Proper
28C November 12, 2016
As we come toward the beginning of a new
church year – Advent Sunday in two weeks - we hear Isaiah’s vision of the new
creation – “new heavens and a new earth - Jerusalem a joy; its people a
delight.” In the canticle in place of the psalm Isaiah reminds us, “Surely, it
is God who saves me; I will trust in him and not be afraid. For the Lord is my
stronghold and my sure defense, and he will be my Savior.” In the Gospel Jesus
tells the disciples about the end time, assuring us, “not a hair of your head
will perish. By your endurance you will gain your souls.” Many of the hairs of my head have in fact
perished, but for all who continue in faith, by his death and resurrection
Jesus opens the gates of heaven – today and forever – until he comes again in
the new creation.
In the
meantime, as St. Paul told the church in Thessalonica, we are do our “work
quietly and to earn our own living. Brothers and sisters do not be weary in
doing what is right.” “By your endurance you will gain your souls.”
We begin today with the collect about
the importance of Holy Scripture in our lives and in the life of the church. We
feed our souls on “God’s word written.” The idea of eating the word of God is
from Jeremiah 15:16, Ezekiel 3:3, and from the Revelation to St. John 10:10, “I
took the little book out of the angel's
hand, and ate it up; and it was in my mouth sweet as honey.” Anglicans believe
the Holy Scriptures are the Word of God and contain all things necessary to
salvation. Our doctrine is contained in, or can be proved by, Holy Scripture.
And we pray for grace “so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest
them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting
life, given us in our Savior Jesus Christ.”
The Book of the Prophet Isaiah might be
called the Book of the Prophets Isaiah. Its writings span 200 years. The first
39 chapters (including our Canticle) were written before 586 Before Christ when
Jerusalem was captured, the first Temple destroyed, and many people sent into
exile in Babylon The next 15 chapters were written to the
exiles, and the last 10 chapters were written after 515 BC when some of the
exiles had returned to rebuild the Temple. Times were tough. The descendants of
the exiles – old children, middle-aged grandchildren and young
great-grandchildren – engaged in continuing conflict with the descendants of
those who had remained and with the immigrants of the past 70 years.
They needed the assurance that God was
doing in and through them “a new thing.”
The new Jerusalem would be healthy. “No more shall there be in it an
infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a
lifetime.” The new Jerusalem would be
secure. “They shall build houses and
inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. . . . They shall
not labor in vain, or bear children for calamity; for they shall be offspring
blessed by the Lord--and their
descendants as well.” The new Jerusalem
would be holy. “Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I
will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall
feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent-- its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy
mountain, says the Lord.”
The returned exile were strengthened and
empowered by Isaiah’s vision of the new Jerusalem. They endured the hardships
of their return, of political control by Persia, then Alexander and the
generals who succeeded him, then a time of independence, and in Jesus’ time
Roman military occupation. But there were constant small scale revolts, and 40
years after Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection – 70 AD - in a major revolt the
second temple built by the returned exiles of Isaiah 56 was destroyed never to
be rebuilt.
All the gospels were written down after
the destruction of the temple. The early Christians remembered Jesus’
prediction of the persecutions many had experienced. Christians had been
arrested, had been handed over to synagogues and prisons, had been brought
before kings and governors because of Jesus’ name. They had been given “opportunity
to testify.” Some had been “betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives
and friends; and” some had even been put death.” They took comfort in Jesus’
prophecy, “not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain
your souls.”
In our political life, for almost two years we have
endured a long, nasty, campaign. We have finally elected a president and others
to serve in offices of public trust. Some of us are happy about the results;
some are not. As practical endurance, I offer this for all who suffer loss.
In 1969 Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross wrote Death and Dying. She introduced a model of emotional reactions to
diagnoses of terminal illness and other forms of personal loss. Let’s review. Five
stages: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and finally some degree of
Acceptance.
The model helps us deal with feelings of
loss. The stages of grief are not easy or time-limited. We frequently cycle
back and forth through the stages. The original form relates to a diagnosis of
terminal illness.
The first reaction is Denial. Somehow the diagnosis is mistaken. We cling
to a false, preferable reality.
The second is Anger. – We become
frustrated, especially at people near us. We say things like, “Why me? It's not
fair! How can this happen to me?; Who is to blame?; Why would this happen?”
Sometimes we are angry with God. “How could a good and loving God let this
happen?” It is OK to be angry with God.
God can take it.
The third
is Bargaining. We hope to avoid the cause of grief. We try to negotiate for longer
life and reformed lifestyle. Many of us have prayed, “Dear God, get me out of
this mess and I’ll never do it again.” A Holy Cross church in Chicago recently posted
this ad: “You made promises in the bottom of the 9th inning. Redeem
them Sunday at Holy Cross.”
The fourth
is Depression. “I'm so sad, why bother with anything? I'm going to die soon, so
what's the point?; "I miss my loved one, why go on?” We despair as we
recognize we are going to die. We may become silent, refuse visitors and spend
much of the time being mournful and sullen.
The fifth stage
is called Acceptance. We think or say things like, “It's going to be okay; I
can't fight it, I may as well prepare for it.” In this we come to embrace the
inevitable future - our death, or other tragic event. People who are dying may
come to this conclusion before others do. Acceptance brings feelings of calm
and peace and stability.
We all suffer loses in our lives. The
spiritual and emotional danger is getting stuck in one of these stages of
grief. I recognize that for some of my losses I am still stuck in anger. I
think I see that anger expressed in some of the emotional reactions to the recent
election. I know I need to move on. But telling me that doesn’t help.
The God who made me made all of me –
body, soul, emotions, spirit. God the Holy Spirit is at work in me – and in all
of us. He will help me work through my feelings; he will help me get unstuck
and move on. He will help us all if we ask him to.
We are all sinners saved by grace. We
are all called to exercise the Christian grace of humility in all areas of our
life. And Jesus calls us in today’s gospel to endure. Endure comes from the Latin word for hard. We
do the hard things for Jesus’ sake, in Jesus’ strength, to help accomplish
Jesus’ will in the world he has redeemed by his death and resurrection.
As St. Paul wrote the church at
Philippi, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” And as St. Paul told the church in Thessalonica,
we are do our “work quietly and to earn our own living. Brothers and sisters do
not be weary in doing what is right.”
“By your endurance you will gain your souls.”
When I was a boy I had a card in the
corner of my bathroom mirror - by an unknown author: “Why were the
saints, saints? Because they were cheerful when it was difficult to be cheerful,
patient when it was difficult to be
patient;
and because they pushed on
when they wanted to stand still, and
kept silent when they wanted to talk,
and
were agreeable when they wanted to be disagreeable.
That was
all. It was quite simple and always will
be.”
I’ve lost the card, but the thought
remains. “By your endurance you will gain
your souls.”
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