Patrick Comerford
Sunday next, 17 November 2019, is the Second Sunday before Advent.
There are two sets of readings in the Revised Common Lectionary as adapted for use in the Church of Ireland, the continuous readings and the paired readings.
The Paired Readings: Isaiah 65: 17-25; Canticle: Song of Isaiah; II Thessalonians 3: 6-13; Luke 21: 5-19. There is a link to the paired readings HERE.
The Continuous Readings: Malachi 4: 1-2a; Psalm 98; II Thessalonians 3: 6-13; Luke 21: 5-19. There is a link to the continuous readings HERE.
Introducing the Readings:
Sunday’s readings may give us the opportunity to ask how we maintain our Christian values in the face of opposition or even persecution, in the face of dreadful world events.
A problem that continues to dominate parish priorities is the emphasis on buildings rather than people. Are there ‘building blocks’ we need to knock down so we can start again and care for little people like the poor widow in the story preceding the Gospel reading who is passed over in the lectionary editing of this reading? (see Luke 21: 1-4).
Is it time to rebuild, to become the kind of temples God really wants?
Should we change church politics and priorities for God’s politics and priorities?
In pursuing God’s vision for the future of the church and the Kingdom, are we relying on our own knowledge and strengths?
What risks are we willing to take for our core values?
How would you be prophetic and offer hope in the face of the current economic ‘earthquake’ we are facing in Britain and Ireland after Brexit?
How do you read the signs of the times when it comes to global events?
Have you a vision for a new heaven and a new earth (see Isaiah 65: 17-25)?
How do you balance concerns for the wider world with those for the widow and her small coin in your parish?
How would you relate the Gospel reading to the Epistle reading (II Thessalonians 3: 6-13) and keeping away from believers who do not remain true to the essentials of faith?
Isaiah 65: 17-25:
This reading brings a promise of a new creation, ‘new heavens and a new earth,’ in which the past sinfulness of the people will be forgotten (verse 17). In new Jerusalem, the people will be glad and rejoice, and God will delight in the people.
There will be no more weeping or sorrow, no more crying or distress (verse 19). No longer will infants die soon after birth; instead, old people will know the promise of long life, so that 100-year-olds will be seen as young people. People will build houses, plant vineyards, enjoy the fruit of their labour, knowing their work is not in vain and their children shall prosper and be blessed (verses 20-23).
The tree in verse 22 may have evoked images of the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden although later Christian readers would see parallels with the Cross.
This peace will be so all-pervasive that the ‘wolf and the lamb shall feed together,’ the lion and the ox shall eat straw together. The new Jerusalem shall be so at peace that ‘shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain’ (verse 25).
‘The Song of Isaiah’:
Instead of a Psalm, the Lectionary suggests using the Canticle we know as ‘The Song of Isaiah’ (Isaiah 12: 2-6; see Canticle 23, the Book of Common Prayer, p 132).
Once again, we are told not to be afraid but to trust in God, who meets our every need, and who promises salvation and peace to the nations of the earth.
This too is a promise of the New Jerusalem, where all shall sing with joy.
II Thessalonians 3: 6-13:
We have come to the end of this series of readings from Saint Paul’s second Letter to the Thessalonians.
The writer asks the members of the Church in Thessaloniki to avoid those who say they are Christians and who because they claim the end has come live a dissolute life, with moral abandon and receiving financial support from others without sharing the Christian message. Instead, they should imitate Saint Paul and the co-authors of this letter (Silvanus and Timothy). Although Saint Paul had the right to ask for financial support from the community, but instead he worked to earn a living and to support himself.
He is forceful when he says he has already warned that those in the community who refuse to work – the immoral group he has identified – should not be fed. If they continue in their wilful, erroneous ways, they should be avoided and put to shame.
Luke 21: 5-19:
The Gospel readings in the Revised Common Lectionary for the closing the Sundays after Pentecost read like readings for Lent and preparation for Holy Week rather than readings for the weeks leading up to Advent. But Advent is a season of preparation for Christ coming among us as God incarnate, as our king, which we mark the following week with the Kingship of Christ (the Sunday before Advent, 24 November 2019).
This Gospel reading is a portion of the ‘little apocalypse,’ the last story about Christ teaching in the Temple (see Matthew 24 and 25, Mark 13 and Luke 21). He foretells the destruction of the Temple, an episode that took place 40 years later.
It is also known as the Little Apocalypse because it includes the use of apocalyptic language, and it includes Christ’s warning to his followers that they will suffer tribulation and persecution before the ultimate triumph of the Kingdom of God.
In the Gospels according to Saint Matthew and Saint Mark, Christ delivers this discourse to his disciples privately on the Mount of Olives, opposite the Temple. In Saint Luke’s Gospel, he teaches over a period of time in the Temple and stays at night on the Mount of Olives.
In Christ’s time, people worried when the world would end, and wondered what signs would indicate ‘this is about to take place.’
Christ begins to answer these questions by drawing on the Prophets (Micah, Jeremiah, Hosea and Joel) and Jewish apocalyptic literature of the time (such as 2 Esdras). However, he tells them that ‘the end will not follow immediately’ (v. 9), and then diverts to issues that matter then and now: wars, earthquakes, famines, global health, the betrayal and persecution of people who suffer because of their religious beliefs, and how people should respond to these happenings (verse 12-19).
He encourages his followers to endure, for it is not the calamitous events of the future that future but the faith and values we hold on to, no matter what the cost may be.
The Revd Dr Charles Eric Funston is a retired priest of the Episcopal Church who was the Rector of Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio, until at the end of 2018. Recently, as he was preparing to preach on the ‘little apocalypse’ next Sunday, he thought, ‘What if Jesus was being sarcastic in that first part?’
This passage is always read as if Christ is predicting wars and earthquakes, and saying those precursors of the end must be preceded by tribulation, persecution and martyrdom. This approach provides a basis for the nonsense that has become known as ‘Rapture Theology.’
But Dr Funston wonders whether ‘we are missing a change of tone of voice in this passage.’ He asks, ‘What if that first part is not a prediction, but a snarky, sarcastic ‘Yeah. Right,’ about his contemporaries’ apocalyptic predictions, which is then followed up with a ‘Get real!’ instruction?’
He points out in the original Greek of this Gospel, the first part of the reading is written in the aorist, while the second part is written in the imperative. Greek playwrights often used the aorist when writing sarcastic dialogue.
It is difficult to convey emotion through the printed page and even more difficult in translations. We often fail to identify sarcasm or irony in Scripture. But they are found throughout the Gospels, including the story of Christ’s dialogue with the Syro-Phoenician woman.
So, Eric Funstone asks, ‘in all seriousness,’ what if Christ is being sarcastic in this reading? ‘What if he is not predicting, but rather ridiculing, notions of catastrophic end-times events and saying, ‘There’s more important stuff to do than worry about that nonsense’?’
Things to worry about today, of course, include wars between nations, earthquakes, climate change, famines, global sickness, poverty … and how we respond to those events in action that reflects our faith and prayer life.
Looking at the Gospel reading in detail:
Over the past few weeks, Christ, like Isaiah (50: 7) and Ezekiel (21: 1-2) in the Old Testament, has ‘set his face to go to Jerusalem’ (Luke 9: 51), while his disciples, first in awe, then in shock, follow him on that road to Jerusalem and the Temple. This reading is from the last story about Christ teaching in the Temple.
In between our Gospel readings for the Fourth Sunday before Advent, 3 November (Luke 19: 1-10) and for the Third Sunday before Advent, 10 November (Luke 20: 27-38), the Lectionary readings have skipped past Christ’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem, when the ‘whole multitude … began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power they had seen, saying ‘Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” ’ (Luke 19: 38).
On his arrival in Jerusalem, Christ weeps, invokes sayings from Jeremiah against a city that ‘did not recognise the time of your visitation from God’ (Luke 19: 41-44), and then faces up to three attempts by the authorities to entrap him, each concluding with Christ silencing his opponents (Luke 20: 1-19; 20: 20-26; and 20: 27-38), the third of which we looked at last week.
Setting the scene
The scene has been set in the verses in this chapter that immediately precede this reading. Christ is sitting by the Temple Treasury, where he watches the poor widow offer the smallest of coins (verses 1-4).
The scene does not change as he goes on to speak about the Temple, the Nation, and the looming future. But, instead of questioning him about what he has just said about this widow, which might have offered a focus for how the politics of God work, those around him, probably a wider group than just his own disciples, cannot get past the physical presence and appearance of Herod’s Temple in Jerusalem, then revered as a sign of God’s presence, even as the dwelling place of God’s sheltering protection for Israel (see Luke 13:34-35).
The coming of God’s reign
Christ is no longer facing attacks from others. Instead, he alerts his followers to the hardships they face ahead, beyond the time of his journey. But as he approached Jerusalem, Christ had declared that God’s ‘visitation’ had come with his reign, that the very stones of the Temple would testify against those who rejected him (19: 41-44).
Now he again predicts that all the stones will be thrown down (21: 6), as one scene in the divine drama.
A web of prophetic citations is woven through these verses. These include words and phrases from Jeremiah 4, 7, 14, and 21; Isaiah 19; and Ezekiel 14 and 38. Maybe we could say that Christ, like the prophets before him, was not very original in what he said. But there is still the question: how faithfully did these prophetic words and warnings of destruction speak to the people of the time, to the people who heard Christ speak?
But Christ also differentiates his teaching from the teaching of the false prophets, who also quoted the ancient words of God. While announcing the coming judgment, Christ cautions against following prophets who claim to know God’s timetable, even invoking Christ’s own name.
The account in this chapter of Christ’s words could be compared with Mark 13, and its intensity of the coming ‘tribulation.’ Or we might go back to Luke 17: 22-37, which also reminds us that Christ’s death is an integral part of God’s timetable: ‘But first he must endure much suffering and be rejected by this generation’ (17: 25). Saint Luke’s longer account of Christ’s discourse (21: 5-36) assures his readers they are experiencing not ‘the end’ … but the period of ‘tribulations’ or ‘persecutions’ through which believers will enter the kingdom (see Acts 14: 22).
And so, Saint Luke’s account of Christ’s speech does not provide yet another programme or timetable to predict the working out of God’s plan, down to the last second. The prophets and Christ teach us that the struggles in history and in disturbances in nature are more than accidental. They remind us that God triumphed over chaos in creating the natural world, and yet both human and supra-historical forces are still contending for the earth. Christ’s followers are aware, therefore, that his death and resurrection is God’s ultimate act in a struggle of cosmic proportions. Only the final outcome is sure.
The gift and strength of endurance
As the Apostle Paul testifies: ‘We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now; and not only the creation, be we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies’ (Romans 8: 22-23).
The hope to which Christ testifies in this passage, therefore, is no trivial denial of the struggles, the pain and agony of human life, or the catastrophic forces of nature. These are real, and the prophets of old have interpreted such devastations as the context of God’s saving work. Christ joins this chorus, bringing it close to the concrete realities of early Christians. But he says: ‘This will give you an opportunity to testify’ (verse 13) and ‘By your endurance you will gain your souls’ (verse 19).
The ‘opportunity to testify’ does not require Christ’s followers to know every answer to the question: ‘Why do bad things happen to good people.’
Christ is promising that he will give us ‘words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict.’ His earlier promise of the Holy Spirit’s wisdom in times of testimony (see Luke 12: 11-12) now becomes his own promise. When he commissions them as ‘my witnesses’ (Acts 1: 8), he assures them of the power and the presence of his Holy Spirit, and the stories in Acts will display the fulfilment of this promise of God’s ‘mouth and wisdom’ (see Acts 4: 13-14; 16: 6-7). And so, even these harsh prophecies in Luke 21 are filled with the confidence of Christ’s enduring presence.
And the ‘endurance’ that ‘will gain your soul’ (verse 19) is also not mere heroic persistence.
The early Christians knew all about endurance, and that endurance was often tested. Paul echoes that theme in Romans 5: 3-5, then transformed this endurance from reliance on human strength to trusting in God’s love: ‘… we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.’
Saving endurance is a gift of the presence of the Holy Spirit.
Verse 6:
Christ foretells the destruction of the Temple (‘all will be thrown down’). This event took place some 40 years in the future. At that time, Roman legions (‘armies,’ see verse 20) surrounded the city.
Verse 7:
In Christ’s time, people were concerned about when the world would end, and what signs would indicate ‘this is about to take place.’
Verses 7-11:
Christ begins to answer, in terms drawn from the prophets, including Micah, Jeremiah, Hosea and Joel, and from apocalyptic literature of the time, such as II Esdras. ‘The time’ (verse 8) is the time chosen by God for the end of the era. He then adds ‘the end will not follow immediately’ (verse 9).
Verses 12-19:
Christ then diverts to issues that matter now: the treatment his followers will receive, and how they should react to it
They will be treated as he has been: they will be accused of heresy in ‘synagogues,’ brought before civil courts (‘kings and governors’) and sent to prison.
Verse 13:
On these occasions, they should take it as ‘an opportunity to testify,’ for testimony (verse 13, μαρτύριον), to tell the good news, we might even read into it to be martyrs.
Verse 14:
They should be themselves, and not act out a role. The Greek word translated ‘prepare … in advance’ (προμελετάω, verse 14) literally means to practise as in to practise a gesture or rehearse a dance.
Verses 16-17:
To follow Christ entails suffering and betrayal and being ‘hated.’
Verse 19:
Perseverance under duress will gain you eternal life.
Luke 21: 5-19 (NRSVA):
5 When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, he said, 6 ‘As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.’
7 They asked him, ‘Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?’ 8 And he said, ‘Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, “I am he!” and, “The time is near!” Do not go after them.
9 ‘When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end will not follow immediately.’ 10 Then he said to them, ‘Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; 11 there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.
12 ‘But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name. 13 This will give you an opportunity to testify. 14 So make up your minds not to prepare your defence in advance; 15 for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict. 16 You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. 17 You will be hated by all because of my name. 18 But not a hair of your head will perish. 19 By your endurance you will gain your souls.’
Liturgical resources:
Liturgical Colour: Green (Ordinary Times, Year C)
The Collect of the Day:
Heavenly Father,
whose blessed Son was revealed to destroy the works of the devil
and to make us the children of God and heirs of eternal life:
Grant that we, having this hope,
may purify ourselves even as he is pure;
that when he shall appear in power and great glory,
we may be made like him
in his eternal and glorious kingdom;
where he is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Collect of the Word:
Almighty God,
you sent your Son Jesus Christ
to be the light of the world.
Free us from all that darkens and ensnares us,
and brings us to eternal light and joy:
through the power of him
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
Gracious Lord,
in this holy sacrament you give substance to our hope.
Bring us at the last to that pure life for which we long,
through Jesus Christ our Saviour.
Suggested hymns:
Isaiah 65: 17-25:
49, Lord, bring the day to pass
369, Songs of praise the angels sang
292, Ye choirs of new Jerusalem
The Canticle, ‘The Song of Isaiah’ (Isaiah 12: 1-6):
370, Stand up and bless the Lord
373, To God be the glory! Great things he has done!
492, Ye servants of God, your master proclaim
Malachi 4: 1-2a:
52, Christ, whose glory fills the skies
37, Come, ye thankful people, come
324, God, whose almighty word
160, Hark! the herald-angels sing
128, Hills of the north, rejoice
535, Judge eternal, throned in splendour
199, The people that in darkness walked
Psalm 98:
146, A great and mighty wonder
125, Hail to the Lord’s anointed
166, Joy to the world, the Lord is come
705, New songs of celebration render
710, Sing to God new songs of worship
369, Songs of praise the angels sang
II Thessalonians 3: 6-13:
523, Help us to help each other, Lord
436, Now let us from this table rise
446, Strengthen for service, Lord, the hands
498, What does the Lord require for praise and offering?
Luke 21: 5-19:
10, All my hope on God is founded
327, Christ is our corner-stone
52, Christ, whose glory fills the skies
496, For the healing of the nations
15, If thou but suffer God to guide thee
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
Material from the Book of Common Prayer is copyright © 2004, Representative Body of the Church of Ireland.
The hymn suggestions are provided in Sing to the Word (2000), edited by Bishop Edward Darling. The hymn numbers refer to the Church of Ireland’s Church Hymnal (5th edition, Oxford: OUP, 2000).
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