Today in the Spirit: Proper 28C
At Proper 28, two weeks before First Advent and our meditation in worship on Jesus’ second coming, the church appoints readings in the Gospels from what is often called the synoptic apocalypse, the record of Jesus’ teaching on events which will occur before the parousia (the second coming), which appears in parallel form in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. In Year C, the assigned Gospel reading is Luke 21:5-19, in which our Lord predicts “things [that] must first take place” (9). He forewarns,
“Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences. And there will be terrors and great signs from heaven. But before all this they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name’s sake.”
Luke 21:10-12
The assigned OT reading from Malachi 3:13-4:6 will be the opening word of prophecy of the end times we receive in our worship. In the context of his railing against the recalcitrant priests and people of Israel returning from exile, YHWH announces the day when he will send “the sun of righteousness” (4:2, Jesus), and before that “Elijah the prophet” (4:5, John the Baptist), to prepare the people of God for the day of judgment.
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In reading or singing the appointed Psalm 98 in our worship, we take up the “new song” (1) of the people of God who have known the coming of God’s salvation in the past and look forward to the fulfillment of his transformation of all creation: “Let the rivers clap their hands, and let the hills be joyful together before the Lord, for he has come to judge the earth. With righteousness shall he judge the world, and the peoples with equity” (9-10).
In the last installment of a mini-series from 2 Thessalonians, the assigned NT reading is from 2 Thessalonians 3:6-16. Here, Paul has instructions to address what appears to be a unique problem within the church of Thessalonica: people so convinced of the imminent return of Christ that they have stopped working to support themselves. They have become, as Paul writes with amusing wordplay, “busy” as “busybodies” in the community, soliciting help from others to eat (11). He commands them to “keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us” (6). At the same time, he encourages the faithful to “not grow weary in doing good” (13).
The assigned collect is a plea to God to “stir up” determination in the people of God to produce good works. We will note as we pray the parallelism in the use of “abundance” to describe both what we do in God’s service and how God responds: “…that bringing forth in abundance the fruit of good works, they may be abundantly rewarded when our Savior Jesus Christ comes to restore all things.”
The Collect
Stir up, O Lord, the wills of your faithful people, that bringing forth in abundance the fruit of good works, they may be abundantly rewarded when our Savior Jesus Christ comes to restore all things; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
You Will See That I Will Make a Distinction (Malachi 3:13-4:6)
13 “Your words have been hard against me, says the Lord. But you say, ‘How have we spoken against you?’ 14 You have said, ‘It is vain to serve God. What is the profit of our keeping his charge or of walking as in mourning before the Lord of hosts? 15 And now we call the arrogant blessed. Evildoers not only prosper but they put God to the test and they escape.’” 16 Then those who feared the Lord spoke with one another. The Lord paid attention and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the Lord and esteemed his name. 17 “They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, in the day when I make up my treasured possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him. 18 Then once more you shall see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him. 4:1 “For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. 2 But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. 3 And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the Lord of hosts. 4 “Remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel. 5 “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. 6 And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.”
Or, “Then once more you will see that I make a distinction between the righteous and the wicked” (18a). There is a longing of YHWH in this passage to bring about “a distinction between the righteous and the wicked.” He wants to make the separation, the judgment: that his own purposes will be fulfilled, and so that everyone “will see” that he brings them to completion. See with what determination YHWH addresses the evildoers among the Israelites, who even upon returning from the humiliation of exile, continue to turn their backs on him. Let the wicked beware, for the day of distinction will come, and the LORD is eager for it. On the other hand, “those who fear the LORD” should be assured by this prophecy that they will be spared the punishment of the unjust, that their names are secure in “the book of remembrance” (the OT parallel to the “the book of life” in Rev. 20:12).
The message here is to persevere in the ways of the faithful, despite what appears to be a vast majority of people around us falling away. Reading Malachi first in our worship will prepare us to hear Jesus’ final words in the Gospel reading today, “By your endurance you will gain your lives” (Lk. 21:19). As the prophet seeks to encourage the faithful to hold on until the coming of “Elijah” and the “sun of righteousness,” we are urged to hang on now until the second coming of Jesus and the execution of God’s longed for justice in the world.
Today, in the Spirit, hearing this passage from Malachi, we place ourselves in the shoes of the beloved of YHWH who are persevering in their faith after exile and the tenuous rebuilding of Jerusalem, and we take heart.
He Has Done Marvelous Things (Psalm 98)
1 O sing unto the Lord a new song, *
Psalm 98, New Coverdale Psalter (BCP 2019)
for he has done marvelous things.
2 With his own right hand and with his holy arm, *
he has won for himself the victory.
3 The Lord declared his salvation; *
his righteousness has he openly shown in the sight of the nations.
4 He has remembered his mercy and truth toward the house of Israel, *
and all the ends of the world have seen the salvation of our God.
5 Show yourselves joyful in the Lord, all you lands; *
sing, rejoice, and give thanks.
6 Praise the Lord with the harp; *
sing with the harp a psalm of thanksgiving.
7 With trumpets also and horns, *
O show yourselves joyful before the Lord, the King.
8 Let the sea make a noise, and all that is in it, *
the round world, and those who dwell therein.
9 Let the rivers clap their hands, and let the hills be joyful together before the Lord, *
for he has come to judge the earth.
10 With righteousness shall he judge the world, *
and the peoples with equity.
A distinguishing feature of this praise psalm in most English translations is the predominant use of the present perfect tense in the verbs: “[The LORD] has done marvelous things” (1); “he has won for himself the victory” (2); and so on. The language catches us as worshipers in the middle: the LORD did something in the past; the effect of that act continues in the present; and there is great expectation for a triumphant finish to the work of God in the future. So, the song concludes, “With righteousness shall he judge the world, and the peoples with equity” (10). As we recite the words, we are at once spectators seeing the whole project from a distance but also dwelling in the thick of it.
Dear Lord, we do take up the psalmist’s call to praise here. Through the scriptures we have been given eyes to see the breadth of your saving work–from the calling of Abraham, to the giving of the law to Moses, to the establishment of Israel under David’s kingship, to the return of exiles from Babylon, to the revelation of the Son of God, to the sending of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the Church, and to the visions of final justice and the wedding of the Bride with the Lamb. We see it all, even as we put our hands to the plow to do the work you have given us to do in one moment.
Today, in the Spirit, we strike the notes of our harp in praise, hearing in its vibrato the echo of your saving work over all of time.
An Example to Imitate (2 Thessalonians 3:6-16)
6 Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us. 7 For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you, 8 nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you. 9 It was not because we do not have that right, but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate. 10 For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. 11 For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies. 12 Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. 13 As for you, brothers, do not grow weary in doing good. 14 If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person, and have nothing to do with him, that he may be ashamed. 15 Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother. 16 Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times in every way. The Lord be with you all.
It is interesting to observe here how, in making his case against “idleness,” Paul invokes the power of both “tradition” (6) and “imitation” (7). Paul claims he and his missionary team have given to the Thessalonians in their presence both spoken teaching on the subject of productive work and the example of their own “toil and labor…that we might not be a burden to any of you” (8). It appears that the saying, “‘the one who is not willing to work shall not eat’” (10, NIV with quotation marks) was part of the tradition they passed along.
Devotionally, do we not find that the lessons that stick with us as disciples of Christ under the tutelage of others are those in which the tutor makes a united witness of word and deed? Only when the walk and the talk support each other is there a coherent message. Gregory of Nazianzus wrote, “The leadership of men and women, the craftiest and most complicated of all creatures, seems to me the art of arts and the science of sciences.” I wonder if, by that, he meant that leadership is simultaneously the most difficult and the most important of human endeavors: it needs to be both creative (like art) and precise (like science). If this is true, what makes leadership both challenging and critically important is the need for the leader to coordinate what they say and what they do. Anything less is flawed and ineffective in the long run.
Today, Holy Spirit, we pray for our leaders, those you have called to place before the people of God their words and their lives, that they will dare to speak to us on difficult matters, like Paul does on idleness, and persuade us with their holy example.
Do Not Go After Them…Do Not Be Terrified (Luke 21:5-19)
5 And while some were speaking of the temple, how it was adorned with noble stones and offerings, he said, 6 “As for these things that you see, the days will come when there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.” 7 And they asked him, “Teacher, when will these things be, and what will be the sign when these things are about to take place?” 8 And he said, “See that you are not led astray. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he!’ and, ‘The time is at hand!’ Do not go after them. 9 And when you hear of wars and tumults, do not be terrified, for these things must first take place, but the end will not be at once.” 10 Then he said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. 11 There will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences. And there will be terrors and great signs from heaven. 12 But before all this they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name’s sake. 13 This will be your opportunity to bear witness. 14 Settle it therefore in your minds not to meditate beforehand how to answer, 15 for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict. 16 You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and some of you they will put to death. 17 You will be hated by all for my name’s sake. 18 But not a hair of your head will perish. 19 By your endurance you will gain your lives.
The accounts of our Lord’s teaching on the end times are similar in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, even more so than in most parallel passages. But there are a few differences to note. For instance, all three contain the command of Jesus “do not be afraid” (see also Mt. 24:6, Mk. 13:7) in response to the whole set of the preliminary calamities (the “birth pains” in Matthew and Mark). But look at v. 8 in our reading from Luke: in response to Jesus’ report of the appearance of false messiahs, Jesus in Luke adds the exhortation: “Do not go after them” (or, “Do not follow them,” NET).
We must not make too much of this: the warning that followers of Jesus not be deceived by false messiahs is implied in Matthew and Mark. But for devotional application, the double exhortation of Jesus in Luke is worth careful consideration: “do not follow” (8) the false messiahs and “do not be terrified” (9) of the rumors of war and chaos. In other words, in response to the deception and chaos of those early days, our Lord says here, do not, as believers, either be drawn in by that which seeks to attract you or be drawn away by that which seeks to terrorize you. Through all the fuss and noise, be neither drawn in nor drawn away.
What our Lord is seeking here in his followers is level-headedness. A common NT word that comes to mind in this regard is the Greek sōphroneō and its cognates, which are variously translated “self-controlled” or “clear-minded” or “sober judgment.” In Romans 12:3, Paul writes, “For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.” And, in 1 Peter 4:7, referring to the end times, Peter writes, “The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers.” In each case, what the apostles are seeking is certainly not lukewarm compromise but laser focus on the truth, so that the believer will not be swept up in ideas contrary to revelation (as with the false messiahs) or swept away in fear (as by terrors in the world).
Today, in the Spirit, with all the media-driven attention on attractive, powerful people on one hand and terror at home and abroad on the other, grant us, Jesus, sobriety to abide with you.
Today in the Spirit
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