Persevere

While some people were speaking about how the temple was adorned with costly stones and votive offerings, Jesus said, “All that you see here–the days will come when there will not be left a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down.” Then they asked him, “Teacher, when will this happen? And what sign will there be when all these things are about to happen?” He answered, “See that you are not deceived, for many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he,’ and ‘The time has come.’ Do not follow them! When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified, for such things must happen first, but it will not immediately be the end. Then he said to them, “Nations will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be powerful earthquakes, famines, and plagues from place to place. Before all this happens, however, they will seize and persecute you, they will hand you over to the synagogues and to prisons, and they will have you led before kings and governors because of my name. It will lead to your giving testimony. Remember, you are not to prepare your defense beforehand, for I myself shall give you wisdom in speaking that all your adversaries will be powerless to resist or refute. You will even be handed over by parents, brothers, relatives, and friends, and they will put some of you to death. You will be hated by all because of my name, but not a hair on your head will be destroyed. By your perseverance you will secure your lives.” (Luke 21.5-19)

Our long journey with Luke as our guide draws to a close. The liturgical year ends next Sunday with the Feast of Christ the King. We will have one final text from Luke’s gospel on that occasion, this text putting before us the crucifixion of Jesus on the cross, a sober conclusion to the mission of Jesus as he moved from Galilee to Jerusalem. 

Today, on the Thirty-Third Sunday, we have Jesus still teaching in the Temple area, as he has done since his entry into Jerusalem a short while earlier. Much has happened since his arrival, one of the first actions he takes being the removal of the money-changers from the Temple, countering their arguments with the insistence that the Temple should be a place of prayer, not a den of thieves.

As we might expect, he makes no friends by his act and none by his words, particularly among the elite of Jerusalem, including the high priests, the scribes, and the Pharisees. Watching him closely for any slipup, they make a pact among themselves that he will not leave Jerusalem alive. They are out for blood, believing the Galilean Teacher to be a threat to their ways and to their thinking on matters great and small. 

As we see from the text today, Rabbi Jesus is still in the Temple among the ordinary people of Jerusalem, instructing them in a way of life different from the one that they have become used to. The speech that Jesus delivers today is prompted by the people’s awe and preoccupation with the beauty of the Temple, “adorned with costly stones” as Luke describes it. 

The Jewish historian Josephus, a contemporary of Luke’s, wrote that the Temple was “covered on all sides with massive plates of gold, the sun no sooner up that it radiated so fiery a flash that persons straining to look at it were compelled to avert their eyes, as if from the solar rays.” If his description is close to right–and it should be–then we can understand why the people should be struck by its grandeur and opulence. 

Given that reality, Jesus’ response must have come as a shock, quite the opposite of what they surely were expecting, wrongly assuming he also would have been greatly impressed by the structure. Instead, Jesus tells them, “All that you see here–the days will come when there will not be left a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down.” 

No doubt that would have been the second strike against him. First, he chased the money changers out of the Temple and now he announces that this same building that was a showpiece and the pride of Jerusalem would soon be nothing more than a heap of rubble. It is easy enough to imagine the Temple officials foaming at the mouth with outrage upon hearing Jesus’ prediction.

So what is going on here? What is Luke wanting us to take from this passage? The first thing we need to remember is that when Luke is writing the gospel the Temple no longer exists, the complex turned into a heap of broken and burnt stones by the Roman General Titus–later emperor–after a seven month siege in the year 70 A.D in response to a four-year revolt by the Jews. It would never be restored and the system of sacrifice in the Temple was done.

In fact, Luke is working with three different time periods in this short episode, the first being that of Jesus time, the second being the period after the destruction of the Temple, and then a future time that heralds the second coming of the Resurrected Lord. We find Luke borrowing heavily from Mark’s gospel when he uses apocalyptic images to describe the events that will precede the Second Coming.

All three time periods coalesce in this conversation that Jesus has with the crowd standing in and admiring the Temple. Past, present, future. But all three carry one unifying theme. Whatever the age, those who follow Jesus can expect persecution and even possible death because the powerful and the privileged will always attempt to derail the message of the Galilean Teacher. 

As we have seen, Jesus experienced it firsthand, his enemies plotting behind the scenes to eradicate him and his way of life. His followers who took up the mantle after his crucifixion also have experienced the same wrath and enmity, their blood spilled and their lives upended as those in authority sought to remove them and their allegiance to Jesus from the pages of history.

Luke, writing at the end of the first century, is well aware of these persecutions and his gospel is intended to recognize that reality, the life of Jesus as presented by the evangelist used as a means of support and encouragement so that these early Christians might find the strength to stay true to the way of Jesus as recorded in this gospel.

As we can hear for ourselves, Luke does not paint a rosy picture nor does he wear rose-tinted glasses. Instead, he has Jesus say, “They will seize and persecute you, they will hand you over to the synagogues and to prisons, and they will have you led before kings and governors because of my name.” While Luke presents these as predictions by Jesus, they are the lived reality of the members of the early Christian communities who are at odds at one and the same time with the Jews and with the Romans, the Christian way seen as a threat to both groups in some measure. 

So, Luke is not telling his listeners anything that they don’t already know. But he wants them to stay strong regardless of the circumstances and the conditions in which they find themselves. His hope is that those who follow Jesus will not lose heart and will not lose their way, but instead will stay faithful to their calling. His point is spelled out in the promise that we hear Jesus make when he says today, “By your perseverance you will secure your lives.”

Although Luke’s attention is on three distinct time periods, the time of Jesus, the time of the early Christians, and the time of the Second Coming, the message that he provides is timeless. It is one that Christians in every age can and should hear because truly faithful Christians will always run afoul of those who occupy seats of power or sit on thrones of gold. 

We would be foolish to think our own age is immune to the same persecutions and prosecutions. In just the past week, religious leaders representing various Christian denominations were thrown to the ground, beaten, and arrested because of their protests against the mass deportations of immigrants that we see underway in our country, calling for a basic respect for the human dignity of all persons in this country, documented or undocumented. 

However, as they found soon enough, their clerical attire and the crosses they wore around their necks did not save them from the blows or shield them from the fists of law enforcement, a number of the religious leaders arrested and jailed for so-called disorderly conduct. One look at that event and we can see with our own eyes that Luke’s description of hard times for the followers of Jesus is applicable to any age.

But that is only one instance of how the Christian way of life–when lived truly and fully–finds itself in a standoff with the forces that oppose Jesus’ words and his ways. We find ourselves living in a country where the divide between the haves and the have nots has steadily worsened, a minority of rich holding most of the wealth while a majority of the poor are left penniless. Perhaps it is symbolic of the times that the US Mint has officially stopped the minting of pennies.

Other examples of the tension between the Christian way and the way of the world are clearly visible outside our windows. All we have to do is look. But rather than be discouraged and defeated by the daily battles that Christians must fight if they are to stay true to Jesus, Luke would have us find the strength within our souls to stay strong and to stay steady, persevering whatever the downside and however high the personal cost.

One other caution that we hear Jesus offer us in the text put before us today that has special pertinence for our times and for any time is found in his words to the people in the Temple when he says, “See that you are not deceived.” Apparently, he knows how susceptible we are to snake oil salesmen and how easily we kneel at the feet of false prophets, in the process abandoning the call of Jesus and instead marching in lock step with people who might talk the talk but never walk the walk.

It is breathtaking how easily smooth-talking propagandists and sleek persuaders can convince us that they also are believers in Jesus when, in fact, they are little more than wolves in sheep’s clothing. The fault is not theirs, but ours because we fall for the lies as easily as Eve fell for the pitch that the snake sold to her in the Garden of Eden. “Do not follow them,” Jesus forcefully tells the crowd in the Temple.

This is a hard message that Luke gives us as his gospel draws to a close, challenging and a life changer if we take it to heart. For the previous twenty chapters, he has shown us the way of Jesus, the man of Galilee who healed the sick, welcomed the sinner, and fed the hungry, the teacher who taught by words and by works that the cries of the poor must be answered, that the helpless must be helped, and that the rich and powerful will have their day coming, if not here, then in the hereafter.

As I said, next Sunday we will find ourselves at the foot of the Cross where Jesus hangs for the last few hours of his life, nailed to the beam of wood between two low-life thieves, cursed and derided by the priests, Pharisees, and their partisans whose evil plots have brought the life of Jesus to an end. If the message we have today before us is not clear enough, then the message for next Sunday should make things crystal clear to us.

–Jeremy Myers