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Sermon for November 13, 2011 Pentecost 22 Proper 28 Year A Mainline Christians often like
to be vague about the end of the world, or the end
times, or the second coming, or the consummation of all
things, or 'the day of the Lord' or whatever you want to
call it. And
for good reason. We
don’t know (even Jesus said he didn’t know) when that
will be! And some of those obsessed
with end times like the writers of the popular Left Behind books have a
thinly veiled, unscriptural, political agenda as when a
Secretary General
of the UN type, is the antichrist. This kind of focus is a
depressing distraction from the need to do good in the
world now! Actually, some of the current
end time ideas were conjured up as late as the 19th
century. On the other hand, though we
don't know when the world will end, even a fervent
atheist knows that eventually the sun will burn out and
long before that life as we know it will cease to exist
on Earth! We don't know when the world
will end-- but we pray for God's kingdom to come and
God's will to be done on earth as it is in heaven-- we
don't happily anticipate a violent Armageddon! Still it is true that the
Bible -- that is Jesus and Paul and the book of
Revelation do speak, sometimes in rather cryptic ways,
about a final judgment.
Though
some of these Scriptures were really more focused on
God judging their Roman contemporaries. It's easy to get mixed up! If God is
going to judge anybody it is for being selfish and
hurtful to their fellow human beings. In other
words, God judges a lack of love because God loves
everybody! So it's true: we get the
carrot and we get the stick often in the Bible. But God wants everyone to
choose the carrot!
To choose life!
To choose God! Paul in our reading from 1st
Thessalonians kind of starts with the stick -- kind of
an ominous threat.
He says, "The Day of the Lord will come like a
thief in the night.
When they say, 'There is peace and security,'
then sudden destruction will come upon them!" Here is a key -- he is
talking to Christians -- so he is actually trying to
encourage them! Imperial Roman coins had the
phrase "peace and
security" on them as propaganda! Paul is saying
the peace and security that comes from violent empire
are not to be trusted. // But, nor
are they to be worried about. He reminds the Thessalonians
that they are children of light -- they should stay
awake and alert and realize that the best weapons to
protect true
peace and security are the theological virtues of faith,
hope, and love! He
says, "Put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for
a helmet the hope of salvation." With this "armor" of virtue --
that God gives us, we can live ethically and look
forward to that "Day of the Lord", whenever that is,
where we will see God face-to-face and be with our loved
ones forever! And the evidence that Paul's primary
purpose in this passage is encouragement,
is that our passage ends with Paul saying, "Therefore
encourage one another and build up each other, as
indeed you are doing!" Jesus’ parable of the talents
is also about his second coming. The servants
are asked to take a risk with the money given to them. Those who take
that risk and double their investment are rewarded. The one who
buries the money loses what little he had. The parable
may seem rather stern, but it’s not about money per se. It is about
God’s grace, God’s gifts to us. Everything we have is a gift
from God. This
includes: our bodies, our minds, our talents and
abilities, our families and friends, the earth, the sea,
the sky, the food we eat, as well as our money. We may think,
“My talent is my talent, or my money is my money – I
earned it, I worked hard for it. Well it’s true
God gives us the privilege to decide what we do with our
talents and with our money. But ultimately
our talents and our money belong to God—and we are
responsible to God for how we use them. So we pray for God’s guidance
on what to do with the gifts God has given us, on what
to do with the very life God has given us. And we will be
given the guidance – and the courage that also comes
from prayer – to take risks for God. Brothers and sisters, with the
joy of the Lord as our strength let us continue to use
our talents and our money to overcome evil with good,
and to love those who need love –and of course we all
need love. And the Lord will say to us at
the end of our earthly journey: “Well done, good and
faithful servant!... Enter into the joy of your master!” |