Sermon, 3rd Sunday of Lent

"At that very time…[Jesus said], ' unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did'" (Luke 13:1,5)

Call this day, "Over-the-Hump Sunday," the 3rd of the five Sundays of Lent. Hearing your friendly neighborhood priest tell you that unless you repent you will all perish might convince you that three Sundays of Lent is enough. But in case that didn't get you down, how about this, from Walter Russell Mead, the son of an Episcopal priest and writer for a journal called The American Interest. Here is how he describes, not just the Episcopal Church, but all the current "mainline" denominations:

"The American church is staggering under the burden of a physical plant that it doesn’t use and can’t pay for; it staggers under the burden of dysfunctional and bloated denominational and professional structures that it can no longer carry; and it is crippled by outdated ideas about what it needs to do its job…The mainline churches in particular are organized like General Motors was organized in the 1950s: they have cost structures and operating procedures that simply don’t work today. They are organized around what I’ve been calling the blue social model, built by rules that don’t work anymore, and oriented to a set of ideas that are well past their sell-by date."

Well, that's not a hopeful perspective on the future. I personally question whether this broad brush he paints of the "American church," is too broad. I don't think it applies as well to the Episcopal Church in Alabama. But there are parts of this church that, to be honest, Mead nails. So, here's one more thing to worry about. People are afraid for the future of our community, our country, even our church. The people listening to Jesus were afraid for their future. They wanted Jesus to take away their fear. He wasn't going to do that. But Jesus would try to help them get past their fear of the future, and trust in his grace.

The truth is that Jesus has already gotten pretty riled up at the crowd surrounding him. Listen to what he says in the verses just before today's Gospel reading: "When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, 'It is going to rain'; and so it happens, duh. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, 'There will be scorching heat'; and it happens, duh. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?" (Lk 12:54-57). There are two Greek words for time. One is Chronos, from which we get the word, "chronological." That's the normal cycle of time in which we live: when a cloud rises in the west, it's time for rain: when the clock says five, it's time for happy hour, unless like Alan Jackson and Jimmy Buffett, you just figure that it's always five o' clock somewhere.

But that's not the word Jesus uses. Here the crowd is mocked for not knowing how to interpret the Kairos. That's the right time, the urgent time, the time in which a decision, or the consequences of decisions, can no longer be avoided. It is not our time of predictable cycles in which we can feel safe. The Kairos is God's time of decision and judgment, and our necessary response. Jesus is trying to slap his hearers out of complacency. You better believe it's going to rain. The Romans aren't happy with you uppity Jews. A lot of your fellow Jews are so unhappy that they're just waiting for the right time to rise up in revolt. By the time the Romans are through with them and you, everybody is going to be most unhappy. You'd best be figuring out what God wants of you in this stormy time. You'd best be praying that God will lead you in his direction, not the Romans' and not the rebels'.

To which his listeners responded: "At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices." Ok Jesus, we get it that a storm is coming and we don't mean rain. And we've just heard how Roman soldiers slaughtered our people while they were at church, offering sacrifices in the Temple. When such abominations take place, is this God's time, the Kairos when God will blow away those who oppress us? Is this now the right time to end such senseless suffering as the tower at Siloam falling, killing 18 people who were just doing their jobs?

To which Jesus sighs and replies: quit looking around you for the signs of God's Kairos. Quit looking at clouds in the sky and news reports of atrocities and tragedies. Repent! That is, turn around. Turn away from the vain attempt to forecast God's actions. Turn away from searching the daily news for clues of an approaching apocalypse, so that you'll know when to get out of the way. Turn away from the vain attempt to gain some illusion of control over the storms that will blow you away when you least expect it. Or you will perish as they did; unprepared to be the signs of God's judgment and grace that they could have been even at the moment of their deaths.

Of course we chuckle at the cluelessness of those around Jesus. But the truth is that we have the same dilemma. We all must learn how to interpret the present time. We all must learn to distinguish between the chronos and the kairos of our lives. We all must learn to discern when we must turn away from the predictable and comfortable cycles of our chronological time, and embrace God's time, even when that time brings a storm with it. Some of the kairos times of our lives are very personal, like the physical death of a loved one when the Spirit of God finally receives the soul of that long suffering person with their last breath.

But as in today's Gospel, other times of Kairos are not personal. They are very public and very congregational. For Jesus's listeners, interpreting the Kairos of God was a matter of life and death for the whole congregation of Israel. Blessedly, I don't think that Christ Church is facing any life or death decisions. Our pews are far from empty. We have managed to increase our response to God's grace with an 8 percent increase in pledges. And we have at least an entire year's budget in reserve. We're doing fine. But if you've heard anything from today's Good News, I hope you've heard that to live in God's time, to live in Kairos, means much more than doing fine.

Times are tough on Sand Mountain. I don't think it takes any special wisdom to see that. It is a time of fear, and decline. What can Christ Church do to feed peoples' hopes rather than their fears? We have a community that cares for each other and accepts each other in our diversity of ages, economic status, religious and political opinions. To be an evangelist isn't to beat somebody on the head with the Good Book. It is to communicate the Good News of what Jesus Christ is doing here; in our beautiful worship and loving fellowship; in our inspired learning to be His disciples and our service to each other and our community. How can we all be better communicators of this Good News? In our one-on-one communication? On our website?

To live in God's time, to live in Kairos, is to not to blindly react to the tough times out of blind fear. To live in God's time, to live in Kairos, is not to seek our own protection before all else. To live in God's time, to live in Kairos, is to turn away from our fear of the future, our fear of the unknown, our fear of the new. For walking together, in God's good time, we shall never perish.