There was a purported Chinese curse:  May you live in interesting times.  We certainly do.  Think of all of the things going on in our society, many of which we find objectionable.  It is precisely in these interesting times that God has placed us and called us to follow Him--to be a worker in the Kingdom of God,not a whiner on the sidelines!

Did you ever feel like our society is standing on the edge of the precipice. With all of the struggles over Gay marriage, and LGBTIQ rights. I remember the days when there were only two genders. When a young lady was asked how her daddy could tell which were boy kittens and which were girls, she replied that it’s printed on the bottom. The world today is different. People argue over global warming and climate change. I like Tom Friedman, the New York Times columnist’s, description: “It’s not global warming. It’s global weirding.” There are many illegal immigrants in our country, and at least one of our politicians suggests Gestapo-like methods—a knock on the door in the middle of the night—and throw them out of the country. So very many things wrong and yet very few seem to step forward with constructive solutions for dealing with them. The secretary of the Church I served in Corpus Christi put up a sign over the copy machine: Whining in a red circle with a bar through it. No Whining!! We know that there are problems. This is the world that we live in. This is the world our children and grandchildren must navigate. How are we to be in the world and not of the world. Don’t whine.

The Gospel lesson reports an interesting conversation between Jesus and the disciples. As they were coming out of the Temple, the disciples commented on what a magnificent structure it was. Jesus’ response must have been rather startling: “Not one stone will be left on another.” Sitting across the valley on the side of the Mount of Olives, gazing at the Temple structure, the disciples couldn’t help being impressed. It was a reconstruction by Herod the Great of the Temple built at the return of the Exiles from Babylon and had been under construction for some forty six years at the time of the Lord’s conversation with the disciples. The gigantic foundation stones of the Western Wall, shown often on television, give an idea of the engineering feat involved in constructing the Temple. The disciples struggled to comprehend how this magnificent structure could be destroyed and asked when this was going to happen. What will be the signs of the approaching destruction? Jesus replied that there would be wars and rumors of wars. There would be earthquakes in various places. There would be famines. This is but the beginning. “Be careful,” the Lord said, “many will come in my Name and say ‘I am He,’ and they will lead many astray.”

Was the Lord only talking about the demise of the Jerusalem Temple, which has never been rebuilt, or was he looking beyond that? The interesting thing is that all of these things have happened. Since the Lord’s time, there have been a multiplicity of wars. There have been devastating earthquakes in a number of places. There have been famines. And the destruction of the Temple that the Lord predicted took place about forty years after he uttered these words. The disciples certainly stood on the edge of the precipice.   Within their own lifetime they would see the death and resurrection of their Lord. Some would be arrested. Many would die violent deaths. Within the next generation the Temple that they revered and the city that they loved would be destroyed.

In the face of this upheaval in their society and in their own lives, what were they to do? They were to be prepared to give an account of themselves. They were to know who they were. They were indeed people of their times and it took some time to assimilate the events which they experienced. The crucifixion must have been regarded as a crushing blow to all of their hopes and dreams. The resurrection certainly took them by surprise. The meaning of crucifixion and resurrection took some time for them to understand. The fact that Jesus Christ suffered and died for them, that in his suffering and death they were reconciled to God, must have taken a while to sink in.   Sink in it did, and they began to proclaim the grace of the resurrected Jesus.

Some were subjected to arrest immediately and warned by the Sanhedrin not to speak of this Jesus. That didn’t deter them in the least. The morning after they had been released they were back in the Temple compound telling people the story of Jesus. “Don’t worry about what you are going to say,” Jesus had told them. “The Holy Spirit will give you courage and words.”

The world in which the disciples lived was not a world of their choice. There were many things in the land of Israel and the broader Roman empire that were objectionable. Slavery was part and parcel of their society. Exposure was a way of getting rid of an unwanted birth. Throw the child out beside the road and let it die or be torn to pieces by scavenging animals. A multiplicity of gods and goddesses, many of whom had all of the faults and appetites of humans, were worshipped throughout the Empire. Even the Emperor began to regard himself as lord and god. Those who proclaimed Jesus as God and Lord were not only viewed as unpatriotic, they were viewed as dangerous to society, and thus were persecuted. The disciples, and those who followed after them, didn’t choose to live in such a world, but it was the world in which they lived. It was in that world that they were called upon to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

What was the purported Chinese curse? May you live in interesting times! We certainly do live interesting times, and not all of it is to our liking. Yet, that is the world in which we live. And in this world we are called upon to be the reflected light of Jesus Christ. To be followers of Christ, we must do some rather difficult balancing. We must protect our borders and at the same time welcome the stranger and alien in our midst. We must seek to change laws in order to support the family and yet at the same time care for those who live in broken homes, and those whose understanding of sexuality is different from our own. We need to not only be opposed to abortion, but be prepared to provide for the children of those who are incapable or too immature to care for them. We need to provide for medical care for those who cannot afford it and face the difficult ethical questions about the expenditure of medical resources at the end of life. None of these are easy problems to resolve, and any resolution will be imperfect; yet this is the world in which we live. And it is in this world which our Lord has called us to be his followers.

It is in the midst of this world that the words of the Lord reverberate once again: “Lo I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” God knows precisely the world in which he has placed his church and God has not abandoned his people. God walks with us through the midst of every trial and every question. The Holy Spirit is always present to guide us in what to say, if we but deign to humbly listen.

May you live in interesting times. We certainly do. And it is precisely in these interesting times that God has placed us and called us to follow Him—to be a worker in the Kingdom of God, not a whiner!