Fatalism or Faith

Proper 28C: Luke 21:5-19

Say the word “apocalypse” to the average man or woman on the street, and you will conjure up in their imagination pictures of catastrophic happenings—nuclear bombs, alien invasion, market collapse, deadly asteroids hurtling towards the earth. Alarming, sure. But were you to probe deeper into people’s thoughts regarding such matters, you likely note a certain pessimism lurking beneath the surface. As writer Daniel Wojcik noted in his book The End of the World As We Know It, there’s a kind of the fatalism that people carry around in their hearts, that you can detect just by listening to certain popular catch phrases. People will refer to this or that event in their lives (good or bad) by saying things like, “It was fated that we meet this way. This was your destiny. It was meant to be. It was in the cards.”  Or, when someone dies, people say, “I guess his number was up. It was just his time. It was his fate.”

When facing the uncertainties of the future, many people will say that since there is nothing we can do about it anyway, the best we can do is grit our teeth, press forward, and hope for the best. And if the worst happens and some disaster strikes, then that’s just the way it has to be, it’s all rather random anyway. And so, until then, we’ll live life while we have it and let the chips fall where they may. People don’t always appreciate how fatalism colors their perceptions, though. I think of the man who once declared, “I am not a fatalist! And even if I were, what could I do about it!?”

Some Christians have attempted an end-run around this fatalism by claiming that they know precisely what the future holds. They turn to passages like today’s lesson Luke 21 (and the books of Daniel and Revelation) and claim to find there a kind of giant secret code that, if we can just crack it, will spell out in neat and precise details the future’s exact timelines.

There’s in fact a long history of this kind of thinking, of identifying various geo-political events of the day with Jesus’ prophecies. You all likely remember Hal Lindsay Jr’s Late, Great Planet Earth which insisted that the end times were coming in the 1970s, or maybe the 1980s. Before him, a group of Seventh Day Adventists pegged 1914 as the year of Jesus’ return. A century before them, William Miller predicted Jesus’ return on March 21, 1844, then April 18, 1844, and finally October 22, 1844. Even in Medieval times, you find Christians believing that a new age was coming in the year 1000 or else 1033, a thousand years after Jesus’ birth or a thousand years after his death, according to then-common calculations.

Needless to say, they were all wrong. But even beyond their miscalculating the date, the whole attempt to pin down when Jesus returns is wrong-headed. For when the date inevitably comes and goes without Jesus’ appearing, the result is confusion and doubt and despair—which is the exact opposite of Jesus wants for us. As we see in today’s Gospel lesson, what Jesus says is intended to inspire hope and faithfulness during tribulation, not to cause disbelief. In fact, Jesus’ words are aimed expressly against such speculations. He says, "Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and, ‘The time is near!’ Don’t listen to them.”

So if Jesus’ point in this passage isn’t to make us starry-eyed surveyors of distant horizons, what does God have to say to us in this passage? To get at that answer, we have to recall the original context of Jesus’ words: Luke tells us that Jesus was walking through the Temple in Jerusalem. The Temple was the place where sacrifices were offered to God, where God’s glory was understood to dwell. And as such it was the focus of Israel’s national and religious identity. And his disciples were there “oohing and awing” at the architecture—the massive stone walls, the graceful arches, the gilded doors—like a bunch of first-time tourists in Paris or Rome. (You can always pick out the tourists because they’re the only ones looking up.) While the disciples are gawking at the Temple, out of the blue Jesus tells them that this wonderful structure, this sign of the Lord’s presence among his people, will soon be destroyed. Not one brick will remain on another.

And that’s just what happened. Some forty years after this, the Temple was destroyed, torn down brick by brick, during Rome’s effort to quash the Jewish rebellion. And with that, the very focus of identity for the people of Israel was no more. The very thing they trusted in, that gave them security, that they thought they could depend on, was no more. They could have hardly believed such a thing was possible. Not only were these massive stones—weighing several tons each—and so would have taken quite a lot of effort to tear them down. But more importantly, the Temple’s destruction would have meant that the Lord had abandoned his people, that Israel’s God was no longer present to them, that the Holy One had withdrawn his hand, his favor, his protection.

To the Jews, the destruction of the Temple was the end of the world. It was like the sky had fallen and the earth beneath their feet had been moved. And if that wasn’t devastating enough, Jesus tells his Jewish followers that they would be arrested, persecuted, imprisoned, hauled before kings and governors, betrayed by their families and friends, hated by all and put to death.

Yet, Jesus says, don’t worry. Don’t be concerned about what you will do or what you will say. God will take care of you. Keep doing what you know is right and good and true, even when it’s hard, even when you face opposition, even when everyone else is panicking, crying that the sky is falling and looking for someone—anyone—to save them. Keep the faith. Stay with it to the end. You won’t be sorry; you’ll be saved.

When it’s put like that, I suppose this passage does have something to say to us after all. I mean, we may not be facing an invasion of our country, the destruction of our capitals and churches and markets, or the outlawing of Christianity. But most of us I’ll bet have faced a failure or defeat that shattered our world and shook the ground we stand on. A serious illness, a job loss, the death of loved one, betrayal by friends, a wrong done to us—things like this can put an end to the life we know, the assumption that the world is a good and just place. But Jesus’ message to us in these times is this: Don’t worry. Keep the faith. God will be with you. God will take care of you.

Now, I suppose a lot of us would have preferred Jesus had said something else, something like, “Don’t worry about trials and persecutions, for I shall deliver you from them before they happen” or “The world will be so impressed by the church’s ideals, our good works, the truth of our message that they won’t dare lay a hand on you to begin with.” But instead, Jesus assures us that suffering and loss and persecution will happen. None of us can escape them. And Christians even more so, because others won’t understand or respect our allegiance to Christ, our commitment to truth.

There’s no escaping it. The question is rather what will we do when it happens, what kind of people will we be when we are faced with hardship and injustice. Maya Angelou once said that you can tell a lot about a person by the way they handle three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas lights. Jesus is telling us that how we handle suffering, uncertainty, and disaster will say a lot about who we are, as individuals and as a people. To the Jews of Jesus’ day and to many of us, watching our cherished monuments being cast down is a cause of grief and even despair. But Jesus challenges us to see the dismantling of our “temples” as a sign of hope, an occasion for each of us to witness, to testify that God is in charge. 

Some years ago, a colleague of mine died at age 52 of a brain tumor. The way he approached his death over the months of his terminal illness was a witness to his faith. "I have been forced to go on a journey I did not want to take," he said. "And yet, this, the worst of my times, has also been the best of times. I am closer to God than I have ever been. Because so many of the things I leaned on have been taken away from me, I have been forced to lean on Jesus. And I have found him trustworthy and true.” Now, this deepening of faith didn't bring healing. It didn't reduce the pain and loss his family felt at the time of death. But it did strengthen their conviction of a life beyond death.

I wonder today, if we can identify with this, if there are any circumstances in your life, any place of turmoil or disorder, of which it might be said a painful, though necessary, casting down was taking place, where some “temple” is being dismantled, so that newness might come? Is there anything in your life where things are falling apart perhaps so as to make room for something new, something better? Might such an ending and beginning be the work of God in your life? Could it be that God is giving you a gift you never knew you needed, giving you a blessing in disguise?

I’ll tell you about one example of a blessing in disguise. Jim sat on his new deck, looking out on the small lake surrounded by attractive town houses. Noting the beauty of the scene, I asked, “How did you decide to move here?” He replied, “I didn’t. I was forced to move here. The Department of Transportation planned a new highway that cut right through our farm, land that I had inherited from my parents. I never farmed the land, but I sure enjoyed living there. When we heard that the state was going to condemn our property, take it for highway, we were beside ourselves. We thought it was the end of everything. This was the only place I had ever lived in my whole life! But then we moved here. Had to move somewhere, so we moved here. Frankly, it was a best thing that ever happened to us. We love it here.” Then Jim was silent and reflective for a moment before saying, “It is kind of sad that you got to be forced by the State Highway Department to do what you didn’t have the courage to do on your own. I thought the highway department had just about killed me. As it turns out, they gave me a whole new life!”

Indeed, behind Jesus’ warnings of wars and suffering and betrayal is the promise of new life. “By your endurance you will gain your souls,” he says. Jesus promises that we will find our souls on the other side of adversity. By sticking to the convictions of our faith through trial and tribulation, we will discover who we are, our true selves, our identity as children of God who have been promised new life. This is not about earning our salvation, but rather about finding salvation in the midst of tribulation. By keeping the faith in times of suffering and opposition, we will discover that we have been kept by God. By maintaining our integrity, we will discover that God has maintained us. By preserving our identity as followers of Christ in this life, we will find that we have been preserved by God for the life to come.

The fact is, we do not know what the future holds for each of us, whether conflict or peace, comfort or hardship. But we can face it with confidence, assured that whatever comes, God is faithful. We may not know what the future holds, but we know Who holds the future. Come what may, God will meet us, will be with us in our need, and will give us the words and strength and courage we need to face what we must face. “In the world you will have trouble,” Jesus assures us, “but take heart, I have overcome the world.” That is a message, I think, we all need to hear, that we can all be thankful for. Amen.