentator, Dennis Olson

Sermon December 4, 2011

Isaiah 40:1–11

Psalm 85:1–2, 8–13

2 Peter 3:8–15a

Mark 1:1–8

“Words of Comfort”

There are times in life when what we need is comfort. And then there are times in life where God's comfort may be less comforting than we'd really like.

Imagine, if you will, that you've lived in the same place for about 60 years. Your children were born in the same house you still live in—or just down the road. Your grandchildren were born here, too. You were just a child when you came to live here. Two or three generations of your family have called this place home.

But in addition to this, imagine, too, that your parents came here by force. They were from some distance away and their enemies took them prisoner and that's why you live where you live. This is a little harder to imagine for most of us in this time and place. Maybe it's easier to imagine that they came here because they needed a job or a safer place to live for their family. It may not have completely been their choice, but this place you have called home was where they landed.

And now God is calling you back to the place where your parents were born. You want to go home and be a real people again, practicing a faith that you had to leave behind. On the other hand, you'll have to pack up a lifetime and leave the only home you really remember. After 60 years in exile, your people can go back to the homeland. Are you going to pack up your life and go? Your children and children's children . . . Will they uproot their lives and move back?

Isaiah's words of comfort were written to those people—though they had lived in exile for at least one generation, Jerusalem was still the center of their identity. Isaiah described an incredible vision of home and God was offering it to them—many miles from where they lived. And not surprisingly, many in Babylon refused to move back. They chose to stay where they were, working their jobs, raising their families and living the lives they had always known. They stuck to the status quo—the relative comfort of a known situation. God wanted to give them more than the comfort of what they already knew—what kind of comfort comes through change? Where can comfort come when we are embracing a new vision of life with God and all that God has in store for us and for all people?

We are aware that people in exile, under the boot of an oppressor do look for freedom from that oppression—and that freedom comes at a cost. The oppressor must give up the power to oppress, by force or willingly, and the powerless have to take up the responsibility of power. This prophet writer, in Second Isaiah, reassures the people that though their lives had to change radically—which was what they wanted in some ways—their lives would be changed by a God who was powerful as he wrote in verses 9 and 10.

“Here is your God!’
See, the Lord God comes with might,
   and his arm rules for him”

And God was also gentle, carrying for the smallest and most vulnerable:

“he will gather the lambs in his arms,
and carry them in his bosom,
   and gently lead the mother sheep” (v. 11-12)

And so the prophet emphasized that however the freedom would happen, the people should know that God was the source of their freedom. In the long run, there was no comfort, no safety, no faith and hope without God's actions and work in their lives—and this action and work meant their return to Jerusalem because God was reclaiming them from their time of exile and punishment. Their salvation meant great upheaval and change for them—so you can understand why Isaiah wanted them to know that this was comfort, comfort straight from God's own hand. And this comfort, this security and safety came only from knowing that in the midst of all the confusion and mess, that God was there and God's love and God's word were eternal and forever.

This is the good news from God by way of Isaiah, “Shout it from the mountain top and cry out in the city streets, 'God's people are coming home!” And God's people are coming home because God has forgiven them for their unfaithfulness and their injustices committed against each other. God has forgiven the rulers for taking advantage of the ruled; God has forgiven the priests for thinking only of protecting the livelihood of the temple structure; God had forgiven the merchants and sellers of cheating the poor. God had forgiven all who had taken advantage of anyone who they saw as powerless. These were the transgressions that the writer of the first part of Isaiah and other prophets described as reasons for Israel's exile. This is good news, that though the people were inconstant, God was constant, eternal and forever full of good news and comfort.

The poet-prophet describes a changed landscape, an altering of what is familiar. While the people of God, then and now, were given comfort in the face of radical change and shifting from lives of oppression to lives of relative freedom, they were also reminded that the way of the Lord required their continued and continuing participation in the lives that God would have them live. The valleys lifted, the mountains razed, the rocky places made level, so that God's way of living could be seen and God's way of living be a witness to glorify God everywhere.

Today, God's comfort and God's people are spread throughout the world—so comfort to God's people (all people?) means that somehow this good news of change and transformation (the glory of the Lord) was not limited to one group, but that all people shall see it together. And soon this season we'll read how Jesus' advent into the world was, “good news of great joy for all the people.”¹ The good news of great joy—the glory of the God—these are revealed by the sharing of God's word and by our living out the ways of justice and mercy in the lives of all people

The prophet speaks to the people of God returning from exile. The prophet's message can be taken into our understanding as we seek God's message for this congregation and for this time of history. We seek God's comfort as we understand that God's vision means change—allowing God to move us to the new and old homeland that we scarcely remember anymore. And that new and old place will look very different than we will remember—if we remember it at all. The church of Jesus Christ exists in a different world today than in any time in the past. The God we worship is constant, the world to whom we proclaim the good news changes daily.

As the people of Israel discovered when they went back to a place now called Judea, under their Persian rulers, Jerusalem had to be completely built from scratch—a new city in a land that was not longer very familiar. Their world had changed in their absence. We, too, are called upon to bring Christ with us into a world that no longer just accepts us and trusts us because we claim to be Christians. Our Christianity must be (now more than ever) a sincere witness to the Christ that we welcome into our hearts and lives. Our lives have to match the message of love, justice and mercy that we see in God throughout the life of Jesus. And though Isaiah's witness to humanity admits that we tend to be very fallible—we carry an everlasting message.

All people are grass,
   their constancy is like the flower of the field.
The grass withers, the flower fades,
   when the breath of the Lord blows upon it;
   surely the people are grass.
The grass withers, the flower fades;
   but the word of our God will stand for ever. (v. 6b, 7-8)

God is destined to succeed, yes, and we are invited to be a part of the glory that God will bring into the world and to all peoples. No one, not one will be excluded in the invitation—no matter what our feelings may be.

The testimony of Israel, Brueggemann writes, remembers "a past that is saturated with life-giving miracles, not a past filled with self-sufficient achievement," and looks forward to "a future of complete shalom that is free of violence, brutality, competitiveness, and scarcity, a new governance that displaces that of empire." But today matters, too, because "[t]his testimony offers a present tense filled with neighbors to whom we are bound in fidelity, in obligation, and in mutual caring," in justice for all, including "those that the empire finds objectionable and unproductive." So it does matter how we organize our shared life, even in the face of the empires of materialism and militarism that surround us: "It matters if life-giving miracles are scuttled for the sake of can-do achievements....if circumstance-defying promises are silenced for the sake of winning at all costs....if bonded neighbors are excommunicated in a passion for private shalom" (Deep Memory, Exuberant Hope: Contested Truth in a Post-Christian World).

This text is about evangelism, about preaching [and living] the good news of God's love and faithfulness. Knowing what we know about the Jesus for whom we wait, we can agree with Brueggemann that "it is no wonder that part of this poem is quoted in all four Gospels, a text that voices the radical newness that is to be initiated in the story of Jesus" (Texts for Preaching Year B).²

The comfort that God brings may indeed make us uncomfortable—and radical hospitality and widespread transformation will mean unfathomable change—yet our comfort comes in the faith that God's gentle presence is now and forever, always with us and all of God's people.

To the glory of God, witnessed by all people. Amen.

1Luke 2:10b

2http://www.ucc.org/worship/samuel/december-4-2011-secone-sunday.html

Sermon November 13, 2011

Judges 4:1-7

Psalm 123

1 Thessalonians 5:1-11

Matthew 25:14-30

“Abundant Possibilities”

When the lives we live and the rituals and habits that comfort us are suddenly changed or are unreliable—we get afraid. When the stocks and bonds of Wall Street—the purported basis for our economic system gets shaky, we begin to fear. When people are no longer just in the habit of going to church, we begin to fear. When the world beneath us rocks and the winds twist and blow, when the rivers rise and flood, we begin to fear. And we begin to speculate on the meaning of these things; are these signs? Are the omens of God's action?

And we've been having that conversation ever since Jesus' time. When? How? Do we know? Is it? Will it? And we get responses: I have the answers; The date after my recalculations is . . . No one has the answers; There are no answers, and so on. . .

And in Matthew 24:36, Jesus' response, “About that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” And in Mark's gospel, he said the same thing. And in Luke's gospel, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, 'Look here it is!' or 'There it is' For in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.”

But, I digress . . .

It doesn't seem to matter that we can't know the answers—when we are fearful or are particularly insecure or suffering and so one . . . our fears tend to lead us away from rather than toward God's will for us. Fear often makes us hide instead of moving us productively.

The three parables in Matthew 25 follow a long dialogue and teaching that addresses Jesus' disciples about the end of the age. And in that dialogue and teaching—we begin to understand that it may not be as we imagine—instead, the kingdom of heaven is may just be in the midst of God's living and dwelling among us, in us and through us. 

 

This second parable of God's kingdom is traditionally known as the Parable of the Talents—often cited, used and overused in the stewardship sermon. The story goes: A rich man leaving on a long trip gathered three slaves and gave them their duties while he was traveling. To one he gave five talents , to the second he gave two talents and to the third he gave one talent. When he returned, the first had double the money to 10 talents, the second had doubled it to 4 talents and the third had stashed it and gave back the 1 talent. And the first and second were rewarded—the third was punished. The short version.

At first glance, it sounds like the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and that's the way it works. Perhaps . . . but since this isn't the only story that Jesus tells about God's realm of being, there may be another way of looking at it.

For one, we have to see it within the set of three in which Jesus tells it. Last week, the text was the story of the prudent and foolish bridesmaids—those who planned for the delay of the bridegroom and those who didn't. Those whose lamps were full of the oil of God's blessing because of the blessings they were and those who didn't bless others and had no oil in their lamps. The third, next week's parable is the about how we treat the king in disguise . . . but that's another story.

Today's parable . . . well, it's about money and it's not about money. Jesus often uses money, wealth and power to illustrate how the world works and doesn't work and how God's kingdom works. And Jesus uses huge piles of money, giant vats of wine and ridiculous tiny and huge things to illustrate the parables. So when Jesus told this story, he used a talent. A talent was 30 years wages for a laborer. Today that would be about $780,000. So 5 talents valued today would be $3,900,000 and 2 talents would be $1,560,000. The rich man was really rich. And the slaves must have been really trustworthy . . . right? So one was entrusted with nearly $4 million and one with $1.56 million and the last with just over a quarter of a million. And they were given no instructions. They were entrusted with his property. That's it. What would you do with practically limitless resources, abundant blessing and the trust of your master?

Are you excited or are you scared to even think about it?

A talent has also come to mean an ability with value and actually comes from this parable. So if it's not just about money, what do we do with that?

So three people are gifted with incredible abilities. One is overwhelmingly talented, destined to be an artist in any medium that she tries. The second is also incredibly able and can do almost anything with flare and with grace. The third is full of ability, and though not like the other two, this person is very good at almost anything she attempts. The first succeeds by following her talents into a career full of power and success. Then second funnels his hearts desire into serving others through generous and self-sacrificing giving. The third never sees her own abilities and their worth. She never does more than is necessary and leaves the courage to the courageous, the success to those she says have so much more talent than she does.

When we stand before God and we see and understand the gifts that God has given us, the overwhelming blessing and talents that were in our hearts and minds and the passions in our bodies and souls, what will we say? What do we say to God right now, today, as we see glimpses of God's intentions for this wondrous world of ours?

A few years ago, I worked with a church renewal book that described every church—and I mean every church—as a wagon. It was like a covered wagon, but in the picture, it was a wooden box full of stuff. There was canvas, wooden wheels, etc. And on the box, full of stuff there were already wheels, but they were square. In the box of the wagon were round wheels, too. But the square wheels were already on the wagon.

The author of the book and developer renewal program claimed that God had given every church, every church, everything it needed to do God's will in God's own kingdom, those parts and pieces had to be sorted so that God's work could be done. It was possible, barely, for the wagon to move with the square wheels, but why should it have to? It was possible to roll along unprotected from the elements, even though it had a canvas cover. But why did it?

Why didn't many churches use all that God had given them to do the work that God had also given? All the money, yes, the money, invested in the people and activities that were to be done. All the abilities, the talents of that sort, positioned to teach, preach, serve, cook, make, clean, walk, talk, write, care, heal, feed, to do the things that had to be done.

About a month ago, I had you think about your story and God's story and how those stories intersected, met, crossed over each other . . . so today we can think about how this story of God's realm of being touches us, too. How do your resources support God's realm and how do your talents meet God's expectations? How can we put those together to do more than they could ever do alone?

Earlier this week, I was talking about living our lives closer to God, being more intimately associated with God and building that relationship. Out of that conversation, I realized that often when we make choices about how we live our lives, we don't face a choice of two forks in a road, one marked right and one marked wrong. Instead, we face a series of roads and choices—some closer to God realm than others, others may clearly be farther, but many are hard to distinguish. In the grace of God and in the miraculous wonder of our lives, soon after making a choice, we have the chance to make other choices and choose another fork that moves us just a little closer to God.

Each choice involves risk and some of the better choices mean greater risk to our comfort and may mean more change. When we risk comfort and seek out change, it's scary. And when we are scared, we might be tempted to bury the great gifts and treasures we have so that we never ever lose them, but then what will we gain?

As I read today's worship materials, I identified with this paragraph:

A congregation gathered in the church hall for a meeting to discuss whether or not they would call Jane to be their new pastor. For a variety of reasons, the congregation had dwindled over the last ten years from 150 members to just over 40. They did not feel very hopeful and, given the shrinking membership and desperate budget, there was talk of closing the church. But a seed of encouragement remained. This pastor saw possibilities for the congregation. If they chose to invest themselves fully in the heart of God’s way – to give themselves as a community to it – amazing things could happen within and through them.

The details vary slightly, but isn't this who we are?

And rather than worrying about the earthquakes and tornadoes, floods and famine as signs of the wrath of God, perhaps we can see them as signposts that direct us to care, give, work, serve, clean, preach, cook, walk, talk, feed, cloth and shelter and so show the realm of God in our lives.

Let us plant those seeds of encouragement; let us choose to see the abundance we have rather than the scarcity. Let us invest ourselves out of the certainty of God's grace instead of hiding away in fear of God's wrath. And when faced with many choices on the road that is our life let us choose God's way, so that we stand and walk and work with confidence on the way that Jesus calls us to walk.

To God's everlasting and ever-present and ever-developing glory. Amen.

Sermon November 6, 2011

Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25

Psalm 78:1-7

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

Matthew 25:1-13

“Ready to Shine”

When I was in high school, I wasn't very challenged by my classes, but when I went to college that changed. Suddenly, I had to do homework to understand how to solve problems, work out solutions to complex questions and I had to study to be able to think in such a way that I could take tests and pass them. I had to work to be prepared for classes and tests in a way that I had never experienced before in my school work. But I also played the piano—and for the piano I had to practice, though I never did it as much as I could have and should have. But for recitals and contests, I couldn't be unprepared. I tried it. It didn't work and I was terrified for years to perform in public. I still don't like it.

So, I'm an ideal model of the unprepared in many ways. But I don't really think that God wants us to be practiced, polished and perfect—like my piano teacher might have liked. Instead, our preparation for living in God's realm—the kingdom of heaven in Matthew's gospel—focuses our lives on how we live and with whom we are connected.

To understand the story of the five foolish bridesmaids and the five wise bridesmaids, consider the image of oil in this parable. In Bible times, oil was associated with anointing and indicated the presence of God’s Spirit with a person. Oil also was a metaphor for God’s presence in a person’s life, as demonstrated in her or his acts of love and mercy.

Because oil was used to indicate God's presence with a person, it was often used to anoint in special times of dedication. The oil, in this case, represented God's abundance blessing on those who would be acting for God with God's people. In several places, oil anointed kings, as in David, and priests in descriptions in the law and some of the prophets. But it also was used in metaphor or symbol to designate prophets—as God's blessing poured out and flowing over a person. Oil was blessing because in that time, fat was hard to come by—we live in very different times. Oil pressed from olives and other seeds or fruits was difficult to produce—and calories were precious—we live in very different times.

So there is blessing and abundant richness in the oil of this story—oil representing the presence of God and the richness that brings to a community, a family and to individuals.

Just as oil meant God's blessing of another person—when a king, priest, prophet or other person was chosen for a special purpose—it also could be conveyed through the chosen people to others. God's blessing was like oil because it could be shared, like the chosen people were a conduit, a vessel—they were agents of God's blessing.

If God brought justice and mercy to Israel, by their anointing or by the anointing of leaders, then Israel—and the church of Jesus Christ—also bring blessing. And always being ready for the presence and return of Christ meant also having that conduit of God's blessing flowing through one's life and the life of the community.

Matthew’s community was waiting for Christ’s imminent return. And the texts from Matthew that we read today and will read in the next few weeks are texts meant to unveil the realm that God was revealing in Jesus Christ, known in Matthew's gospel as the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven isn't just a far off place, however, it is the realm of being where God dwells—perhaps beyond time, space and place.

For some, today's scripture of the foolish bridesmaids who aren't prepared, seem heavy warnings of damnation. The bridesmaids who aren't ready when the bridegroom arrives are locked out of the wedding party—and the bridesmaids who have enough oil are welcomed in.

Five of the young women had sense enough, as one commentator puts it, not to be "ready for the groom but...ready for the groom's delay." If the bridesmaids, both foolish and wise (or prudent), are the church today, how ready are we followers of Jesus for his return? What does ready, or having "enough oil," look like almost two thousand years after Jesus died and rose again, promising to return one day, but not saying when? "The wise ones in the church are those who are prepared for the delay; who hold on to the faith deep into the night; who, even though they see no bridegroom coming, still hope and serve and pray and wait for the promised victory of God" (Thomas Long, Matthew, Westminster Bible Companion).

There is certainly a taste of great anticipation in this parable of the bridesmaids—a wedding was a place of joy, a party where relationships could be made and renewed—and yet in this text the journey of life happens while the bridesmaids wait. Faithfulness, wisdom, responsibility is what happens in the mean time—as we've been waiting two thousand and some years.

Another writer looks at the closed door as a very real warning—the way a parable ends either leaves us with the blessing of God's presence or the curse of God's distance. Fred Craddock describes two types of parables, "those that offer a surprise of grace at the end...and those that follow the direct course from cause to effect as surely as the harvest comes from what is sown. [In this case,] There are no gifts and parties. Together the two types present justice and grace, either of which becomes distorted without the other" (Preaching through the Christian Year A). We often need to hear about grace, but we also need to hear regularly about justice.

If the oil represents God's blessing and God's gifts or anointing to do the work of God—if God's work means carrying out the revelation of God through Jesus Christ—then we are blessed, we are filled, we are shining and full of God's light when we do what Jesus was doing. Jesus told us how to live according to the values and vision of the Reign of God, and loving God and our neighbor sums it up. Loving God will inevitably lead us to worship God rather than idolize the false gods of modern culture amassing material goods and trust in national strength to name only two. Loving our neighbor will lead us to greater compassion and a firm commitment to justice, to making this a different and better world for all of God's children. This kind of living isn't sitting around and waiting; it's active and fully engaged in the present moment, even as we trust in a future that is in God's hands, even if the timing of that future is unknown to us.¹

If we are too busy reading novels and looking for signs of the end, we may miss the ways God is still speaking to us today, in this meantime. We might not do God's will, working for the healing of the world, caring for the good earth we were given, offering our own gifts in the transformation of an unjust society, reaching out in compassion to a world that is physically and spiritually hungry. However much we may be anxious about a dramatic end time, our faith reminds us of how often the Bible says, "Do not fear," and then challenges us to work here, on earth, for the bright day of God's reign in its fullness, which is glimpsed in every act, every moment of compassion, sharing, and justice. Even as we trust that we will be with God one day, in glory, we taste the sweet goodness of generosity and love right here, right now, through ministries of sharing the abundance with which we are blessed. "In the meantime," we are ready to shine with love, and justice, and joy.

Faithfulness is not easy. In fact, for those who suffer it may be difficult not to long for Jesus to return right now and make all things right (more about this in two weeks, when we study Matthew 25:31-46). But we might also approach these stories with gratitude (which is always in order) for the wisdom they offer and the prudence they encourage.

This way of living [means that] "Every person must come to terms with living in the world, the place given by God for his children, over time. For modern Christians, that includes care of the earth and making peace for the sake of future generations. It is necessary to plan for the long haul, remain faithful, be wise, and stay strong" (The Lectionary Commentary).² Such faithfulness makes it possible to "lie down to sleep in this confidence, rather than being kept away by panicky last-minute anxiety." But such faithfulness requires endurance: "Many can do this for a short while; but when the kingdom is delayed, the problems arise. Being a peacemaker for a day is not as demanding as being a peacemaker year after year when the hostility breaks out again and again, and the bridegroom is delayed" (Matthew, The New Interpreter's Bible).

However much we may fear a dramatic end, [we can remember] that our faith sees "the end" not as the end, but as "the doorway to the new – the new age, the new creation." We can trust, as Paul says in today's reading from 1 Thessalonians, that "we will be with the Lord forever" (4:17b). This, for us and for all creation, is "finally good news" (The Lectionary Commentary).

So we prepare by connecting with God and worshiping God on a regular basis. We prepare by loving God and doing God's will. We prepare by loving our neighbors and doing justice and mercy for those around us. We prepare by promoting and sharing the teachings of Jesus, as he said, he lived to free the prisoner, heal the sick, bring sight to the blind and proclaim the year of God's favor, God's grace. And though he died when his work was rejected, God's resurrection and life in him and in all of us means that the work continues now and until the end of the age.

To God's everlasting and complete grace, mercy and justice. Amen.

1http://www.ucc.org/worship/samuel/november-6-2011-thirty-second.html (Kathryn Matthews Huey)

2Ibid, Arland J. Hultgren