Month: May 2013

Red Letter Year: 5/23

Matthew 24:1-25

1 As Jesus was leaving the Temple grounds, his disciples pointed out to him the various Temple buildings. 2 But he responded, “Do you see all these buildings? I tell you the truth, they will be completely demolished. Not one stone will be left on top of another!”

3 Later, Jesus sat on the Mount of Olives. His disciples came to him privately and said, “Tell us, when will all this happen? What sign will signal your return and the end of the world?”

4 Jesus told them, “Don’t let anyone mislead you, 5 for many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah.’ They will deceive many. 6 And you will hear of wars and threats of wars, but don’t panic. Yes, these things must take place, but the end won’t follow immediately. 7 Nation will go to war against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in many parts of the world. 8 But all this is only the first of the birth pains, with more to come.

9 Then you will be arrested, persecuted, and killed. You will be hated all over the world because you are my followers. 10 And many will turn away from me and betray and hate each other. 11 And many false prophets will appear and will deceive many people. 12 Sin will be rampant everywhere, and the love of many will grow cold. 13 But the one who endures to the end will be saved. 14 And the Good News about the Kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, so that all nations will hear it; and then the end will come.

15 The day is coming when you will see what Daniel the prophet spoke about—the sacrilegious object that causes desecration standing in the Holy Place.” (Reader, pay attention!) 16 “Then those in Judea must flee to the hills. 17 A person out on the deck of a roof must not go down into the house to pack. 18 A person out in the field must not return even to get a coat. 19 How terrible it will be for pregnant women and for nursing mothers in those days. 20 And pray that your flight will not be in winter or on the Sabbath. 21 For there will be greater anguish than at any time since the world began. And it will never be so great again. 22 In fact, unless that time of calamity is shortened, not a single person will survive. But it will be shortened for the sake of God’s chosen ones. 23 Then if anyone tells you, ‘Look, here is the Messiah,’ or ‘There he is,’ don’t believe it. 24 For false messiahs and false prophets will rise up and perform great signs and wonders so as to deceive, if possible, even God’s chosen ones. 25 See, I have warned you about this ahead of time.”

Comments

When we read apocalyptic passages like this, we tend to interpret them in one of two ways. Sometimes, people try to construct a nexus of signs that will indicate the end is imminent, that Jesus will return on a certain day and these events will occur not long before as signals of the coming of the kingdom that isn’t here quite yet. Others read these as descriptions of the world as it exists alongside and until the kingdom is brought to bear on it. The first approach is waiting for a sign that the end is here. The second sees these as signs that we have work to do.

Another way to read this begins with the understanding that the kingdom is both already here and also not here in its fulness yet (this often gets called already/not yet for short). War, violence, and natural disasters are  opportunities to show love and compassion toward people and also evidence that the kingdom has not come completely yet. Paying close attention to the text, we see that the disciples are doing the same thing the religious leaders were earlier – asking for a sign – and that Jesus does again what he did before – refuses to answer. He is specifically not giving a list of signs here. In fact, he is warning against looking for signs and making use of dramatic events as such. He calls people who do that sort of thing false messiahs and prophets and warns the disciples against that sort of teaching.

This is important for us because so many Christians do exactly what Jesus warned against. Just this week, the devastating, heart-breaking destruction in Oklahoma was followed by Christian leaders taking to social media with the false claims Jesus predicted here. What Jesus is saying here is pretty clear. Don’t pay any attention to that stuff. Those people do not speak for the Father. Do not be fooled by false teachers and their claims about signs.

The New Living Translation (NLT)Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Red Letter Year: 5/22

Matthew 23:27-39

27 “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs—beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with dead people’s bones and all sorts of impurity. 28 Outwardly you look like righteous people, but inwardly your hearts are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness.

29 What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you build tombs for the prophets your ancestors killed, and you decorate the monuments of the godly people your ancestors destroyed. 30 Then you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would never have joined them in killing the prophets.’

31 But in saying that, you testify against yourselves that you are indeed the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Go ahead and finish what your ancestors started. 33 Snakes! Sons of vipers! How will you escape the judgment of hell?

34 Therefore, I am sending you prophets and wise men and teachers of religious law. But you will kill some by crucifixion, and you will flog others with whips in your synagogues, chasing them from city to city. 35 As a result, you will be held responsible for the murder of all godly people of all time—from the murder of righteous Abel to the murder of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you killed in the Temple between the sanctuary and the altar. 36 I tell you the truth, this judgment will fall on this very generation.

37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones God’s messengers! How often I have wanted to gather your children together as a hen protects her chicks beneath her wings, but you wouldn’t let me. 38 And now, look, your house is abandoned and desolate. 39 For I tell you this, you will never see me again until you say, ‘Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the Lord!’”

Comments

The drawings from yesterday and today are both scenes of churchyards. Both show van Gogh’s critique of the church which is quite in line with the critique Jesus is leveling against the Pharisees and us in Matthew 23. The church loses its place as a hub of shared life as it becomes a monument of curated death. Embalmed self-righteousness takes the place of the Spirit breathing holy life into us. One of my favorite commentaries has this to say about Matthew 23:

“This is a sobering list of failure and judgment, with descriptions of hypocrisy and failure in which we cannot help but see ourselves. It is surely the case, for example, that many of us are kept from entering the kingdom by the lives we lead as Christians. Our problem is very simple – we simply do not know how to live as a people who believe that Jesus is the resurrected Lord. The joy and freedom that should name the lives of those freed from the demons become lost amid attempts to make our difference depend on matters that do not matter. We become adept at praising the prophets of the past, having lost the ability to discern the prophets among us.”  (Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew, 199)

We study prophets and radical leaders of prior generations (like Luther, Edwards, and Wesley), but we do so in a way that domesticates them and leaves us unprepared to receive radical prophetic words in our own day. We turn leading a Christian life into something that prevents us from entering the kingdom, keeps us from experiencing the freedom and joy Jesus brings for us. Woe to us indeed.

The New Living Translation (NLT)Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.