Sermon.

[Interestingly, I was able to write this sermon faster than any of the others before - though not particularly fast, to be sure.]

At Trinity this Sunday, our lessons of Scripture were the story of the Little Red Hen and Luke 21.5-19.

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Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church of Manhattan
Sermon: 14 NOVEMBER 2004 -- Pentecost 24C

Recently for my Bible class at Seminary, I was reading the long chapters of detail about the Temple in Jerusalem, which our lesson today says was “adorned with gifts.” This is not the most fascinating material for a 21st century seminarian to study, but it was very precious knowledge at the time. Every Jew alive in Jesus’ time – even Jesus himself – would have been very familiar with the stories passed down in the books of the Bible. And many people in Jesus’ time, including Jesus and his close friends, would have known the Temple directly, from visiting it year after year. The Temple was a sign of stability, the center of the people’s religious life. It wasn’t just a reminder of God’s presence – it was God’s home on earth, the one place people could be certain they could find God.

    So in our Gospel lesson for today, when Jesus suggests that the Temple will fall down, he was speaking crazy-talk. After all, the exact length and width of the Temple was recorded in the Bible, and here Jesus says that every single stone will be pulled apart from the rest! Talking like this, Jesus probably would have made very little sense to those around him. At other points when Jesus talks about destroying the Temple, people are bewildered, shocked, or merely dismissive.

    While those around Jesus were probably shocked to hear that the Temple would fall down, we here at Trinity might be a little more willing to believe. A case in point: In Trinity’s office, you can find all sorts of unusual things waiting in people’s mailboxes: keys, phone messages, paintbrushes, masks, even play money. But Roger, our council president, has probably never received anything quite so, well, strange as this – a small, foot-long, curved piece of metal rusted green. What is this? you wonder. Matter-of-factly, Pastor’s note indicated this dangerous piece of our steeple that was casually lying under a car on the street.

    Yes, our steeple is falling apart, piece by piece, plain and simple. And there are leaks in our roof. And our undercroft can flood every once in a while, if we’re not careful. Our property committee is probably one of the hardest working in the whole ELCA, yet they have their hands full addressing one need after another. Everybody in this church has pitched a hand to paint, repair, fix, clean up, and otherwise keep the building together. And let’s not even get mention those problems that have creative, exotic names like “The Rat Problem” and “The Trash Problem.” Our building, a loving home for God and God’s people for almost a hundred years, is growing older by the day. So Jesus’ words about every stone in the Temple being thrown down feel much different for us, when we’re trying our very best just to hold our stones together. Unlike those around Jesus, we’re not shocked at those words – we’re worried, we’re planning, and we’ll do whatever it takes to keep it from happening.

    But if we think a little about the time when Luke’s Gospel was written, the words will sound strikingly familiar to us. Scholars’ best guess is that Luke’s Gospel was written sometime after the year 70. Why does this matter? Because the Temple that Jesus talks about was destroyed by the Romans in the year 70. So even though Luke passes on a story about Jesus and the Temple, the people Luke was writing to knew that the Temple had already been destroyed. For the Jews of the time – including the first generation of the Jesus Movement – the destruction of the Temple was one of the most traumatic experiences of life. Not only had God’s own house been destroyed, not only had the very center of the universe been broken apart: but it was an ultimate expression of the power of the Roman Empire. This same power had conquered nearly all of the world known to those around Jesus. This same Empire had murdered many people’s family and friends. This same Empire was responsible for the death of Jesus, God’s messenger, and shamelessly desecrated God’s house.

    Luke’s Gospel was written for people who saw the Roman Empire tearing apart the very stones and bones of life, and reconstructing them at will. Through wars the Empire tore apart lands and communities, families and peoples. Through deportation and imprisonment, the Empire moved and removed people’s lives as if human beings were simply toys – some sort of PlayStation with the whole world. The Empire set up a religious establishment who would help manage the people, which instead created divisions among the people and threatened to tear apart the people’s shared heritage.

    When Jesus talks about the stones of the Temple being thrown down, the people hearing the story have already witnessed the Temple’s destruction. When Jesus mentions nation rising against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, the people hearing the story already knew of nations trampled by the Roman Empire’s marching armies. The people had heard more than rumors of wars – they had seen the actual devastation of wars. Jesus says “they will arrest you and persecute you … because of my name,” but the first followers of Jesus had already been persecuted when the Gospel of Luke was written.

    Luke wrote a Gospel to a people facing the terror of Empire, but the situation could easily apply to us in our own time – and I mean more than The Rat Problem. Yes, our church building often feels like its falling apart, but our whole church – the worldwide church, the body of Christ – also feels like it’s falling apart over a host of so-called “social issues.” (Isn’t it funny, by the way, that in the world of religion we call our struggles “social issues,” while in the world of politics, we call them “moral issues”?) A decade ago it was abortion, and though abortion is still a hot topic for many Christian communities, right now the foremost issue is the presence of gay, lesbian, transgendered, and bisexual people in the church. A year ago, when Gene Robinson was elected and confirmed as the world’s first openly gay bishop, Anglican leaders from around the world threatened to pull apart from people who they thought had defied God’s word. Among the vast global majority of Christians outside the bubble of American and European churches, bishops and other leaders can and do acceptably call for the murder of gays, lesbians, transgendered people, and bisexuals. In our own ELCA, the majority of our members and the majority of our leaders have approved policies that tell everyone who is not straight that they are second-class children of God. In little over 9 months, Pastor Heidi will join with a thousand other voters of the ELCA in Florida to decide whether we should continue this policy – and some are already saying this decision will tear the church apart.

    Our nation and our world right now feel like they are being torn apart, no less than our church. Red or blue, Republican or Democrat, the election seemed to confirm that both sides are standing more firmly apart from each other. And our nation is exercising the powers of an Empire to tear apart peoples throughout the world. Through deportation of undocumented people, we rip apart families – as some in our own congregation fear could happen to them. Through our prison industry, we continue to tear apart communities of color and of poor people. While helping the Sudanese government secure an oil deal with its enemies, we through our leaders watched that same government rip apart the people of Darfur through rape, murder, and wholesale destruction. Partly in order to secure our own ultimate oil deal, we have made war at will.

    Every day, we are destroying God’s Temple, which exists in the body and spirit of every human being. Every body that does not have adequate health insurance is another stone in God’s Temple being thrown down. Every body that has no home at night and no food in the day is God’s Temple being destroyed. Every body of two men or two women whose love is denied by the church is God’s Temple being destroyed. Every body killed in Iraq or raped in Sudan or raped and killed on our streets is God’s Temple being destroyed. Every day, God’s Temple is being destroyed. And every day we desperately need Luke’s story about Jesus and the Temple’s destruction.

    When Luke says that Jesus said that the Temple would be destroyed, it was not to make a prediction, so that we Christians could be sure that Jesus was the one; the people hearing this story already knew that the Temple was destroyed. No, Luke remembered this particular story about Jesus so that people would remember Jesus’ hope. It is the same hope that we need now, and it is a hope that makes absolutely no sense: “So make up your minds not to prepare.” What’s that you say, Jesus, don’t prepare?! That’ll hardly fly with the Property or Finance Committees at Trinity. Don’t prepare, Jesus?! You try telling that to the people fighting to keep gays and lesbians out of the church – they’ve already started sending mailings! Don’t prepare!? – you try telling that to the rats, Jesus!

    “Make up your minds not to prepare ... for I will give you words and wisdom...” Our church is falling apart, the body of Christ is tearing apart, God’s Temple is being destroyed: but we have nothing to prepare; we just wait on God’s words and God’s wisdom. The everyday problems of this church’s life, the “social issues” in the broader church’s life, the death and destruction we are causing through our empire – these are pressing on us, and God simply says, “Prepare nothing; risk everything. Risk your life, risk your relationships, risk your freedom – risk everything!”

    I learned what God means this summer, when I met a pastor whose job is to help turn around failing congregations. He came to one congregation that had almost no people in the pews on Sundays, no children in the church on any day, but a medium endowment saved up for a rainy day. He proposed a plan to spend it on meetings in the neighborhood to hear people’s concerns; to spend it on programs for kids in the community; to spend it on outreach to ignored members of the community. “We can’t spend that money,” the council said, “we need it to survive.” “We are dying anyway,” the pastor told them, “now’s the time to risk it all, and maybe we’ll survive.”

    My sisters and brothers, today, November 14, God is calling us to risk it all, for the sake of the words and the wisdom that Jesus promises. We are not waiting to find out what these words and wisdom are, because we already know: they are words of welcome, and the wisdom of inclusion. They are words like “Trinity Lutheran Church is a congregation Reconciling in Christ,” and a wisdom like “gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered people are welcome here.” They are words like “one nation under God,” and a wisdom like “adequate healthcare, housing, food, and education for everyone in this nation.” They are words like “Reformation Sunday,” and a wisdom like our childrens’ wishes: “No more violence”; “No more rapists”; “No more drugs”; “No more abuse.” (Check out the door downstairs on your way to the Time and Talent fair.) They are words like “all God’s children gotta place in the choir,” and a wisdom like “we will learn to sing songs in one another’s languages.”

    Jesus gives us words of welcome and a wisdom of inclusion, and Jesus us calls us to risk it all for these words and wisdom. But our church can’t risk it all, unless all of us take the risk. For inclusion means recognizing that all of us have something to contribute, and welcome means that everyone is welcome to participate in building our church. Maybe the Little Red Hen could sow the grain, gather the wheat, make the dough, and bake the bread by herself – but that won’t work for Trinity. I can’t fix a steeple all by myself, and Sharon can’t paint the undercroft all by herself, and Joyce can’t reach out to our community all by herself, and Roger can’t do worship all by himself, and Amber and Bianca can’t raise all our money by themselves. None of us can do everything in this church alone. But if all of us take a risk, then we will have a church that risks it all for the sake of Jesus’ word of welcome and wisdom of inclusion. In a little while it will be time to go downstairs for the Time and Talent fair – that’s where each of us can take a risk, so that we as a church can risk it all. Today, right now, God is calling you to risk something of yourself, try something new out, sign up for something you wouldn’t if you had the chance to prepare. Maybe it’s outreach, or stewardship, or property, or worship, or youth, or music, or... anything, but today you have a chance to pick at least one thing – and maybe two or three things – that you’ll risk for the church.

    Every single thing we do, every risk we take to build our church, can make it more inclusive. And the more inclusive we are, the more we will welcome other people to rebuild God’s Temple. We will rebuild God’s Temple one body at a time – one body of a person who is welcome here, one body of a child who is safe here, one body of a gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered person who finds freedom here, one body of an undocumented family that finds sanctuary here, one body of anyone who is lonely seeking friendship here. We rebuild God’s Temple one body at a time – your body and mine. We are only one church, and unlike the Little Red Hen, we can’t keep our nation and our world from falling apart all by ourselves. One little church won’t destroy the power of Empire. But we are not by ourselves, and all across the world people and whole communities are resisting empire and rebuilding God’s Temple, body by body. Slowly, the stones of our world will fall against Empire in every form. The stones of this world will fall back into place, and God will be at home again. Brothers and sisters, today Jesus calls us to risk it all! The time has come! Amen.