Apocalypse
A Sermon of The Rev. Dr. David A. Killian, Rector
All Saints Parish
Brookline, Massachusetts
Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost
November 14, 2004
Text: Luke 21:5-19
I
Today's Gospel passage from Luke is sometimes called "the little apocalypse." This is to contrast it with "the big apocalypse" of the Book of Revelation. Apocalypse is a somewhat fantastic mode of literature, different from the rest of the Bible, and not part of our ordinary way of thinking in the 21st century.
The Greek word "apocalypso" means "to uncover, to reveal." Apocalyptic is a type of literature that uncovers and reveals "the Last Things." Apocalypse talks about the "end times," the end of the world, the time of judgment, when God will bring the world as we know it to a spectacularly dramatic end and usher in a period of justice and peace.
Often, it may seem to us that evildoers have the run of things, as Malachi complains in today's first reading: "evildoers not only prosper, but when they put God to the test they escape." But Malachi says their triumph is only temporary: "The day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble; the day that comes shall burn them up." They will get their comeuppance. God will bring justice on the Day of the Lord.
In the early Church, many Christians thought that the Day of the Lord was coming soon, maybe in their own lifetimes; and if Christ was coming tomorrow, then why work today? One really didn't need to worry about one's career if the world was coming to an end. It seems that many in Thessalonica stopped working completely. This is the problem that Paul addresses in today’s second reading. He tells the Thessalonians to get back to work and "to keep away from believers who are living in idleness" and says, "anyone unwilling to work should not eat."
Today's Gospel passage, perhaps as a corrective to the views of the Thessalonians, says, "the end will not follow immediately." Luke speaks of the persecution that will befall the followers of Jesus: "You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death." The early Christians were hunted down, thrown into jail, mistreated in many ways. Yet they maintained a hope that God would eventually triumph. God would make things right. "Not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your souls."
II
Through the centuries, Christians who have suffered injustice have rallied around the hope that God has not abandoned them -- no matter their tribulations and trials. In 1965 at the conclusion of the civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Martin Luther King spoke from the steps of the Alabama State Capitol. As he concluded his stirring sermon, arguing that the march was an "idea whose time has come," he posed the rhetorical question of "how long?" before justice would come to America.
In a now familiar litany, King intoned, "How long? Not long!" punctuating each rehearsal with some version of the ultimate triumph of justice. He declared, "No lie can live forever.... You’re going to reap just what you sow....Truth crushed to earth shall rise again." He borrowed imagery from George Washington Davis: "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice." He quoted James Russell: "Truth is forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne; yet that scaffold sways the future and behind the dim unknown standeth God within the shadows keeping watch above His own." He closed with a blaze of "Glory, Hallelujah," reciting Harriet Beecher Stowe's lyrics to the "Battle Hymn of the Republic."
King was applying the logic of apocalypse to say that the present reality of oppression would give way to God's judgment of justice. God will ultimately triumph.
Sometimes, Christians have been criticized for turning their backs on the struggle for justice here and now and seeking a "pie in the sky, bye and bye." This certainly wasn't the case with Martin Luther King, Jr. He did not look to the other world for escape, but for hope.
This same sentiment is expressed by C.S. Lewis, who said: "If you read history you will find that the Christians who did the most for the present world were just those who thought the most of the next. The Apostles themselves, who set on foot the conversion of the Roman Empire, the great men who built the Middle Ages, the English evangelicals who abolished the slave trade, all left their mark on earth precisely because their minds were occupied with heaven. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this one. Aim at heaven and you will get earth 'thrown in.' Aim at earth and you will get neither."
III
I think here at the All Saints Parish that there are many who do "aim at heaven and get earth thrown in." They are people of deep faith because God is at the center of their lives. They are people of purpose, filled with joy who are radiate love in their homes and neighborhoods. They passionately believe in equality for all of God's children, without regard to race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation. They are warm and accepting people with "resilient spirituality," a term first given to me by one of our parishioners, Peter Stringham. "Resilient spirituality" is the ability to bounce back after adversity, misfortune and failure; it is the capacity to overcome obstacles and keep going forward. It is a spirituality that continues to hope and live to fight another day.
Some of you are coping with deep disappointments: a difficult work situation, a troubling relationship, a debilitating illness, the disappointment of this fall's election. Each of us has something that pulls us down. We are able to keep from sinking into despair if we keep our eye on the prize. Keep our eye on the God who uncovers reality, the God who gives hope.
For we believe that God has acted and continues to act in history, and that history will one day be completed according to God's purpose. This hope promises that the great vision of Julian of Norwich will indeed come true: "You shall see for yourself that all manner of things shall be well." All manner of things shall be well -- not just for a moment of earthly life, but for all eternity.
Amen.