Sermon for 23rd Pentecost
New Dreams Arise When Old Dreams Crumble
By The Rev. Eric Christopher Shafer -
I spent nearly 16 years of my ministry as the Director for Communication for our Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the ELCA, working at the church’s national office in Chicago. And these were wonderful years! I assembled an amazing staff, many of whom became and have remained close personal friends. We did exciting projects including a national advertising campaign and even brought back Davey and Goliath, the stop-motion animation cartoon from the 1950’s and 1960’s.
My ministry with the ELCA took me to visit Popes and Patriarchs and Archbishops, allowed me to teach in South Africa and Madagascar, and took me to Jerusalem and the West Bank where the Jerusalem Bishop became a personal friend. I had led two post-Hurricane Mitch relief trips to Central America for communicators from across the USA. During my time at the churchwide office we introduced the ELCA’s website, produced several Christmas Eve television specials for CBS, and so much more.
It was, quite frankly, my dream job, combining my love of sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ in new and old ways and my skills in communication and leadership.
Thus, I approached my annual evaluation meeting with the then ELCA Presiding Bishop in August of 2005 with good feelings and even some excitement. The church’s national meeting had just concluded and our communication work at the session had gone very well. The national convention had approved some structural changes which would bring the church’s magazine and its staff under my supervision for the first time and I had already built a good relationship with that staff.
I felt so confident of my work that I was prepared to ask for a raise in salary! After all, the new church structure was about to bring more staff under my supervision.
I got to the meeting with Bishop Hanson ready to “bask” in all of my success! And do you know what he told me right as we began? The Bishop told me that he wanted to post my position, to encourage others to apply for the newly reconfigured communication position.
I was devastated. This was a complete surprise. Now, this Presiding Bishop had not been as close friend of mine as his two predecessors had been, but, still, we had worked out what I thought was an acceptable working relationship and, from all accounts, my work had been exemplary. All of my recent evaluations, including the one from just a few months earlier that same year, all of my recent evaluations had rated my work as outstanding.
And, I had to leave my meeting with the Bishop and pretend for a few days that nothing was wrong.
Quite frankly, while it was not the end of the world for me, it certainly seemed for a time to be the end of my professional ministry!
But, as you know and see me now, it was not the end of the world or of my professional ministry. I went on from that position to lead a 6,000-member congregation in Pennsylvania, spend four wonderful years working in New York City, and then God led Kris and me to Santa Monica and to you all here at Mt. Olive.
My professional world felt that it had collapsed that day. But, it had not. It did not. And, reflecting on that day now, 14 years later, I thank God. Because I know I am where God wants me to be today, and I cannot imagine being anywhere else, doing anything else.
True, it was a very painful ending to some wonderful years of ministry and some of the best people with whom I have ever had the privilege of working. A painful and totally unnecessary ending. But I really believe that God took that painful ending and led me to ministry in this time and place.
New dreams arise when old dreams crumble.
You may notice that, during these last weeks of November, our weekend Gospel readings have focused on endings – the end of the world as we know it, the consummation of all creation, the end of time, the Second Coming of the Lord.
In today’s Gospel passage, Jesus predicts the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. Jesus envisions the end of the ritual sacrifice which happened there and the tumbling down of the one thing that the Jewish people could be certain of. If the temple were ever destroyed, it would feel like the end of the world for God’s chosen people.
And not only that, according to Jesus, peaceful societies will crumble into violence, and comfortable cultures will unravel into famine. Family ties will come undone, relatives will hand over family members to the authorities, and people will be thrown into prison simply for being believers. Your peaceful world, Jesus says, is coming to an end.
Sobering stuff! It is easy to get nervous when the Lord starts talking about the crumbling down of everything you thought you could trust! Jesus doesn’t hold back. He tells the truth, in vivid language.
The problem is that, in almost every century, someone has read this vivid Gospel language, looked at the world as they experience it, and then they have stood up and said, “The end is happening now! The end that Jesus predicts in this text is happening right now… or, at least, next week.”
In the past couple of years, haven’t we heard people of all political persuasions warning us that the end of civilization is just around the corner? Some tell us that global warming is going to destroy us. Others tell us that ‘Obamacare’ is going to destroy us. Some tell us that people of a different faith will destroy us. Others predict that sinners, or strangers, or scandals will destroy us. (I do have to admit that I sometimes wonder if trash television just might be the greatest threat to human survival, but I digress, again).
But seriously, I have a problem with a passage such as today’s Gospel lesson.
And here’s the problem: With any review of history, Jesus’ description of the end of the world (and what will lead up to it) Jesus’ description of the end of the world can be applied to every century of every era.
After all, Jesus says that, just before the end, we will see wars, famines, earthquakes, and people of faith betrayed and persecuted. Well, those things have happened in every century since Jesus rose from the dead. And they are still happening today. And, sadly, I suspect they will continue to happen.
When we hear a text like this one and we focus questions such as: “When will the end come? Or, when will it all come crumbling down?” when we do this, we can miss the main point. I do not believe that Jesus described the end of the world so that you and I can stockpile food, move to a bunker and live in fear.
I bleieve that Jesus describes the end of the world in vivid language because, in every century, ordinary people like you and me have moments when they feel like their world is falling apart. Jesus wants to remind us that, through the mystery of his dying and rising, we, you and I, we will see a new beginning coming out of every painful ending. We can trust that painful endings can lead to a new and more abundant life.
In the past 12 months, I am certain that many people listening to this sermon or reading it online, that many people have experienced some kind of painful ending in the last year. Some of your dreams may have crumbled. Part of the world that you have built may have felt like it was falling apart. Some of your hopes may have been dashed. Perhaps something – or someone – you thought you could always count on, could always trust, was taken away, leaving you breathless.
Jesus reminds us that the Christian approach to these painful endings is trust – trust that God can create something new out of the most desolate place.
Your spouse dies. Your child gets sick. Your marriage ends. Your job disappears. You fail a major test. You struggle with addiction. You get into legal trouble. Someone tells you that you do not have what it takes.
It can feel like your own temple in Jerusalem – your touchstone with God – that your life itself is falling to the ground. It can feel like your world is crumbling around you.
And then you remember this promise from God: Every cross leads to Easter. Every passion leads to resurrection. Jesus died, yes that is true. We we know what happened next - Jesus rose. And you and I will too.
Jesus died. Then Jesus rose. And you and I will too!
That is the center of our faith - not a building, but a belief that our relationship with the Risen One leads us from death to new life.
Believe it. Live it. Cling to it. Share it and show it to your friends, neighbors and even your enemies through your words and deeds.
Jesus once was dead, but look at him now!
(With thanks to the Rev. Michael Renninger and the “A Sermon for Every Sunday” sermon service).
The Rev. Eric Christopher Shafer
Senior Pastor - Mt. Olive Lutheran Church
Santa Monica, California
November 16 & 17, 2019
