Luke 21:5-19; 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13

Present and Future 

​Last Sunday, we stood with the returning exiles, learning about memory and hope.
 
We made the point that the quality of our memories and the strength of our hope largely determine how we inhabit time.
 
Follow me closely here. I’m not speaking in abstractions; I’m talking about how we wake up each morning, how we live our stories, and how we face what’s next.
 
If our memories are bad and our hope is weak, we don’t live on good terms with time. On the contrary, we live on very bad terms with time.
 
If our memories are bad, they prevent us from living in the present in a way that is good and healthy. They imprison us in the present.
 
That is why memories need to be healed in order to live on good terms with time, to live in a present that is open to the future.
 
To be on good terms with time is to be fully anchored in the present, to live to the full each moment as it comes to us.
 
It is, at the same time, to look forward to the future, not with dread, but with eager anticipation.
 
When memory is healed and hope restored, time becomes a companion, not an enemy.
 
We begin to live with a bounce in our step, a joy, a lightness, a readiness to take things in stride, to smile and to laugh easily.
 
This is what God through the prophet Haggai wanted for the returning exiles, as we saw last Sunday.
 
Today’s readings are connected to last Sunday’s, at least thematically. They invite us to stay with this question: how do we live faithfully, responsibly, and calmly in the present, while trusting God with the future?”
 
Jesus knows that our tendency is to dread the future. Indeed, Jesus and his disciples had every reason. They lived in perilous times. Their nation was occupied by a hostile power that was a constant and ever present danger.
 
But that's not all. Even their own people stood opposed to them. The religious leaders viewed them with suspicion. They accused Jesus of violating the rules of orthodoxy. They believed that, by his teaching and ministry, he was misleading the people. Therefore, they wanted to stop him—to silence his voice and defeat his movement.
 
Imagine what must have been going through the minds of his disciples! “Wait. This isn’t what I signed up for. I thought following Jesus would mean healing, joy, and triumph, but definitely not this.”
 
But Jesus never guaranteed to his disciples a life free from trouble. He didn’t then, and doesn’t now. “In this world, you will have trouble. But take heart. For I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).
 
These things that he is talking about here—they are bound to come, both for the faithful and the faithless, both for the hopeful and the hardened, alike.
 
But the point of his discourse is not to deprive his disciples of peace, but to make sure that they are anchored in his peace when the storms do come.
 
Shame and dishonor before the authorities that drag them into court? Not at all! He will provide for them. He will give them words and wisdom that none of their opponents will be able to withstand or contradict.
 
What looked like a misfortune will actually turn into an occasion to serve and glorify God. For in court they won’t just be defending themselves, they will be proclaiming the gospel.
 
Harm coming to them from their enemies? Not at all. Not a hair from their head will perish.
 
This is a constant refrain in Luke’s Gospel. In Luke, Jesus invites us everywhere to consider what people do to secure their future. For example, they devote all their life’s energies to accumulating wealth.
 
We think money will shield us from life’s storms. But the storms come anyway, and the money doesn’t bring the lasting peace we expected from it.
 
Even Herod’s temple, adorned with beautiful stones and enriched with expensive gifts dedicated to God—an embodiment of great wealth that inspired the admiration of the disciples— it will not last. Each of its stones will be thrown down and the spectacular edifice will be reduced to ruins.
 
This is the point of Jesus’ discourse, after all. The temple will not endure. But the faith of his disciples can and will, because it is placed in a God who does.
 
And this God is faithful. He will watch over his own, providing what they need whatever the circumstance, so that they can be free from concern.
 
This is what we have been saying. When we have a firm sense that our future is secure, then we can commit ourselves fully to the present moment, responding faithfully to what it demands of us.
 
This theme is reinforced for us by our epistle lesson. Paul is addressing here the Thessalonians in his second letter to them.
 
Now Thessalonica was one of Paul’s earliest mission fields in Europe. The believers there came to faith in Christ in a climate of opposition and endured real hardship.
 
Rather than wavering, they became a source of encouragement to other churches. Paul saw their endurance as a sign that God was powerfully at work in them. He praised them for their “work produced by faith, labor prompted by love, endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess. 1:3).
 
For good reason, then, did Paul call them an “example to all the believers” (1 Thess. 1:7). Their reception of the gospel “in much affliction” is held up as a model of Christian discipleship.
 
Understandably, Paul regards the believers in Thessalonica with deep affection and an almost parental warmth. The tone in his correspondence with them is tender, but at the same time, it is not uncritical.
 
He has become aware of people in the community who are idle, who are not working.
 
We may ask: “why are they not working?” There can be many reasons for not working. We may be laid off, between jobs, disabled, or retired.
 
But in this case, there could be very specific reasons.
 
What we can infer from Paul’s correspondence with them is that the Thessalonians eagerly awaited the end times.
 
They longed intensely for the return of Christ, a longing that Paul too shared, but found it necessary to clarify for them, as we can see throughout both his first and second letter to them.
 
In connection with what is before us here, many Bible students maintain that many of them had decided that the end times were at hand, and therefore they no longer needed to work.
 
If they felt that they were already living in God’s kingdom, or that Jesus was very likely to come soon, quitting work seems reasonable.
 
I mean, why work when the world might end tomorrow? And if it doesn’t end tomorrow, no doubt it will end before too long.
 
But the guidance that Paul gives to them suggests that this is not exactly a healthy attitude towards the future. Not working is not a legitimate conclusion to draw.
 
Whether Christ returns tomorrow or a thousand years from now, we are to live in the here and now. Our hope in Christ does not exempt us from responsibility for the present.
 
Proper eschatology is not an escape hatch from daily life; it is a calling into faithfulness in the present.
 
Proper orientation to the future—Christ’s return, the renewal of all things, the manifestation of God’s kingdom—forms a people whose present is marked by productive labor, responsible care for others, quiet diligence, and love expressed in ordinary tasks.
 
Christian hope, rightly understood, never frees us from the world; it frees us for the world.
 
Paul points to himself and his mission team as examples to imitate in this regard. He reminds them that while he was among them he worked!
 
Parenthetically, I am reminded of a saying by the Protestant Reformer Martin Luther. Luther was once asked what he would do if he knew the world was going to end tomorrow. No doubt drawing inspiration from the Apostle Paul, Luther replied, “I would plant an apple tree today.”
 
Paul took responsibility for himself. He worked night and day to provide for his own needs, not wanting to be a burden on anyone.
 
Paul’s words here are worth noting. For from them a general principle can be derived that holds good in all times and in all places:  
 
Failing to carry your own share of the community’s life places an undue burden on others.
 
To give a concrete example, if I neglect to give my share in support of the ministries of the church, I am implicitly asking my neighbor in the pew to take on his or her shoulders my part of the financial burden.
 
On the other hand, if financial giving were spread evenly over all the shoulders in a church, the burden would be light (and the stewardship great).
 
The willingness to assume our own burden, to give our own share, is to recognize that we belong to one another, that our lives together in the church are intertwined.
 
As Paul writes in Ephesians, when each part of the body is working properly, it grows and builds itself up in love and into Christ, who is its head (Eph. 4:16).  


The role of imitation of another Christian, as part of our formation in the body of Christ, is central to Paul’s guidance here.
 
Imitation is good and natural. It is how children learn. They learn by imitating their parents. But learning by imitation does not cease with childhood. Throughout our lives, we have mentors, from whom we learn by imitation.
 
Think for a moment: who has shaped you into the person you are now, into the disciple of Christ you are now?
 
Who have you imitated, closely and diligently, learning how to pray, how to serve, and how to endure?
 
And who might be imitating you?
 
Imitation includes the one to imitate and the one not to imitate. Obviously, it is important to know the difference!
 
In this regard, Paul urges the Thessalonians to keep away from every brother or sister living irresponsibly and not according to the teaching that they received from him.
 
Instead, they ought to look to him, as we have been saying. For Paul went to great lengths so as not to be a burden on them.
 
Though he had every right to receive food without working (other than proclaiming the gospel), he intentionally surrendered that right for the sake of a greater good—the greater good of not burdening the community and setting an example for others to imitate.
 
This is the example we ought to imitate, always having in mind our relationship to our brother or sister rather than our own rights.
 
This message certainly cuts across the grain of a culture of private, individualized spirituality that thrives on individual rights, that does not readily see that love sometimes means surrendering what we could claim for ourselves, for the sake of what we can build together.  
 
But in this decision we are imitating not only Paul but Christ himself, who did not think of equality with God as something to be grasped, but rather emptied himself, willingly taking the form of a servant for our sakes (Phil. 4:5-9).
 
Dear friends, let us draw from these two lessons today the encouragement that they give. For they are relevant to us in our current moment.
 
Last Sunday we heard from our ad committee on the future of the church.
 
This committee alerted us to the critical moment in our life together as a small congregation, in which we must raise the question: “Does this church have a future?”
 
Such a question can be the occasion for anxiety and distress.
 
But our lessons remind us to trust God with the future, while living faithfully in the present.
 
Let us heed the words of Paul as though they are addressed to us: brothers and sisters, let us not be weary in doing what is right. Let us heed the words of Jesus as though they are addressed to us: “by your endurance you will gain your souls.”
 
So let us plant our apple trees. Let us carry our share of the burden, and let us build up one another in love in the present, free from anxiety over the future.
 
For the future belongs to God. And the present—this moment, this congregation—belongs to us. Let us therefore live in it faithfully, responsibly, and calmly. Amen.
 
 
 

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