CELC Twenty-Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

The Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost – November 14, 2004

Luke 21:5-19

“So, Lord, where do we get this ‘endurance’?” Is this not the prayer you want to pray? Don’t you want to learn where to get the “endurance” that endures to eternal life? Don’t you want to know you are right and everyone who is persecuting you is wrong? Don’t you just want to pray, “So, Lord, where do we get this ‘endurance’?”

There are lots of folks out there who want to erupt like Mount St. Helen’s and gush all over you about the “end” times. We are in the end times of the church year, so the gospel lesson from this morning relates that things will probably get worse before they get better. We are not fortune tellers, so you can be assured that anyone who tries to tell you that the end will come on March 12, 2006, are deceiving you. Beware of the false prophets that try and gain your attention with their lies. Jesus is telling you very clearly today that rumors will be abundant. Ignore them and the people who tell them.

That is hard to do, though. Rumors are so much fun. If you really want to get the attention of everyone at a meeting say something like, “Did you hear what Bob is doing?” Now, it may be a perfectly wonderful thing Bob is doing. Perhaps he is beginning a new job. But, couch the announcement in a tone that this is ripe and juicy gossip and all will listen up quickly. We are susceptible to tone and style. We want to know.

Inside us is that little need to be one up on the others. So, if we hear that someone has just the perfect angle on the end of the world, or when Jesus is coming again, we are more than ready to sign on and listen. We want to know.

In contrast, God has a different idea. The end is God’s business and what we are called to in Christ is faithful waiting. God’s perspective on this rumor stuff is very different. Ignore it. Jesus says, “Do not go after them.” Jesus encourages you to endure.

So, I come back to my original question, “Where do we get this ‘endurance’?"

Your first answer is easy, isn’t it? You don’t get it from false prophets that speak evil in Jesus name. We have already learned that from the gospel lesson today.

The endurance of which our Lord speaks is the endurance of faith. It is a gift in the cross, isn’t it? Isn’t it in the cross that Jesus is dying that we may know God’s unconditional love and forgiveness? It is not a rumor, is it? It is not a rumor because you know the testimony of so many witnesses that God raised Jesus from the dead. Death no longer reigns; the power of God’s love and forgiveness reigns through the cross. No rumor here. This is the place of faith.

It is in the cross that your lives are transformed. Just as the caterpillar erupts from the cocoon a beautiful butterfly, your lives are transformed by the powerful love and forgiveness of the cross. You are made new. You are made capable of endurance, of sustaining in faith until you sit at the banquet table of Jesus in the kingdom yet to come.

So, where do you get this ‘endurance?’ In the cross. Perhaps our prayer should be “So, Lord, keep us at the foot of the cross that we may do all that we do in the shadow of the cross which creates us capable of enduring?”

Such a prayer would recognize what God has done for you. Such a prayer would lead us to the table God gives us now in Christ; the table before us where we receive a foretaste of the feast to come. “Lord, keep us at the foot of the cross, so that we may endure in faith” is a prayer when we know that the body and blood of Jesus in the bread and wine we share is for your forgiveness.

What is really delightful is that you are set free from the crazies that would tell you “the end is near!” Indeed, it may be, but you no longer are anxious about the end. Let the end come, for you know that you endure through the cross of Jesus. What is important is not the end coming, but who it is that holds that future for us, Jesus himself.

The really nifty part of all of this is how you are then set free now from anxiety about the future. This means you can serve others now and not worry about what comes next.

Do you think you can feed others? That seems a good activity while we wait, while we endure in the cross. Jesus told his disciples to feed the hungry and I believe he is still asking us to do that.

Three specific ways come to mind: first, the Social Ministry committee has offered you the opportunity of a coin bank for November. Perhaps you may want to use it.

Second, there is the opportunity to feed the folks at the Valley Mission once each month. The youth do it, and on another Sunday, others have been doing it. It takes very little time and effort. Why not give it a try? Gene Matthews can sign you up. I have done it, and I can tell you that you will endure through the cross and be better for the experience.

Third, bring a can of food to the Thanksgiving Eve worship service at the Brethren Church across the street. It will go to SACRA. A few cans of food. Trust me; it will not break your budget or your bank. It is thinking of others, though. It is being set free in the meantime as we endure to the end in the cross.

Well, there are three examples. You probably know of more. Perhaps you will even do something. And I hope that you will pray, “Lord, keep us at the foot of the cross, so that we may endure in faith.” Amen.

Pastor Robert F. Holley