Next? A better vision.

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Proper 28C (Track 1) Isaiah 65:17-25, 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13, Luke 21:5-19

When Judean exiles returned from the Babylonian exile, about 500 years before Jesus, they started to rebuild the Temple.¹ They probably started with a modest structure which was expanded and improved over time.² Later, about twenty years before Jesus, Herod the Great³ undertook a massive renovation and expansion. It was that Temple — the Temple that Herod built — that Jesus predicted would be reduced to rubble in this Sunday’s gospel.

Lots of things that we have held sacred and glorious have been reduced to rubble. It’s a heartbreaking sight. But destroying an organization or a building — even a Temple — doesn’t destroy the underlying vision. As long as we have a vision, we can build again.

What we build next has to be better. What we had before was both good and deeply flawed. Trump is the tragic but logical consequence of the flaws.

To build something better, we need a better vision. Scripture suggests the values which should be at the heart of that better vision: justice and mercy, truthfulness, generosity, a welcome for the outcast and the stranger and a concern for the well-being of the entire community and eco-system.

Building something animated by those values will not be fast or easy. It may not always be popular. It will require endurance and a fair amount of courage. There is no magic transport to the world described in Isaiah’s vision. There is only people who can embrace the vision, trust the God who inspires it, and then be willing to look for a way to make it reality.

The Sunday after next is called “Christ the King.” I have never liked that name. I like “Christ Our Morning Star.” The morning star rises while all is still darkness and night and glows steady and bright.⁴ It’s a sight that helps me remember to hold on to the vision. Whatever light we may need is on its way.

Peace.

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Sermon Starts is taking a week off and will be back on Friday, 11/28 for Advent 1. Happy Thanksgiving!

1. At about the same time the prophet Isaiah had the beautiful vision in Sunday’s First Reading.

2. And periodically captured and wrecked. In 165 BCE the Temple was captured and desecrated by invaders who were hostile to Judaism. The Festival of Hanukkah (beginning December 14 this year) celebrates the Temple’s recapture and rededication.

3. “Great” is not always “good.” Herod the Great could be brutal. He killed some of his own children (and a wife) because he suspected them of disloyalty. He himself died in 4 B.C.E. A surviving son, Herod Antipas, killed John the Baptist and later interrogated Jesus at Pilate’s request. The Herods: Murder, Politics, and the Art of Succession by Bruce Chilton is an interesting and terrifying read.

4. It is actually the planet Venus.