The Rightful King

The scriptures referred to are Revelation 1:4b-8 and John 18:33-37.

Monarchy goes all the way back into prehistory. The word monarch comes from the Greek for “one ruler.” What's interesting is that kings historically have had a sacred role as well. Some were seen as gods or descended from gods. They often ruled by Divine Right or the Mandate of Heaven. They had sacrificial duties. The Roman Emperors held the title Pontifex Maximus, or chief priest, and it was not unusual for European kings to have the title Defender of the Faith. Until recently there was no such thing as separation of church and state.

This probably goes back to when we didn't have kings so much as tribal chieftains. The patriarch of the tribe was ruler, judge, general and priest. If you were lucky, your father/chieftain was wise and fair on matters within the clan, as well as a good strategist and fierce battle leader when it came to competing with rival clans for hunting grounds, pasture lands and access to water. As city states arose, and later nations and empires, and the governed included people from different tribes and races, military strength was still important but so was the ability to keep people unified. Leaders found that their inherited role in leading their religion was useful in bringing the people together.

Today it is more common for a leader to have only or mostly secular power. But some leaders don't like that because logically religion is about ultimate values. That relegates the state to second place in terms of people's loyalties. If church and state are one, the state can define those ultimate values. People who call for the abolition of religion don't seem to realize that that would make the state the sole authority on what is moral. That is what happened in Nazi Germany, where most churches fell in line with the government, and in the Soviet Union where religion was outlawed.

Ancient Israel was a special case. At first the Israelites were a loose confederation of tribes, who would come together under a judge to defend themselves. But the people demanded that Samuel give them a king like the other nations. Samuel was upset by this for it represented a rejection of God as their king. God told Samuel to give the people what they wanted but to warn them of the cost of giving that much power to one person. This also set up a rivalry between the religious leaders and the king.

To be sure, King Solomon builds a temple to God on Mt. Zion in Jerusalem. And it looks like the kings of Israel and Judah had their own schools of prophets. As we've said in previous sermons the function of most religions is to bless the status quo. Yet many of the prophets whose books we have in the Bible were not royal retainers but were called by God to proclaim his judgment on the evils perpetuated by society and the government. Thus they represent a kind of minority report. The Bible recognizes that just because God allows someone to come to power, it doesn't follow that that leader is always acting on God's behalf.

This Sunday, the last one before Advent, we acknowledge Christ as our King. That means we obey him over and above or at times against any earthly power. There are a number of qualities that Jesus has that makes him superior to any earthly ruler.

Let's start with what Samuel warned would happen. All his causes for alarm boil down to one thing: power corrupts, as Lord Acton put it. We humans are born without power. We are the most helpless infants in practically the entire animal kingdom. Even blind kittens can crawl and find a teat shortly after birth. Many animals can stand within minutes of birth. Our offspring take longer to reach adulthood than any other animal. So we all experience powerlessness for the first part of our lives. That makes gaining power or some control over our lives very important. And having power over the lives of others can be very tempting. It is hard to resist taking full advantage of that to help oneself and one's loved ones. Autocrats always use their power to enrich themselves, their family and friends and to put themselves above the law.

Jesus has no such temptation. As God the Son he has all power and no need for more. In fact he has no needs of any kind. He doesn't even need us. He involves us in his plans because he loves us, the way a parent gives a task to a child who wants to help with dinner or with building something. He could do it himself but to satisfy the child's desire to participate and to help them learn skills needed at maturity, he gives them a role.

Jesus is not swayed by bribes, either, not even in the form of “Do this and I will go to church for the rest of my life.” That doesn't mean that asking him for things in our prayers is futile. Jesus tells us to ask. But his granting a request is not swayed by what we will do for him. Rather it depends on what God decides is good for all.

Those in power rarely think of what is good for all. They think of what is good for those they like or who also have power. For several years Key West has been dithering about where to build the new homeless shelter. And a lot of the problem has been NIMBYs. Nobody wants the shelter in their neighborhood. But I can tell you from experience that a lot of the homeless end up in jail for trespassing, which usually amounts to them being found sleeping in the doorways of businesses, on people's porches and in their backyards. How is that better? For a town whose motto is “One Human Family” we sure treat some of our relatives badly. We want a solution to the problem but we don't want to make sacrifices.

John 3:16 says that God so loved the whole world that he sent his Son to us. Jesus made a big sacrifice to save us. We need to make sacrifices for God as well. When our king, Jesus, says, “Ask and you shall receive” he is talking about what we need, not for everything we desire. (Matthew 7:7-11) As much as he would like to say “Yes,” he, as any wise parent knows, must sometimes say “No” to some of those desires. Or “Not yet” if either we or the time is not ready. And occasionally he says, “I have something different for you.” Because we don't always know what we really need or even desire. C.S. Lewis wanted to be a great poet. He never anticipated that his success would be as a writer of prose about Christianity and a writer of fiction inspired by his rediscovered faith. A lot of people think they know the direction they should go in life, only to be surprised by something unanticipated which turns out to be their real heart's desire.

The wisest of earthly rulers is not totally in control of his desires. Solomon is touted as the wisest king in the Bible, yet his Achilles' heel was the same as his father's: women. The Bible tells us that “He had 700 royal wives and 300 concubines; his wives had a powerful influence over him. When Solomon became old, his wives shifted his allegiance to other gods; he was not wholeheartedly devoted to the Lord his God, as his father David had been.” (1 Kings 11:3-4) When you have the power to get what you want, it is hard to restrain yourself. And once you give in to one weakness, it is easy to give into others.

That's not the problem with Jesus. Just as he was laser-focused on his mission, despite the dangers to himself, so he is not diverted by special interests or personal or political considerations to modify his plan for us. Now it has to be said that earthly rulers do reform society sometimes. Lincoln freed the slaves. Teddy Roosevelt broke up monopolies. His cousin Franklin made sure that there was a safety net for the elderly. But even our best leaders are blind to certain evils. Lincoln had a Secretary of War so corrupt that a senator said the man would even steal a red hot stove. Teddy wanted to build the Panama Canal so badly that he organized a revolution in that country and then promptly took control of the new government by giving it a constitution written for America's benefit. During World War 2 Franklin had Japanese Americans put in camps, though not German or Italian Americans.

Jesus requires us to love all people, whether destitute, disabled, or different in race, creed, color or other areas that have nothing to do with the heart. He even commands us to love those who do have something wrong with their hearts in that they hate us. Because God created everyone and calls people from every nation, tongue, race, orientation and political party to become citizens of his kingdom. Jesus did not come only to deal with some people or even good people. As a doctor comes to heal the sick, Jesus came to heal all who are sick of sin and evil, especially in our own lives. (Mark 2:17) And we are all sinners. For us to hate those whose sins are different from our sins makes as much sense as a person with cancer hating a person who has liver disease.

A lot of rulers try to weed out those they feel are not good. Jesus told a parable about that. A farmer wakes one day to find weeds growing among his wheat. His workers want to pull up the weeds now. The farmer stops them. In trying to get the weeds, they will also uproot some of the wheat. (Matthew 13:24-30) In trying to get rid of the people they deem bad, tyrants always kill good people as well. Jesus isn't that kind of king. Besides, unlike the weeds in the parable, bad people can change. That's why Jesus came. Not to destroy bad people but to make them into good people.

Autocratic rulers do not like the truth being told, because they cannot bear to look bad. But David employed many scribes who were tasked with, among other things, chronicling what he did. And since we get a warts and all picture of Israel's beloved king, complete with his adultery with Bathsheba, his murder of her husband, the revolt of his son, and his disqualification to build the temple because of the blood he shed, I think we can say that he was not afraid of the truth. Whereas dictators always try to destroy the free press, lest the truth comes out, Jesus said the truth would set us free. (John 8:32) For instance, we have not one official account of Jesus' life, with all ambiguities edited out but 4 accounts. They agree on the important events, but they vary on certain details,some of which seem to be in conflict and some gospels noticing things the others don't and vice versa. Far from being a sign of falsifying the details, this is precisely the sort of thing cops find when they question multiple witnesses or the reader of history finds when he reads numerous books on the same subject. Unlike fiction, truth can be messy.

And remarkably though the gospels all portray Jesus as divine, they admit he got hungry (Mark 11:12), thirsty (John 19:28), tired (Luke 8:23), angry (Mark 3:5), sad (John 11:35), and even that he felt abandoned by God when on the cross (Matthew 27:46). You'd think the church would not record and preserve those things. Unless they were true. Jesus is not afraid of the truth because, as he said, he is the truth. (John 14:6)

Finally, earthly rulers are quick to use force when they can't get their way otherwise. Sadly, even our country does that. Former US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara admitted in 2005 that the August 4, 1964 Gulf of Tonkin attack that was used to justify putting conventional forces into Vietnam never happened. The production facilities and stockpile of weapons of mass destruction used as a pretext to invade Iraq in 2003 were discovered to not have existed past 1991 when they were destroyed in the first Gulf War and its aftermath.

In today's gospel Jesus points out that the fact that his followers are not fighting shows that his kingdom is not from this world. The only blood shed to found his kingdom is his own. The only subjects of this king are those who willingly put themselves under his rule. Our only weapon according to Paul, when he lists the armor of God, is the “sword of the Spirit which is the word of God.” (Ephesians 6:17) We are armed only with the story of the God of love doing everything he can to save his people, including becoming one of them and dying for them and rising to life again that we may live with and in him. We recruit people for his kingdom not with messages of fear but of hope, not of hate but of love, not of fighting evil with evil but of overcoming evil with good. That is the kind of kingdom whose coming we are preparing for and that is the kind of king we owe our allegiance to. And no one can overrule his command to love God above all and love other people. Jesus the Anointed is King of kings and Lord of lords. Accept no substitutes.

Thank You, Jack

This was preached on Thursday, November 22, 2018.

Whenever someone wins an award, we expect them to thank the people who made it possible. Because no one achieves anything great on their own. And self-aware people know that a key part of the reason they succeeded was a parent who set an example to them, a teacher who inspired them, a hero they wished to emulate, a mentor who guided them, colleagues who helped them, and, often, a spouse who supported them. For writers and thinkers and scientists the person who influenced them is usually another writer or thinker or scientist, whom they may or may not have ever met. Today is the 55^th anniversary of the death of a man who has had a tremendous influence on me. And, no, it's not JFK. However, the president's assassination on the same day did eclipse the news of this man's death. And ironically I know precisely what I was doing that day because of Kennedy's death. Yet at the time I had never even heard of C.S. Lewis.

It would be years later, when I was in the youth group at Memorial Presbyterian Church, that my mom would lend me a copy of The Screwtape Letters. And to steal a phrase from Lewis, “my imagination was baptized.” He wasn't responsible for me becoming a Christian but he was responsible for the way I see Christianity and approach all the issues it touches on. I do not agree with him on everything but he taught me to ask the right questions, to notice nuance and that it was important to use my head as well as my heart in following Jesus. For that I am grateful.

I used to think that Lewis was one of the most original thinkers in Christendom if not the world. Later, as I read more theology, I realized that wasn't quite true. Lewis was educated in philosophy and built on the ideas of others. What was unique was how he could take what some thinker of the past had come up with and make it understandable to the average person. He, like Jesus, would take some commonplace situation and use it to illustrate a profound spiritual or moral truth. I try to do the same, especially when I sense that the point I am making is too abstract. And in fact a good way to test whether your theology is correct is to apply it to everyday life and see if it works. For those insights I am grateful.

Lewis was able to approach subjects not only logically but also psychologically. One of the things that attracted me about The Screwtape Letters was the shrewd psychological insight into the whole process of temptation and the ways we avoid dealing with the truth. His grasp of how people think and react grounds his fantasy and science fiction novels as well. Though a very intellectual person himself, he was in touch with his feelings. One of his most affecting books is A Grief Observed, which chronicles his state of mind after the death of his wife. It was so nakedly honest that he published it under a pseudonym. This had the unfortunate side effect that his friends kept buying him copies to help him through his grieving. For his ability to see and express some of the deepest of human feelings, I am grateful.

Lewis has one characteristic that makes him almost unique in literature: his ability to make good attractive. Often in books and movies, the characters that really stand out are the villains. Dracula, the Joker, Darth Vader, Lord Voldemort and others are often more interesting that the heroes in their tales. Professor Moriarty only appears in 2 of the original Sherlock Holmes stories but you would never know that given how often he is inserted into modern additions to the saga. In comparison to the villains they face heroes are often less colorful and engaging. And the evil schemes in stories are often presented in ways that make them seem not that bad. Thanos thinks the universe is overcrowded and wants to preserve resources for a more sustainable population. That just happens to involve killing half the sentient beings that exist. The delightful musical Wicked makes us fall in love with the the wicked Witch of the West, who, if you remember, wanted to kill Dorothy Gale, for simply surviving a tornado, unlike the witch's sister, who just happened to be standing in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Lewis, on the other hand, was able to make his Christ-figure Aslan hugely charismatic. One mother wrote to Lewis that her little boy was worried because he loved Aslan more than Jesus. Lewis wrote back that this was impossible. Aslan was Jesus as he would appear in the world of Narnia. The woman's son just liked the lion body better than the human one, which God understands because he made little boys that way.

And while dystopias, such as those of The Hunger Games, The Handmaid's Tale and 1984, dominate science fiction and fantasy, Lewis created Narnia and the paradise planet Perelandra, places where we would gladly live, unlike some fictional worlds. Likewise his vision of heaven in The Great Divorce makes it desirable, not dull as people with more impoverished imaginations picture it. Someone once wrote to Lewis that he should follow up The Screwtape Letters with a book of advice from an archangel to someone's guardian angel. Lewis said that though the mental space he had to put himself into to see things from the devil's point of view was difficult, he felt he would be incapable of getting into the mind of someone who was pure goodness. Yet in his fiction he is capable of giving us extended views and tastes of goodness and moral beauty that most writers could not achieve. For his ability to communicate the aching joy and haunting goodness of God, I am grateful.

Lewis also crystallized the problem with folks saying that Jesus was merely a great moral teacher and ignoring his claims to be God. To quote him at length: “A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” Jesus is either a lunatic, a liar or the Lord. It is a trilemma, if you will, we all must deal with. For laying out that choice so starkly, I am grateful.

I reread Lewis' books every few years. Often I find something in them that I thought I had come up with but which I must have gotten from him. I have so internalized what he said that it has become a part of me. And while his illustrations have helped me understand difficult concepts I'll never forget what he said when he tried to explain how God is outside of our timeline. After using one illustration he wrote, “This idea has helped me a good deal. If it does not help you, leave it alone. It is a 'Christian' idea in the sense that great and wise Christians have held it and there is nothing in it contrary to Christianity. But it is not in the Bible or any of the creeds. You can be a perfectly good Christian without accepting it, or indeed without thinking of the matter at all.” The idea that if one Christian's explanation of something doesn't help, you can drop it was liberating. Some illustrations illuminate, others don't. What's helps you understand something may not help me and vice versa. It doesn't mean the subject isn't true, just that a specific way of explaining it may not be useful, at least to some folks.

People often get the explanations mixed up with the thing itself. I recently found out that my understanding of how wings make planes fly was wrong. I swear the old explanation was what I was taught or read. But planes do fly, even if I am not completely clear how. You can drive a car even if you don't understand the internal combustion engine. You don't need to understand the Trinity to pray to God, have a sense of Jesus' presence and let the Spirit guide and remake you. Theology is like a map, Lewis said. It is compiled based on many people's observations and experiences. If you are going sailing, if you are going way out into a body of water, you really need a map. You can, of course, add your own markings and annotations and observations as you go. On the other hand, you don't need a map to enjoy the beach or to go swimming. Not everyone is or needs to be a sailor. Nor need all Christians be theologians. For reminding me that not everyone needs to understand God exactly as I understand him, I am grateful.

I did not go to church for much of my childhood. So I didn't use the terminology that other Christians did. Things like justification, sanctification, passion, grace, etc. were not a part of my vocabulary when I became a Christian. Lewis eschewed theological terms when he wrote, precisely so as not to confuse or put off people who were seeking to understand Christianity. What he did for me was give me the ability to express my understanding and feelings about God in my own way. I find it helpful when communicating the gospel. Not everyone knows what certain Christian words means. And some who have picked up the jargon haven't really examined or thought about the ideas behind it too closely. People throw around the words “believe” or “faith” without realizing they mean more that just mentally acknowledging that something exists. Lewis showed me that you can deal with ideas intelligently using ordinary speech and common words. Which helped me think much more clearly about such things. Having to explain something without resorting to the technical terms for it reveals how well you actually understand what you are talking about. Wanna have fun? Try explaining God's omnipresence to a 4 year old. For forcing me to think about things clearly without hiding behind big words, I am grateful.

It's all very well for someone to be able to talk about the Christian life, and while none of us live it perfectly, there have been some highly respected Christians who have failed spectacularly. Lewis does not appear to be one. While his life was not spotless, he was in the words of a friend, “the most thoroughly converted man I ever met.” Lewis could have been a rich man from his books but he felt that giving was an important part of being a Christian and as he said, if our charities are not pinching us or hampering us at all, they are too small. Thus he refused to upgrade his standard of living but instead created a charitable fund for his royalties, which he used to support many poor families, underwrite the education of orphans and seminarians and give to numerous charities and church ministries.

Lewis also responded to every person who wrote him. As his fame spread, he dreaded this but seeing that so many people found their faith or strengthened it through his writings, he felt it was his Christian duty. Thus he wrote thousands of letters to people he otherwise did not know, as well as reams of them to friends. One of the people who came to Jesus through his books and wrote to him was an American woman named Joy Davidman, a Jewish ex-communist who first turned to God when her husband left her. Eventually she and Lewis met and fell in love. She died of cancer less than 4 years after their wedding and Lewis found himself step-father to her two boys. One of them remained a Christian but the other wished to become an Orthodox Jew. Lewis paid for the boy to study Hebrew and the Torah and he served him Kosher food. He became a rabbi. Lewis did not impose his faith upon his adopted son. For the many examples of unconditional Christian love displayed in his life, I am grateful.

We all of us have people who came to us at a specific moment and changed our lives. C.S. Lewis was one of the people who did that for me, although he had left this world long before I discovered him. So this day, the anniversary of his death, I wish to honor him. And I would to ask each of you to think about and give thanks to God for the people who made a great impact in your life. They could be a parent or a relative, a teacher or a coach, an author or a national or world figure. And who knows why your hero is Walter Peyton, or Mari Malik, or Albert Einstein, or Nellie Bly and why one of mine is C.S. Lewis. They speak to different things in different people. But all were created by God in the image of God and each reveals certain aspects of God. And God can call people via those glimpses of his love or wisdom or grace in other people.

What about you? Are you a hero or a reflection of God's goodness to someone in your life? I hope so. Because we have a lot of good people here. And I thank God for each of you. But I don't say it enough. Just like we don't often enough tell God how grateful we are for him. With that in mind, I want to conclude with a passage from Lewis' book A Reflection on the Psalms:

“When I first began to draw near to a belief in God and even for sometime after it had been given to me, I found a stumbling block in the demand so clamorously made by all religious people that we should 'praise' God; still more in the suggestion that God Himself demanded it...The most obvious fact about praise – whether of God or anything – strangely escaped me. I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval or the giving of honour. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise... The world rings with praise – lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favorite game – praise of weather, wines, dishes, actors, motors, horses, colleges, countries, historical personages, children, flowers, mountains, rare stamps, rare beetles, even sometimes politicians or scholars...I had not noticed either that just as men spontaneously praise whatever they value, so they spontaneously urge us to join them in praising it: 'Isn’t she lovely? Wasn’t it glorious? Don’t you think that magnificent?'

“The Psalmists in telling everyone to praise God are doing what all men do when they speak of what they care about.... I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed. It is frustrating...to come suddenly, at the turn of the road, upon some mountain valley of unexpected grandeur and then to have to keep silent because the people with you care for it no more than for a tin can in a ditch...This is so even when our expressions are inadequate, as of course they usually are. But how if one could really and fully praise even such things to perfection – utterly 'get out' in poetry or music or paint the upsurge of appreciation which almost bursts you?...It is along these lines that I find it easiest to understand the Christian doctrine that 'Heaven' is a state in which angels now, and men hereafter, are perpetually employed in praising God...To see what the doctrine really means, we must suppose ourselves to be in perfect love with God – drunk with, drowned in, dissolved by that delight which far from remaining pent up within ourselves as incommunicable, hence hardly tolerable, bliss, flows out from us incessantly again in effortless and perfect expression, our joy no more separable from the praise in which it liberates and utters itself than the brightness a mirror receives is separable from the brightness it sheds. The Scotch catechism says that man’s chief end is 'to glorify God and enjoy Him forever'. But we shall then know that these are the same thing. Fully to enjoy is to glorify. In commanding us to glorify Him, God is inviting us to enjoy Him.”

Hope at the End of the World

The scriptures referred to are Hebrews 10:11-25 and Mark 13:1-8.

I was talking to an inmate whom I visited regularly. He was considerably more conservative than I and he was thoroughly convinced that we are living in the End Times. And I admitted on one occasion that, based on all the bad news—not just politics and the possibility of nuclear war, but also climate change, mass extinctions, droughts, famine, increasing suicides, and numerous other things—that he could very well be right. On the other hand if we were living in Nazi Germany, or in Russia during the Bolshevik revolution, or in Cambodia during the rule of the Khmer Rouge, or in Europe at the time of the reformation with the church breaking up and the Huns invading, we might feel the same. It would be the end of the world, at least as we knew it.

All religions posit an end to this world. Even science says all life on earth will eventually come to an end. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, it is called the Day of the Lord and it is one of the subjects of eschatology. This branch of theology concerns the 4 Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell. The Day of the Lord is the day of judgment, when God is expected to end the current evil age, judge all humans and begin the Messianic age. Of all the books in the Bible, only in the book of Revelation are the End Times is the primary focus. They also figure prominently in Daniel, and in portions of Ezekiel and Isaiah. Otherwise there are scattered sections and occasional references in the other prophets and parts of the New Testament. Certain churches focus on this stuff a lot; some hardly at all. But what was the reason that this was a part of scripture in the first place?

The prophets whose writings were recorded in the Bible usually arose at times of crisis. Most of them were called to proclaim two main messages. The first was a call to repent or return to God and his ways. They would announce judgment upon the kingdoms of Israel and/or Judah because of their sins. And the chief sins were always apostasy and injustice. The people were either worshiping idols and other gods or else just going through the motions and thinking that observing rituals was an adequate substitute for really worshiping and obeying God. This was in turn seen in how they treated their fellow human beings, especially the poor and disadvantaged. As it says in Ezekiel, “Now this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom; she and her daughters were arrogant, overfed, and complacent; they did not help the poor and needy.” (Ezekiel 16:49; Berean Study Bible) If God's people didn't repent and mend their ways, there would be judgment.

The second part of the prophets' message was forgiveness and restoration. God would not give up on his people or abandon them forever. Eventually he would restore them and things would be better than before. So, as one person put it, the mission of the prophets was to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable. And we see this in Jesus and throughout the New Testament as well.

It's when things really got bad, especially during times of persecution, that we see the rise of apocalyptic literature. Apocalypse is a Greek word that means “unveiling.” Prophets would look to the future and foresee a day of reckoning, not only for Israel but for the whole world. However, this would be followed by the vindication of God's people and the establishment of the kingdom of God, with a descendant of David on the throne. Which means ultimately the message of apocalyptic literature is one of hope. Justice will be done, even to those who escaped it in this life, and God's royal reign over the whole world would become manifest. The suffering of God's people would not be in vain.

In Jesus' day, the Jews generally felt as they would in Nazi Germany. The Roman Empire was a brutal regime and their arrangement with Judea was an unstable one. Of all the peoples the Romans conquered, only the Jews refused to worship the pantheon of Roman gods. Since this was a deal breaker for the Jews, the Romans allowed them, and only them, to get out of worshiping not only Jupiter and his family but also the divine emperor. Still almost everyone could see that this state of affairs would not continue forever. There were groups like the Zealots who were itching to expel the Romans, while the empire made things worse by installing governors like Pilate, who was ham-fisted in his dealings with the Jews. 

In today's gospel Jesus predicts the destruction of the magnificent temple in Jerusalem. There are skeptics who say this passage cannot be authentic because they do not believe in prophesy. How could Jesus have foreseen the fall of Jerusalem? I wonder if they also doubt that, right after the First World War, people like economist Silvio Gesell and French general Ferdinand Foch predicted the Second World War. As for Jerusalem, it's not like the city hadn't fallen before. The Babylonians destroyed Solomon's temple and burned the city. The Jews commemorated that day (and still do). The tensions between the Romans and the Jews were evident to anyone with eyes and ears. Even without the Spirit of God, seeing this would inevitably happen again was no great stretch of the imagination. And you'll notice that in today's gospel none of the disciples say, “How could this possibly happen?” Instead they say, “Tell us when this will be....” The idea that the Romans would destroy Herod's temple is not at all surprising to them.

Rather than saying “On such and such a date...” or “Here are the unmistakable signs that this is about to happen...” Jesus starts by saying, “Beware that no one leads you astray.” The dangers he is concerned about are false messiahs and precisely the kind of sign and calendar watching the disciples were asking about. Jesus mentions that, yes, there will be wars and natural disasters. But he gives us a major caveat: “This is but the beginning of birth pangs.” Anyone who's given birth or whose spouse has given birth knows that labor pains can go on for a long time. (In our case, the labor preceding each of our kids' births was 20 hours!) Scaling up, Jesus is saying, even when you see these things, the end isn't going to happen for quite a while. Later he says, “But about that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” (Mark 13:32) Notice that Jesus said that not even he, at least while he was on earth, knew when he would return. How is it that so many Christians think they know more than Jesus and can work out exactly when the end is? Such timetables are precisely what Jesus is trying to avoid.

Jesus warns us about 3 things: don't fall for false messiahs; don't get hung up on the time things will end; and don't slack off. Again later in this chapter Jesus says, “It's like a man going away: He leaves his house and put his servants in charge, each with their assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch.” (Mark 13:34) And he says, “If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping.” (Mark 13:36) In Matthew's version Jesus says, “Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom the master has put in charge of the servants in his household to give them food at the proper time? It will be good for that servant whose master finds him doing so when he returns.” (Matthew 24:45-46) What Jesus says is important is for us to be taking care of each other.

What we are not to do is build survival shelters or stock up on ammunition or fight those we think are outside God's concern. Again I am surprised that so many so-called Bible-believing Christians don't pay closer attention to those scary parts of Revelation they love so much and realize that we are never called to fight. We are called to be witnesses. We may be called on to suffer or even die if necessary. But we are not to fight. As Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword back in its place, for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.” (Matthew 26:52)

There isn't even an actual battle of Armageddon, especially if you take Revelation literally. In the only place in the entire Bible where the word Armageddon is used it says, “Then they gathered the kings together to the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.” (Revelation 16:16) And while you might think there would next be a great battle between the forces of good and evil, instead it says, “Then there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder and a severe earthquake. No earthquake like it has ever occurred since mankind has been on earth, so tremendous was the quake.” (Revelation 16:18) Oh, and as a coup de gras, “From the sky huge hailstones, each weighing about a hundred pounds, fell on people.” (Revelation 16:21) No Christians armed to the teeth need apply. God fights his own battles.

So if we aren't supposed to fight bad guys what are we to do? As I said we are to be witnesses to the good news of Jesus. And one way we can do that is by displaying what Jesus said was the mark of the Christian. “By this all people will know you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:35) And that love is supposed to be shown concretely. In an eschatological passage that people who are obsessed with such things nevertheless rarely talk about, Jesus depicts the last judgment as hinging on how we treat those who are disadvantaged. Those who feed the hungry, hydrate the thirsty, clothe the naked, care for the sick, visit the imprisoned and welcome the alien are revealed to have been serving Jesus himself. (Matthew 25:31-46) This is the household we are to take care of. The kingdom is among us. We don't have to wait till Jesus returns to start implementing parts of it. To switch metaphors, he wants to find us planting and nurturing it when he comes.

As our passage from Hebrews says, “Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” Let's look at this in detail.

“Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope...” What people need at bad times is hope: hope there is a solution or at least ways to make things better. Despair sets in when we think that nothing can be done, that our present misery is permanent. Jesus faced things that should have induced despair in him. He knew what happened to people who spoke up against the powers that be. The cross was not a surprise or plot twist. And he knew that not everyone would follow him, especially when the going got tough. But he didn't say, “Why bother? I'm going to die and I will only have a handful of followers to carry on my work.” He persevered, teaching and healing. He even healed the servant of the high priest, whose ear got lopped off by Peter at Jesus' arrest. (Luke 22:50-51) He forgave and promised paradise to a thief as they both hung dying on crosses, essentially still delivering the good news in his last hours of life. (Luke 23:39-43) Jesus never gave up. Because God never gives up. His love never ends. That's a message of hope.

“Let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds...” Usually we think of provoking someone to lose their temper or to do something stupid or rash. Why don't we provoke one another to do good? Why don't we challenge each other to find new ways to love people and to do good deeds? In our social media people keep coming up with more ways to promote themselves. Why don't we brainstorm ways to promote the betterment of the world? Why don't we put more energy into spreading the solutions we already have so that more people can make use of them?

You do see this happening from time to time. There are the folks who use 3-D printing to give less expensive prosthetic hands to kids who need them. [Here] There is the designer who figured out an inexpensive way to get water for African villages out of thin air. [Here] There is the woman who created a nonprofit that provides women in war-torn countries with life, business and vocational skills. [Here] These are people tackling problems with imagination and love. We can seek to generate more solutions, as well as throw our weight into helping implement the ones others have already set up.

“...not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another...” Even back then, people were trying to be Christians on their own and not coming to worship together, to share the Word, to share the Body and Blood, and to encourage one another. There are 2 reasons we should do this.

First, the Christian life is difficult. To become a Christlike person is not a quick or easy task. Nor is it a matter of simply following commandments. One is bound to encounter situations not specifically covered by the Bible. You may find yourself in situations where moral values clash, or where there is no purely good option. The wisdom of other Christians at various stages in life, with different experiences and perspectives is helpful. Plus we all need encouragement to keep doing what is hard, even though it's right.

Second, being a Christian is all about love. To paraphrase 1 John 4:20, if you can't love your fellow church members, whom you have seen, how can you love the people of the world, whom you have not seen? Ideally your neighborhood church draws all kinds of people. Some will be easy to love, some not. Some will be very loving in return, some not. Jesus pointed out that if you only love those who love you, you are not doing any more than anyone else. (Matthew 5:46-47) Love is not easy. It can be messy and even maddening at times. It also makes life worthwhile and makes the world a better place. Our little gatherings of people following Jesus should be places where we are not only reminded of God's grace and forgiveness but also are encouraged to love one another as well as the people outside our doors.

The world may very well be ending. Or our time in this world, our life, may be ending. Or it may be that the world we know is ending, and a new world beginning. It doesn't matter. Our hope is in the Lord and our job is to follow Jesus, to love God and to love others. It is to communicate that love through whatever talents and gifts we have received from his Spirit in whatever circumstances we find ourselves to whomever we encounter. We can't let ourselves get distracted by Christ-wannabes, clocks or calendars. This is the beginning of birth pangs. A baby will be born when he is born; Jesus will come when he comes.

In the meantime, there is a lot to do to get this world ready for him. There are people to welcome and clothe and feed and shelter and visit and nurse. There are young people to nurture and teach and guide. There are older people with wisdom to listen to and skills to utilize. There injustices to make right, imperfect solutions to improve, and new approaches to consider. The kingdom of God isn't anywhere near complete but like the mustard seed, it is slowly, inevitably growing, in you, in me, in this place, in this world, in our lives. Let's get on our knees, dig in, and get our hands dirty, doing what we can to encourage its growth. Let's get so engrossed in what we are doing for Jesus that we forget the time, till we sense his presence, look up, see his smile and hear his voice: “Well done, good and faithful servant!”

Counterfeits

The scriptures referred to are Mark 12:38-44.

Religion is made up of 3 elements: belief, behavior and belonging. And they tend to be listed in that order because that is how they are supposed to follow one another. You believe that God and the universe work in a certain way, you act on that belief and then you find people who believe and behave in a similar way. That's the logical way they should relate to each other. But, with apologies to Aristotle, the human being is not that rational an animal. We are emotive animals. Scientists have observed that when we make decisions the emotional parts of our brain act before the rational parts do. We make choices based on gut feelings and then recruit the reasoning bits of our brain to bolster our choices with arguments, much as a lawyer takes a case and then tries to figure out how to make his client's actions sound as if they were in fact lawful. We are also social animals. Belonging to a family or tribe or group is immensely important to us. Once we identify with “our people” we follow their direction wherever it leads us and justify whatever they do. We have seen as much in the recent election, when a brothel owner who had been dead for a month was elected, apparently because people will vote for any name their party puts forth. We also see this in sports, where behavior like domestic abuse, rape, attempted murder and doping on the part of team members are routinely excused.

Similarly the primary part of religion for most people seems to be the belonging. There are a lot of people who are vague about Christian beliefs and do not feel obliged to obey the moral precepts of Christ who nevertheless identify themselves as Christians. In fact, while 75% of Americans say they are Christians less than 20% go to church at least once a week. This is like saying you're a Republican or Democrat while rarely bothering to vote or that you're a health enthusiast who hardly ever eats fruits and vegetables. Nevertheless people can and do identify as members of a group despite the fact that little objective evidence can be found to support that assertion. People who don't show any signs of being a Christian might call themselves that because they were raised in a Christian home or because they see it as a desirable identity, the way some people adopt high-sounding titles or say they are related to royalty. However they are paying tribute to Christianity in a way. Forgers counterfeit $100 bills, not $3 bills, because one is valuable and the other is not. To their credit, fake Christians are saying there is something valuable in being a Christian.

Unfortunately they discredit people who are actually trying to follow Jesus. Worse, when they claim to be Christians but contradict core beliefs and disregard his most basic moral commands they discredit Christ. As 1 John astutely observes, “If anyone says, 'I love God' and hates his brother or sister, that person is a liar. For if they don't love the brother or sister, whom they have seen, they cannot love God, whom they have not seen.” (1 John 4:20) Again Jesus said that the commandments to love God and to love our neighbor are linked and that no other commandment could trump them. He further told us to love our enemy, to love one another as he loves us and that what we do or do not do to others we do or do not do to him. The core of Christianity is love: God's love for us manifested in Jesus and our responding in love to him and to all whom he created and for whom Jesus died. So if people call themselves Christian but are not at least trying to love others, if they are hateful or even indifferent to the disadvantaged, they are using God's name in vain. Every time someone says or does something hateful in the name of Christ they are essentially committing blasphemy.

Where do they get this from? Sadly,they get it from Christian leaders who do this stuff and make it look like it's all right. In today's gospel Jesus criticizes the religious leaders of his day. The scribes copied, preserved and interpreted the law of Moses. They carried a little tool kit hanging from their girdle, consisting of an ink horn and a pen case and a small knife for cutting papyrus and making erasures. (Ezekiel 9:2; Jeremiah 8:8, 36:23) By Jesus' time the majority of scribes were also priests. They preserved not just the written law but the oral law, which Jesus said they used to invalidate specific commandments in the Torah. (Mark 7:5-13) They lectured in the Temple, supposedly free of charge. They also served in the Sanhedrin, the Jewish supreme court, as judges of the law, again free of charge. Which means that, unless they had private wealth, they also had to do something to earn a living.

Well, scribes had an important position in the religious sphere of Jewish life and some took advantage of it. They loved the respect they got in public places. They wore ostentatious robes with fringes that touched the ground. They sat in front of the ark, the cabinet that contained the scrolls of the Torah, so they could be seen by everyone in the synagogue. They loved to take center stage and give long prayers as if the sheer amount of verbiage would move God.

But worse than that, the scribes often took advantage of widows, soliciting support from women who had little economic clout in that society, and sometimes taking so much that the women lost their houses! In that they resemble today's televangelists who often attract audiences that are female, graying and poor, and they exhort them to send more money than they can afford, often with promises that they will be blessed with even more wealth. In fact, Jesus' portrait of the scribes seems to resemble that of many high-profile “Christian” leaders. I'm not saying they don't do some good with their ministries but they do love money and they love to buy themselves mansions and other luxuries. Everyone probably remembers Jim and the late Tammy Faye Bakker, who had gold bathroom fixtures and a Christian theme park. (Something Jesus evidently forgot to include in the Great Commission). Jim Bakker is now selling large buckets of instant rice, cheese and broccoli to tide his TV audience through the coming Tribulation. Then there is Creflo Dollar who dances on piles of money to bless it and who had his audience give him $300 a piece to buy him a $65 million plane. (Another oversight on Jesus' part. He meant to say, “Take no sandals or purse but don't forget your Gulfstream G360.”) Ernest Angley is being sued for actually getting a widow with dementia to sign over her life savings of $340 thousand to his megachurch. I notice his website offers 12 books on prophesy. Which is interesting because Jesus saw his kind coming a couple of millennia ago: false prophets, aka wolves in sheep's clothing. (Matthew 7:15)

There is a reason why such people get into the church. It's the same reason that some pedophiles decide to become teachers and boy scout leaders, why sadists become cops, and why serial killers become nurses: to gain easy access to their prey. And they make it harder for those who become teachers and scoutmasters and cops and nurses and clergy because they want to help people. And since people seem to confuse those who say they represent God with God himself, conmen who take the collar destroy people's faith. If someone claiming to be working on behalf of someone else betrays you, as irrational as it is, you will have trouble trusting the person they pretended to represent.

Which is why Jesus said that we need to pay attention to the other 2 parts of Christianity: beliefs and behavior. Let's take them in reverse order.

Right after warning his disciples about false prophets, he said, “By their fruit you will recognize them.” (Matthew 7:16) Conmen do not lead otherwise blameless lives. There is a reason they have learned to lie so convincingly—to cover up their bad behavior. Like, for some reason, every cult leader seems to get the revelation that they can sleep with whomever they want. Former FBI profiler Joe Navarro lists this among the top ten characteristics of dangerous cult leaders. And sure enough, David Koresh and Jim Jones and David Berg all preached, behind closed doors, a sexual ethic that benefited them and went against everything the Bible teaches. And prominent evangelists Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker, Ted Haggard and Tony Alamo all fell from grace due to sex scandals.

False prophets also are inordinately concerned with money. Jesus said you cannot serve both God and money; these guys don't see any contradiction between the two. True, churches need to raise money to pay the bills and carry out ministry. Clergy, like everyone else, are entitled to a salary they can live on. But any preacher who feels he needs the best of everything and lives like a king is hardly modeling a certain working class itinerant rabbi of Galilee. Wikipedia has a whole page of religious leaders convicted of crimes, some of which were sexual and some of which were financial fraud.

Taking advantage of people financially or sexually is not an expression of the selfless love of God in Christ we should be exemplify. A genuine Christian leader should not be manipulating or exploiting people for personal gain. In his first letter to Timothy Paul gives his protege a list of qualities he should look for in anyone being considered for the post of overseer or bishop: the person should be "above reproach, faithful to their spouse, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, and not a lover of money." (1 Timothy 3:2-3) Paul is hardly setting the bar impossibly high. But my point is we are not left to our own devices when it comes to judging our leadership. If you are paying attention, you can tell if a leader is going off the rails. I am always amazed when people who say they are Bible believers somehow fall for leaders who outrageously violate Biblical standards that are not at all obscure. We should be like the Jews of Berea. The book of Acts says, “they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said is true.” (Acts 17:11) As 1 John says, “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see if they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.” (1 John 4:1) And Paul said that, at a service, “Two or three prophets should speak and the others should evaluate what is said.” (1 Corinthians 14:29) Just because someone claims he is speaking for God doesn't mean we should take him at his word. Check his word against God's Word.

The other thing false prophets do is make everything about themselves. Again former FBI profiler Joe Navarro says that what stands out about cult leaders is that they are “all pathologically narcissistic. They all have or had an over-abundant belief they were special, that they and they alone had the answers to problems, and that they had to be revered. They demanded perfect loyalty from followers, they overvalued themselves and devalued those around them, they were intolerant of criticism, and above all they did not like being questioned or challenged. And yet, in spite of these less than charming traits, they had no trouble attracting those who were willing to overlook these features.” (Read his whole article here.) Instead of being mostly concerned about himself a Christian leader should be concerned for the needs of others. As Jesus said, “Whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.” (Mark 10:43-44)

A good Christian leader doesn't make himself the focus of the ministry. The focus should always be on Jesus, on who he is and what he has done and is doing for us. Which brings us to beliefs. There are tomes on the beliefs of Christianity. Some ideas resonate with various people and they tend to gravitate towards certain doctrines. And sometimes they can shift our attention from Jesus. People get mesmerized by things like the mechanics of justification or the details of the Last Days and get lost in the weeds. Even getting too obsessed with the Bible can distract us from the central person of the Bible. Some folks worship the Bible rather than God. How is that possible? Again it is a matter of not seeing the forest for the trees. They get into the minutia and the details and miss the main message entirely. If you look them up, you will notice that when Jesus and Paul and the other apostles quote the Old Testament, the words aren't exactly the same. They are quoting not the Hebrew Bible but the Septuagint, the Greek translation by Jewish scholars for the diaspora of Jews born and/or living throughout the Roman empire. That says to me the exact wording of the Bible is not as important as getting the gist right. Yes, the exact wording gives insights but if you concentrate exclusively on that you're like the person examining a note that says, “Your dead!” and being more perturbed that they misspelled “You're” than the fact that it's a threat. People who get hung up on the creation account of Genesis or the dating of the Exodus or how many times Jesus cleansed the Temple but don't realize that the whole purpose of the Bible is to convey the good news of God's love and forgiveness and grace embodied in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, are displaying the worst kind of near-sightedness. As Luther said, the Bible is like the manger that contained the Christ child. If you are more fascinated by counting the straws or critiquing the construction of the creche than the precious living person it holds, you are focusing on the wrong things.

It's all about Jesus. It is about what he reveals about God and what he is really like. It is about what he reveals about us and what is wrong with us and how we can get better. It is about what Jesus has done for us and is doing for those who let him into their lives. It is about how we should respond to this information.

Oddly enough, human beings can know the truth about something important and yet not let it change the relevant parts of their lives. You can know that eating too much and eating junk food are bad for you and yet make no changes in your diet. You can know that not getting enough sleep or enough exercise are bad for you but continue your sedentary, sleep-deprived life. And there are people who know that there is something wrong with them spiritually and morally but they don't make any effective changes in the direction they are going.

Which means they don't really believe it. If your doctor says you're going to die if you don't stop smoking and you don't make an effort to stop, it means you really don't believe him. If Jesus says that he is the way, the truth and the life and you don't disown yourself, take up your cross and follow him, it means you don't really believe him, either. If he says you need, above all else, to love God and love your neighbor as yourself, and you don't at least begin to act more loving towards others, it means you really don't believe him. If you say you are a Christian, but don't believe Jesus enough to behave as he says you should, it means Jesus is not your God but your mascot. The cross around your neck is not a symbol of God's love but only bling. And belonging to a church doesn't make you a Christian any more than taking up residence in a cookie jar makes a mouse a cookie.

If you really believe that God loves you enough to give his life for you, you should give your life to him. And you should seek out others who believe and behave the same. And you should have a burning desire to share this with others. Disciple simply means student. We are to be constantly studying Jesus and putting what we learn into practice. It isn't an academic subject; a lot of it you can only learn by doing. And it isn't a hobby that you do one hour one day a week. Following Jesus is a way of life.