Brad Sullivan
2 Lent, Year C
February 21, 2016
Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, Bay City, TX
Luke 13:31-35
We’ll Live It Best We Can Anyway
I think we could classify today’s reading as an epic faith by the Pharisees, and a pretty darn good win by Jesus. The Pharisees were trying to get rid of Jesus, trying to make it look like they were on his side. “Herod’s trying to kill you, Jesus, you’ve got to get out of here. We’ve got your best interests at heart, and we need you to go so you don’t die.”
Of course they were lying. We know from Chapter Nine, that Herod was not trying to kill Jesus. He was actually pretty interested in who Jesus was. People were saying he was John the Baptist, and Herod was thinking, “I’m pretty darn sure I had John the Baptist beheaded not too long ago,” and he was curious about who Jesus was. Herod wasn’t a good guy, but he wasn’t trying to kill Jesus. Even when Jesus was going to be crucified, Herod didn’t have any burning desire to have Jesus killed. He said, “send him back to Pilate.” Again, Herod wasn’t a good guy, but he wasn’t trying to kill Jesus.
The Pharisees were lying because they wanted to get rid of Jesus. They were trying to frighten him away. Like the Devil before him, they were trying to deter Jesus from his mission. And Jesus had to have been thinking, “guys, I’m going to be crucified before too much longer, and your little death threat is supposed to frighten me? I’m going to be killed; it’s supposed to happen, just wait a little longer.”
So Jesus turns their failure into a chance for teaching once again. Jerusalem was supposed to be center stage for God’s glory in the world, not the place known for killing the prophets. The Temple was in Jerusalem. When Solomon dedicated the Temple, he said it was to be a place where all of Israel could look to and remember God’s glory, his love, his forgiveness and mercy. Nations were supposed to flock to Jerusalem, drawn there by the light of God lived out in Israel, and yet, Jesus told the Pharisees that Jerusalem was the place where the prophets were killed; he told his disciples that the Temple would not stand and all would be thrown down because of the ways it had been misused.
Despite the Pharisees scare tactics, Jesus remained undeterred from his mission. He named the truth, the darkness and said, “I will overcome it.”
We also have lots of opportunities to be overcome by darkness, to give in to fear or discouragement. I was giving into discouragement not long ago, and Bill Bullard sent me a text with words he had seen earlier which read:
We profess a faith in God through whom all things are possible. When we apathetically accept the status quo, we implicitly demonstrate a lack of faith that tomorrow might be better than today. God should not be mocked in this way. Our faith should be much more steadfast.
Those words cut me to the heart, and they also gave me hope, reminding me to trust in God through whom all things are possible. We had our vestry meeting yesterday, and we were talking about challenges facing the church and challenges in our lives, and we prayed together about these things, and then Debra said, “You know what, we also need to give thanks for all of the wonderful things in our lives and in our church. There is so much negativity out there that we need to remember and give thanks for our blessings. We need to be filled with that light and see that light, that we can be light bearers for others.” So we prayed together thanks for all of the light and the blessings in our lives and church as well.
It is easy to be overcome by the craziness of the world, to be deterred from God’s mission of reconciliation, from living as the light in our lives and in the life of the church. Bishop Doyle points out in his book, A Generous Community, that we live in a VUCA world. VUCA means “Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, & Ambiguous.
That pretty well sums up much of today’s world. There is so much change happening so quickly, that many places where we used to find sure footing are no longer places of certainty, or those places are no longer even here. We live in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and uncertain world, and it is easy for us to be discouraged by such a world. It is easy to listen to the lies of the Pharisees that all is going badly. The lies of the Pharisees saying things like “the church is dying,” or “things aren’t going to get any better.”
For the record, the church is not dying, and while there certainly is darkness in the world, there is also an immense amount of light. There are difficult times. There is uncertainty, and sometimes, things do go badly, but we are not to be discouraged by those difficulties. We are to trust in God, continue living his mission, and have faith that through him all things are possible.
That’s how Jesus lived when he taught his disciples when he told them not to worry, not to fear. When the Devil tried to get him to quit, when the Pharisees tried to frighten Jesus, he lived and taught that there are times of discouragement, and when they come, “we’ll live it best we can anyway.”
In teaching his disciples not to worry, he told them that for one thing, worrying isn’t going to do you any darn good. For another thing, worrying demonstrates a lack of faith in God. So, “do not be afraid little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.” In a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world, “do not be afraid little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.” That’s what we’re striving for in our lives and in the church. We’re striving for God’s Kingdom, to fulfill God’s mission of reconciliation, and when we’re discouraged, we trust that God will fulfill our needs as we live out his mission.
At St. Mark’s right now, we’ve got a group that is gathering called, “New Wineskins.” We’re seeking to discover new ways that we will live out God’s mission both within the community of St. Mark’s and beyond. I again offer an open invitation to come on Sundays at noon. Come dream with us, pray with us, study God’s Word with us, and discern together the ways God would have us live out his mission in our lives and in our live together as Jesus’ Body at St. Mark’s.
Some of these new ways are already happening with our Friday morning breakfasts at church. There are many people who won’t come to church, feeling sometimes like they can’t because of their sinfulness, feeling at other times like they won’t because of negative associations with the “institution” of the church. Folks will come, however, to breakfast here on Friday. While not part of the worshipping community, they are part of the community of people who meet weekly for a shared meal and fellowship in our parish hall.
New relationships and connections are being formed as we gather together, and divisions are ending. I have been invited to attend a Roman Catholic baptism next weekend at Our Lady of Guadalupe. There is no assumption that the Episcopal priest is going to become a Roman Catholic, nor is the family of the young man being baptized going to become Episcopalians. We’ve simply gotten to know each other, and we’ve prayed together, so that they’d like me to be there, to be a part of this young man’s baptism. You bet I’m going to be there.
There are plenty of ways to be discouraged in our volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world, but there is plenty of light out there and in here too. As a modern day prophet and singer/songwriter, Terri Hendrix, wrote in the song, Hey Now:
Kiss the evening sky and say bye, bye, bye.
Tomorrow knows no sorrow like today.
And should it come to pass today’s no better than the last,
We’ll live it best we can anyway.
We’ve all had highs, we’ve all had lows.
It’s a fact of life that everybody knows.
And should it come to pass today’s no better than the last,
We’ll live it best we can anyway.
Despite all of the fear mongering of the Pharisees, the light of Jesus is thriving. The church is thriving. Despite times of discouragement, we’re going to continue on believing in Jesus. We’re going to continue on living out his mission. We’re going to continue on trusting in Jesus’ words, “Do not be afraid little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom,” “and should it come to pass today’s no better than the last, we’ll live it best we can anyway.” Amen.
