Proper 28C, November 17, 2013; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13 We hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work.
Luke 21:5-19 An opportunity to testify.
O God of our testimony, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.
Our collect for the day is my all-time favorite. “Blessed Lord who caused all holy scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them.” Eat this scroll – as the story goes in Ezekiel. This is holy scripture – eat up! Inwardly digest it. Except, I have to say, apocalyptic Biblical literature, can be hard to swallow for many progressive Christians, and that is what is on our plates in today’s Gospel lesson from Luke.
Biblical scholars are in wide agreement that these passages, written as a prediction, describe what had already happened to the followers of the Rabbi from Nazareth. By the time Luke was written near the end of the first century, the temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed by the Roman army in the year 70. Nations were rising against nations, and utter chaos and devastation were being experienced by those who claimed Jesus as Lord. Was Jesus able to predict this future? Just as sure as he was able to quote Isaiah and 2 Chronicles that predicted the same thing.
For those who had a sense of nostalgia for some good old days when the temple stood in all its glory, perhaps Jesus’ “prediction” assures them that this was bound to happen. Perhaps this Gospel passage addresses disappointment or anger that Jesus himself seemed to not have prepared his defense when he was arrested and executed. Certainly it seems to be addressing the enormous challenge – as serious as life and death – that can be a consequence of following Jesus.
Glorious temples dedicated to God will become a scattering of stones – not one of which will be left upon another. False prophets will arise in the name of Jesus. There will be wars and insurrections, earthquakes, famines and plagues, dreadful portents and great signs from heaven. Followers of Jesus will be arrested and persecuted and brought before people in authority because of it. Followers of Jesus will be betrayed by parents and siblings, by relatives and friends, and some will be put to death. Followers of Jesus will be hated because of Jesus’ name.
And the good news? By your endurance you will gain your souls. Surely this is not recruiting material. Inwardly digest this holy scripture? Are any of you thinking, “no thank you, I’m really not that hungry”? Do you remember that old Life cereal commercial where the kids are turning up their noses at the food placed in front of them? Perhaps you’re thinking, “Let’s get Pam! She’ll eat anything!” (I will eat almost anything.)
The thing about apocalyptic literature is that it is an essential ingredient of the proclamation of our biblical testaments. It reveals – it points to a sense of hope that the present moment, however calamitous or treacherous or devastating, is being transformed by the presence of the Divine even and especially in the midst of suffering. Apocalyptic literature in the bible insists that an unrealized future is already and always coming into being, that God is with us in the midst of it all, redeeming and reclaiming and loving us through and through.
A question I always want us to ask about scripture is not, “did this really happen?” but, “does this really happen? and “is this really happening?” And the follow up question to ask is always, “what difference does this make?” The world does end in every generation – indeed the walls come tumbling down and the world ends for people every day.
I want to tell you a story. It’s a little story – it’s not about physical life and death or even about persecution and arrest. And yet, it’s a true story of when this Gospel passage became a proof-text and a beacon of hope for me because somewhere along my way, I had heard, read, marked, learned and inwardly digested it. Once upon a time when I was 31 years old, a rapid series of personally cataclysmic events shook the foundations and the magnificent structures of my life. Not one stone was left upon another; all were thrown down. In the collapse, the door to the closet I’d been in got knocked right off of its hinges and I began to come out as a lesbian. The strangest thing happened – as I began to come out as a lesbian, I also found myself coming out as a church lady – as a person of faith, which turned out to be much scarier for me than coming out as a lesbian, because I started feeling a deep sense of call to ordained ministry.
The problems with this double outcoming were legion. I lived in a family where a lesbian was definitely and absolutely not a good thing to be. I lived in a Commonwealth where my relationship with another woman was illegal – a felony actually – and cases against people like me were being prosecuted. And I lived in a diocese where “don’t ask, don’t tell” was the most generous, pastorally sensitive policy the bishop could muster. Where I lived, there was no community of queer people to help me figure out how to stay in the Episcopal Church, even as a lay person, without losing my soul.
I’ll tell you – I didn’t really know if I should or would ever be ordained (in fact, I seriously doubted it), but, within a couple of years, I did know that applying for acceptance into the ordination process was what I felt I had to do to honor myself and my parish and the Holy Spirit. A parish discernment committee was formed – we met for a period of many months. The suffragan bishop assigned to work with me agreed that if the discernment committee and the vestry endorsed my application for postulancy, he would ask the diocesan Commission on Ministry to interview me, as long as I understood that no matter what they said, I would absolutely not be accepted into the ordination process.
It was a complicated and frustrating situation for the Commission and for me – quite contentious for many, and an apparent waste of time for all. I was warned that the consequences of publicly engaging this ordination process could be dire – both for me personally and for the church. My parish discernment committee highly recommended that, if I planned to be interviewed by the Commission, we should schedule some practice sessions like moot court. I considered this approach and then respectfully declined because of Luke 21:13-15. Somehow I heard this passage speaking to me in this situation. “This will give you an opportunity to testify.” Or another way to translate is “You will turn it into a testimony”.1 So make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance; for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict.” I made up my mind to not to arm myself for a courtroom-like battle. I made up my mind not prepare a defense at all, but to trust that if I was as open as I could possibly be to the movement of the breath of God — the Holy Spirit, She would blow through me and through my interrogators, and She did.
It was many years later in a different diocese when I would receive the blessing of the church upon the gifts I wanted to give through ordained ministry. But it was the day I made up my mind to let Love speak for me and through me that I understood myself to be claiming the priesthood conferred on me not by ordination but by my baptism. And that’s why I tell this story to you, because I want you to claim that priesthood too.
In times of calamity, of tribulation and suffering – whether in the world at large, in our local community, or in your personal life, do not be led astray. Do not go after false prophets. Do not be terrified. Such times will be for you an opportunity to testify – for you to turn into a testimony. Do not prepare your defense. Rather, let the Love of God and the hope of justice and reconciliation and peace breathe through you, in and around you. That’s how you will gain your souls.
Walter Brueggemann, addressing this Gospel passage, writes of the “characteristic interface between text and experience, between old poem and current emergency. One the one hand, we need to voice the terrible ungluing, because if it is unvoiced, we will die of brutalizing fear. On the other hand, it will take an outrageous poem, one like Luke 21, to let the Holy in on our emergency. Where such subversive sketching is sounded, we may ‘gain our souls’…even while our old world gasps and shudders. The nightmarish voice could in an utterance become dreaming hope.”2 You know, all kinds of private and public calamities can and do happen, because of chances and choices of our lives. The Gospel of Jesus reminds us that we are always always being invited, called, beckoned by God to respond to calamities with (or as) a testimony of compassion and integrity, and blessed hope of everlasting life that includes – that has always included the present moment.