When we hear Jesus’s apocalyptic talk, we often shut down. Which means we avoid hearing the good news itself.
And Fear as Avoidance Mechanism
Proper 28C | Luke 21:5-19
Cheery gospel, eh? Destruction. Division. Persecution. If you’re looking for your spirits boosted, this is probably not the way to do it.
Of course, I can’t speak for you. Maybe you have an easy time finding hope in the midst of chaos. If that’s you, hold on. We’ll catch up to you in a minute. Because I know there are some people who, like me, get kind of stuck in the negativity mud.
For many of us, our brains react to Jesus’s apocalyptic talk with a fear response. Our lizard brain takes over and gives us those familiar responses: fight, flight, or freeze. And the words about the Temple coming down and families divided speak so loudly—we might not even hear the rest of what Jesus is saying.
When fear is in control, we can’t judge clearly. We certainly emphasize safety, but that makes it sound like we’re reasoning rationally. Fear makes us react irrationally, not to find a reasonable safety, but to simply end the fear.
So when Jesus speaks in ways that frighten us, and we can’t hear all that he is trying to tell us, we often seek to end the fear. By running from the gospel, fighting with it, or freezing in the face of it.
Let us, instead, hear Jesus.
Where we left off in the story, Jesus was in Jericho, visiting with Zacchaeus. Since then, he and the disciples have arrived in Jerusalem, driven the moneychangers out of the Temple, and taught there. He has been confronted by tons of religious elites and is now departing with his disciples to prepare for the Last Supper.
And on their way out of town, the disciples are talking about the awesomeness of the Temple the way countryfolk do when they see their first skyscraper in person. It is the kind of marvelous, disorienting process we all can relate to. Technical achievements that bring wonder (and perhaps fear) to those who have not grown familiar to their presence.
Jesus’s warning of the Temple’s inevitable destruction is scary to anyone thinking such human achievements are indeed permanent. Even more so when we invest them with the center of our sense of holiness.
Our faith is, of course, in the person of God we know as Jesus. It can’t be contained in any building. Even this one.
The disciples ask for certainty.
How are they to know when the destruction will take place? Which is the way? When will they know it is God doing the acting and not people? All good questions. Normal questions. They are still the ones we ask.
Jesus doesn’t give them certainty. He warns them not to stray from the path he is laying out for them. Because there will be people who will offer certainty. Claiming to speak for God.
To our modern, rational minds, this actually makes things worse! Because we take to abstraction: bothsidesing our reality between “us” and “them”. It becomes, for us, our church vs. their church. Which is right? And again, the fear enters.
Nevermind that Jesus has preached endlessly about mercy and love. Putting God before even our families. Placing the hearts of children before our own. And serving the most needy in our midst. Our mission is far clearer than we take it for.
“do not be terrified”
Jesus tells us: “When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified;” Again, still that fear. These will happen and also the end will not rapidly follow. We must live in the confusion and chaos. Persevere like the saints.
These things are inevitable, not because God wills it, but precisely because God does not. Our confusion, fear, disgust, and hatred lead us to lash out in rage. To destroy those made in the image of God for a human sense of righteousness. We kill, not because God wants us to, but because it makes us feel righteous.
Jesus teaches us the way to walk through the frightening times. And many would choose the path of fear to gain earthly power.
Then, persecution
Jesus then names a third inevitability: persecution.
Following Jesus’s way of love and mercy will be threatening to the powerful. They will punish the Jesus-followers for their lack of fear, anger, and support for oppression.
In our time, we’re used to the Christian Persecution Industrial Complex. We hear every year about Starbucks holiday cups and the whole inclusive holiday season.
Like the assistant football coach who took his “persecution” to the Supreme Court because his contract was not renewed after a “private prayer” with dozens of people and local media in the middle of the field right after the last game of the season ended.
No, a lack of supremacy is not persecution.
But I suspect Jesus is far more concerned with the people of faith who feared reprisal from the coach. Or from the masses of people flooding the field from the stands. All to participate in a public display of power.
Jesus then focuses on a moment of fear.
When the fear silences us. And our lizard brain takes over. In the midst of great personal fear, when our lives are on the line, what do we say?
This is most fitting and instructive. That fear isn’t only expressed in literal physical safety, but in a social moment. When we are with another person. The feeling is quite the same in our bodies, whether we tighten up when questioned by police or being the first to say “I love you.”
In Fear’s grip, we might say anything to avoid the pain. Tightened enough, people confess to crimes they didn’t do. Fear never motivates truth. Only expediency.
But Jesus does a curious thing and tells us not to prepare what we are to say for that moment. This hits us like a detour from convention, because Jesus is often telling us to prepare—because we never know when we need to act.
Here He tells us not to plan the words. Because He will provide them.
This is real hope.
In this passage full of fear and anxiety, which can cause us to seize up in fear and anxiety in hearing it (!), Jesus maintains the throughline from the beginning. He assures his followers, who he first named disciples, then made them apostles, and who we named saints. They know the way. When they silence the fear, they can see it.
And within that, is the promise that Jesus will provide the words. To justify us. Like Jesus justifies the tax collector and the sinner seeking redemption.
What’s striking is not that Jesus tells the disciples all of the scary stuff that’s going to happen. It’s that he doesn’t lie to them and say “it’ll all work out.” Or that “everything will happen for a reason.” He doesn’t make us feel better by lying about our circumstances.
He tells us the truth.
Because the Kin-dom is founded on the mercy of God. It springs from the Jubilee, with its balancing of wealth, forgiveness of debts, and the certainty that all shall be fed.
It’s founded on the promise that human systems of division are not ordained by God but by human greed and will to power. That our desire to control one another and possess the world is the source of our greatest sin.
So we must not build the Kin-dom on the sand of fear. But instead the firm foundation of trust. In God and one another.
Trust that Jesus’s radical vision for the world, His Way of Love, is our guide, our source of courage, and the promise of speech when our words fail us.
As troubled as we may be: with the world, our neighborhood, relationships, elections, economics, you name it: we are given a way through the present moment. A way that fear prevents us from seeing. A way that is not made righteous by the heart’s impulse for revenge but by the blessed promise of mercy.
Jesus trusts us to love when we’d rather hate. Hope when we’d rather avoid. Endure when we’d rather give up.
Because we are disciples, apostles, and saints. This is our part of the Kin-dom. And we’re called to spread the Jubilee energy in a world that keeps choosing fear.
That’s our job. It is always our job. And knowing that means we really do know what we’re supposed to do, don’t we?
Act justly, love mercy, walk humbly, and love God and all of creation as we selfishly love ourselves. To live out an open-hearted, merciful faith. To share God’s blessing with this community every day of our lives.