Signs of the Kingdom

Preached at Prescott Baptist

December 2, 2012

Psalm 25:4-10

Luke 21: 25-36

I learned to swim at Santa Fe Lake in north Florida. Nothing fancy about the place. It’s just a lake, spring fed, surrounded by cypress trees and sprawling live oaks. When the extreme heat of a summer day made all of us wilt and get cranky, my mother would make sandwiches and put them in a basket and when she was ready, my father would honk the car horn and all four of us kids (along with any of our cousins or friends who happened to be visiting) would scramble into the back of our Rambler station wagon and drive to the lake.

There was a sandy parking area next to a small dilapidated dressing room. When the car stopped we ran down the hill screaming and hollering as if to warn any snakes or alligators of our approach.  The water was the color of weak coffee. Older kids ran to the end of the dock and jumped as high as they could and then grabbed their knees up around their bodies competing to make the largest canon-ball kersploosh! I daintily put my toes into the shallow water and disturbed the rippled sand on the shore.  That’s what I did until I learned to swim. 

Laverne Sullivan, a neighbor boy and my older brothers’ friend, took time and patience to teach me how to swim. It began with floating on my back. “You need to learn to trust the water and not be afraid of it,” Lavern kept his hands and forearms under my back as I stretched my arms out straight. The other boys would come splashing around, kicking and making waves. A fishing boat would pass by and waves would lap up over my cheeks. “Just breathe and relax,” Lavern said. “The best swimmers know how to relax and trust the water to hold them up.”

In the scripture from Luke’s Gospel, Jesus points out these frightening cosmic signs: the sun, the moon, the stars, the earth distressed, the nations at war and roaring of the sea and the waves. Jesus tells the gathered crowd that when these signs arrive our redemption is getting close. But it sounds more like a tidal wave will push us under and wash us away. We can see the congregation cringing from Jesus and the images he’s using.

So Jesus gets closer to what’s familiar for us: a fig tree heralds the arrival of a beginning. We see the green leaves sprouting signaling that spring is not far away. At the same time the green buds signal an ending, the end of winter and its cold air.

We are familiar with endings and beginnings. We know birth and the signs to look for: the pains get sharper and the contractions come closer together. Breathing gets rapid and shallow. The baby is on the way! We are familiar with death as the gaze of the one dying moves from the faces in the room toward a spot up high in the corner, toward a place most of us don’t yet have eyes to see. The breathing slows, gets further apart, rattles and halts. The spirit ends this life and enters its new life and leaves the weight of the human body behind. We are familiar with the changes that come with beginnings and endings. We think of it as natural.

We have been encouraged to think of Christ’s return as terrifying. Some will be taken, some will be left behind. All who are left behind will be terrified. The language and images that are used by ministers like John Hagee in San Antonio and Hal Lindsey of the Left Behind series would have us believe that some people will be driving a car and be lifted up into the air out of their car and the car, left to drive itself, will careen into children on their bikes and old folks walking home from the grocery store. Pilots in airplanes will suddenly fly out of the cockpit to be with Jesus while the plane and all its passengers hurtle to earth. But rapture theology is a distortion of Christian faith. According to the basic rapture credo, the world cannot be saved. God intends to destroy it: every blade of grass, every tree, every sparrow, every elephant and ocean.

This kind of theology rose up in reaction to the social gospel movement in the early 1900’s. The social gospel focused on making the world a better place, reaching out and expanding God’s grace so as to increase advantages for the poor and marginalized. The creators of rapture theology reacted to that notion, emphasizing that there is no need to improve conditions here on earth. There is no need to take good care of the earth itself: its water, air, land and animals since it is doomed. Rapture theologians encourage Christians to focus, instead, on saving people (individuals) out of this sinful world. Chicago evangelist, Dwight L. Moody used the image of a shipwreck, saying “individual survivors might be rescued, but the vessel itself was beyond hope.” This might be called a theology of despair.  (13) Rossing

God does not come to take us away from our home and this earth. God is not some terrorist who suddenly shoots fireballs from the sky. What we know of God is that Jesus came to live with us, among us, sharing every joy and sorrow, every beginning and ending that human life can experience. For love of life God has become one of us. 

The signs are all around us that God is love. And we have nothing to fear when it comes to entering the Kingdom of God. 

I had the opportunity on Wednesday afternoon of this week to meet with the Director of Shelby County Division of Correction, Mr. James Coleman. He is a warm and friendly man, easy to like, a good listener. I took him to see the theater in the basement of First Congregational Church, the place where public performances of Prison Stories are staged. Prison Stories lifts up and respects the stories of women who are currently incarcerated in the Shelby County Jail. I told Mr. Coleman that my goal in each public performance is that no person in the audience should leave the theater feeling smug or as if he or she could never be in jail or in trouble with the law. Some of us have more advantages or privileges and that’s what’s kept us out of jail and not that we are morally superior to the women who are currently housed in our jail.

“That’s right,” Director Coleman held his hat in hand as he spoke,” the only difference between me and the inmates is that I wasn’t caught.” 

We went upstairs and sat on a couple of couches in the hallway as we continued to talk.

Director Coleman is a man my age and he has spent his career working in corrections. He has had many years to consider what goes wrong with the life of somebody who ends up in jail. 

“We live in a world where we equate success with having things, lots of things and bigger and better things. So if a person has things, a flat-screen TV, a big shiny SUV, a gold chain and expensive high-top shoes, then he or she is considered a success, no matter how those things were acquired.” 

And when you stop to think about it—how we value things and how we work to buy things—it’s no wonder that it’s easy to frighten us with talk about Christ’s return and cosmic fireballs. If what we truly value and cherish was not ours when we began this life then we will not be taking it with us when we leave. We’re frightened not because God is so terrifying and cruel but because we value things more than life, more than the natural beginning and endings that come with the cycles of God’s gracious life. 

Just as a follow-up to last Sunday’s sermon and the story of Devin McCuddy and her release from the county jail wearing nothing but a paper suit. Director Coleman asked to meet with me so he could apologize. He said, “I am sorry that you had to awaken my conscience about those paper suits. When I took this job nearly three years ago I told myself I would get rid of those things right away. But so many things have come across my desk. So many people have been at my door. I forgot. And I thank you for bringing it back to my attention. We’ll change that and make sure every person gets something decent to wear upon their release. You have my word.” 

As Christians we live in an in-between time. Christ has come. Christ has risen. And here we are waiting for Christ’s return. It is not a time to be idle or frightened. It is a time to be bold and active in the struggle to make the signs of the kingdom visible for all people to see clearly. God is love now and always for everyone and everything. 

Martin Luther is quoted as saying, “If I knew the world were going to end tomorrow I would plant a tree.” This illustrates the traditional understanding of how we are to wait for Christ’s return. We are to root ourselves more and more deeply in the confidence of God’s love for all creation. “Thy Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven,” Jesus taught us to pray. God’s reign will come on earth and all creation will rejoice. 

Today is the first Sunday of Advent. For the next four weeks we will take action to prepare a place for Christ to come, a space where new life can emerge and take root in our hearts, souls and relationships with each other. We will make room in the daily and ordinary stuff of our lives. You might set aside a place and a time. Each day go to that place and spend time in silence and prayer. Open up something new inside yourself. Intentionally let go of something during the next four weeks. Put an end to something that has limited your love for yourself and God. Be bold and active as you wait for the birth of the Christ Child. 

We are familiar with beginnings and endings. We know the signs. Every story has a beginning. In the beginning there was the word and the word was God and the word was with God.

Every story comes to an end.  As kids at Sante Fe Lake we played in the water and along the shore until we were exhausted at the end of the day. We got back in the station wagon and Daddy drove toward home. We slept in the back, stacked all over each other. 

This is how the ride home goes. The one who brought us safely here in the first place is the one who will take us safely home. “The best swimmers know how to relax and trust the water to hold them up.” 

Amen

The Rapture Exposed: The Message of Hope in the Book of Revelation, Barbara R. Rossing, Basic Books, NY, 2004