Signs
Clare L. Hickman
St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Ferndale
November 17, 2019—Proper 28C
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13; Luke 21:5-19
This past week, brothers and sisters, I was visited by the judgment of the LORD. And His wrath was swift, and my sin must have been great, because it was not just a plague of locusts or the rampage of an invading army. No, I was struck by the blue screen of death. Yes, you heard me right: my laptop died. Kaput. Dunzo.
Clearly, it was a sign. And my only question was whether it was an actual sign of the endtimes, or whether it just meant I didn’t need to write a sermon this week!
In the end, I decided it was neither. As traumatic as it was, it was unlikely a sign of anything beyond a seven year old laptop and a careless use of compressed air.
Signs, really, are almost always tricky business. For instance, all of the events mentioned in the bible that purport to signify the apocalypse, have happened over and over throughout history. Floods and earthquakes and corrupt rulers and all manner of things. They happen, and people want to take them as a sign, want to attach them to that larger story. But at least so far, the actual apocalypse hasn’t happened.
Still, we love signs. Signs and omens and portents. Unusual occurrences. Meaningful coincidences. Of course, as they noted on This American Life, we are far more compelled by our own coincidences than those of other people. When we see three separate orange cats during a walk around our neighborhood, that seems very striking. When someone tells us about the time they said Carol Channing’s name and then suddenly Carol Channing appears on the tv show they’re watching, we might agree that it’s unusual, but won’t likely think it’s a message from the universe.[i]
It’s interesting to us, when some kind of pattern seems to jump out of the randomness of our daily lives. It’s striking, and so our mind plays with it, and maybe tries to make something out of it. Wondering whether it might be a message has a definite appeal, because otherwise, well … it’s just another version of randomness (albeit the “even a blind squirrel occasionally finds a nut” kind of randomness).
But the gospels do advise some caution when it comes to signs. Well, that’s not completely true. The Gospel of John, especially, leans hard into a different kind of signs: those that are actually miracles, demonstrations of God’s power that are made in order to get our attention, and to signify who Jesus actually is. Those signs are one thing. But the signs and portents that we imagine might tell us what’s going to happen? Those are trickier. Just a few weeks ago, Jesus railed against his listeners, who could look at the skies and interpret the weather, but had no idea what was really going on in the world around them (Lk 12:56).
We’re terrible about reading signs. We’re egocentric; we can’t see beyond what affects us directly; and we often aren’t that interested in seeing things that contradict our view of the universe. That’s one of the things that makes them dangerous: “I’ve had a sign from God (and it’s all about me)!”
But signs have other dangers, especially when we feel really sure about a significant sign. Like: THIS is clearly the huge thing God is going to do in the world! As we’ve been working our way through 2 Thessalonians this past month or so, we’ve seen it. They expected the second coming to be arriving soon. That’s what they were promised. And on the one hand, some of them are getting antsy, wondering why it’s been postponed. But on the other hand, we have a different glimpse today, at those who are so sure that the end is coming, that they’ve stopped working. Why work, after all, if Christ is about to return and usher in whatever your view of the Millennium might be? It’s like those doomsday cults who sell everything they own (and give it to the cult leader, natch) and move into the commune.
A sign that powerful can function as permission to a weird kind of passivity. Whatever is happening is meant to be, and it’s out of my control, and so: it’s no longer my problem (no wonder we like signs so much)!
Not so fast, says Paul. We all still have work to do and a life to live, and we have no idea when Jesus might return. Sitting around and staring at the sky will only have damaging effects. Seriously, that’s a great way to end up depressed and hopeless. So, pick yourself up and figure out what you want Jesus to find you doing whenever he returns.
For his part, today we find Jesus pointing his listeners toward the sign of the Temple. Which is a sign in a couple of ways. Soon enough, he warns them, it will be destroyed. And surely, that’s the kind of sign that could feel like the end of everything. Might be the apocalypse. Might mean God has abandoned us forever. Might mean that God wants to do away with sacrificial worship. Or … it might just mean that the Romans have very effective ways of punishing uprisings against their rule.
No matter what the destruction signifies, the people will need to deal with the loss of the sign that the Temple itself was: the sign of connection between God and the people. The sign of thanksgiving, the sign of repentance, the sign that relationship between God and the people could be mended after it was broken.
That sign would be gone. And I think Jesus was less interested in this as a sign of the impending end-times than he was interested in the question of “What next?” If the Temple building (and the Temple practice) is destroyed, what will take its place as the mediator of relationship between God and God’s people?
The answer: Jesus himself. Instead of a mighty edifice of stones, that seemed it would last forever and yet was pulled down, there would be him. Flesh and blood, love and sadness, pain and compassion. Living, breathing, giving, sharing, dying and rising again. He will be our Temple. He is the bridge between God and humanity, between heaven and earth. He cannot be destroyed, as the temple was destroyed, because they killed him and then he rose again.
His faith lives in us. His forgiveness has been breathed into us, setting us free and sending us out to set others free. The destruction of the Temple (or any worldly destruction that might catch our eye) does not matter. He is the only sign that matters. But not a sign that’s just ours. And not a sign that lets us give up and not do anything. A sign that lives in us. A sign that lives in us, fills us up, and sends us out to be that sign in the world, every day of our lives.
The destruction of the Temple? Doesn’t really matter. The second coming? Super cool, but doesn’t really matter except as a promise. Jesus, alive in the world and alive in you? That’s what matters right now. That’s the sign the world needs. That’s the absurd grace, the ridiculous hope that enables us to make sense of the unrelenting randomness of life on earth.
I saw the sign. It opened up my eyes. May it be so. Amen.
[i] This American Life episode 489, “No Coincidence, No Story!”