Proper 28C

November 16, 2025

I have to tell you. I find it more than a little ironic that the gospel reading on the Sunday of our annual meeting, in two out of three of the three years of the lectionary cycle concerns Jesus’ prediction of the destruction of the Jerusalem temple. Did we spend over $1 million dollars on replacing the slate roof this year? Are we anticipating around $300000 in additional expenditures on the building and grounds over the next year? (You’ll hear more about that later). Does Jesus’ prediction of the destruction of the temple suggest that such expenditures are not in keeping with God’s will? I’ll leave that question for you to ponder.

And to be honest, even as we have talked about ensuring the continued presence of Grace Church on Capitol Square, not least by installing a slate roof with an expected lifespan of 80-100 years, I wonder sometimes whether this building will be standing a century from now. With climate change continuing, and the massive disruption it poses to life on earth, will this planet be habitable in 2125? 

We may not like to think that far in the future, unless we’re watching some Hollywood post-apocalyptic movie but our lessons today force us to confront such questions, if only because they present us with strikingly different visions of the future. In the gospel reading, we’re told that there will be wars, famines, earthquakes, and that followers of Jesus will be persecuted. It’s tempting to plot those events on our own situation, to wonder, as Christians are prone to do, whether all those things that are taking place in our world today, are portents of Jesus’ return. Especially this week, with the images of clergy being manhandled, pepper-sprayed and arrested as they bear witness to the injustice of ICE detentions and deportations at Broadview in Chicago, we may indeed wonder whether we are in the last days.

I’ll come back to that gospel reading in a minute but first, I want to draw your attention to the passage from the book of Isaiah, and the very different image of the future envisioned by the prophet. 

The passage from Isaiah is full of hope—written at a time when great things seemed possible. The Babylonian exile was over, the exiles had been allowed to return to Jerusalem, and they were rebuilding their lives, the city, and most importantly, the temple. It’s a reboot of creation with God promising to create a new heaven and a new earth, for the former ones had passed away. Other biblical texts tell us of the struggles the returnees had, of the devastation they encountered and the hard work they faced. The situation was so dire that in fact many of the exiles chose not to return. They had built comfortable lives in Babylon and preferred that to the uncertainty and struggles they would have faced in Jerusalem.

But still it’s a vision that captivates us as it has captivated Jews and Christians, artists and writers over the millennia: 

The wolf and the lamb shall feed together,
the lion shall eat straw like the ox; 
but the serpent– its food shall be dust!

They shall not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain, says the Lord.

To express such hope and faith in God, in these circumstances and after so much had happened—the destruction of the temple, being carried off to Babylon, fifty odd years living in a foreign place, and then to return and to face all of that struggle:

For I am about to create new heavens
and a new earth; 

the former things shall not be remembered
or come to mind.

The gospel reading puts us back into the last week of Jesus’ life. It’s an incident recorded in all three synoptic gospels, Matthew and Mark as well as Luke, but Luke does something interesting with it. Remember that Jesus and his disciples are coming from Galilee to the big city. They staged what we call the Triumphal Entry and then immediately, Jesus and his disciples go to the temple. He upends the tables of the moneychangers and then over the next days teaches in the temple.

In Mark’s version, the remark about the temple’s grandeur is made by some of Jesus’ disciples, and in that way, it might be something tourists might say when they see a remarkable building. But Luke changes it to “some in the crowd” and so Jesus is addressing his follow-up remarks, not just about the temple’s destruction but about the signs of his coming and persecution to a wider audience than his closest disciples.

Remember, Luke is writing after the cataclysmic events of the Jewish revolt and the brutal Roman repression that culminated in the destruction of the temple. Around the end of the first century, Luke and his readers are still processing those events and wondering what the fallout will be. It’s likely that there is also some concern among the early Christian communities because the Second Coming of Christ that they had expected imminently, perhaps even in conjunction with the temple’s destruction, had not occurred and they were wondering what it all meant.

But in among all of those warnings—not just of catastrophes like wars and earthquakes—but the dangers to come for followers of Jesus: persecutions, imprisonments, trials, and martyrdom are promises as well: “I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict.” 

And further: “Not a hair of your head will perish. Through your endurance you will gain your souls.”

As I said, following this service we will gather once again in Vilas Guild Hall for the annual meeting of our parish. This congregation has survived some 185 years; our church building around 170.Over those years, there have been enormous changes. Sometimes I wonder whether those who embarked on the construction of our nave in 1855 had any idea that in six years a Civil War would break out in our nation, and whether, had they known, they would have started construction.

We may not want to think about the future. We may, like so many people today, bury our heads in the sand and say to ourselves, and to future generations, that it’s not our problem: climate catastrophe, environmental devastation even if we contributed to them, are things they’ll have to deal with—or perhaps, they can colonize Mars and start the whole cycle over again.

Yet, there is another option. These readings remind us that our God is a God of history, working God’s purposes out in every age. The visions may be radically different—and Edenic paradise of a new heaven and a new earth or a dystopia of wars, rumors of wars, and earthquakes. But in both visions, God is present with God’s people, promising God’s providential care for all. The lucan passage ends with the remarkable promise that “not a hair of your head will perish” and that “through your endurance you will gain your souls.”

We don’t know what the future holds—whether it is climate catastrophe or a dystopian vision worthy of Hollywood or a sci-fi author, or something else. But whatever comes for us and for future generations, we know that God will be there, caring for God’s people, bringing about God’s reign, redeeming, forgiving, and remaking humanity. Thanks be to God!