Photo by Amaury Michaux: https://www.pexels.com/photo/scenic-pathway-at-corsican-hillside-memorial-32763750/

INTRODUCTION

Hello everyone, and welcome to our service of worship this morning. Today is the 23rd Sunday after Pentecost—23 weeks since Pentecost on June 8—the long season in the church calendar, sometimes referred to as “Ordinary Time”—culminating next week in “Christ the King”, or “Reign of Christ” Sunday; then after that, of course, we start the beautiful season of Advent.

This year we’ve been on an amazing, long journey in the Lectionary mostly through the Gospel of Luke. Today we’re in Luke 21, Jesus is in Jerusalem, in and around the Temple itself, and he could be betrayed and arrested any minute. There’s are sense of impending doom in the air. Today’s reading – verses 5-19 of Chapter 21 – really picks up on this: it’s the famous “Signs of the End of the Age” passage, in which Jesus seems to predict the destruction of the temple, wars, famines, earthquakes, pestilences, persecutions … It’s scary stuff! We might add things like drought and bushfires, a terrible algal bloom, climate change. But Jesus’ motivation in talking about these things is not, I think, to freak us out, but to encourage us, most urgently, to trust in God in all situations in life—Trust in God, no matter what!—our theme for today. But what exactly does it mean to trust, to believe, to have faith in God? What exactly do we get from God when we do that, what is the pay-off in our lives? That’s the $64000 question, or questions, that we’ll explore in our reflection today!

GOSPEL READING: Luke 21:5-19-11

When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, he said, “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.”

They asked him, “Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?”

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. 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.”

Then he said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven. 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. This will give you an opportunity to testify. So make up your minds not to prepare your defence in advance; for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict. You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. You will be hated by all because of my name. But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your souls.”

THE MESSAGE:

“Nation will rise against nation …. there will be great earthquakes … famines and plagues … dreadful portents and great signs from heaven …. they will arrest you and persecute you …. you will be betrayed even by parents and brothers … and they will put some of you to death … “

Help! What a freak out! These things will happen, Jesus says, but whatever you do, don’t worry, don’t be anxious—don’t trust in yourselves, trust in … me:

“ … make up your minds not to prepare your defence in advance; for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand … not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your souls.”

Ah, phew! That sounds better, doesn’t it: “… by your endurance you will gain your souls.”?!

Trust, believe, have faith in God, at all times, therefore—at the best of times, at the worst of times—and, yes, by enduring we will gain our souls. So, exactly what does it mean—the $64000 question I posed in my introduction—to trust in God? And what exactly is the payoff of trusting?—what does it actually mean to “gain our souls”?

Well, trusting in God? Jesus says, in verse 14, as we read, to simply “make up your minds not to prepare your defence in advance.” Trusting in God always, at the deepest level, starts with an intentional letting go of trust in self, in our own ability to make our life happen. At the deepest level: when it comes to the crunch, when the things we most earnestly want and desire for ourselves and for those we care about, for the whole world even, are threatened, when they don’t seem ever to be able to come to fruition. Often, at this deepest level—the sorts of terrible situations Jesus is talking about—we only let go of the things we most earnestly yearn for, when circumstances conspire to rip them out of our hands! Earthquakes, famines, droughts, persecution … There’s nothing left, I’ve failed, I can’t do anything, there’s no hope! Ahh, now you’re at exactly the place you need to be to start trusting God!

This takes some careful reflection, some practice, it’s a habit we’re building—“make up your minds” now, Jesus is telling us—before the crunch comes. The question we need to keep asking ourselves, constantly, daily is: what in my life in the world really matters—I mean really, really matters? Is it that I find happiness, success, fulfilment, meaning in life, for me? Is it that the plans I have for my life come to fruition? No, the one thing in my life in the world that truly matters, is for me to be the best possible person I can be, in the world, for others. The best version of myself, the “better angels” of my human nature, the things that really matter: kindness, friendliness, compassion, empathy, unselfishness, generosity, patience, gentleness, self-awareness, self-control …—what we call the “fruits of the Spirit”, in other words —all the things that are not for me, but for others, for my life in the world—and, by the way, almost as an added bonus, they are the things that bring true success, happiness, fulfilment for me anyway!

Don’t wait for terrible circumstances to rip your hopes and dreams for yourself out of your hands—let go of them now, Jesus is telling us. Is this not what we parents, grandparents, try to teach our little children: to be kind to others, take turns, play nicely, be helpful, share, be generous—from time to time, at the critical moment, at the deepest level, when it comes to the crunch—to be able to let go of their self-focussed desires and give themselves to others. Surely it is the most important skill set to acquire in all human life, the solution to all the world’s problems?!

But, yes, it absolutely takes trust, faith, belief. It’s an amazingly unnatural thing, isn’t it, to do as Jesus says, to not prepare your defence in advance—every fibre of our natural being rebels against it. You see it in little children, when their parents start teaching them, for example, to share. It makes no sense to them initially: why should I share?—it’s a foreign concept—they might flatly refuse to do it: “No!”, they say, that word little children of a certain age are very good at saying. They might chuck a fruity, or sulk; but the parents calmly and lovingly explain, insist, and eventually the little darling decides to … trust their parents that, even though it seems to be of no immediate benefit to them to share, it will in the longer term be better for everyone if they share, including them themselves. Trust, in their parents. And then of course, the trust is rewarded, and reinforced, when they find out that it is actually enjoyable to share, and, ultimately, you get just as much in return anyway! Sharing is a win-win! Trust, in their parents, is what gets little children on the way—is the only thing that can get them on the way—to becoming a better, more selfless person.

Now, the little human child is, so to speak, a microcosm of humanity as a whole. Thus, the child has a parent, or parents, whom they are able to put their trust, faith, belief in, in order to be able to let go of their natural self-centredness and learn how to be a better, more selfless person. And humanity as a whole, likewise, has a parent whom they can put their trust, faith, belief in, in order start becoming a better, more selfless humanity: God, the father, the divine parent of us all, the God that Jesus presents and most fully represents, the one that he always referred to as “My Father”, “Our Father”.

Of course, the trust that a little child puts in their parent may not be rewarded, their parent might not be a good parent, they might be a selfish, controlling, negligent, even abusive parent. And, if no one else intervenes in their life along the way, like a grandparent, a teacher, a friend of the family, the child might never learn any real selflessness, and grow up to probably just repeat the selfish behaviour of their parent.

What about God, then, as the parent of humanity as a whole? What if they don’t do their job well? What if they don’t even exist?! Well, most of the gods of human history were pretty awful, and in most cases we woke up long ago to the fact that they didn’t actually exist. But what if no God exists at all, even one who is a good divine parent? Well, humanity is truly up the creek without a paddle—we will never learn to be good, selfless, considerate people, and be able to live together in peace and harmony, ever!

But hang on: we have learned! Most people, these days, are capable of some degree of selflessness, respect, compassion, kindness, and so on—some people are even really good at it. So, there must be a God out there who has taught us, a divine parent-like God whom we can put our trust in, at that deepest level, when the crunch comes, to help us learn to let go of our self-seeking concerns and practice a little selflessness! Happy days! If that’s not good news, I don’t know what is!

I think we can now also begin to see the answer to the second question we started with: what exactly is the payoff of trusting in God? Obviously, it’s to set us on the road to becoming a better, more selfless person. But why does Jesus describe this in terms of “gain[ing] our souls”? Well, the great Martin Luther liked to use a beautiful Latin expression to describe the natural-born self-centred state of our soul [there it is on the slide]: incurvatus in se, curved in upon itself, imprisoned in self, not able to escape from the captivity of our selfish concerns. The opposite state of soul [also on the slide], transformed by trust in God, is excurvatus ex se, a soul opening out to the world, expanding, set free from the prison of self, no longer captive to self-centred desires, eager and ready to serve others and the world.

“What shall it profit a person to gain the whole world and lose their soul?”, Jesus famously asks in Mark 8 and Matthew 16. The pay-off of trust in God is not gaining the world—it’s not, in fact, gaining many of the things we habitually want, and pray to God to provide for us. For example:

  • We want God to “give us our daily bread”—that is, provide for our physical, material needs. But God doesn’t do that, we provide those things ourselves, by working for them. Some people are not able do that, they’re poor, starving—they have to rely on charity, or they somehow have to drag themselves up out of poverty by their own bootstraps.
  • We want God to heal us when we’re sick—but again, God doesn’t do that. I know some people claim divine healing, but we’ve developed such wonderful medicine and healthcare, that we can now do a pretty good job of healing ourselves.
  • We want God to judge those people who hurt us, or hurt other people whom we identify with in some way—bring them to justice, or at least intervene to stop the harm. But God doesn’t do that either, we just don’t see God intervening directly to judge bad people.

Oh, but yes God does!—provide our daily bread, heal us when we’re sick, bring bad people to justice—when we put our trust in them, to help us learn to be better more selfless people. Why? Well, when we’re thinking and living more selflessly, more open the world, our personal agency is set free so that we can much more effectively:

  • provide materially for ourselves and those who are dependent on us
  • access good quality healthcare for ourselves and others we care about
  • work for improvement of systems of justice in the world, so that people who do bad things are less likely to get away with it

We can have our cake and eat it too, it’s a win-win!—if we just focus on what is really important in life, and trust in God to help us become better, more selfless people—this, in fact, is God’s wonderful Kingdom growing all around us in the world, right now.

So, before the worst occurs—right now, in fact—

“ … make up your minds not to prepare your defence in advance; for I [Jesus] will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand …” And “… By your endurance you will gain your souls.”

Trust in God, therefore, in the best of times, in the worst of times … no matter what!

Amen!