PENTECOST 22C 2025

Today we move into the last few weeks of the church year. The time between the Feast of All Saints and the beginning of Advent on November 30 used to be known as Kingdomtide. It’s a time when we hear about what we might think of as “last things,” especially events like Armageddon and the end of the world. 

When Paul wrote his letters to various churches he was convinced, and convinced them, too, that Christ was going to return to earth during his own lifetime. He was so convincing in his first letter to the church in Thessalonika that many of them sold everything and spent their time waiting for the event to happen. He also had to address the question regarding what happened to those who died before Christ returns. 

Weeks, months, even years go by without the return of Christ as they expected it. After some time elapsed, food and shelter became a bit of an issue. So Paul wrote a second letter. We hear some of that today, as Paul admonishes those who can work to get back to it and stop depending on others to feed and shelter them. 

What presents itself as an immediate satisfaction of personal needs might obscure the crisis of faith that comes about when what we expect from our teachings doesn’t come to fruition. Was Paul wrong? Has Christ forgotten about us? Has God abandoned us? Are we believing in vain? 

The Hebrew prophets faced the same questions. Well, not about Paul, because he wasn’t born yet. The same goes for the incarnation of Christ. But the others, well, maybe. 

Haggai was a post-exilic prophet, whose words date from about 520 BCE. He urges Judah to get back to work on rebuilding the Temple destroyed by the Babylonian army some sixty years earlier. They’re worried about getting the work done, including replacing all the furnishings stolen by Nebuchadnezzar’s people. 

“I’ll shake the heavens and the earth,” Haggai quotes God as saying, “and everything you need will pour in from all the nations.” These days it seems to require the same action just to get parts to fix a boiler. 

I wonder if part of Judah’s difficulty lies in the possibility that, like today’s Gaza, there is so much evidence of death and destruction that life seems unimaginable except for haunting memories. But memories are in the past. To imagine a future life, we need help. We need God. Not the magician god so many seem to believe in. You know, the one who waves a hand from a distance and suddenly makes it all better. We need the God of all that will come to be with us as we try to discern where to begin. 

We need courage and more than a little humility to ask not if God has abandoned us, but when or where we might have abandoned God. The Sadducees who challenge  Today we move into the last few weeks of the church year. The time between the Feast of All Saints and the beginning of Advent on November 30 used to be known as Kingdomtide. It’s a time when we hear about what we might think of as “last things,” especially events like Armageddon and the end of the world. 

When Paul wrote his letters to various churches he was convinced, and convinced them, too, that Christ was going to return to earth during his own lifetime. He was so convincing in his first letter to the church in Thessalonika that many of them sold everything and spent their time waiting for the event to happen. He also had to address the question regarding what happened to those who died before Christ returns. 

Weeks, months, even years go by without the return of Christ as they expected it. After some time elapsed, food and shelter became a bit of an issue. So Paul wrote a second letter. We hear some of that today, as Paul admonishes those who can work to get back to it and stop depending on others to feed and shelter them. 

What presents itself as an immediate satisfaction of personal needs might obscure the crisis of faith that comes about when what we expect from our teachings doesn’t come to fruition. Was Paul wrong? Has Christ forgotten about us? Has God abandoned us? Are we believing in vain? 

The Hebrew prophets faced the same questions. Well, not about Paul, because he wasn’t born yet. The same goes for the incarnation of Christ. But the others, well, maybe. 

Haggai was a post-exilic prophet, whose words date from about 520 BCE. He urges Judah to get back to work on rebuilding the Temple destroyed by the Babylonian army some sixty years earlier. They’re worried about getting the work done, including replacing all the furnishings stolen by Nebuchadnezzar’s people. 

“I’ll shake the heavens and the earth,” Haggai quotes God as saying, “and everything you need will pour in from all the nations.” These days it seems to require the same action just to get parts to fix a boiler. 

I wonder if part of Judah’s difficulty lies in the possibility that, like today’s Gaza, there is so much evidence of death and destruction that life seems unimaginable except for haunting memories. But memories are in the past. To imagine a future life, we need help. We need God. Not the magician god so many seem to believe in. You know, the one who waves a hand from a distance and suddenly makes it all better. We need the God of all that will come to be with us as we try to discern where to begin. 

We need courage and more than a little humility to ask not if God has abandoned us, but when or where we might have abandoned God. The Sadducees who challenge Jesus with an absurd question about the law seem to have done just that—abandoned God—by forgetting important aspects of their own teaching. The same holds true for Judah in 520 BCE.

“You are not the first,” the prophetic voice declares. Others have been here before. Learn from them, remember their faith, and their faithfulness. Go back, wander in the wilderness of forgotten history and find your path to the future lies in their footsteps.

Remember where you felt most alive, and let that life lead you as a light through the darkness. Don’t waste your time whining about how difficult it is, fearing that what has already been done will happen again. Come together, joining life with each other—and with God—to accomplish more than anyone but God can imagine.

The Temple was rebuilt, although it faced destruction again in 70 CE at the hands of the Roman army. Paul’s hearers got back to work, and the Sadducees will somehow have to reckon with this new thing we call resurrection.

We need to remember that the path we walk began long before our remembered personal histories—sometimes personal hysterias—we refer to when we say, “we used to do it this way.” That’s the second of at least two sets of “Seven Last Words of the Church.” The first is “we’ve never done it that way before.” Some things are best left in the rubble.

In our walk and witness of death and destruction around us, on our city streets, in ways of life, on the evening (or 24 hour) news, it’s difficult to see the light of life. That is, until we rediscover that the light comes from within, a sign of the Spirit’s presence in the world that is our calling to share.

Remember that the promise of abundant life was made under the threat of oppression and death. Jesus offered it while being challenged by religious authorities at every turn, and under the threat of punishment by political authorities threatened by his promise, one that their self-proclaimed gods could not fulfill. Jesus’ offer stands today, as it did the first time, as an alternative to the ways of power and greed, even while acknowledging those powers will do all they can to oppose him.

God has given the answer, one we celebrate every Spring. It’s both answer and promise as we empty ourselves of fear and need to control, and let the light of God’s love shine brightly from within us wherever we find ourselves.

Who knows what might happen? God does. The rest of us are left to be surprised as Christ returns again and again in so many ways. It’s how we, and the world anxiously waiting, are blessed by his presence.