Sermon Notes on Luke 21:5-19

God longs to give us the sort of faith sustained our ancestors.

The historian Eusebius reports that, sometime before 70 AD, just before the Roman Empire laid siege to Jerusalem, the Christians left the city and settled in a little town called Pella, just east of the Jordan River, not far from the Sea of Galilee. You might have thought that it was reassuring news when Jesus’ prediction about the destruction of the Temple came true. After all, that is the true test of a prophet.

I have a feeling though that the news about the destruction of the Temple was sobering and chilling to them all. Not only because most of them were Jews and the very core of their childhood faith was a smoking ruin, but also because of the other things Jesus predicted. It must have been a frightening thing to wonder if these too were likely to be happening soon.

I know it will be no surprise to you that the rest of the things Jesus said would happen did happen. The Christians were, before and after the destruction of Jerusalem, “brought before kings and governors” because of their faith in Jesus. They testified boldly to the joy and truth that the Spirit revealed to them. It cost many of them their lives.

It became dangerous to be a Christian and, just as Jesus predicted, even family members betrayed their own to the authorities as being followers of Christ.

Christians became a hated minority. They had to come up with secret signs to identify each other without revealing their identity to anyone they couldn’t trust. (The sign of the fish is one we still use today. It actually predates the cross as a symbol of the Christian faith.) They had to sneak into the catacombs to gather for worship and use only as much water as they could hide on their persons for baptisms. (Thus the move from immersion to the sprinkling that we Lutherans use most often today.) Some people believe that this is when Holy Communion changed from being a full meal to the symbolic bite of bread and sip of wine that we use today.

You have to wonder, why did these early Christians do it? What was it about the Gospel that had so captured their hearts that they were willing to risk everything, even the lives of their children, to live as a follower of Jesus?

That kind of faith is pretty rare these days, but I have seen an example of it quite recently. You might be surprised to know where. It was at the Islamic Center of Ann Arbor. We were visiting there last Tuesday and I was moved to see all of the people arriving for evening prayers. I remembered that this is part of what it means to live as a Muslim. Each day, you stop five times per day and pray.

For people like these early Christians and these modern Muslims faith was the most important thing in their lives. You know the full plate that we all talk about having? For these people faith is the plate itself. It comes first and foremost. Everything else has to fit on that plate. Other things are optional, but the plate of faith is non-negotiable.

When I picture those early Christians, sneaking off in the early dawn, terrified at being seen by a neighbor or a Roman soldier on patrol, risking so much to be with their sisters and brothers in Christ for worship on the Lord’s day, well, frankly, I feel a little bit ashamed of myself and of modern Christianity.

When I saw those Islamic people of faith shaping their lives around what they believe I was humbled and I learned something.

What I learned was that, for most of us, we organize our lives as if God and our relationship with God is a nice garnish we put on the plate of our lives…when there is room, to make it a little more palatable.

Why was it that, before coming to church was part of my job description, it was so easy to find any number of excuses for not attending worship to give praise and thanks and glory to the God who had given me everything? I’ll tell you why. Frankly, God was just not that important.

You see, I was the plate on which I built my life. I was the god of my life. Everything was organized around me. God was the garnish on the plate.

Something else I have noticed. The excuses for not doing and being what God commands and calls and longs for us to be have not improved much over the years. When I hear the lame excuses people give for not stopping even once per week to gather with God’s people and worship, for not praying and studying the scriptures (as we are commanded by God to do) I am amazed. They sound quite familiar, like something I might have said before it was part of my job not to say such things. 

The God of the universe has a wonderful, blessed life that the Spirit longs for us to know. Christ lived, died, and rose again to make it possible for us to know this life, but we will never find it, we will never know it if we continue to relegate God to the priority level of a decoration.

After coming home from the Islamic Center I made a decision. I was going to shove the whole pile off of myself and ask God to be the plate again. I decided that if I was going to have any hope of being a faithful witness, of making certain that the powerful faith which my ancestors sacrificed to bring to me was going to make it to my grandchildren, I was going to have to become a true disciple of Jesus. I was going to have to get as serious as a Muslim about my Christianity.

You know, there is a very good chance that we will once again face persecution, war, plagues, and betrayals for following Jesus. I believe that if our souls are going to be up to the task we can’t be feeding them a steady diet of spiritual junk food. We can’t leave God as the garnish on the full plate of our lives.

Let me ask you this: What would have to change in your life to make God the plate you are filling instead of the garnish? What would your life look like if you were to become as willing to obey Jesus as the typical Muslim is the Quran? I think the world and this congregation would never be the same.

I pray that God will open our eyes to see what we have become and give us courage and hope in what the Spirit longs for us to be. Amen