Wake Up and Smell the Kingdom: No Heroes?

I’m getting very tired of the end of the world.

Weary, and heart-achy, and doubting my stamina for more alarm, and predictions of disaster and instability.

And, here it is again this week, just as it is every year about this time, in our cycle of reading the gospels and living the seasons of the church.

Every year in November we start hearing apocalyptic predictions from Jesus, as the church ramps us up toward the season of Advent. Ramps us up for practicing our expectation of the great day of Christ’s coming once for all to end the world and renew the universe.

Today, we hear Jesus warn of wars and rumors of wars. Natural disasters and famines and international conflict, and that’s all only the beginning.

And – I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m even less ready for all of that today than I am most years around this time.

Not quite every year, but most years – and almost any time of year – the headlines of world news make a pretty decent case that we could be, now, in the moment Jesus is talking about. A world of international – and inside-the-nation – conflict. Of natural disasters, or famines, or plagues.

And sometimes I feel prepared to face it. To encounter the end of the world with courage and faith.

And sometimes I just don’t.

Sometimes I know I am not ready for the end of the world.

Often, in fact, I long for stability.

For the solidity and trustworthiness of the institutions I depend on – just like Jesus’ early disciples in today’s story, pointing out the substantial, solid stability of the Temple.

Only to hear Jesus announce it’s all going to fall apart.

[Sigh.]

And not only is the whole order of the world as we know it going to fall apart, but Jesus will go on to say he is expecting us to testify – to stand up to governments and councils and courts and proclaim good news and the presence and power of God, even while people hate or betray us.

And… I don’t want to be a hero.

I am willing to believe Jesus – to believe that the Holy Spirit will sustain us, that both God and the world need us – me, even – to proclaim good news, to proclaim God’s presence and power and love in the midst of danger and chaos and despair. But sometimes – often – I am not sure I’m capable of everything faith calls for, in those times of chaos and change.
And I don’t really want to be a hero.

At least, not since I realized that most heroes don’t actually fly.

But maybe I – we – don’t need to be heroes.

Whether you or I are eagerly anticipating the coming of Christ to end all familiar things,
or whether we’re dreading the chaos and danger of the end of the world as we know it,

we might in fact be able to be what Jesus is expecting of us without actually having to be heroic.

In fact, we might just need to be….irritating.

Provoking.

Because it’s not just the words of Jesus that tell us how to be when we’re waiting for the coming Day of Christ, or experiencing the end of all we know.

We also heard, a few minutes ago, a little glimpse into another community where people were, well, not sure if the world as they knew it was ending, but who definitely knew that they were supposed to be – like us – anticipating the day of Christ coming to thoroughly change the world.

In what we traditionally call “the Letter to the Hebrews”, but was more probably a sermon, we heard that community being advised that in their waiting, in that possibly end-of-the-world day they lived in, they should be “provoking”.

Specifically, provoking one another to love and good deeds.

I always trip over that phrase, because “love and good deeds” sounds like it should be more sweetness and light than provocation and annoyance. (Right?)

But I suspect that that particular word choice was not an accident.

Because irritation can often move us more quickly to action than good intentions ever get us off the couch.

Sometimes, I admit, I donate or support an important resource or cause just because hearing about it all the time is so irritating. (Public radio, I’m looking at you.)

Maybe some of you are provoked to shop for our household goods pantry because it’s annoying when I make announcements about it every week.

Sometimes a friend or a family member interrupts and annoys me so much that I have to stop the irritant and I focus, and look, and listen – and suddenly discover all over again the reasons I love that aggravating, wonderful person. Suddenly find myself wanting to take action for their needs – to love as a verb, not just a feeling.

And sometimes little bits of provoked love and good like that are important bits of the way Jesus comes into the world, and God changes everything.

There are plenty of other ways to provoke good deeds: friendly competitions in service to others; telling your stories of loving success until someone else just has to try it for themselves; persistent invitations to join you at St. Paul’s breakfast or Cathedral Kitchen’s dinners for our hungry neighbors.
Or just being a community where it’s so obvious we will meet the needs around us, protect human dignity, serve anyone as Christ, love the …difficult to love, that we accidentally noodge others to be the same.
Or experiencing a gentle provocation to be generous because the people you like to be with are generous people.

(It works in civic communities, too, not just in church communities.)

That ancient preacher tells us that we “provoke” one another this way because we have confidence and hope; have trust in God’s faithful promise to bring us into, hold us in, the direct and loving and powerful presence of God.

Because we know that God is bringing us into the world as God dreams it to be, even when the world as we know it is ending.

If you or I don’t know that from our own experience today, we can know it from the experience and faith of those around us and before us, through one end of the world after another.

It’s as true now as it was 1900 years ago or so when that preacher first spoke to a wary, hopeful, uncertain congregation:

Whether we are anticipating the glorious, transformative coming of God among us,

or dreading the end of the world as we know it,

we hold fast to our hope of God’s deep, loving promises.

So we must “provoke one another to love and good deeds.” We cannot neglect to meet together in communities of faith and trust; we push back – together – against the forces of isolation and fragmentation, division and loneliness. We give – and receive - courage and support, heart and hope and love, from and to one another.

Whatever end of the world you and I have to live through, we can go on quietly telling the good news of God’s constant, insistent presence and love to those near us, those like us – and even to those opposed to us in small and daily ways.
We can act with just a little bit of courage to do the small right or holy thing in front of you or me at one particular moment. We can come together and encourage – give heart to – one another.

And we may – just may – look back some day and find that we have been quiet heroes – God’s heroes – after all.