Don’t be terrified. This is your opportunity to witness. And don’t be weary in doing what is right. These are God’s words of hope for you and for the creation.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 33 C
Texts: Luke 21:5-19; Isaiah 65:17-25; 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Three things. That’s what the Triune God has to tell you today in a world that’s falling apart:

Don’t be terrified.

This is your opportunity to witness.

And don’t be weary in doing what is right.

Jesus’ apocalyptic warnings seem unnecessary today, with the massive problems that hang over us, whether it’s climate change, struggles with our democracy, still-pervasive racism and sexism that harm millions in our culture, fear of those who are different that leads to death and terror for people coming to our land for life and safety. Jesus talks about wars, earthquakes, famines, persecution, plagues. We’re seeing this.

And it doesn’t matter if every generation has believed they, too, saw the signs. I don’t care. What we face is real and frightening. We don’t need to discount it by saying, “well, everyone always thinks their time is the worst.” Whether this is the worst or not, whether this is the end of all things or not, is irrelevant. In nearly three decades of ministry I’ve never seen this level of concern and anxiety among faithful Christians before. Jesus’ words speak to today.

But hear this from your God: Don’t be terrified. This is your opportunity to witness. And don’t be weary in doing what is right.

Don’t be terrified, the Triune God says, because I am making all things new.

God will create joy and delight in the people of God, Isaiah proclaims. People will live in homes and have gardens, and enjoy the safety of their walls and the fruit of their growing. Weeping will be no more. Distress will be no more.

Now, we could say that this is clearly a promise of a life to come in Christ after we die. But the preaching of Jesus changes that timeline. Jesus proclaimed a way of God that could start this transformation early in this world. Hearts changed, lives changed, to follow God’s ancient command to love God and love neighbor, and all the suffering and distress that we see could start to shift. We know this because we’ve seen it shift in history. You know this because even in your life you’ve seen healing and restoration in the midst of suffering.

Don’t lessen God’s promise by only throwing it into a future after death. God says this: before you call, I will answer. While you’re still speaking, I will hear. That’s a promise for this life, this world. This new heaven and new earth don’t replace a creation that from the beginning God has declared good. They are God’s restoration of a creation we’ve broken into the world God envisioned from the beginning.

So, don’t be terrified, God says. I raised Jesus from the dead: my life and love can bring hope to anything, everything, even that which looks dead.

God’s Son tells you today, that means this is your opportunity to witness.

This is your time, Jesus says. He literally says, “This will lead to your martyrdom.” So it’s your time for martyrdom, but not by being persecuted or killed for being a Christian. Not here in the U.S. Here it is Christians who persecute and kill Muslims and Sikhs and Jews and others because of their faith. Which makes your martyrdom, your witness, even more critical to understand.

What Jesus has always said is, your faith is seen in your love, or no one will know it exists. It’s the witness, the martyrdom, of your sacrificial, vulnerable love as Christ in the world, the giving of all you have to make a difference in this world. That’s your opportunity. God’s promised new heavens and new earth begin with you, with me, with all God’s children, healing the world with vulnerable, sacrificial love.

That means in your family, with your friends, losing for the sake of love of the other. That means in your community, in your society, witnessing by your votes, your protest, your speaking to leaders, and your sacrificial life of justice and mercy to your neighbors. That means in your sacrificial giving, your pledging of that giving to your siblings in Christ in this place. Your giving, and today’s pledging of it, is not “to” anything – not to a Vestry, or to Mount Olive. It is your sacrificial love shared in this body of Christ so we can concretely bring vulnerable, sacrificial love together to our neighbors and our city and our partners across the world, and receive it in turn. This is your opportunity to witness with your very life that God has come to love this world back in Christ and to make all things new.

So Paul says, “don’t be weary in doing what is right.”

None of us are delusional enough to think that any of us has the leverage to change the course of the United States, or even our city. The problems that need resolving are so large that even knowing where to start on one of them is daunting. Let alone all 25 of them, or however many there are.

Don’t let that weary you, Paul says. God’s wisdom in Christ is that any difference you make, any difference, is world changing. You might only love another person as Christ, and bring healing to their day. In God’s eyes, that’s a new heaven and a new earth being born. If you are Christ’s vulnerable, sacrificial love among your friends, your family, your work, in your civic engagement, it doesn’t matter if you’re just one person. In each act of your love, God’s new heaven and new earth begin to happen. And God’s people all over are doing this, just like you.

And of course, as our pledging to each other today reminds us, you also have the gift of doing this love with all of us, together. Don’t underestimate what God can do in the world with the people of Mount Olive. God’s got a history of changing things through the people of God here. When Mount Olive feeds a neighbor, welcomes a stranger, works against injustice, partners with mission around the world, a new heaven and a new earth begins to be created.

So don’t be weary. It is often overwhelming. But as Rabbi Shapiro has said, “Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly now. Love mercy now. Walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”^[1] You are enough, God thinks, with your love and sacrifice and Christ-work. So are we, together. Trust that when it all seems too much.

It’s a hard world, Jesus says. But I am with you always.

God’s Spirit is in you, you are not alone. So don’t be terrified: God is making all things new. This is your opportunity to witness: your life of Christ love will make a difference. And don’t be weary in doing what is right: you’re not the only one God is calling to this, and your love is multiplied in all God’s children. And through you, and all of us, and all God’s children, a new earth and a new heaven are surely beginning right now.

In the name of Jesus. Amen

[1] Rabbi Rami Shapiro, paraphrase and trope on Rabbi Tarfon in Wisdom of the Jewish Sages: A Modern Reading of Pirke Avot (New York: Harmony/Bell Tower [div. of Crown/Random House], c. 1993), p. 41. A calligraphy of this was the cover of the service folder for this day.

It is easy to see the world and despair, or fear, or do nothing. But take courage, God is with you, and you will be strengthened to be a part of God’s healing.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 32 C
Texts: Haggai 1:15b – 2:9; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17; Luke 20:27-38

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

They couldn’t see how to restore what was once so beautiful.

The Jewish exiles returned home from Babylon to disaster. Jerusalem’s walls broken, homes burned, and, worst of all, God’s Temple destroyed. Being home was wonderful, but what now? How can they imagine starting over?

The Thessalonians couldn’t see a possible future. First, they’d become terrified when their loved ones still died as they had before, even after believing in Christ. So Paul had to reassure them. Now apparently they got another letter, claiming it’s from Paul, warning them that the end of the world was at hand. How do you live with that fear hanging over?

The Sadducees couldn’t see the hope Jesus offered. They didn’t believe in resurrection, and Jesus, like the Pharisees, did. In spite of his wisdom, his teaching, his acts of divine power and mercy, they couldn’t see anything in Jesus except someone to be mocked, someone to be trapped into saying something ridiculous, if possible.

So the Judeans turned inward; they took care of themselves.

They rebuilt their homes, started picking up rubble, made a life in the midst of devastation. But as we hear Haggai speak, 18 years have passed since their return, and the Temple still lies in ruins. They haven’t rebuilt their house of worship, the house of God.

The Thessalonians fell into frightened inactivity. If our loved ones are dying, what’s the point of faith? If the world’s going to end, what’s the point of doing anything? Some apparently stopped doing work entirely.

And the Sadducees respond to their inability to see what God is doing in Christ with cynical baiting. They make up a horrible story based on Jewish law that mocks anyone who believes in the resurrection from the dead, trying to trick Jesus. They don’t seem to want enlightenment, just entertainment. Or worse, evidence for a trial.

Sometimes our readings seem to speak directly to our situation. Today is such a day.

The Church has long ended the Church Year with readings about the end times, apocalyptic Scriptures. Today, that seems fitting. The anxiety of all these people feels like our own.

We haven’t returned from exile, but as we look at the state of our beautiful earth, how we’ve destroyed it, how so much is in ruin, we despair. Even if everyone in this country agreed to start working on ending our contribution to climate change, even started trying to reverse it, finally joining the rest of the world in this task, we have no idea if we’re too late. We don’t know if we’ve ruined our home permanently and irreversibly. And we still can’t even get everyone to agree it’s a disaster.

Our cherished institutions of democracy and government seem to be on the verge of failing, too. Things we took for granted – rule of law, decency, the idea that there are facts, truths, that exist beyond personal opinion – we seem to be in danger of losing forever. We don’t know if we can restore any of this, even if we could get others to agree it needed to be restored.

So, like the exiles, we are tempted to despair at the sheer amount of work to be done, and turn inward, taking care of our own needs. Like the Thessalonians, we are tempted to do nothing, to sit out all these problems. If it’s all crashing down, what’s the point? And we are tempted to take the Sadducees’ path, mocking what we don’t understand, hiding our anxiety behind cynical criticism, pretending we’re not worried or despairing.

But did you hear what else was in our readings? Did you hear God’s voice?

God speaks in all these readings with hope and promise in the midst of the despair, the fear, and the feigned indifference.

Jesus – the Triune God’s Word in the flesh – ignores the cynical question and goes straight to reassurance: the point of resurrection, Jesus says, is that it is God’s life that makes you alive. You are children of the resurrection, children of God. What life after death will be like, don’t worry about that, Jesus says. Just know that right now, already, you are resurrection children, God’s life in you.

And that, Paul says, is where your hope comes from. God “loves you and through grace gives you,” Paul says, “eternal comfort and good hope.”

And Haggai brings it all together: “take courage,” he says three times, “take courage, says the Lord, for I am with you. My spirit abides among you; do not fear.” I am with you. My spirit lives in you. Don’t be afraid. That’s God’s answer to your despair, your fear, your confusion, even your inability to act.

And that’s not an empty promise. God’s Spirit is in you. You are not alone. That means things can change.

Paul says that the God who “loves you and by grace gives you eternal comfort and good hope” will also now “comfort your heart and strengthen it for every good work and word.” All this Christ-work, this servant work we’ve heard Jesus call us to this summer and fall, all that is ours to do, but it’s ours to do with the comfort and strength of God in our hearts.

So, Haggai says to his people, you can rebuild the Temple. God will be with you, and it will happen. Paul says to the Thessalonians, you can do your calling as followers of Christ, get out of your idleness, step up and be Christ, because you are not alone, God is with you. And Jesus’ calling to you and to me is grounded in our reality of being resurrection children. As Paul said to the Ephesians last week, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead now works in you.

And that’s how this world will be changed. That’s how God will restore all things.

It’s all about the heart, it turns out.

“Take courage,” Haggai says. Courage, literally heart-strength. That’s God’s gift to you. And that’s good news to all who suffer from injustice and oppression, all who despair over the devastation of this world, all who are torn from their families by our own indifferent and wicked leaders, all who struggle to be heard and seen for who they are, all who in any way wonder where God is, and whether God sees any of this, and whether God is going to do anything. God says, I am here. You are not alone. And in these my children – in you, God means! – I am bringing healing and life.

Dear friends, God is with you, giving your heart courage, and you are needed to make a difference. If God can raise Jesus, God can bring life to anything that is dead. And you will be a part of that. And so will I, and all God’s children, until the whole creation sings again.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

 

https://youtu.be/GulMuNVSeEI

Life in Christ is abundance and blessing, even in this frightening world, and it is freedom: freedom to truly live, and freedom to help others also find life and freedom in Christ.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Sunday of the Reformation
Texts: John 8:31-36, with references to much of John’s Gospel; Jeremiah 31:31-34

Note for online readers: This sermon came on the heels of doing a five week Bible study on John’s view of salvation – life in Christ in God’s reign – and John’s theology, along with Jesus’ words in John, were fresh in my mind as I wrote. But the sermon was written out of John 8:31-36 (with brief note to Jeremiah 31:31-34), the text for the day. There was so much in this brief Gospel reading that resonated in my heart with the rest of John’s Gospel, after being so immersed in it for two months. This wasn’t an exercise in fitting in Scripture quotes, in other words; I simply wrote the sermon I felt God was calling out. But after Sunday’s liturgy, I was curious to see if I could track all the references in the whole of John that ended up in this sermon, so I went through and noted them. (There are a couple instances of repeat references I didn’t include.) In hopes that it might be helpful for those who read the sermon online to look up things for themselves, for further study, I offer them here. If they’re not needed, try to ignore the footnote markers! I think they’re a little distracting to reading and to flow, so you could also simply watch the video and avoid them. – Pr. Joseph Crippen

 

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

“If you continue in my Word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”¹

Try to grasp what Christ Jesus is offering you: “If you remain in my Word, that means you are, in truth, my disciples, and in that reality, you will also know the truth, and in that knowing, you will be made free.”²

We know these beloved words well. Yet we often seem to just admire them and regularly miss the profound, life-shaping gift Jesus offers in them. Do you ever experience it?

That’s John’s question in writing this Gospel.³ John believes if you did realize just what Jesus was offering you, you’d have an abundant life,⁴ a life that experiences light in the darkness of this world,⁵ a life that quenches your deepest inner thirst,⁶ a life that feeds and satisfies you like nothing else you know.⁷ A life where you are truly free.⁸

If such a life sounds wonderful to you, then listen to Jesus’ words today and consider whether you can trust him.

The path to trusting begins with remembering: Jesus is the Word.⁹ Jesus is the truth.¹⁰

“Remaining in my Word” simply means living life connected to the very life of Christ, God’s eternal Word in the world.¹¹ It’s God’s Word written on your heart, as Jeremiah promises.¹² It’s being joined to the Vine that fills you with life, as Jesus says later in John.¹³ “Knowing the Truth” is simply knowing Jesus,¹⁴ God-with-us,¹⁵ the Word-Made-Flesh,¹⁶ and as Jesus repeatedly says in John, that means knowing God,¹⁷ through life in the Spirit.¹⁸

So Jesus says: stay with me, connected to me,¹⁹ and you will know God’s intention for you and the creation – God’s Word – and you will know the very heart of God for you and for the creation – God’s Truth.

That’s how you find light in the darkness, by trusting in Jesus and holding tight.²⁰ That’s how you are quenched to your very core, by trusting in Jesus and being filled.²¹ That’s how your deepest hungers are met, by trusting Jesus and taking him into your deepest center.²² The Meal of Life we celebrate each week is a real eating and drinking of Christ’s life into you. But this connection with Christ is also available to you always through the Spirit,²³ not just at Holy Communion. God’s very Word²⁴ and God’s very Truth²⁵ – Christ Jesus – in your heart. That’s where you find true freedom.²⁶

And Jesus’ promise assumes that this Truth, this Word, are given you because this world is frightening and challenging, to help you live freely in it.

In John, Jesus offers life to a foreign woman, estranged from her community, and fills her with conviction of God’s love and welcome, even in her challenging circumstances.²⁷ Jesus heals a man blind from birth, but more, is God’s presence with him, changing this man’s life.²⁸ Jesus offers himself to Mary and Martha and they know him as God’s living, resurrection life, even in their grief, and even before he raises Lazarus.²⁹ Again and again, knowing and trusting Jesus in John doesn’t always change people’s outer circumstances.³⁰ But they find freedom and joy and hope in God’s new birth³¹ that trusting Jesus gives them. They live in God’s Word, they know God’s Truth, and they are changed.

Listen to what Jesus promises you and the world:

I am the Light of the World, Jesus says.³² The world is still filled with darkness, but you can see when you hold on to me.

I am the Bread of Life, Jesus says.³³ You might still have physical pain and difficulty and needs, but if you hold me within you, I will satisfy you fully.

I am the Gate of the sheep³⁴ and I am the Good Shepherd,³⁵ Jesus says. Even with the wolves of fear and doubt threatening and the beasts of hatred and oppression crushing so many of God’s children, I will be with you and all my children, always.

I am the Resurrection and the Life, Jesus says.³⁶ So even if you die, you will live, and better, if you trust in me now, remain in me, you’ll find life in God now that will change you forever.

I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, Jesus says.³⁷ Holding on to me, you’ll find your way in this world, you’ll know the truth that God loves you and all things, and you will have life within you, no matter what happens to you.

And I am the True Vine, Jesus says.³⁸ Stay connected to me, which means you’re connected to God, and the life that I flow in you will produce the same sacrificial love that I have for the creation that will save all things.³⁹ Your love will be a part of saving all things for God, too.⁴⁰

This is true freedom, freedom indeed, that Jesus offers you.⁴¹

Freedom from anxiety and worry: you belong to God and no matter what happens, God will always be with you, in life or in death.⁴² Freedom from fear of your sinfulness and flaws: you are loved forever by God and your sins are forgiven, forgotten.⁴³ Freedom from the possessions that claim ownership of you: you have the life of Christ in you, and are free to let go of these false gods that can’t truly satisfy you.⁴⁴ Freedom from blindness to your privilege and power: you are a branch of the Vine of love that gives up all power and privilege, even divine life, for the sake of love of the other,⁴⁵ and you are free to love in that same way.⁴⁶

This is the freedom Jesus offers you. Freedom indeed, true freedom to live, no matter what the circumstances of your life might be.⁴⁷

And living this is true discipleship.

Because knowing this freedom makes you Christ, like Jesus.⁴⁸ You become a servant:⁴⁹ a washer of feet,⁵⁰ a bringer of light to others’ darkness.⁵¹ You become someone whose vulnerable, sacrificial love fills up others in their deepest need,⁵² quenches the thirst of a world longing for justice.⁵³ You become a shepherd who not only works to protect others from the harm of this world but who works to change this world so that all might find green pasture and clean water, hope and life.⁵⁴

When you are free in Christ, you not only know the abundant life Jesus longs for you to know.⁵⁵ You become a sign of that resurrection life in the world, so others might be drawn to the love of God in Christ and be free indeed themselves.

“If you remain in me,” Jesus says, “this is what will happen to you, and to the world.” ⁵⁶

So where else would you want to remain, to be, to live?

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

Note: Scripture footnotes are below the video.

 

Scripture references:
[1] John 8:31-32
[2] John 8:31-32
[3] John 20:31
[4] John 10:10
[5] John 1:3-4; 8:12; 9:5; 11:9; 12:46
[6] John 4:13-14; 6:35; 7:37-38
[7] John 6:27, 33, 35, 50-51
[8] John 8:36
[9] John 1:1, 14
[10] John 14:6
[11] John 1:1-2
[12] Jeremiah 31:33
[13] John 15:4-5
[14] John 14:6-7; 18:37
[15] John 1:1, 18
[16] John 1:14
[17] John 1:1-3, 18; 5:19-23, 37-38; 7:28-29; 8:18-19; 14:7-9; 15:23
[18] John 3:5-8, 34
[19] John 15
[20] John 1, 8, 9, 11, 12
[21] John 4
[22] John 6
[23] John 3
[24] John 1
[25] John 14, 18
[26] John 8
[27] John 4
[28] John 9
[29] John 11
[30] Sometimes it does – Cana, a man healed on Sabbath. Sometimes it doesn’t – the woman caught in adultery. Sometimes it takes time for people to trust Jesus for life because of their circumstances – Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea – but they come around. And sometimes there’s faltering in the trust – the disciples on Thursday through Saturday of Holy Week, including Peter and Judas – but they are welcomed back into trust, forgiven, loved (which would have included Judas had he lived, I’m convinced.)
[31] John 3
[32] John 8:12; 9:5, 39; 11:9-10; 12:35-36, 46; 16:1
[33] John 6:35, 48, 51, 53-58
[34] John 10:7-10
[35] John 10:11-18
[36] John 11:25-26
[37] John 14:6-7
[38] John 15:1
[39] John 15:5, 9
[40] John 15:16-17
[41] John 8
[42] John 10:11-18, 27-29
[43] John 3:16-17
[44] John 6:27, 49, 58, 63, 66-68
[45] John 3:14-15; 8:28; 12:31-32; 15:13, 20
[46] John 13:12-16, 34-35
[47] John 8
[48] John 17:18, 21
[49] John 13:16
[50] John 13:12-15
[51] John 12:36
[52] John 13:34-35; 14:21; 15:12-14
[53] John 4
[54] John 21:15-17
[55] John 10:10
[56] John 8:31-36

You belong to God, and you are God’s justice answer to the world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 29 C
Texts: Jeremiah 31:27-34; Luke 18:1-18; 2 Timothy 3:14 – 4:5

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

“They will be my people,” God says.

That’s God’s new promise Jeremiah declares today: God will bring all God’s people together and start over. “I will write my law on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they will be my people,” God says. “Everyone will know me.”

And God means everyone. Twice God says that this new covenant, this new promise, will be made with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. All God’s people, all the chosen ones, are included.

It’s hard to imagine the impact of this promise. If Judah had little hope in their own return from exile, they certainly had long since abandoned any hope for their siblings and cousins to the north, lost for 150 years by this time. But God says, “I know where everyone is, and I’m blessing them all.” Everyone will be God’s people again.

This new promise is fulfilled in Jesus, God-with-us, the Anointed of God, and in Christ we see the true breadth of the Triune God’s promise: it is for all people, the whole world, all God’s children. Everyone is now chosen, everyone now belongs.

You belong. You are God’s. So, Jesus tells you, pray always.

That’s why he tells this story.

Jesus says, “If someone as corrupt as this judge finally gives justice because he’s tired of all the asking, how much more will your God give justice to God’s chosen ones? That is, to you, to everyone.

So don’t lose heart, Jesus says. You matter. You can pray and God will hear, God will answer. If this widow doesn’t give up trying to connect with this wretched public official, who doesn’t care for God or for people, don’t give up trying to connect with the God who loves you and wants justice and mercy in this world. God will not delay in giving help.

This prayer Jesus talks about is an invitation to trust that you are God’s beloved and God wants to talk with you, listen to you, help you. It’s an invitation into a relationship with God just like Jeremiah says God promises.

Prayer for Jesus is living into a life of trust in God. It’s not words to operate a divine vending machine.

God’s voice in Jeremiah says, “They will be my people, and I will be their God. They will all know me. My words, my law, will be written on their hearts.”

God gave the chosen people the Torah, the written law, and again and again they failed to follow it. Everything they needed for life was there, and yet they went their own way. But now, when half of them seem lost forever and the other half are stuck in exile, God says, “let’s try again.” This is God’s answer to our inability to follow the written law of God: I’ll just put it inside you, so you know it by heart. This is the whole point of Scripture, Timothy says today, to “equip those who belong to God to be proficient for every good work.”

So God comes in person, in Jesus the Christ, to do this. To meet us face to face. To place in our hearts, through the Holy Spirit, the love of God and love of neighbor that is the backbone and heart of God’s law. As you live into the life of the Triune God, and know God’s love and grace, God’s Spirit changes your heart into God’s heart.

That’s where you hear God’s answer to your cries for justice, to the world’s cries for justice.

It’s always been God’s answer. But now, in relationship with God, changed in your heart, you can hear it. God says, “I will quickly grant justice. Come, let’s do it together.” God can only make the justice and mercy God dreams for the world through your hands and mine, your hearts and mine.

So persistently pray for justice, Jesus says. Just be ready for God’s answer: “you’re with me; let’s go do this.” God’s justice answer to the world is a changed you, a changed me. A changed everyone who belongs to God. This isn’t individual salvation. God needs widespread heart transformation, millions of children of God with God’s love and grace written on their hearts, living God’s justice, knowing they belong and that all belong.

This is the faith Jesus wonders if he’ll find when he returns.

He wonders if he’ll find people who live in trusting relationship with God, knowing they are loved and forgiven. People who are transformed in their very hearts to love and care for the world as God does. To hear all the cries for justice, and to answer with their bodies, their voices, their hearts, their love.

Given how we’ve tended to pray for God’s justice and expected God to do it, Jesus’ concern is valid.

But it needn’t be. You belong to God. You are loved and forgiven always, your sins wiped away and forgotten in the Triune God’s sacrificial love. You are God’s chosen one. You can live in trust with God through Christ Jesus, and have your heart changed. You can expect to work with God for justice in this terrifying and toxic world we live in. This is God’s dream for you. And the world.

Ponder this deeply. Because there’s another possibility to this parable.

Maybe Jesus looks at us sometimes and sees the unjust judge. Acting as if we don’t fear God or respect people. Closing our ears to the cries of those crushed by this oppressive world we’ve built, our hearts to the pain of anyone who isn’t us. It’s not how we always are; but it can be. Keep this corrupt official in mind when you consider sitting out an issue, or avoid looking for ways to make a difference, or are tempted to resist the sacrifice God’s justice for all will mean for you.

The artist Sara Bareilles has a breathtaking new album about living in the midst of the chaos of these days, where she sings, “Be the hand of a hopeful stranger, little scared, but you’re strong enough. Be the light in the dark of this danger, till the sun comes up.” ¹

That’s God’s dream for you, beloved child of God. You are God’s answer to the cries for justice. God says to those who cry out: Have you met my child, my light, my beacon of hope? They will hold out their hand to you, and help you find a safe place to be.

So, my friends, do not lose heart. Pray always. And let God’s love move you as God’s hope in the world.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

¹ Sara Bareilles, in “A Safe Place to Land,” on Amidst the Chaos, 2019, Epic Records

 

God, and God’s servants, human and angelic, will defeat all the powers of evil. Just not in the way you might have thought.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The feast of St. Michael and All Angels
Text: Revelation 12:7-12

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

“Holy God, holy and mighty, holy and immortal: surrounded by evil and bordered by death we appeal to you.”

These words open our Eucharistic prayer each week in October and November. As the Church Year draws to a close and our seasons in the north move toward dying and the end of growth, the lectionary focuses more on life in the end times, on evil and good and God’s place in that.

We’re starting this prayer a week earlier this year. Today, the 29th of September, the Church celebrates God’s angelic messengers, those spiritual beings who work for God’s good in a world surrounded by evil and bordered by death. It’s good to remember them as we approach the Table of God’s welcoming grace. And all year, at each Eucharist, in the Great Thanksgiving an invitation is sung to the faithful to join “all the choirs of angels” in singing praise to the thrice-holy and ever-living God.

You don’t have to believe in little devils clothed in red with pitchforks and horns to comprehend, even in our scientific age, that there are powers of evil at work that cause evil far greater than can be accounted for by just bad human decisions. Institutions have collective powers, mobs attain a collective mind and do horrifying things. Even a nation, as we’ve learned to our deep grief, can collectively become an agent of evil even if the majority are trying to do good and love neighbor.

So today we celebrate that the complexity and beauty of God’s creation includes spiritual powers who serve God, who work for good. You don’t have to believe in fat little half-naked cherubs with too-small wings to comprehend, even in our scientific age, the possibility of God’s grace in having spiritual servants to help God and to help humans in our need. To work for God against evil, and rejoice when the lost are found.

But listen carefully to how God’s servants, angelic and human, actually defeat evil.

The great war in heaven John speaks of in his Revelation today can evoke all sorts of blood-lust unseemly to those who follow the Prince of Peace. It’s a great temptation for Christians.

The disciples, despite Jesus’ warnings, weren’t prepared for the idea of a suffering and dying Messiah. That the Incarnate God-with-us would reveal the depths of God’s love for the creation by dying in humiliation, revealing what true love that heals all things looks like, isn’t just surprising to us. Jesus’ intimate followers also were shocked.

But their problem, and ours as well, is that after the resurrection, it’s tempting to view the cross as just a temporary setback, well put in our rear-view mirror. We didn’t see that coming, but we understand: the Messiah wouldn’t drive out Rome with armies. But now that he’s risen, surely we’re back in business. Surely now we can start dreaming of the time Christ will return and really clean house. Drive the devils out of heaven, wipe evil from the earth, rule over all things.

But that completely misses the point of the cross.

God’s dying and rising love is the only way God will heal all things. If Jesus wouldn’t use twelve legions of angels to defend himself in Gethsemane, he’s not saving those angelic armies for a future pitched battle with flaming swords against the powers of evil.

Just as the disciples were wrong when, after Easter, they asked Jesus if now he would restore Israel and drive out Rome, so, too, we are wrong if we think that God will change plans and now start using power and force to drive evil from this world. We need to stop expecting God, or the angels, to dramatically or powerfully or magically or militarily defeat evil for us.

It turns out, we need to see how John sees this ultimate victory in his Revelation. It’s not what you think you just heard. He talks today about a war between Michael and God’s angels and the great Rebel and his angels. But listen to what he actually says defeats the powers of evil forever:

John saw this future: God’s angels conquer Satan by the blood of the Lamb.

That’s the great war. God’s angels simply point to the blood of the Lamb of God. The sacrifice of God’s Son, the great outpouring of self-giving love by the Triune God on behalf of the creation.

The center of John’s Revelation is the Lamb who was killed and now lives and is adored, because the Lamb, the vulnerable and victorious Christ, is God’s ultimate and only plan. If evil is going to be defeated, John says, the only thing that will do it is the self-giving love of God at the cross. And that will end it for good.

John saw this future, too: it is the word of their testimony that conquers the powers of evil.

That’s how the armies of angels use the blood of the Lamb to defeat evil. They testify to it. They witness to the utter love of God for all things that caused the God of life and creation to offer everything, even the life of the Son of God, to win back the creation.

And it’s not just the testimony of the angels, but also that of the hosts robed in white around the throne John has already seen. Those faithful who witnessed by their lives to the love of God in Christ, who are gathered in heaven. The word of their testimony is critical to the defeat of evil, pointing to the blood of the Lamb as the end of all evil’s power.

And John saw this future: they win because they didn’t cling to life, even in the face of death, and evil could not stand against such trust.

Both angels and we who are mortal, we who are filled with Christ, who love as Christ, defeat evil when we don’t cling to life, even in the face of death. When we don’t worry about the cost of following but follow the heart of God that beats in us in our baptism, no matter the cost. When we don’t make decisions out of fear and anxiety over what might happen to us but out of the love the Spirit of God pours into our hearts. When we bear God’s vulnerable, sacrificial love in our own lives and words and bodies, and so witness to how God will defeat evil.

Rejoice today: God is working against the powers of evil, human and otherwise, that surround and assail us and all the world.

Just know that the battle isn’t what you thought it would be, and the victory has already begun at the cross. It’s a strange kind of victory, certainly unexpected.

But Jesus would have you focus less on demons being defeated, just as he says to the disciples today, and more on rejoicing that your name is written in heaven. Your life is bound up in God’s eternal love. Your hopes for the world to be free of evil and to be a place of hope and life for all God’s creatures and all God’s creation are found in this dying and rising love that not only writes your name in heaven but the names of every living thing.

Against such love – from the Triune God, from God’s angels, and now from you and all God’s children – what chance do any powers of evil have?

In the name of Jesus.  Amen