1 Thessalonians 5:1-11

Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers and sisters, you do not need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. When they say, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them, as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and there will be no escape! But you, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness, for that day to surprise you like a thief; for you are all children of light and children of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness.”

“So, then, let us not fall asleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober, for those who sleep at night, and those who are drunk get drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober and put on the breastplate of faith and love and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep we may live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing.

Sermon Text

We are in another season of apocalyptic expectations. Whenever there are major world events, natural disasters, or astronomical happenings the amount of people worrying about the end of days increases dramatically. In the United States, we first fell in love with apocalyptic speculation after a series of happenstance events. The Great Awakenings produced a generation set on “fleeing the wrath to come,” and then a national disaster seemed to spell out that God’s great wrath had finally been poured down on the Earth. The Civil War, a moment where Christ’s words that “Brother will turn against brother,” seemed to be fulfilled in striking and terrible detail, meant that as America entered its adolescence, it did so with existential angst. The “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” takes most of its words from Revelation for a reason after all.

So far the twentieth century has been an era of constant turmoil. In the United States we began the century with a large scale terrorist event in the form of the 9/11 attacks. The resulting conflict added to existing struggles in the Middle East. Add to this global economic downturns, an ongoing acceleration of climate change and ecological disasters, and ever complicating political dances between nations and the proxy wars they fight between each other… Is it any surprise that every other week someone, somewhere is telling us that the signs of the end times are upon us and we just have to wait for some date on the calendar, some star in the sky, or some cow in a barn to see Jesus triumphantly return to set things right?

The Church is always waiting for Christ’s return, there is a reason it features so prominently in our Communion Liturgy. “… That we may be the body and blood of Christ until Christ returns in final victory,” is the hope of the Church in all seasons. We are always called to be God’s presence on Earth until such a time that God appears and sets the world to right. This has and will always be the call of the Church.

We’ve talked before in this room, and in Bible Study as well, about the idea that we are always in the End Times. It is my firm belief that the Church has not existed in a time period that is not on the knife’s edge of eternity. We are like a gas stove, the knob turned to light the propane pouring out of the hob. One spark will bring about the conflagration that defines our new era, but which spark will be the one to catch the flame is a mystery to everyone but God. We as the people of God have become jumpy around the various sparks that seem to pop up all around us, and that has hurt us greatly in our witness to those outside our walls.

I grew up in a Church culture, not unique to my home congregation, that the end was imminent and the signs obvious. Those signs were so obvious, in fact, that many people were sure that Christ would return within the very year they were talking to one another… And when that year was over their prediction rolled over again, and again, and again. The “definite signs,” of the end were always based on something on TV, or in the news, or in a movie they saw. When the president was Bush everything he did was a sign of the end, when the president was Obama the same, and with Trump and Biden in the last few year people continue to see every act of our national government as God’s signature on the order to bring about Armageddon.

Now, imagine that you are an outside observer. You see people constantly jumping at every headline. People claiming that the people they like are placed by God to get us through the coming tribulations and the people they dislike are the anti-Christ or worst. People who are spending so much time trying to align symbols in Daniel and Revelation to the modern day, that they forget that they have influence over the happenings in this world and could work to prevent the conflicts that spring up, time and time again. People who, when proven wrong about solar eclipses, hurricanes, and earthquakes being the trumpet blast of an angel creating a new world, just point somewhere else with the same claim. How trustworthy do you think we appear to the world, when we so quickly jump to conclusions that time immediately proves wrong?

The witness of scripture, in matters of the End (Eschatology if you want the $0.50 word,) is that the Church is to be a non-anxious presence in the midst of disaster. We are called to help people in trouble at all times, to face a world that is at war with itself with the calm assurance that God will one day set things right. Paul, Jesus, the epistles and Revelation all openly talk about the fact this world is going toward an End Point where it will be reborn into something new, but they only ever do it to tell us two things. “Be not afraid,” and “Stay awake!” This alertness is not asking us to be glued to speculation, calculating numbers based on gematria or esoteric prophecies, but to be active in pursuing holiness.

If we believe, truly, that the Church is the body of Christ for all the world, and that it has been an End-Times witness for all two thousand years of its existence, should we not take more seriously the responsibility we have been handed. Should we not be testifying that God is good, to a world that no longer hears that truth regularly? Should we not be trying to be holy, not just in appearance of in social standing, but in genuine acts of love and support for one another? Should we not be trying to advocate for the rights of all people, in solidarity with our Christian siblings still persecuted across the world?

We are Children of Light, not of the Darkness. We do not need to look to anything esoteric to understand what God is doing, God reveals these things plainly to us. When we open scripture, it should not be to eke out a way to read the newspaper more spiritually. We should be reading scripture so that our hearts our changed, and that we should go out and do as God has asked of us.

There has been, and always will be, an interest in the End of this Age in the Church – we are founded on the premise that Christ is coming to do just that. Sometimes that interest explodes into fervor centered on figuring out the secret signs all around us. That fervor always dies down, the fruit it produces always a transient thing. Whether it dies out in the deserts of ancient Syria, the battlefields of Crusading armies, or in an America that is tired of being pulled to-and-fro with every news cycle it does not matter. The enduring fruits of the Church, of the Spirit living within us, are not founded in popular tides of speculation – but a deep and abiding understanding that God is with us and the Church has work to do.

We are told to “test every Spirit,” and to be unafraid of questioning a prophet, especially if they ask for money as they prophecy. We must reawaken a Spirit of discernment within ourselves. Just because someone quotes scripture, does not make them correct or holy. Just because a meme says that something in the news or on TV is foretold of in scripture, does not make it so.

I provide you now with a simple guide to avoid supporting Apocalyptic Grifters:

1. If they cite scripture look it up! Read the whole chapter and not just the verse they point to, you’ll often find it says something a lot different than what they suggest it does.
2. If their prediction ties into a book deal, or other promotion, don’t believe it! If it was really so important, they’d make it freely available and not behind a paywall.
3. If its about how “The Devil doesn’t even have to hide,” or some vague appeal to the culture then read it as you would people who complained about “rock and roll.”
4. If the prediction absolves them (and us,) of a need to help others.
5. If the prediction is rooted in exclusion, hatred, or violence that is counter to God’s vision of a diverse and Spirit-filled Body of Christ.
6. If any of their teachings or rhetoric are counter to the example and teachings of Christ.

I could probably write more, but six bullet points is probably more than enough. Beyond these action items, I do actually encourage Christians to think of the nearness of Christ’s return. We do not do this, however, as people afraid of some great and terrible storm on the horizon. If we believe that God is working to bring Heaven to Earth, then the only thing for us to do in the meantime is to pave the way ahead of God. We should be working to build a stronger, more loving, more grace filled Church. A place where all God’s people can grow in holiness together. We do this, not through chasing rabbit holes of esoterica, but in open and honest work together in pursuing God’s will.

For our closing Amen, I ask us to take seriously the mystery of faith we proclaim every time we take Communion together, the same mystery we will proclaim at our Parish meeting this evening. “Christ has died. Christ is Risen. Christ will Come Again.” Join me as we, in remembrance of these God’s mighty acts in Jesus Christs, offer ourselves in praise and thanksgiving as a holy and living sacrifice, in union with Christ’s offering for us, as we proclaim the mystery of faith: Christ has died; Christ is Risen; Christ will Come Again. – Amen.

Psalm 123

To you I lift up my eyes, O you who are enthroned in the heavens. As the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord our God, until he has mercy upon us.

Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us, for we have had more than enough of contempt. Our soul has had more than its fill of the scorn of those who are at ease, of the contempt of the proud.

Sermon Text

Today’s Psalm is a word of extreme comfort and of dire warning. Oftentimes, those two things come hand in hand. For God to have control over all the Earth means that those who are suffering trouble now can trust that God has the power to set things right. For those who are comfortable now, and do nothing to help those who are in trouble, the pendulum slides the other way. The words of scripture commonly group people into two categories – the righteous and the wicked. What I find most interesting in how scripture orients itself in matters of justice is that what makes a person wicked is not usually what they do, but what they do not do.

I think it is easiest to see this in Jesus’s words in Matthew 25. Looking to the end of history, Jesus separates all of humanity into two groups. On his right there are sheep ready for eternal rest and on the left goats that are fit only for destruction. What separates the two? Is it a denomination or affiliation? Doctrinal purity and contribution to Church treasuries? No! It is in one simple capacity – mercy. When you saw someone hungry did you feed them? Someone naked did you clothe them? Someone in trouble and you helped out any way you could? These alone are the qualifications put forward in the great judgment set forward by Jesus.

Salvation is a free gift of God, but it naturally bears fruit. That fruit is something that we should constantly be cultivating and growing. I am famously bad at gardening and one of the reasons for that is that I am forgetful – shocking to many of you as that might be. I forget to move the plant from the sun or to add nutrients to the soil. When the frost comes, the cover it needed to survive sits unused by the door… No plant ever crosses my threshold without being given a death sentence. Yet, for many of us, our salvation faces a similar problem. We are content with having said the right words, and being splashed with water in just the right way, and we do not care at all to develop the amazing gift we have been given.

In the history of God’s people, the Psalms became a book used in worship during the Babylonian exile. The people were scattered across the Babylonian empire. The rich were placed in positions in government in the new world, not free but not put to hard labor either. The poor were put to that labor that the rich were not fit for. Those who remained in Judah became serfs to regional authorities, those in diaspora to other people in power. For this scattered people, the poetry and songs of their people became essential for survival. While the Psalms we have today are those primarily used among the people in Babylon, many more are likely lost to time that gave them strength.

Throughout scripture, God is presented in terms that are used to describe worldly leaders. God is King, or Emperor, or Feudal Lord, all based on the language of the people who are writing that scripture. The reason for this verbiage is not to make God another ruler among many, but to establish that God is different from worldly rulers. Early Christians, for example, would describe Jesus as Δεσποτης (Despotes,) the word from which we get “Despot.” This was not to say that Jesus was just another ruler like the Caesars that abused them, but to say that there was only one person who could claim to rule their lives – that Caesar was not their Despot, instead Christ was.

In our Psalm, we see the Psalmist doing this exact same kind of linguistic dance. The Lord is enthroned in Heaven. They look up from the ground to the open hand of their God. The enslaved People of God say that they look up to God like a slave looks to their Master, again taking the language of oppression and applying it to God to take away its sting. They look to God who is in Heaven, and they beg for mercy, because the world has not given it. They have been mocked by those who are at peace because they are not. They have been cast aside by the wealthy because they have nothing.

The Psalm carries an implication with it. For those who are mocked, there is hope of redemption. For those who are cast aside, there is a place of welcome. The God we worship is a God who prioritizes the Losers over the Winners. Whether it is the second born son of a patriarch in Genesis, or the nations of Israel and Judah against Assyria and Babylon, God does not side with the powerful, but with the powerless. For those of us who face hardship – economic, health related, or social – God is on the side of the downtrodden and promises to raise up all who suffer unjustly in this world. Looking back a few weeks, this should echo what we spoke of previously in Leviticus.

The Blessing of God’s care for the downtrodden is that we can never be too low to know God’s goodness. There is, however, a stern warning that is implied in this passage. What happens when we take the spot of the person who put us down all that time? When we make enough money to be secure, where previously we were troubled, what do we do with our prosperity? When the hard times pass into moments of ease, are we willing to reach out and lift others up, or are we comfortable pulling the ladder up after ourselves?

I have become more sure of the goodness of God each year of my life. I see in the Gospel a promise that there is always a home I can come to, always a place for me in God’s heart. I also am sure, more and more, that that means there is a place in God’s heart for everyone else too. No one is beyond the Grace of God, no one is unclean in the eyes of a God who is making all things new. Am I, the person God has chased down across the ages and brought out of death, willing to accept that as true. Can I devote my life to loving all people, because God was willing to do everything possible to love me? To paraphrase Paul, “It’s one thing to die for someone you know and like, but dying for someone wicked you haven’t met… That takes a love like Jesus’s.” Yet, as large and powerful a love that is, it is the love we are called to take part in.

Our Psalmist cries out that they have had more than enough contempt. They were chased away by the well off and mocked by those with their life put together. Maybe we are in a season where we feel cast off or like the only words we ever hear are said to mock us. If so, we can trust that God is there to take hold of us and see us through those troubles. For those of us at ease, the burden is shifted onto us. If God is on the side of rejects, then maybe we should be too. There are obvious ways we take the side of people in need – supporting programs that feed and give resources – but is there more we can do?

Prayer is the starting point for any work of God’s people. If you need direction, prayer can give you a path forward. If you need to decide whether it’s your place to do something, God will help in discernment. If you know what you need to do, and just do not want to, prayer is always a good place to start. From that jumping off point of prayer, there is usually an action that will present itself. Sometimes that action is to defer to someone else to do something, but there will often be some way in any given moment to show love to someone. The true essence of our work is always that we are seeking to reiterate God’s love in this world. Beyond action in the moment, we should support people who support the downtrodden – with more prayer, with funds, and yes sometimes our votes.

It is often said that the opposite of love is not hate, but apathy. Our scripture supports that. God’s mercy is put in contrast with the scorn and “contempt,” of the people of this earth. “Contempt,” here is used elsewhere to mean something that is set aside and forgotten. Most notably to describe a lamp that someone leaves by their table as they sleep, but that they quickly grab a hold of when they are afraid they might fall down the stairs. If nothing else, we should be a people who make sure no one is forgotten. While we may forget the faces and names of those in need, God does not. May we never let apathy overcome our love for one another. – Amen.