Sermon

St. Philip's Episcopal Church, Durham, NC

3/12/06 - 2 Lent

The Rev. Scott A. Benhase

There is a rather fancy word that theologians use when they write about the culmination of human history. The word is eschatology. It comes from two Greek words that together literally mean the "the study of the end of things." Saying "eschatology" sounds like you know what you're talking about much more so than simply the "study of the end of things," so we clergy like to use it to impress our congregations. It's what my grandfather used to call a "five dollar word."

I want to suggest to you this morning that our own understanding of eschatology directly shapes our practice of following Jesus as his disciples. Of course, there are numerous ways one can envision the culmination of human history. When thinking about how things will end, some people see humanity being wiped out by comet or another ice age. Or, maybe due to global warming, the oceans will rise and we'll see another flood. Still others see humans evolving into superbrains where we reach a point of no longer needing bodies. These are all possible ways of looking toward the end of humanity apart from God, at least the God we meet in the Bible.

Within the Biblical framework, there are different ways we can envision our future in God. The Bible talks a lot about the future. There are many passages that speak of how God will bring about the culmination of human history.

Two Sundays ago at the 11 a.m. Eucharist, I preached on the Transfiguration of Jesus on the mountaintop. In that sermon, I said that there are two basic ways we can look our lives and the universe we inhabit. One is driven by fear and it's represented by Peter's reaction to the transfiguration on the mountaintop. This fear can lead us to try to contain God and to create God in our own image as a safe god; a god who agrees with us; a god we can control and a god who acts in ways we prescribe; and, a god who never does anything we wouldn't do.

This sort of god produces spiritual myopia, because such a god gives us permission to exercise all our prejudices about others, not to mention our prejudgments about the way the universe must work. This is a fundamentalist god that confirms for us what we already want to believe. Put simply, it is god in a box.

The other way we can look at our lives and the universe we inhabit is to be humbled and awed by God's mystery and grace. God isn't limited by our perceptions or by our expectations of how things must be. God in Jesus brings together the divine and the human. In becoming human, God chooses to redeem humanity from our sin. We call this grace and the mystery of faith. It can't be contained in a box for safe keeping.

Our first response to what God has done can only be to fall on our knees in awe and thanksgiving. Our second response is to open ourselves to the thrust of grace in our daily lives; to throw away our prejudices and prejudgments and to trust that God in Jesus will make all things well.

Once we begin to look at the world from the perspective of God's grace in Jesus rather than our fear, we'll begin to look upon the people and circumstances of our lives with a new set of lenses. We will begin to see miracles everyday and the amazing grace of God poured out in the lives of the people we meet. That's why I said that how we envision our future in God will shape how we live and move and have being in the present.

For instance, let's say our belief about the culmination of human history was focused on God punishing all evildoers and rewarding all righteous believers. If that were the case, then I imagine our present practice of discipleship would be focused on keeping our noses clean while constantly warning evildoers of their coming punishment. That would be our practice if we were convinced of our own righteousness as well as being convinced of the evil in others.

But what if God were bigger than that? What if we recognized what God was really up to in Jesus Christ? And what if we decided to throw our lot in with such a God?  Well, my hunch is that when we would hear Jesus say: "those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?" then what he said would make sense to us. But if our hope at the end of things is based on how much of the world we have gained before we died, then what Jesus says to us is ludicrous.

These words of Jesus in today's Gospel don't make any sense to us or anyone else apart from a faithful hope in how God will end things. And not just how God will end things, but also who this God is we worship and who this Jesus is we follow. You see, the Gospel of Jesus is not about punishing bad people and rewarding good people. I know some people would like to make it that way so they can draw a line down the middle of the world and then bifurcate the human race. But that's not the Gospel. The Gospel of Jesus is rather an invitation for us to take on ourselves the very heart of God. It's an invitation for us to follow Jesus; to choose his way over all the other ways there are; and, to trust that in the end his way is the way that leads to eternal life.

So what is your eschatology? How you see things ending will directly affect how you live your life now. And what we believe God is up to in the world will shape our living as well. If what Jesus says is true in today's Gospel, then we ought to take notice of where our lives are heading. Just some friendly advice. Amen.

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