Isaiah 5:4; Luke 12:54-56; Hebrews 11:39: 12:2

The mystery of the moment

There are a lot of talking heads on television these days, all trying to make sense of this present time in national and even world politics.  So many people who are insecure about their role in the world economy  that they want to keep outsiders out.  They feel driven to insular thinking, wanting to expel anyone that’s from somewhere else from their homeland.  It is a picture of what we can expect in the coming centuries: economic refugees pushed by wars and climate change desperately trying to claim a new life from Britain to France to Australia to the United States.  It is followed by this desire to draw back from the world, rather than engage in it.  But these people forget is that every bite we eat, every drop we drink and every piece of furniture or product we buy links us to other people around the world.

Even if understand some of the events that make our life what it is, we can’t say everyone completely comprehends our times.

In Luke 12 Jesus tells His audience that they don’t understand the times.  They may have a good grasp of nature. They understand crop cycles and weather patterns, they know what the winds mean, but they don’t know what is going in their time. What does it mean to have the Romans in charge and the Jewish king and the scholars trying to scoop up the scraps of power? What does it mean when the Messiah shows up in the middle of this?  Do they not see how this is a time of turmoil? How dumb can they be?

Friends, you and I try to figure out our times, but if even the talking heads cannot figure out our time, are we going to be able to really know what is happening and what is about to happen?  So we pay attention for a while, then we turn away and go back to the business at hand in our own lives.  Maybe we can’t understand the country let alone the world, but we can try to get a grasp of what is going on in our time of life.  Turns out that that is just about as complicated.  The moment in time in which we find ourselves is just as much a mystery.  We whisper to ourselves: ”why is what is going on in our life so confusing?” Why do I find myself right here?” Mark Yaconelli, a pastor in Ashland OR tells the story of how a church received a grant to reach out to students at Southern Oregon State University which was located across the street. So he applied for the job and got it. He was full of ideas and enthusiasm. This is what he says he did (“Failure to Launch” from Mark Yaconelli “The Gift of Hard Things,” Intervarsity Press 2016):”…I bought hundreds of candles, built and painted a six foot cross, collected baskets of river stones, and designed and painted song sheets. I recruited and trained a trio of local musicians in various chants from Taize, Iona and other contemplative communities. I found three elderly church members  to prepare a simple supper to serve the students after the service. I designed a logo, gave the service a religiously ambiguous title (“Thirst”), and put ads in the college newspaper.” And that is just part of it.  The night before he couldn’t sleep, imagining weary students coming to his service for renewal.  Well, the students never came.  Even the few older people who were there fell down.  It was a mess.  Yaconelli says that expectations in life often arise from two distracting energies: worry and fantasy. He also writes: “My life has never matched my expectations. Never.  Sometimes life exceeds my expectations, other times it falls short: more often life does something unusual, unexpected, unpredictable, something that renders my expectations absurd. I often find myself living in a world of expectations of family, pastors, neighbors and surrounding culture.” Friends, maybe our expectations have something to do with our failure to understand our life.

In Isaiah God sounds a lot like Mark Yaconelli.  God has built a “vineyard.” By this is meant the people. But the vineyard produces only wild grapes. In other words, the people do not behave the way they should. This frustrates God. God is asking why this is happening?  This is baffling to us.  If even God is disappointed and confused about the present time, how should that make us feel? Are we then doomed to failure to succeed on this world?  But maybe there is another way to look at this.  What is confusion and disappointment were actually built into our lives, into the world, into creation?  What if it was woven in so inseparably that even God could not extricate God’s own handiwork from it? What if the world in which we live has to be transformed and that it can only be transformed in our partnership between God and people together.  Wouldn’t that be something?  Maybe we should not expect to understand our times, just live within them to the best of our ability, with the most dedicated heart? May God give us insight.