Let No One Lead You Astray

Hebrews 9:24-28

Sojourners and wanderers on the earth. In Hebrews, and in other places in the scriptures, there is a thread that runs through the scriptures which invites us to think of ourselves as people who don't quite fit. Now that may be a little bit difficult for us because I think most of us tend to look at this culture and this world as belonging to us. We think of American culture as Christian and we think of ourselves as the predominant point of view and as the major religious tradition. It's interesting to note though that it is said that there are more Muslims in America than Episcopalians. Think about that. We live in a very diverse culture and mostly we live in a culture that's not very religious at all. In some very important respects we are different. We are aliens in a culture that's not ours. Right now the clouds of violence and war are spreading over the Persian Gulf again. They remain present in the Middle East, the Balkans, and in Ireland and many other places in the world. The nations of the world are still very eager to solve their problems with the use of swords and we are disciples of the Prince of Peace. All of that should not exactly fit for us or we should not exactly fit in the culture of violence.

In the same way, we live in a world today, while we are worshiping scores of children will die because they are not adequately nourished. We ought not ever feel at home in such a world. We ought never to feel like such a world is our kind of world as long as these tragedies occur. We could pile illustration upon illustration but I think you understand what I am saying.

There are some very profound ways in which the Christian is a nonconformist; some very profound ways in which a Christian is an alien, a nonresident, not really of this culture or this land. One of those ways may seem, on the surface at least, to be kind of superficial and that is the church of Jesus Christ has a calendar that is foreign to the common secular calendar. Now you all probably think, as most people do, that New Year's Day is January 1. I've got news for you. Here in the church New Year's Day is November 30. Now that is really marching to the beat of a different drummer. Isn't it? But we have in the church a tradition that goes back centuries of a calendar, a liturgical or worship or spiritual calendar that works on a little different time frame and with some different holy days than the ones we normally observe in the culture. This year, November 30 is the first Sunday of Advent and Christians have for hundreds and hundreds of years said the year really begins with Advent, with the season where we wait for Christ to appear in the manger. And then the calendar goes on around and February comes and everyone in the country thinks about Valentine's Day and President's Day, but we really know it's about Ash Wednesday. We are on a different kind of clock you see, aid the whole cycle turns and eventually comes to these last two weeks, today and next Sunday. Two weeks of this odd calendar, which is our calendar, which is our time beat that we march to, aid this week and next week the lessons that are called for are more like the Gospel lesson that Amy read moments ago. That is, they are lessons that sound strange to our culture but they fit into our larger Christian view of life.

We begin the year with Advent, waiting for the birth of the Christ Child. And we end the year with the last two weeks of the liturgical year looking forward and waiting again. This time not waiting for the birth of Christ, but rather waiting for the fulfillment of the reign and ride of Christ in the world. So we get text like this odd text from Mark, which seems to be all about the end of the world, stories of famine and wars, and rumors of wars, and this text is one of several in the Bible that invites much misunderstanding and much mischief.

So this morning I want us to think a little bit about the end of the world, the second coming, the close of the age, whatever kind of language you prefer to use and to ask ourselves what this means to us and how this contributes to our alien nature in the world. First of all I think Jesus' words to the disciples in the lesson ought to be our beginning watch word, that is, let no one lead you astray. As Jesus began to talk to his disciples about signs of the end, he begins with the statement "Don't be led astray." Well friends there have been more attempts to understand the Bible from the point of view of some sort of predicting crystal ball time line than you can possibly imagine and they are all wrong.

Twenty or twenty-five years ago it seemed like everyone in captivity was reading Hal Lindsey's book, The Late Great Planet Earth. Do any of you remember it? He made a lot of money selling his books and on the lecture circuit until all his timetables passed and the end of the world didn't come. There's always, it seems like, some guru somewhere taking some group of people, who have sold their homes and their businesses, off to a mountaintop to await the second coming. The media likes to give a certain amount of attention to those oddballs but we never really hear about what happens after the deadline passes. They stumble home or stumble back to homes that aren't there for them. What happens to their hearts and their souls then?

Friends the Bible is not…it is not some sort of mysterious crystal ball through which you sift to find clues that give you the secret knowledge about when some catastrophic end is going to take place. Anyone who tells you that the Bible is that sort of book misunderstands the Bible. Do not let them lead you astray. You wouldn't turn to the Bible, I suppose, as a cookbook would you? You would think it would be laughable if someone would try to get all their recipes out of the Bible. And yet, it is almost the same kind of narrow misunderstanding of the scripture to think somehow or another, you have the right sieve to sift out the clues to tell us when the catastrophe is going to come. Please, as we approach the year 2000, I can almost promise you that crazy folks with speculations about the end of the world are going to come out of the woodwork as we approach that millennial transition. Don't get excited. Don't buy their books. Don't make them rich. Don't pay attention to them because timetables are not what the Bible is about.

But if not that, what? Is there any use for us in these dramatic portions of the Bible that seem to deal with the end of the age? Well, you will not be surprised to hear me say I think there is value in these passages, even for us. For you see, I think what the ancient biblical writers were trying to say to their generation and to ours was that history has a destiny and you know, believing that makes us aliens in the world. Our world seems to look at human history not as a procession, as a parade leading toward a goal, but rather from all kinds of different lenses with which we look at life in history. Some people look at life in history and look at the catastrophes and say the sun has three billion years more fuel and then the world will come to an end. Or they say that with the big bang theory that eventually the expansion of the universe will end and it will contract again into a tiny, incredibly dense ball of matter. But none of those say anything about human destiny. Toward what, do we march?

You see, in many respects, it seems like the world doesn't get much better. Jesus could talk about wars and famines and those sorts of things and low and behold, if you open your eyes, we have the same thing today. The world doesn't, on the surface of it, seem to be headed anywhere in particular, but we in the church of Jesus Christ say that if you have eyes to see and a heart to believe that we understand that there is a destination and that destiny or destination is the rule of the love of Christ.

The storm clouds of war are not the last word. The hungry, dying babies are not the last word. Those that are trampled down because of their race or their gender or their age or their religious beliefs, that trampling does not have the last word. God has the last word. Trying to describe, trying to put time frames on it is futile but believing that we are headed toward peace and justice aid the rule of love, not the rule of hate, believing that makes all the difference and it makes us aliens in the world that seems to be ruled by violence, by hate, by power. We believe in a world ruled by love.

And you know when we fill out a pledge card, which I hope some of you will still, or teach confirmation, or show up on Sunday morning to worship, or as young people sing in church, for heaven's salves, what a strange thing to do, in these and in hosts of other ways we proclaim that we believe feat the world is headed in a direction of God's reign. And we make ourselves aliens in a world that thinks other forces are really in charge.

The end of the world. Well, don't try to schedule it, or describe it, or figure it out in any kind of detail, but believe that we are headed somewhere, headed somewhere that human history is going in a direction, a direction that is good and invites goodness in us that may not naturally always be there; invites a witness from us to something that we believe is true even if the world seems to be rushing head- long over a cliff in the other direction. When we can believe that, God will reign; when we can believe Christ's love will one day be the deciding decisive reality; well then we are aliens, but just the kind of strangers and aliens God wants us to be. Amen!

Carl L. Schenck

Manchester United Methodist Church

Manchester, MO