“Signs of the times” (St. Luke’s: Friday, October 27th, 2017; Rm. 7.18-25; Ps. 119; Lk. 12.54-59)

On the “way”.  If you are not feeling tired this morning, you should be; after all, since October 3^rd, liturgically speaking, we’ve been on a journey.  On October 3^rd, Luke’s Gospel told us: “Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem” (9.51).  We will arrive in Jerusalem, with Jesus, on November 24^th.  (Apparently, if you don’t dilly-dally, you can walk from Galilee, in Northern Israel, to Jerusalem in about 4 days.)  So, throughout the months of October and November, all the weekday Gospel readings come from chapters 9-19 of St. Luke’s Gospel.  These chapters are called Luke’s “travel narrative”.

(Still) waiting.  We are journeying with Jesus towards Jerusalem as the Church journeys towards the end of the present liturgical year and towards the season of Advent.  We begin every new liturgical year in a state of expectancy, celebrating Jesus’ first advent (his birth) and anticipating his second advent (return in glory).  At the time of Jesus, God’s people had been in a state of expectancy for a long time, awaiting the Day when Yahweh would rescue his people from the power of pagan empires through the work of a warrior-king who would restore the Golden Age that Israel had experienced at the time of David, the young hero who had faced down a giant and had gone on to rule God’s people.  Many Jews at the time of Jesus believed that their God, Yahweh, had abandoned his people at the time of the Babylonian exile, six centuries earlier.  When would Yahweh return to his people and once again make his glorious presence felt in the Jerusalem Temple?  We are waiting for the return of Jesus; Jesus’ contemporaries were waiting for the return of God…

Return of the LORD.  As he journeys towards Jerusalem, Jesus tells story after story about a landowner or a king who goes away and leaves his servants with jobs to do; then he comes back and judges his servants according to their un/faithfulness in carrying out the tasks that had been assigned to them (e.g. Lk. 12.35-48; 19.11-27; 20.9-19).  The way Luke tells the story, in and as Jesus, Yahweh is finally returning to his “home” – the Jerusalem Temple; but once he arrives there, Jesus will pronounce judgment upon the nation and its leaders, who have become corrupted by greed and violence and are busy creating the conditions for a disastrous conflict with Rome (Lk. 19.45-48; 21.5-28).

As the prophet Malachi had said:

“the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple… — indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?” (3.1-2)

God is returning to his people, but they are not ready.  What God’s people thought they wanted has finally happened – but once Yahweh shows up, he will be rejected.  It’s the final twist in this pivotal chapter in the often tragic story of Yahweh and his purposes to save his world.  Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem will set off a chain reaction – the end result of which will be the absolute destruction of the city (13.1-5, 31-35; 17.20-37; 19.41-44).

(Still) time to repent.  Immediately following today’s reading, in the first verses of chapter 13 of Luke’s Gospel, some people come and tell Jesus about some pilgrims who had been killed by Roman soldiers in the very courts of the Temple.  Jesus replies by making reference to a tower that had collapsed in Jerusalem, killing 18 people.  Then Jesus states the punchline: “unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did” (13.3, 5).  Jesus tells his contemporaries that unless they “repent”, they will die – how? – on Roman swords and under collapsing stonework.  As it turned out, the sword-wielding Romans tore down the walls of Jerusalem in the year 70 AD – one generation (40 years) after Jesus’ crucifixion.  There it is – that is the disaster that Jesus is constantly referring to as he journeys towards Jerusalem.  Just as the prophet Jeremiah had warned God’s people 6 centuries earlier that the Babylonians were going to destroy Jerusalem, now Jesus is the mouthpiece of God who warns his people about the coming disaster.  In the light of this impending catastrophe, the proper response is “to repent”, that is to say, to turn away from the foolishness of military revolt and to “follow Jesus” in the way of peace, of love – not only for one’s neighbour – but also for one’s enemies (cf. Lk. 6.27, 35).

The Bible & the newspaper.  Let’s look at today’s Gospel.  At some point along “the way”, Jesus asks the crowds a question: “Why do you not know how to interpret the present time?”  Why can’t you understand what is happening?  We’ve been down this road before.  Throughout our history as a people, when we’ve prioritized national privilege over being God’s people, over being the light of the nations, disaster has struck.  (Imagine Jesus speaking in an exasperated, frustrated tone of voice).  In November 2012, a few weeks before his retirement from being head of the Church of England, Rowan Williams gave his last press conference.  When asked which qualities the next Archbishop of Canterbury would need, Williams quoted the famous theologian Karl Barth who said, 'you have to preach with a Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other.’  Williams added: "You have to be cross-referencing all the time and saying, 'How does the biblical vision of humanity and community map onto the issues of poverty, privation, violence and conflict?' And you have to use what you read in the newspaper to prompt and direct the questions that you put to the Bible.  (Barth also insisted that one must use the Bible to interpret the newspaper, and not the other way around).  In today’s Gospel, Jesus invites those around him to imagine the “present time” in the history of God’s people in terms of someone being threatened with a lawsuit – “reach a settlement with your accuser before you arrive at the courthouse” says Jesus.  Settle things peacefully, or else the situation will degenerate to the point where you have nothing left.  If you insist on “winning” the case, you will lose your freedom along with all your wealth, right down to the very last penny.  There is still time to avoid disaster, says Jesus.  There is still time to make peace.  There is still time to repent and change course.  I’m on the way; I’m not there yet.  Repent now!

The prophetic people.  The message of today’s Gospel is not an easy one.  It is a challenge to “prepare the way of the Lord”, to make tough decisions and change our hearts in order to be ready – in the case of Jesus’ contemporaries, to be ready for the arrival of Yahweh-in-the-person-of-Jesus, and in our case, to be ready for the return of our Lord.  As the Church – God’s people in our “present time” – we have a prophetic role to play in the world.  We are called to model genuine humanity to the watching world, or perhaps, to the world that has written us off as being irrelevant.  (Most prophets don’t make the headlines… unless they mess up).  In the midst of our community and society, and in the present time of tabloid-like “news”, may God give us the courage to give bold witness to Christ and his way, and to show the world what true humanity looks like.  Amen.