Twenty fifth Sunday after Pentecost
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This morning, the second to last Sunday of the church calendar, we begin our slide into the end of the church year. As such our readings will focus on the last things that will happen before we reach eternity. Indeed, our reading from Daniel holds one of the most clear Old Testament descriptions of the resurrection of the dead.
And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.
Daniel chapter 12, and Mark 13 both point us towards the last days of the temple, and the earth itself. Church those days are today.
Hebrews chapter 1 lays out this striking realization:
Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.
These are the last days, and have been for many years. Mark 13:2 shows Christ pointing towards the eventual destruction of the Jerusalem temple. The temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in AD 70.
And Jesus said to him, “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.”
Wars and famine, and earthquakes are all a signal that the end is nigh. While it’s true that our world has been in this status for some 2000 years there are certain times that it feels more acute. As theologian Horace Hummel put states it “God’s battle with evil leading up to the end goes on incessantly, but, at least to creatures of space and time, there will be an inevitable periodicity about it, certain occasions when the movement is especially evident.”
Now certainly feels that way doesn’t it? So how should we respond to the tumult of our age?
Jesus guides us in verse 5 of our gospel reading:
And Jesus began to say to them, “See that no one leads you astray.
This not being led astray is an important facet of our mission. This has been the drumbeat of the church for thousands of years, yes even since the church thought the world was actually ending. The book of Daniel is recorded as the account of a young man who was captured and deported to Babylon, the effective end of the Kingdom of Israel.
It starts like this:
Then the king commanded Ashpenaz, his chief eunuch, to bring some of the people of Israel, both of the royal family and of the nobility, youths without blemish, of good appearance and skillful in all wisdom, endowed with knowledge, understanding learning, and competent to stand in the king’s palace, and to teach them the literature and language of the Chaldeans.
The year is AD 605 and The Babylonians have seized the Holy City and taken the royal family into captivity, effectively to a reeducation camp. Lest you forget, this is a thing that is still happening today, Various Political Persuasions seem to have affections for this practice especially in the last 100 years or so.
What happens in the story of Daniel is the story of the church, the kingdom of God unfolding and being revealed in the midst of a foreign land. In alliterative terms: today is about being faithful foreigners.
Faithful Foreigners
Faithful Foreigners
Do you remember how Daniel’s story continues after being captured? He is renamed Belteshazzar, this is important be cause as Brennan Breed points out “Royal renaming was supposedly ‘an honor conferred by the king to mark the recipient’s new status and a sign of the expectation of loyalty to the king who bestows the name”
Daniel is expected to be loyal to his new king- Nebuchadnezzer. Then we hear this, the struggle of living faithfully lands right on Daniels plate:
But Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself with the king’s food, or with the wine that he drank. Therefore he asked the chief of the eunuchs to allow him not to defile himself.
Friends, this is a typological picture of Christ BUT Christ exceeds this expectation. Think about it, Christ who was without sin or blemish, God himself, came to dwell with man and lived a holy, undefiled, upstanding life. It is His righteousness that turns us, sinners in a strange land, into Holy people.
Mark 13:11 tells us what we can expect when trial confounds us at every direction.
And when they bring you to trial and deliver you over, do not be anxious beforehand what you are to say, but say whatever is given you in that hour, for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit.
The Christian response to anxieties and cares of our worlds is not disengagement, or a cloistered distance from our neighbor, rather we are the means by which God proclaims His testimony. We live as resident aliens.
Our status is one marked by confidence and an engagement with the cares of the world just as Christ took up the concerns of all.
It’s interesting to me that often as we talk about Jesus we only portray his involvement with the sick, poor and outcast. That’s not only the case- Jesus also converted Matthew, a wealthy tax collector, Luke a physician, Nicodemus a pharisee and He calls on us to testify before governors and kings, indeed all nations.
Natalie and I just got back from Houston and I must say, it was a bit like visiting a foreign land. Immediately upon leaving the airport we noticed more than a few billboards advertising churches. One that stayed with me was ‘Join our church where we celebrate Faith, Family and Freedom.’
Now their definition of freedom was not defined- but I’d wager that it is different than the biblical of idea of freedom. Freedom is from sin but being still bound to the will of God and service of neighbor. Further, there is plenty of narrative that supports the idea of the christian church actually flourishing in captivity.
In around 200 AD, as the Roman Persecution of the church was really getting underway a Church father named Tertullian coined the phrase, “The Blood of the Martyrs is the seed of the church”. Friends, as the days draw shorter our light must shine more brightly to stand out against the darkness.
We must not be led astray but instead, wisely direct the world to the source of all light and hope.
And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.
The Christian task is to turn many to righteousness, not to one’s own selfish righteousness, but to the righteous one whose greatest task was giving himself over into the captivity of that we may be set free from sin.
The author of Hebrews asks this of us:
And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.
Friends, how will you spend these last Days, hours, minutes? (Pause)
These next last days will include a call from our world to renewed generosity. Caring for the poor, feeding the hungry and generosity to any number of organizations will be advertised and heralded. This is a worthwhile endeavor.
It is not enough. It is not righteousness. We, as the stewards of the mysteries of God must treat the whole person. Our skin will perish, yet our souls remain safely intact until the resurrection. We must apply the balm of Jesus, the Good news of the forgiveness of sins to all people.
We must not settle by giving away well loved sweaters, we must warm souls with the light and love of Christ that is here now and yet, will shine ever more brightly.
Will you redirect our world and your hearts to the light coming into it?
Maranatha- come quickly Lord Jesus. Amen.