Year C Readings
Malachi 4:1-2a
Psalm 98
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13
Luke 21:5-19

Collect of the Day
Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Homily
In the Name of the Holy Trinity,
One God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

 ON THE MORNING OF OCTOBER 23^RD, Elliott—our elder son—walked into the kitchen to find a pile of colorful balloons and wrapped packages covering the breakfast table. There ensued light screaming and tippy-toed dancing. The whole produced an effervescent mood, which continued throughout the rest of the day. Birthday treats—per Elliott’s wish—supplied his second grade class with a festive moment, while a birthday dinner with cousins and Grandma rounded out the day. By supper time on Elliott’s birthday, however, I had already driven to Saginaw for Diocesan Convention and was just sitting down to a plate of enchiladas with the delegates from…Holy Trinity: Lorrie D. and Barb K., and Ascension/Holy Cross: Gwen H. and Robin G.

There was not a small part of me that wished secretly to be at home for my son’s birthday dinner. Knowing me well, my wife, Jessica, kindly sent me a picture of Elliott just at the moment when he had taken a deep breath to blow out the candle on a big number “8” sticking out of a cupcake! Undoubtedly—as is the custom—everyone hollered “Make a Wish!” just before Elliott let fly his breath.

Presumably he wished desperately for a Nintendo Switch and a game called “Boomerang-[Kung] Fu.” I was simply wishing that I was present to witness the joy of one of the people who will always be the delight of my eyes.

Wishing, you see, is the emotional DNA of our culture. Cooperate healthcare paid me decently as a chaplain, for instance, but when I became rector of this parish and received an increase in my annual wage, I didn’t complain and had to remind myself that I need to tithe my gross income before I wish to spend money on landscaping… Because I wish to have a row of holly bushes wrapping around the south end of our house… because I also have a wish to plant something lovely that the deer won’t treat like a salad bar!

We do this wishing “thing” with the scriptures too.

In Malachi’s prophecy, he sees a future in which “…all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble; the day that comes shall burn them up, says the LORD of Hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. But for you who revere my name the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings.”  I used to hear stuff like that aimed at the congregation in the Baptist church I grew up in, and I still find myself wishing: Gosh, I hope I’m one of the ones who revere the name of the LORD.

And when I listen to the Apostle Paul taking those folks in Thessalonica to task for being what he considers to be lazy, no-good, ne’er-do-wells who aren’t worthy of a piece of bread, I find myself secretly wishing that the work I put in on behalf of my two congregations is worthy of the salary and benefits I receive. (Don’t respond to that by the way!! Early days, folks… early days!)

Then comes the Gospel reading, and… well… oooff! I’m trying to build up my two congregations. And I happen to really like these bricks and stones, and all the beautiful, jeweled windows, and the ornaments on the Altar Table… And I believe that we absolutely cannot possibly survive without the copier! With all my heart I fervently wish that the copier never falls apart, because we’d have to go back to folding and stapling the bulletins by hand, and well… ain’t nobody got time for that!

Will all of it really pass away, as Jesus says? Who will we be without all the trappings of our long and glorious traditions? And if we are ever put to a real test because of our faithfulness to Jesus, don’t we all wish to be some of the ones who have spiritual endurance, because the idea of gaining our souls sounds pretty nice.

Wishful thinking. That’s our way of life. But this leaves me with a questions: what’s the difference between wishing and hoping?

The answer comes in the teaching of Jesus to his friends and followers as they wander through the beautifully adorned courts of the Temple in Jerusalem. In response to Jesus saying that their awe-inspiriting Temple will be thrown down, his friends ask, “How will we know when this will occur?” They’re incredulous. They can’t imagine Jerusalem without the Temple. They can’t imagine their lives without the cult of sacrifice and its spiritual and fiscal economies. If we put the very first part and the very last part of Jesus’ reply together, however, we begin to learn about hope. Listen to Jesus’ teaching without all the explanatory stuff in the middle: “Beware you are not led astray…  By your endurance you will gain your souls.” In other words, be in awe of something greater than the Temple; you don’t need the Temple to gain your souls.

You see, Jesus’ friends and followers are asking a question—when will this happen—which is born of their own perception of reality. But from Jesus’ point of view, the question isn’t whether the world will fall apart, but “Where will we find the strength to face the agony and ugliness of the world?” Jesus hopes his friends and followers will discover that through endurance in their faithfulness to him they will experience what it really means to live. And not in some wishful future, but right now.

This word ‘endurance’ is the Greek word ὑπομονή [hupomoné], which is a noun made up of the adjective “under” and the verb “to remain.”[1] In his word choice here, Luke gives us a noun that implies an action. Endurance implies “staying the course” or “perseverance” or “refusing to give up.” We might better translate Luke’s word as, “to bear up under the load.” It seems that in order to be faithful to Jesus, we might have to be unfaithful to other people and other things, which will feel heavy sometime. To be faithful to Jesus, we may have to give up people or things we previously believed we couldn’t live without. So let me ask you the question the Gospel has been asking me:

What might you need to let go of so that you can be more faithful to Jesus?

Finally, and speaking of faithfulness to Jesus, today is Feast Day of Saint Margaret, Queen Consort of Scotland, who reigned for 23 years with her husband, King Malcolm III, from 1070 to 1093.

With considerable zeal, Margaret sought to change what she consider to be… [the] careless practices among the Scottish clergy. The Lord’s Day was to be a day when, she said, “we apply ourselves only to prayers.” She argued vigorously…against an exaggerated sense of unworthiness that made many of the pious Scots unwilling to receive communion regularly. […] She encouraged founding schools, and hospitals, and orphanages, and used her influence with King Malcolm to help her improve the quality of life among the Scottish clans. Together, Margaret and her husband rebuilt the monastery of Iona [still a center of spirituality today].[2]

Whatever else Margaret may have wished for, it was her hope in the power of Jesus to redeem human life that drove her and oriented all she did. My siblings in Christ, Margaret lived almost a thousand years ago. What might the Holy Spirit do with our faithfulness, if we ground ourselves in Jesus and him alone, rather than all our grand, but admittedly short-lived plans? What if we stopped wishing, and let Jesus’ hope for the world fill us will breath? 

Amen.

[1] https://biblehub.com/greek/5281.htm

[2] Lesser Feasts & Fasts (Church Publishing, 2022), p. 512.