The 10th Sunday after Pentecost, August 14, 2022; The Rev. Dr. John D. Golenski
Luke 12:56. Do you not know how to interpret the present time?
Believe me when I tell you that clergy in Christian churches using the Revised Common Lectionary dread August. That’s when we have to deal in our preaching with the apocalyptic passages in the Synoptic Gospels. When last we shared a meal, I joked with Pam that she always takes her vacation during this month so she can escape all these “doom and gloom” passages. Seriously, there is a lot of gloom in the portions from the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke that are assigned for August’s Sundays. Suffused with what we could call an apocalyptic vision, they focus on the inevitability of divine judgment and the imminence of the end of time.
This year, our portions come from Luke in the section of the Gospel referred to by biblical scholars as the Travel or Journey chapters, which are found roughly from the end of Chapter 9 through Chapter 19. The composers of the Gospel have assembled here lots of Jesus’ stories and teachings relating to the end times, to the final judgment and to the possible fates of humans after death. The conceit is that Jesus is giving these teachings to his disciples as he journeys to his ultimate destiny in Jerusalem. Some scholars see these sayings as guides to moral behavior for those who would live in Christian communities. Others understand them as precepts for living in preparation for the coming of God’s Kingdom with an associated sorting of the human family in God’s Last Judgement.
As you may recall, the Gospel of Luke begins with accounts of the births of John the Baptizer and then of Jesus. The early chapters recount how Jesus became a follower of John after his baptism by him, and how very soon Jesus moved beyond what scholar Jay Wilcoxen calls John’s Judgment Movement to preach the good news of God’s coming reign. A scripture scholar at the University of Chicago Divinity School, Wilcoxen in recent blog post focuses on Luke’s twelfth chapter. He posits that the Gospel tells the story of Jesus’s own development from being an adherent to John’s agenda of political/religious reform, symbolized by baptism in the Jordan, to forming his own agenda, which focused beyond reform to a complete transformation of society. Jesus developed a core belief in the coming of God’s Kingdom as replacement of the prevailing Hasmonean dynasty in Judea, with its corruption, oppression, and collaboration with the Roman invaders. Ultimately, Jesus comes to understand that the Divine Kingdom could only occur if he fully accepted his destiny and underwent what believers call his Passion. Naming Jesus’ vision the Kingdom Movement, Wilcoxen explains: “Crucifixion of the leader did not destroy this movement, but transformed it into an even wider one in the next generation.”
Indeed, during and just after the First Judeo-Roman War, which ended with the total destruction of Jerusalem by Rome, the Kingdom Movement of Jesus developed its own vision and understanding of God’s plan. The self-understanding of these worshiping groups, which Wilcoxen calls apocalyptic communes, now became the Jesus Movement made up of groups who understood themselves to be spiritual descendants of Jesus, whom they saw as God’s Messiah.
From the time of Jesus’ death to the end of the first century of the Common Era, these communes created the elements of a worldwide movement. Communities of Christians in multiple areas of the central and eastern empire wrote down their gospels. While only four of these accounts of Jesus were eventually accepted as canonical, we know of more than forty.
Originally, the members held resources in common and made decisions by consensus. While the Johannine group maintained this consensual decision-process for much longer, the Synoptic and Pauline communities quickly evolved structure and hierarchy. Through the commitment of Paul and his immediate collaborators, the Jesus Movement took root in multiple metropolitan areas of the empire and quickly developed as a missionary force. By the fourth century, Christianity had become, for better and for worse, the official religion of the Roman Empire.
John and Jesus began as prophets, calling their community to fundamental reform and renewal. John remained a prophet. His vision died with him and with the destruction of Jerusalem. But Jesus moved on from judgment and reform to a transformative vision of God suffusing creation, loving every creature, and working through all the processes of the world to effect the reign of loving grace.
For those who experienced Jesus and his message, the world changed forever. His insistence that God’s Kingdom is within each of us, is within the world of our experience, captured the minds and hearts of his disciples. It is clear from the Gospels that the first Christian communes believed the end time was imminent, likely to occur in their lifetimes. Jesus speaks repeatedly about end times and final judgment. The image of a final accounting, where the good and the evil will be sorted and given their deserved rewards and punishments remains embedded in the Christian DNA.
This notion continues to exert a powerful pull on many in the Christian communion, especially when preached as the solution to all human sinfulness. In this fraught time, vast numbers of Christians pray for the end of time and sincerely hope to be on the right side of a vengeful god. Having spent my life hearing the Word and praying and reflecting on my experience of life and death, I simply cannot believe in a fascist deity who knows best, a strongman god who offers a devil’s bargain of certitude and prosperity in return for our liberty.
I believe rather that God’s Spirit emerges, becomes increasingly coherent through experience, and leads us on the path to loving compassion. The author of Hebrews, probably composing the letter toward the end of the time of the first Christian communities, eloquently expresses the transcendent vision of a world ruled by our loving God. The author of Hebrews gives us the case for faith, for trust in a loving Creator, who prepares us for Eternal Life. As we humans have evolved in our understanding of ourselves and of the astonishing creation in which we live, I believe it is time that we leave behind our immaturity and accept the gift of our present lives.
In these times of our own lives, with challenges almost beyond our ability to contain them in imagination, we are called to faith, to trust in the reign of God. Jesus came to understand that God’s reign is truly within each of us. Each decision to trust–our spouses, children, friends, families, co-workers, communities, ourselves—opens the world to the Creator’s living Spirit.
Bringing a child into the world is, itself, an act of faith. As we did last Sunday, today we welcome with great joy, another child into the community of Resurrection Faith. This morning, we delight to welcome John William Orion Olesen through baptism into this apocalyptic commune. We invite him to live a life of faith, of radical faith that the Creator is building the Reign of Love. We promise to support him as he grows and develops in this community of faith we call the Church. And now, let us join John and his family and friends as we baptize and seal him for Christ.