Patient Discomfort & Holiness

Isaiah  2 Thessalonians 3:6-13 Luke 21:5-19

Give thanks to the Lord and call upon his Name.…Sing the praises of the Lord, for he has done great things.

King Cyrus has issued the decree, and the Children of Israel have come to the end of their exile in Babylon. The time has come to return home, but there is a problem – things have changed. When they were first taken from their homeland, the Jewish people had grieved. “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion.” Jerusalem and the temple had been burned to the ground, and in this new and foreign land the priests had done what the could to help the people find their identity, no longer in their nationality, but in their faith.

This had, apparently, worked fairy well, and since they were captives, but not slaves in their new home, the Jewish people had settled in.  They had found work, become merchants, settled down, established homes, raised families. Seventy years later, when they were told they were free to leave Babylon and return home, not everyone was thrilled. Many of them were too young to remember Zion, Jerusalem, some, who did remember, were too old to want to travel back to the ruins and to rebuild and try to start again. Many were just comfortable – so why uproot their lives?  It’s estimated only 25% of the Jewish population actually left Babylon and headed home.

For those who made the journey back, things looked bleak.  Everything, including the temple, had to be rebuilt.  The new temple was small, and so unlike the glorious one the Babylonians had burned to the ground, many of the older Jews who remembered the glory of that old temple wept when they saw the new one.

I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight.

Isaiah, speaking for God, gives good news to those who did return, the discouraged remnant whose lives seem dark and bleak.  God will completely transform the cosmos.  He will forget waywardness.  The inhabitants of the New Jerusalem will be joyful, and sorrow will cease.  There will be a return to the sin-free life God originally intended.

Material wealth is bot mentioned.  God’s words address the problems of daily living. There will be no more weeping from whatever cause. Women need not fear their newborn babies may die a few days after their birth, or that they themselves may die in childbirth. Wild animals which posed a threat in ancient times will now be peaceable. We can only wonder how those who heard the prophecy felt about it. Were they expecting all this to happen soon – certainly they must have hoped it would – hoped that the prophecy would be fulfilled in their lifetimes.

Now we command you, beloved, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to keep away from believers who are living in idleness and not according to the tradition that they received from us.

The new Christians in Thessalonica were caught up the spirit of believing the Second Coming of Christ would occur immediately.  Assuming that was the case and that all would be fulfilled very soon, some of them appear to have decided not to do anything except wait and watch for Jesus to return and bring in the fullness of God’s realm.  What angered Paul was that the idle were taking advantage of the loving, outreaching, and giving nature of the local Christian community. (The idle did not include, off course, the disabled or elderly.)

The refusal of some Thessalonians to work was bad, but what Paul seemed to dislike most was what the idleness was causing.  These people weren’t just lying back and happily doing nothing.  Their idleness had led them to also become busybodies. Paul is alert to the fact that there are few sins more damaging than gossip, especially in the life of the church.  Malicious interest in the business of others is harmful and hateful.

The point here is, as the old saying goes, “Idle hands are the devil’s playground.”  Many in the Church at Thessalonica had managed to take the Good News of Christ, and convinced the end time was near, had turned the Gospel into an excuse for doing nothing.  They were diverted by the idea of the second coming, and finding themselves with time on their hands, had filled that time with sin.  Despite their conversion, their spiritual lives lay in ruins.

Some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God.

Today’s Gospel occurs centuries after the Babylonian captivity, and the Temple has been rebuilt and is once again a glorious edifice. Worshippers and tourists alike come to stare in amazement at its beauty. We’ve probably all been tourists at some point in our lives, and we know that feeling of awe and amazement. This sense of awe is what the disciples are feeling in today’s Gospel. They would have been oohing and ahhing over everything and discussing with each other all that they were seeing and experiencing.

And then Jesus says, "As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down."

This must have been a shock for the disciples who were accustomed to Jesus positive attitude and His strengthening teachings. So, what is the first thing they do?  They ask what we would ask, "Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place? But Jesus does not directly answer that question.  Instead, He tells them that much will take place, wars, pestilence, and false leaders – much that could confuse them, and us, and lead them and us astray – and He warns them, and us, to not lose faith.

What do today’s readings have in common? For the exiled Jews, staying in Babylon meant keeping comfortable. Surrounded by what had become the familiar was a certainty – while the only thing certain about heading back to a destroyed Jerusalem was that life would be hard, rebuilding difficult, and probably all of it painful.

The Thessalonians who chose not to work and fell into the sin of gossip had decided on “the easy life”, and justified it by pointing to Jesus’ anticipated early return.  They enjoyed the comfort of doing nothing, leaning on others, and spreading whatever scandal they encountered.

Comfort is the central theme here – that, and the truth that we like a few “little sins”, and we dislike uncertainty. We definitely do not enjoy waiting - and working for the fulfillment of what certainly feels to us like an unknown future is not a choice we relish.

The evil events Jesus speaks of to His disciples have certainly arrived. We don’t have to wait for evil – it is always here, but what we are asked to wait for, to prepare for, to work and live for, is the opposite of the evil in the world around us.

The problem we face is that working for the future Jesus has promised us, embodied in Isaiah’s beautiful apocalyptic prophecy this morning, doesn’t offer us the leisure enjoyed by the sinful Thessalonians, nor does it have the same razzle dazzle the temple held for the disciples.  We want the flashy, worldly, comfortable, pleasant things, and we prefer to turn a blind eye, as much as that is possible, to all the pain and suffering of the world, despite knowing that amid that pain and suffering is where we are called to do the work of spreading the Love of God.

In two weeks, it will be Advent, a time of preparation for the birth of our Salvation, but right now is a good time to take a very close look at what we live for, work for, and value most. Like the Jews in Babylon, we are called to walk away from our comfortable routines. That means making some changes, perhaps adding more time to our prayer life, spending more time listening to or helping others. Like the Thessalonians, we are meant to get our lives in order. Perhaps some of the things we enjoy are more offensive to God than we at first realize.  Perhaps some of the things we fail to do, greatly disappoint our Lord.  We need to take a closer look at how we live and what we do.

These are uncertain and troubled times, and we don’t like them.  We are called to wait and work, not knowing the exact date our Lord will return. This isn’t comfortable, and we don’t like that either, but the Good News is that we haven’t been left on our own. We have always that which sustains us – prayer and the Blessed Sacrament (Holy Communion).

The Psalmist today sums it up well. Surely, it is God who saves us; we must trust in Him and not be afraid. The Lord is our stronghold and our sure defense, and He is our Savior. 

We need to get out there and get to work.

As we prepare for Advent, may we, without worrying about tomorrow, live each day and work each day for and with Jesus. Then, surely with joy shall we draw water from the springs of salvation.

Let us pray:

Heavenly Father, thank You for the gift of life and the grace that sustains us each day. Soften our hearts to hear Your voice and follow Your leading without hesitation. Remove fear, pride, and doubt, laziness and the desire for comfort and worldly pleasures that keep me from saying “yes” to Your call. Fill us with joy in serving, humility in learning, and strength in obeying. Teach us to love what You love, to go where You send, and to give without holding back. Let our hearts be open, our spirits ready, and our hands be eager to do Your will. In Jesus’ name, Amen.