WEBVTT 00:00.400 --> 00:01.900 In the name of Jesus. 00:02.600 --> 00:03.100 Amen. 00:05.900 --> 00:08.700 This Sunday, my youngest daughter Elspeth. 00:08.700 --> 00:09.500 Took special 00:09.500 --> 00:12.600 notice of the prayers at church. 00:13.500 --> 00:19.900 The prayers repeatedly spoke of the last days and the end of the world. 00:20.300 --> 00:27.200 And had phrases like in these last days, we lift our eyes up to your 00:27.200 --> 00:34.400 Son. Or turn us from the distress of what is coming on our world. 00:35.600 --> 00:40.200 Deliver us from fear as we witness the signs of the times. 00:41.400 --> 00:46.800 And finally, as all things move to their appointed end, keep us from 00:46.800 --> 00:48.200 being complacent. 00:50.100 --> 00:54.900 Well, when the prayers ended the rest of the congregation continued 00:54.900 --> 00:59.800 with the Liturgy, apparently, unfazed, moving ahead to sing the 01:00.000 --> 01:05.600 Santus and the Agnus Dei but Elspeth was not ready to move on so 01:05.600 --> 01:08.200 quickly and she tugged on my arm. 01:09.900 --> 01:11.000 What's going on? 01:12.400 --> 01:13.800 Did something happen 01:14.000 --> 01:20.000 she asked? Is this actually about to occur? 01:21.000 --> 01:23.400 Why are we talking about the last days? 01:24.500 --> 01:29.100 And I could see that her eyes were getting large, like saucers and she 01:29.100 --> 01:30.600 was starting to shake a little. 01:31.700 --> 01:35.000 So I thought I'd first just tell her no 01:35.000 --> 01:37.500 dear, nothing's happening. 01:38.000 --> 01:38.700 It's fine. 01:38.800 --> 01:40.200 It's not the end of the world. 01:40.200 --> 01:43.400 You see this is the time of the year that we just like to talk about 01:43.400 --> 01:44.600 these sorts of things. 01:46.000 --> 01:48.200 A little lesson in the liturgical church 01:48.200 --> 01:52.900 year would calm things down. But I checked myself 01:54.400 --> 01:59.500 and I decided not to inoculate her from what the rest of us apparently 01:59.500 --> 01:59.800 had 02:00.000 --> 02:00.300 already 02:00.300 --> 02:01.300 grown immune. 02:03.200 --> 02:04.100 Yes Elspeth, 02:05.800 --> 02:07.300 it is the last days. 02:09.100 --> 02:12.900 But look what Jesus said, and I pointed to the Gospel reading that was 02:12.900 --> 02:17.100 printed in the bulletin. Do not be terrified. 02:18.500 --> 02:22.200 And here not a hair on your head will perish. 02:23.000 --> 02:26.300 And also here, straighten up and raise your heads because your 02:26.300 --> 02:28.900 redemption is drawing near. 02:32.300 --> 02:36.200 Our Lord has a lot to say, in our Gospel reading about these last 02:36.200 --> 02:36.800 days. 02:38.000 --> 02:42.900 Sometimes we call this passage a little apocalypse, but naming the 02:42.900 --> 02:49.100 genre, doesn't really help because these are difficult words. They're 02:49.100 --> 02:56.900 hard words, but in the midst of them, there are words of hope 02:58.200 --> 02:59.300 and opportunity. 03:00.400 --> 03:03.100 In the midst of these last days, 03:04.200 --> 03:05.900 Jesus gives us hope. 03:07.200 --> 03:09.700 Jesus gives us a blessed opportunity. 03:11.900 --> 03:16.000 Look, I understand why we pass over these passages and these prayers 03:16.000 --> 03:16.800 so quickly. 03:17.500 --> 03:25.500 We perceive a delay, the end is near has become a relative detail of 03:25.500 --> 03:29.600 reality rather than an imminent and urgent truth. 03:30.800 --> 03:36.500 As William Willimon once quipped, it's hard to stand on your tiptoes 03:36.600 --> 03:38.200 for 2,000 years. 03:39.800 --> 03:44.100 And if such a delay, then why dwell on these things? 03:45.300 --> 03:48.000 Why drag our hearts down? 03:48.600 --> 03:53.400 Why frighten Middle School daughters with such details of a distant 03:53.400 --> 03:53.900 day? 03:56.500 --> 03:59.600 Because there are many awful things narrated here. 04:00.900 --> 04:08.700 The wreckage of war. The Earth heaving and breaking. The fields that 04:08.700 --> 04:11.300 feed us dried up to dust. 04:12.500 --> 04:18.100 He speaks of persecution, and deception, and betrayal. Of the 04:18.100 --> 04:22.600 destruction and defilement of the holiest in most sacred of places of 04:22.600 --> 04:25.800 even the very shaking and shuddering of the cosmos. 04:27.000 --> 04:31.800 Those greater and lesser lights set in the beginning as signs for 04:31.800 --> 04:35.600 times and seasons snuffed out. 04:36.600 --> 04:42.200 And the seasons will cease and the time will have come to an end. 04:44.000 --> 04:45.900 Why do we attend to these things? 04:45.900 --> 04:51.600 Why not just focus on the good things around us? The beauty of God's 04:51.600 --> 04:58.200 creation or the art that he permits us to cultivate poetry and 04:58.200 --> 04:59.800 painting and plays and 05:00.100 --> 05:07.200 music and dance and design? Why not the satisfaction in our labor and 05:07.200 --> 05:08.500 of work well done? 05:10.100 --> 05:12.400 Why meditate on its dismantling, 05:13.600 --> 05:14.800 its downfall? 05:17.700 --> 05:19.900 In a recent essay Kate 05:19.900 --> 05:24.400 Bowler of Duke University writes about when she and her husband 05:24.400 --> 05:29.100 first bought this little bungalow in Durham North Carolina. And in the 05:29.100 --> 05:29.700 backyard 05:29.700 --> 05:32.300 it had this cute little peaked shed. 05:32.800 --> 05:36.900 She said it was two floors, high and lined with thick white oak. 05:38.400 --> 05:43.700 The only problem with the shed was that the roof had turned into a 05:43.700 --> 05:44.300 crater. 05:45.200 --> 05:50.000 And it was sagging down and threatened to bring the whole building to 05:50.000 --> 05:50.900 ruination. 05:52.400 --> 05:58.600 But with the help of her extended Mennonite family, she was able to 05:58.600 --> 05:59.200 restore it. 05:59.200 --> 05:59.800 In fact, she was 06:00.000 --> 06:04.000 able to improve on it, and this little backyard building 06:04.900 --> 06:10.100 had this promise of so many things. It could be a small woodworking 06:10.100 --> 06:10.800 shop. 06:11.400 --> 06:15.900 Maybe even a little gardeners potting house or grow house. 06:16.700 --> 06:18.700 Who knows all of the possibilities. 06:18.700 --> 06:24.000 After all the shingles on this new roof, had a 25-year warranty. 06:26.700 --> 06:30.600 I thought about this often she wrote when I would sit in the yard 06:31.900 --> 06:37.000 because I had recently received a sudden stage 4, cancer diagnosis, 06:37.900 --> 06:39.500 and there was nothing else to do. 06:40.800 --> 06:45.100 And I wondered about the shed, which would almost certainly outlive me 06:45.100 --> 06:45.600 now. 06:46.600 --> 06:48.300 And how all my plans, 06:49.100 --> 06:54.500 Oh, my beautiful plans had been stripped down to the studs. 06:57.400 --> 06:59.900 It turns out that everything 07:00.000 --> 07:03.100 is more fragile than we imagine. 07:04.100 --> 07:07.100 Even the most solid and beautiful of things. 07:08.200 --> 07:13.300 And so a little further into the essay, she writes, the English word, 07:13.300 --> 07:20.900 precarity means a state of dangerous uncertainty but it's Latin root 07:21.200 --> 07:22.200 tells us a good deal 07:22.200 --> 07:24.300 more about its Christian character. 07:24.700 --> 07:32.300 The term comes from precarious or obtained by entreaty or prayer. 07:34.400 --> 07:38.800 A state where we cannot achieve things by ourselves. 07:39.700 --> 07:44.000 We must rely on someone else, God or a neighbor. 07:44.900 --> 07:48.800 And as Christians, we must nod our heads and shrug our shoulders when 07:48.800 --> 07:53.500 we are, told in no uncertain terms that there are no lifetime 07:53.500 --> 07:54.300 warranties. 07:58.500 --> 07:59.800 So, while the disciples 08:01.200 --> 08:06.200 fix their admiration and wonder on the temple and surely the world's 08:06.200 --> 08:10.900 largest religious structure at the time, deserved wonder, and 08:10.900 --> 08:11.800 admiration. 08:13.000 --> 08:16.800 Jesus ever the subtle and tactful teacher. 08:18.000 --> 08:21.200 Blurted out the days will come 08:21.700 --> 08:23.200 when there will not be left here 08:23.200 --> 08:27.400 one stone upon another all will be thrown down. 08:30.300 --> 08:31.500 So what do you say to that? 08:34.299 --> 08:40.000 When? When seems like a good question. When seems like a great 08:40.000 --> 08:45.300 question. Knowing, when might actually help us prepare, help us plan 08:45.300 --> 08:47.900 help us take up preventive measures 08:50.200 --> 08:50.900 But will it? 08:52.100 --> 08:52.700 Really. 08:54.400 --> 08:56.500 Because what can we do about such things? 08:57.700 --> 08:59.900 What do we really have under our control? 09:00.000 --> 09:07.200 What does knowing the month or the year matter? Whether it's 70 AD 09:08.400 --> 09:10.800 or the year of Our Lord 1944. 09:12.900 --> 09:18.500 On the 12th and 13th of September 1944, the northern city centre of 09:18.500 --> 09:19.000 Stuttgart, 09:19.000 --> 09:21.800 Germany was bombed and it was completely destroyed. 09:23.000 --> 09:27.200 And the destruction included the ancient Church of the Hospitallers. 09:28.100 --> 09:31.500 And in that church, there was a congregation that had been regularly 09:31.700 --> 09:35.200 gathering to hear the Theologian and preacher Helmut Thielicke. 09:36.900 --> 09:39.400 In that year during the War 09:40.100 --> 09:43.400 Thielicke began a sermon series on the Lord's Prayer. 09:45.000 --> 09:50.200 But when it came time to preach on the petition, thy kingdom come. 09:51.900 --> 09:55.900 They had to gather in the choir because it was the only portion of the 09:55.900 --> 09:57.500 church that was left standing. 09:59.300 --> 09:59.800 My work in 10:00.000 --> 10:03.000 Stuttgart seemed to have gone to pieces wrote Thielicke. 10:03.300 --> 10:05.800 My listeners were scattered to the four winds. 10:06.000 --> 10:08.600 The churches lay in rubble and ashes. 10:10.300 --> 10:14.100 And as he stood among the wreckage and debris in his old army boots 10:14.100 --> 10:16.500 because he no longer possessed clergy clothes. 10:17.400 --> 10:24.000 He said, our generation has learned to see the face of death behind 10:24.000 --> 10:25.500 people and things. 10:26.100 --> 10:32.900 When we meet a radiant erect person, we know with tragic certainty, 10:33.500 --> 10:35.500 that everything can change overnight. 10:36.800 --> 10:40.700 When we walk through the city through a flourishing undamaged section, 10:40.900 --> 10:47.000 almost involuntarily our eyes play, a trick on us, and suddenly the 10:47.000 --> 10:51.300 intact facades are transformed into horribly, mutilated, walls, and 10:51.300 --> 10:57.000 horror dwells behind the bleak and empty windows. Again and again the 10:57.000 --> 10:59.800 face of death peers out from 11:00.100 --> 11:01.700 behind the features of the living. 11:02.800 --> 11:07.500 And the shadow of ruins leer at us from the ordered peace of 11:07.500 --> 11:08.900 respectable homes. 11:10.200 --> 11:13.500 We are cast upon the end of all things. 11:14.700 --> 11:19.300 In this world of death in this empire of ruins and shell torn fields 11:19.300 --> 11:20.100 we pray 11:21.500 --> 11:23.000 Thy kingdom come. 11:25.100 --> 11:29.600 And then, Thielicke in his sermon, he turns, to the words of Jesus in our 11:29.600 --> 11:37.500 text, and he makes a remarkable statement. Does not, God's rule grow 11:37.700 --> 11:43.600 mighty in the midst of terrors and make men lift up their heads, 11:43.600 --> 11:45.900 because their redemption is drawing near. 11:47.300 --> 11:52.900 The greatest mysteries of God are always enacted in the depths. 11:54.200 --> 11:57.100 The kingdom of God, is in the depths 11:58.200 --> 11:59.600 and Christ is here, too. 12:00.600 --> 12:06.200 In with and under the world's anguish and distress in with an under 12:06.200 --> 12:13.000 the hail of bombs and mass murders, God is building his kingdom. 12:16.200 --> 12:21.300 These are beautiful words hopeful words, but they're strange 12:21.300 --> 12:25.700 and they're nearly impossible to understand or believe. They're like 12:25.700 --> 12:30.300 when Jesus juxtapose the terrible sentence, some of you, they will put 12:30.300 --> 12:30.900 to death. 12:32.300 --> 12:36.500 But then not a hair of your head will perish. 12:38.200 --> 12:40.200 These words are mysteries 12:41.900 --> 12:43.800 but there are mysteries of the cross. 12:45.300 --> 12:49.200 That the last will become first that in losing your life, you will 12:49.200 --> 12:50.000 find it. 12:50.000 --> 12:55.600 Because at the cross Christ laid down his life, to take it up again. At 12:55.600 --> 12:59.200 the cross at the cross Christ entered into the depths. 13:00.300 --> 13:04.600 He who has betrayed and delivered up to the synagogue brought before 13:04.600 --> 13:10.700 Kings and governors. At the cross, the Earth heaved, and it trembled 13:10.700 --> 13:13.100 the light of the sun was snuffed out. 13:14.600 --> 13:15.600 And at the cross 13:17.200 --> 13:21.800 in the presence of the unthinkable in the moment of divine suffering 13:21.800 --> 13:22.400 and death, 13:23.600 --> 13:28.000 the kingdom of God, filled the darkest corners of humanity 13:29.200 --> 13:30.500 in order to bring it light. 13:32.600 --> 13:37.200 This is the mystery and the Miracle of God's Redemption that his grace 13:37.500 --> 13:42.600 runs, along tributaries of turmoil, that it picks up the paths filled 13:42.600 --> 13:47.100 with pain, like capillary action or some kind of divine diffusion. 13:47.100 --> 13:53.700 God's grace is drawn to where it seems most absent. And so when Jesus 13:53.700 --> 13:57.200 tells the disciples that they will be persecuted and they will be 13:57.200 --> 13:59.800 arrested, He calls it 14:00.300 --> 14:01.600 their opportunity. 14:03.200 --> 14:05.500 It's their opportunity to bear witness. 14:07.000 --> 14:13.300 And like some kind of Trojan Horse, those who are filled in secret with 14:13.300 --> 14:17.300 God's spirit and the gospel are invited into the very midst of their 14:17.300 --> 14:18.100 enemies. 14:20.000 --> 14:24.800 In order to proclaim the truth of God's love and of God's Redemption. 14:27.900 --> 14:32.000 Last week I met with the organization, Christian Friends of New 14:32.000 --> 14:32.700 Americans. 14:32.700 --> 14:36.300 I think a lot of, you know, them, they're a group of Lutheran from 14:36.300 --> 14:37.600 various churches in St. 14:37.600 --> 14:43.000 Louis who reach out to refugees. And one of the leaders pointed out 14:43.000 --> 14:50.100 that the fact that 90% of their work is with refugees and not simply 14:50.100 --> 14:51.900 immigrants was significant. 14:53.400 --> 14:57.100 There are wars and rumors of wars 14:57.100 --> 14:57.700 he said. 14:58.800 --> 14:59.800 The number of refugees 15:00.000 --> 15:01.500 will only increase. 15:03.100 --> 15:07.200 The opportunity to serve will only grow. 15:08.900 --> 15:13.700 This ministry will not end until the end of the world. 15:16.300 --> 15:17.100 And so it is 15:18.800 --> 15:22.900 as we take up the fragility and the precarity of others and bear 15:22.900 --> 15:28.800 witness to the love of Christ in word and deed, our ministry will not 15:28.800 --> 15:31.900 end until the end of the world. 15:34.300 --> 15:35.300 And in the meantime. 15:37.100 --> 15:41.600 Do not be terrified, not a hair on your head will perish. 15:43.300 --> 15:45.400 And straighten up and raise your heads 15:46.500 --> 15:49.400 because your redemption is drawing near. 15:50.700 --> 15:51.200 Amen.