Love Endures

Last week we reflected on the eschaton or the end of time when all things will be brought into balance. Today’s readings continue that theme. The first reading, from Isaiah, starts with the thrilling words, “For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating…” (Is 65:17)

The Gospel however is not so optimistic.

When some people were admiring the temple Jesus instead of admiring its beauty, declared that it would all be destroyed. And he was right. Some forty years later it was gone. In the year 66, there was a Jewish uprising against the Romans, and in 70 the Romans laid siege to Jerusalem, eventually destroying the city, killing or enslaving tens of thousands of people and razing the buildings.

I don’t know whether Jesus had a premonition, or whether he knew that the ways things were going politically it was bound to happen or whether, since the gospel was written after the destruction of the temple, the gospel writer figured that Jesus would surely have foreseen such a terrible event. Whatever it was, we can be certain that this gospel passage relates to the devastation of Jerusalem.

The destruction of the temple meant an end to temple sacrifices and Judaism changed radically to a religion based on the Torah and Rabbinic teaching and centered in synagogues. At the same time, Christianity was developing as more than a Jewish sect and Christians were being persecuted. So we can take this whole gospel text as describing the upcoming conflict with Rome in Jerusalem and the terrible persecution of Christians under the Emperor Nero.

Which for us is almost 2,000 years in the past. Can an ancient text prophesying an ancient disaster have any relevance for us today?

Whenever we read scripture there are two of us present. Us, the readers, and the Holy Spirit. We can think of it as a triangle – the scripture, the gathered community of faith (that’s us) and the Holy Spirit. So our task is to read and listen and ask “What is the Holy Spirit saying to us this morning?”

I hear something about permanence and impermanence. What lasts and what doesn’t.

In the past week or two several people, both members and non-members have commented to me about how much they like this space for worship and for music. But as a congregation you know that buildings do not last forever. Just like the temple, in 1961 St. Peters was destroyed by fire, but unlike the temple you were able to rebuild and this is the result.

Church buildings do not last forever and neither does church as we know it. Rectors retire and move on, beloved parishioners die or move or are no longer able to get here. Everything changes.

Except one thing.

The incredible and astonishing love of God.

The one thing that lasts is love. Which is why Jesus can say “…do not be terrified… not a hair of your head will perish.”

He is not promising that our bodies will be permanent. He is not promising that we will be protected from danger or kept away from grief. We only have to look at his own life to know that. What he is promising is that God’s love is permanent, God’s love is greater than warfare, greater than betrayal, greater than pain and God’s love always underpins us. God’s love always sustains us even in the darkest times. God’s love will bring us through.

And our love too, our love lives on.

For love is the one thing that is permanent. Not the sentimental, hallmark type of love but the deep love that Christ births in us. The deep love that wants just one thing, the flourishing of all beings in the reign of God.

As you know, the two great commandments are to love God and our neighbor as ourselves. This is bedrock. This is permanent.

Whatever we are doing we can do it with love. Sometimes I imagine that all our lives we are busy building things, building a family, a career, a church, a good life but that when we die all that falls away. And then we realize; we realize that what we thought was real and important was just the scaffolding. What we have actually been building, the one thing that lasts, is love itself. And as the scaffolding falls away, we can see with God’s eyes the love that we have built.

There’s a wonderful song by Dolly Parton, “When we’re Gone, long gone.”  Here’s the chorus:

And when we're gone long gone
The only thing that will have mattered
Is the love that we shared
And the way that we cared
When we're gone, long gone.

For love is the one thing that lasts and that is our eschatological hope, that in the end it will all fall away except for love.

The prophet Isaiah put it like this:

“I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight.”

In the place of the old physical Jerusalem which beautiful as it was could be destroyed by the Romans - in place of the old Jerusalem, the old world, God is creating a new heavens and a new earth. A new heavens and a new earth filled with joy and people who delight God’s heart – the Great Shalom.

And as co-creators with God we too are building the new heavens and new earth, the Great Shalom of love. Whenever we choose to let go of anger and resentment, whenever we forgive, whenever we look for the best in someone rather than criticizing them, we are building the new. Whenever we stand up for justice and refuse to be caught up in politics of hate, we are building the new.

People of God, this is our calling. We are called to share God’s steadfast love even in times of change, in times of disaster – we are midwives of the new heaven and the new earth which God is even now creating in our midst. And we can be confident that however bad things get, God’s love is sustaining us and holding us close.
 
Let us pray for help in creating the new. Please join me in the prayer attributed to St Francis which you will find on page 833

Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is
hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where
there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where
there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where
there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to
be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is
in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we
are born to eternal life. Amen.

​the Rev. Dr. Caroline Hall