November 13, 2016 – Luke 21:5-19
Luke 21:5-19
The End
Lectionary 33C – November 13, 2016
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
The temple was all about Herod.
During Jesus lifetime the temple in Jerusalem had been renovated.
King Herod, Rome’s local puppet ruler, went nuts making the temple as grandiose as possible.
A thousand years earlier, God did not even want a temple – God was happy with the tent that
the people carried around to worship God in.
But monarchs have often built elaborate temples as testaments to their power over the people.
And that is what Herod did.
He build huge walls enclosing the temple area which grew to a size of 36 acres,
the equivalent of 7 high school football complexes with
quarter mile tracks surrounding them.
The walls were 187 feet high, the height of a 12 storey building.
The huge walls were painted with gold and its courts paved with white marble.
It was widely regarded as one of the wonders of the ancient world and it was accomplished,
of course, at tremendous cost.
The disciples this morning are in awe of the building.
They remark on its size and grandiosity.
But Jesus? Jesus is not impressed by such things.
He is not interested in monuments to people’s power, or the powers of extortion –
which Herod called “taxation” – that were necessary to build such monuments.
Jesus just looks at the disciples and says, “You see these stones?
the day is coming when not one of them will be left upon another.”
Jesus knows which way the wind is blowing, and he knows that violent resistance to
violent Roman rule will end in a violent and destructive Roman response.
And 40 years later that is exactly what happens.
No: Jesus is not interested or impressed by such buildings or by the egos like Herod’s that are
compelled to construct them.
You know what Jesus is interested in?
What he is interested in he has just drawn attention to in the verses just before this story:
the verses in which he points out a poor widow who puts
everything she has into the temple treasury – out of love.
The widow invests her whole life in something – an institution – that is not perfect.
I have said before I think Jesus admires the widow and, even more, feels an affinity with her:
with someone who is investing her whole life – everything she has – in something that is
less than perfect.
The widow is the exact opposite of Herod: like Jesus,
she gives away what she has for the sake of something bigger and better – out of love.
Like Jesus, she gives her life for the sake of people who are less than perfect – out of love.
For Herod, it’s all about him.
But for Jesus and the widow, it’s all about God and God’s loving mission to love, bless,
heal and set free this whole world and every person in it: it’s not about them.
Last week my boy Theo and I went to see the new Marvel film Dr. Strange.
It is a great film, visually stunning and great fun.
Dr. Stephen Strange is a great neurosurgeon, arrogant and smug and proud,
whose life revolves around himself.
He is driven to be the best and his practice becomes a monument to himself.
When he suffers a car accident he almost completely loses the use of his hands,
hands upon which his whole career is based.
In desperation he goes to Nepal where he has heard there is a place where he might be healed.
There he gains a power beyond comprehension that allows him to do almost anything:
there is taught how to draw energy and power from other dimensions and
use and harness that power.
Once he uses this power to regain the ability to use his hands for surgery, he prepares to leave,
so he can resume his old life of building a monument to himself and enrich himself.
But his teacher, the Ancient One, has this to say to him:
Arrogance and fear still keep you from learning the simplest and most significant lesson of all.
Which is? he asks.
It’s not about you.
And with that begins his involvement to save the world from the dark powers that threaten it.
I loved the simplicity of that moment and that statement in the movie.
Arrogance and fear have kept you from learning the simplest and most significant lesson of all:
it’s not about you.
After all the lessons that came before as Dr. Strange learned how to
manipulate seemingly everything, turning city streets upside down and
making entire buildings rise and fall in wave after wave – after learning how to do
all that, the most significant thing he still had to learn was:
it’s not about you.
Jesus, drawing the disciples’ attention to the poor widow rather than Herod’s grand temple,
could easily have taught the same lesson: look at the widow.
It is not about her.
It is about her love, her love for an institution that is not perfect but
that is still worth investing love in.
The temple was not a perfect institution, yet the widow gave everything she had to it.
This world and its people are not yet perfect, yet Jesus gives his whole life to it and to them.
The widow has learned that it is not about her.
Jesus has learned it is not about him.
It’s about God’s loving mission to love bless and heal this world and every person in it.
This morning, Cecilia was baptized into this mission we share with her.
A mission to the vulnerable of this world.
A mission to the hurting of this world.
A mission to give light to one another.
A mission to heal and bring peace where there is division and justice where there is oppression.
For the baptized, it is not about them: it is about the mission.
This is difficult: ask Stephen Strange.
He is loathe to give up his old life and his old identity and his old passions –
he is loathe to give up his ego.
But his gifts are needed elsewhere, for a larger purpose – saving the world.
Well, it is scary.
Scary to move into new ventures.
Scary to risk giving away the gifts you have in ways that do not immediately benefit yourself.
Scary to be generous in your life and in your giving.
Scary when our instincts more and more these days are to protect ourselves in the midst of
admittedly real dangers and a world that sometimes does seem terrifying.
Jesus points to the dangers but then he says, “When the temptation in the midst of difficulty and
stress and destruction is to hole up and protect yourself,
when it looks like the end has come – do not be afraid. Do not be afraid.
For these things? These things are not the end.”
Destruction is not the end.
Death is not the end.
Love is the end.
Love is always the end.
So put your energies there – always put your energies into loving, into giving away.
Remember the widow: keep your eye on her as I have.
Love is the end – so investing in love is always always a wise investment.
For love never ends.
And so you will always abide in the love of God no matter what befalls you.
And so you need fear nothing.
It’s not about you. And that is okay. In fact, that is good.
Doctor Strange is invited into giving away his gifts for a purpose much larger than himself.
Cecilia this morning is invited into giving away her gifts for a purpose much larger than herself,
God’s saving of the world, and in this community she will be nurtured in faith and trust
in God so that she might do that fearlessly and generously.
This morning you too are invited to re-hear your call to give away your gifts generously and
fearlessly – your gifts of love and compassion and forgiveness,
your gifts of time and energy, your gifts of wealth and goods – to this ministry
for the sake of God’s loving mission.
This morning, with Dr. Strange, with the disciples, and with Cecilia, you are invited to hear this:
it’s not about you: it’s about this creation, it’s about your neighbour in need.
It’s about God’s loving mission to love bless and heal this whole world and
every person in it, confidently expecting that when we invest in that,
we invest in a loving end.
For love is the end.
So together let us build a monument to love in this community of people,
which nothing can destroy.
And together, let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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