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Jeremiah 33:14-16, I Thessalonians 3:9-13, Luke 21:25-36
St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, West Valley City, UT
The Reverend W. Lee Shaw
Happy New Year’s Day! Today we enter into a new liturgical year, “Year C” in our calendar and so we will be hearing most of the Gospel of St. Luke this year. Today we also have a snippet from St. Paul’s letter to the young church in Thessalonica, in eastern Greece. This letter is the oldest part of the Christian Scriptures, older than any of the Gospels, written from Corinth in the early 50’s.
As we hear it today, what joy it must have brought to the original Christians who heard it, as they struggled to live into their new faith. “How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy that we feel before our God because of you?” What a wonderful thing to hear, that some one cares for you.
As you know the early church suffered through periods of persecution, sometimes intense and deadly. Such is the prophecy recorded in St. Luke’s Gospel from Jesus. There will come a day when all will seem lost and bleak. Now St. Luke wrote his Gospel after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. and so the words of Jesus are particularly poignant to those early hearers of his Gospel.
But St. Luke does not limit Jesus to just what will happen – has happened – in Jerusalem and Israel with the Roman suppression of the Jewish revolt. No, it takes on cosmic overtures in the language he uses. This is not just about the destruction of the temple, it is about the end times, when Christ will return “in a cloud.” But St. Luke is very careful not to put a time frame on these events. They are in the future, they are yet to be. Yes, he quotes Jesus as saying this generation “will not pass away,” yet that is a formula Jesus has used before to refer to the lack of faith of those who doubt his message. It is not time specific as it is people oriented.
But the message is clear: bad things will happen. There will be bad things among nations and within nature itself. The message however is not of hopelessness or despair, rather of watchfulness and faith. St. Luke is very clear that people should not loose heart or “weighed down with dissipation or drunkenness.” In other words, do not give up, life in faith. Jesus is telling you all this will happen so you will not be taken by surprise, therefore live in faith and hopefulness.
Each of the three liturgical years on First Advent we get one of these readings of doom and gloom regarding the so-called end times; the times when the world as we know it will be convulsed in violence and turmoil. And generally speaking, we look at it as future events, the time yet to be.
But that is not necessarily the case. These events have happened and continue to happen to people around the world. When a typhoon hits or an earthquake shakes, the end times for those people have arrived. They are living in those times, now even as we sit here. These readings are to be read as “both/and;” both in the future and for us today. These are uncertain times, they always have been. So do not get “weighed down” and close yourself off from it. Take your faith and take some action. “Stay alert” and pray and be ready.
For me that means pay attention to what is happening around you and stay alert to how you can make a difference. In my newsletter article I wrote about using this upcoming Christmas giving season as a means to share of our abundance with those who have little or nothing. So, “stay alert” and pay attention to how you can make a difference in the world.
I encourage you to use part of your Christmas shopping budget to give gifts in the name of others to those agencies and groups that make a difference in the world. For instance, I am giving gifts from Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD) this year. Don’t tell him, but my son is getting a solar power lighting system given in his name to a family we do not know, who live in a country we have never visited.
Look at giving of your abundance to those who do not have the means with which we are blessed. I invite you to give to those agencies/groups that make a difference in the world, such as our Angel Tree program, ERD, the Red Cross, the Heifer Project, the United Way, the Humane Society, Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, so many, many opportunities to use your resources for a act of love and caring, not just gift buying.
Also, consider this as a teaching moment for your children and grandchildren. Write a check of $10, $20, $50 whatever and give it to your children/grandchildren. But do not fill in the “payable to” line. Tell them you want them to give the money to the cause or agency they feel passionately about. Then ask them to let you know who they gave it to and why. You will learn so much about them you did not know before. After all, we all have more than enough “stuff” for this Christmas. We don’t need just more “stuff” to carry into 2010.
Make this Christmas a time of giving out of care, not out of commercialism. Let those unknown to you be able to echo St. Paul: “How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy that we feel before our God because of you?”