Called to Citizenship

What follows is a piece I recently wrote for Voices for Change, a blog run by the advocacy ministries of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.  The blog is an absolutely amazing resource that lifts up the voices of Lutheran advocates around the country, so I highly encourage you to check out additional posts here.

In one of the most cherished verses of the Hebrew Bible, the prophet Micah exclaims “What does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (6:8). As Lutherans, we simply cannot help but respond to God’s saving love by doing as Micah encourages. We walk humbly with God through prayer and worship, act in kindness by supporting and welcoming our neighbors, and do justice by advocating for and accompanying those who have little voice in our communities and around the world. While it is not particularly controversial that we should do this, discerning how to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with God can often be difficult — especially in the aftermath of a long campaign season, which left many of us exhausted.

Looking at such a challenge through the lens of Martin Luther and Philip Melanchthon’s theology of vocation can greatly assist us (Melanchthon was a colleague of Luther’s and one of the first Protestant intellectual leaders). Both Luther and Melanchthon believed that all of us, not just pastors, are called to multiple vocations. In a time where the lives of monks and other clergy were deemed more holy than that of the common believer, the reformers argued that even the most mundane ways we serve others were equally important. As Luther states in “The Large Catechism,”

Is it not a tremendous honor to know this and to say, “If you do your daily household chores, that is better than the holiness and austere life of all the monks?”… How could you be more blessed or lead a holier life, as far as works are concerned? In God’s sight it is actually faith that make a person holy; it alone serves God, while our works serve people (LC IV.145-146).

We can live out a calling to serve through our chosen careers, and we can also serve through other vocations, like being a loving parent or child, a supportive friend, and even an active citizen.

Living under our contemporary American system of democracy, it’s easy to see our call to citizenship as fulfilled primarily by voting every year. Although voting is indeed a central aspect of active citizenship, our role as citizens didn’t stop last month. Staying informed, contacting our government officials, and encouraging others to do the same through mutual conversation, blog posts or letters to newspaper editors are other important ways to live out our calling. As an intern at the Lutheran Office for World Community at the United Nations, I can certainly say from experience that public officials uniquely value input from people of faith. They want to hear from us. The advocacy ministries of our church help coordinate these efforts, so when we speak out on an issue, we are doing so with a united and orchestrated voice.

Regardless of the specific actions we take, this vocational calling to active citizenship is best carried out when our advocacy efforts reflect both moral deliberation in our faith communities and service to our neighbors near and far. Service efforts often help unify our ELCA congregations, and when service is the basis of Lutheran advocacy, we speak to our public officials with a more cohesive, informed, and faithful voice, urging them to make decisions about laws and resolutions that deeply impact the lives of our neighbors and the vibrancy of God’s creation.

Dustin is currently a vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

Retelling of the Daughter of Jepthah @ the UN Church Center (video)

As part of my internship at the Lutheran Office for World Community at the United Nations, I'm priveleged to work in a diverse ecumenical environment on variety of important issues.  One of the issues I spend the most time on is gender equality, predominately through supporting the communications work of an organization called Ecumenical Women (EW).  As stated on their website, the work of EW is to:

As a coalition, we seek to give those traditionally excluded from political decision making bodies, opportunities to speak truth to power through partnerships with our communities and through bringing women from around the world to the United Nations. Our Ecumenical Women coalition advocates for gender justice at the United Nations, incorporating annual advocacy trainings for our constituencies and delegations, network building and policy recommendations which challenge structures of inequality. Members of Ecumenical Women advocate not only for a few improvements but for a fundamental system change in church and state to invest in and empower women worldwide.

EW primarily does this work through bringing delegates to the United Nations for formation and advocacy efforts during the annual Commision on the Status of Women (CSW).

During an expert consultation to prepare for this year's CSW, a member of the EW team, Rev. Kathleen Stone, wrote and directed a retelling of the Daughter of Jepthah story from Judges 10 - 11 that was performed in the Chapel of the Church Center for the United Nations on October 25th, 2012.  As a judge of Israel, Jepthah vows to make a sacrifice to God if he is victorious in battle against the Ammonites.  While the Ammonites are indeed defeated, Jepthah ends up sacrificing his daughter.  As the priority theme of this year's CSW57 is "elimination and prevention of all forms of violence against women and girls," this retelling of the Daughter of Jepthah story is meant to both give voice to those women and girls who have been victims of violence across the globe and to explore how the Scriptures and traditional definitions of faithfulness can be properly questioned.

You can check out a taping of the performance below:



Be sure to learn about Ecumenical Women and the Commision on the Status of Women more thoroughly, and I'd love to hear what you think about the performance.

God's peace,
Dustin

Dustin is currently a vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin really likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

A Season of Hope (video)

I preached this sermon last Sunday at Jazz Vespers on December 2nd, 2012, predominately on Hebrew Bible lectionary text for the day, Jeremiah 33: 14 - 16.  I got lost a bit at the end unfortunately, but other than that, I think it turned out okay.  If you want to check out more sermons from where I'm currently a vicar at Saint Peter's Church, check out our Vimeo page.  I'd love to hear what you think and thanks so much for watching!


December 2, 2012 (Vicar Dustin Wright) from Saint Peter's Church on Vimeo.
 

Dustin is currently a vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

WCC Ecumenical Prayer Cycle

You may have noticed about a month or so ago when I added a new widget to the right side panel of blog's main page entitled "WCC Ecumenical Prayer Cycle" (it's right below the live traffic feed).  Although I knew a little bit about the work of the World Council of Churches before begining my internship year here in New York, I had never heard of the prayer cycle before.  That said, it's something that's used to great effect at Saint Peter's Church where I currently serve as Vicar, so I figured it would be worth sharing a bit about the initiative here.

As described on the WCC's page for initiative, the prayer cycle "enables us to journey in prayer through every region of the world and through every week of the year affirming our solidarity with Christians all over the world, brothers and sisters living in diverse situations, experiencing diverse problems and sharing diverse gifts."  Each week a different region of the world is listed on the site, along with different prayer resources based on whatever issues are facing the region.

While the prayer cycle countries have been mentioned in the intercessions and in the weekly bulletin insert at Saint Peter's for a long time, this past Sunday we began including a few sentences about the countries to coincide with the start of Advent and a new liturgical year.  We figured it would both provide folks in the assembly with a great education opportunity and a bit more context for their intercessions.  Here's what was included in the bulletin this week as an example:

Prayers for Liberia and Sierra Leone are particularly important this week as both countries continue to recover after years of conflict. The Sierra Leone Civil War lasted from 1991 to 2002, leaving over 50,000 people dead and 2,000,000 displaced. In Liberia, a 1980 military coup was followed by over two decades of frequent fighting which only ended with the 2005 election of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf as president of Liberia, the first female president in Africa. Sirleaf was awarded the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize along with a Lutheran, Leymah Gbowee, for their non-violent struggle for women's safety and full participation in ending the confict.

Check back for weekly posts of paragraphs similar to the one above as I continue writing them for this new project.  I'd highly encourage you also use the WCC's Ecumenical Prayer Cycle in your own congregations- it's a quick, easy, yet immensely rich way to join in ecumenical solidarity with our international neighbors and raise awareness about issues confronting far away places around the globe.
God's peace,
Dustin

Dustin is currently a vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

The Kindom of God is In-Breaking (video)

I didn't actually realize I was being recorded when preaching this sermon two Sundays back on November 11th, 2012, but I don't think it turned out too bad.  If you want to see videos of other sermons from Saint Peter's Church where I am currently serving as a vicar, check out the church's Vimeo page here.

 

November 11, 2012 (Vicar Dustin Wright) from Saint Peter's Church on Vimeo.

Dustin is currently a vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

Preaching During the "Holiday Season," Advent 1C

What follows is a draft of the sermon I plan on preaching this Sunday at Saint Peter's Jazz Vespers Service.  It's on the week's lectionary text from the Hebrew Bible, Jeremiah 33: 14 - 16.  Would love to hear some input from folks... I'm especially concerned that the personal narrative is too long.

Happy New Year! That’s right folks, happy New Year! Some of you may think I either had a bit too much wine at brunch earlier today or perhaps that I simply looked at my calendar wrong, but at least from the perspective of the Western churches, that’s actually what today is… the beginning of a new liturgical year. Outside of switching to a different set of readings that focus more on the Gospel of Saint Luke instead of the Gospel of Saint Mark, as Saint Peter’s and many other churches were doing over the last year, today also marks the beginning of a new church season… the season of Advent. Now, outside of knowing about the wreath with four candles and maybe being familiar with one of those Advent calendars that have a little door for children to open up each day before Christmas, it’s sometimes hard to remember what this season is all about… I mean just a quick look outside on Lexington Avenue makes it seem like Christmas time is already here. All of the stores are decked out in brilliant light displays, wreaths, garlands… the whole works. I was walking by one store a few days back, on 5th Avenue I think, which was completely wrapped up in a giant lighted red bow. It being my first year in New York, I attended the Rockefeller Center tree lighting event this past week and wow, let me say that even from a block or two back, Mariah Carey’s performance was nothing short of stunning.

Ya know, a lot of folks today and throughout Advent will preach against the ills of materialism, the gluttony of American capitalism that rears its ugly head each December… that sort of thing, and while they’re right of course, I don’t think they’re really getting to the heart of the matter. While all the lights, music and celebration may urge us to buy more stuff, they also convey an even deeper and often more difficult message to hear… you have to be happy! This is the time to be happy! And whether it’s by buying Little Johnny an unnecessary iPhone, by getting great seats at the Rockettes or by working all month to create the perfect Norman Rockwell scene on Christmas morn for your family, you got to be happy! And if you’re not happy, then you better figure out how to make yourself and those around you feel that way. Folks, it’s exactly because of that constant pressure to be happy during the holiday season that the central message of Advent is so important. But what, exactly, is that central message?

I’ll try to explain through a story of one of my own Advent experiences, one that coincidently culminates on a regular New Years. Back in Advent of 2008, I certainly wasn’t happy. A recent college graduate in the midst of the worst months of the Great Recession, I was about to enter into a job I knew I’d hate. I was still mourning the loss of a significant relationship and the loss of that youthful sense of invincibility following a close brush with thyroid cancer I had the summer before. Worst of all though, my mother had cancer… late stage III lung cancer. After visiting my family for a very somber Thanksgiving that year, it seemed obvious that Mom wasn’t getting better, but I tried to convince myself otherwise while busying myself with all the typical holiday activties. Amidst the festive decorations and songs of the season, many of the people around me, while well intentioned, also kept up the pressure on me to be happy. Some folks suggested that I celebrate her life in the little time we had left together; others tried taking me out or inviting me to parties. Of course, in the misery of my situation, there wasn’t chance I’d feel “the joy of the season,” which in turn made me feel guilty for not being happy, which of course only made matters worse.

Four weeks of Advent came and went that year… four weeks of the anxiety, fear and terror of seeing my mother bravely battle metastasized, late stage cancer… four weeks of feeling guilty that no matter what I or others might do, there was no use in trying to cheer me up in a season that society was telling me was supposed to be full of joy. Eventually Christmas Day came and we all gathered at grandma’s house for the normal meal and exchanged a few gifts, but it was all just sort of going through the motions. Mom was there but seemed distant the whole time, and when I kissed her goodbye and drove back to my apartment in New Hampshire that night, it was the last time I saw her alive. She died just a few evenings later, on December 30th. Upon hearing the news, I rushed back to Connecticut once again, and found myself a night later, on New Year’s Eve, alone in my family’s house after spending a whole day making funeral arrangements. Instead of celebrating the New Year with friends as I love to do, I felt alone, completely alone, and couldn’t have been deeper in a dark, dire pit of despair. At some point though that night I got a phone call from a close friend, who ended up telling me exactly what I needed to hear… that I didn’t have to do anything, that it was okay to feel whatever it was that I was feeling and that he was coming down early the next morning to help in any way he could. The conversation with my friend that night didn’t make everything better, it didn’t cheer me up really, but it did do something that was much more important… it gave me hope. And hope, my sisters and brothers, is what the season of Advent is all about. Not the hope necessarily that everything wrong with the world will soon get better, but the hope that no matter what, that through Christ you are not alone, that through Christ you are forgiven and that through Christ you are loved.

Hope, a season of hope friends… that’s what Advent is all about, and it’s what today’s text from Jeremiah is all about too. Two Sundays back I spoke about the destruction of the 2nd Jewish Temple in the Gospel of Mark. Today’s text relates to round one of that story, to what was perhaps the even more horrific destruction of the 1st Temple built by King Solomon. The prophet Jeremiah lived in final days of the Davidic Dynasty, preaching against the popular belief that Jerusalem would never be destroyed by a foreign power. Jeremiah was in fact so critical of Judah that he was greatly persecuted by the priestly elite of his time, who cast him into a well thinking he would starve to death. Despite these persecutions however, once the destruction that Jeremiah predicts comes to pass, once King Nebuchadnezzar and his troops destroys Jerusalem, carting off much of its population to Babylon, Jeremiah makes an even more startling prediction. Speaking to an exiled Jewish community, to what is truly a crucified people, Jeremiah makes the bold assertion that God’s work is not yet done, that the days are surely coming when God will fulfill Her promise to the people of Judah and Israel, that the people will be saved and live in safety… in short, Jeremiah proclaims a message of hope.

Similarly my sisters and brothers, in this time, in this city, amidst all the hustle and bustle of the season, amidst all the lights and songs and holiday specials on TV, whether you’ve had an absolutely amazing year and are on top of the world or whether you’re in the deepest depths of lonely despair as I was back in 2008, know that it’s okay to feel whatever you need to feel. And as the days continue to get shorter, as darkness continues to fall, know that through Christ, a light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot, and will not, ever, ever overcome it. That through Christ, God is still at work in our lives during this Advent season and that no matter what happens, through Christ we are not alone, we are forgiven and we are loved. In short, through Christ, we have hope.

Dustin is currently a vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

NH 4000 Footer Essay (Pt. 3): A Northern Presidential Traverse

What follows is part three of the five-part essay I'm writing for the NH 4000 Footer Club.  You can find part one here and part two here.

Sitting in a late-night Starbucks in Queens, my northern presidential traverse in New Hampshire's White Mountains couldn't seem further away... with required-Santa-headgear-tasseled baristas,  purposefully tacky holiday decorations and sombre Elliot Smith tunes pumping over the stereo speakers, the coffeehouse seems wrapped in a warm snuggie of self-aware commercial melancholy.  It's entirely self-reflection inducing and largely familiar in a city that seems dead-set on exuding just that feeling in anticipation of a long, cold winter.

On the presidential range in the summer of '07.

If one hones in though on that notion of reflection in the face of cresting anticipation, my tramp over Mount Madison, Mount Adams, Mount Jefferson and Old Man Washington two summers ago was quite similar.  The seven years between my first summit of NH 4000 footer on Mount Pierce and my day on hadn't treated me that well.  Then a starry eyed high school grad burning with optimism, I had grown into a weathered hospital chaplain.. while my college years at the George Washington University in Washington, DC were largely good ones, near the end of my time there the clouds had certainly rolled in.  My mother and I had been diagnosed with cancer roughly at the same time during the spring of 2008, and while I would eventually receive news of my misdiagnosis with relief, my mom wouldn't fair so lucky... she ended up passing away soon after Christmas that year.  On top of these problems, facing a job search during the worst days of the Great Recession proved difficult, although I eventually was able to a land a less than enjoyably but fairly well paying financial position.  Eventually I figured out I'd like to attend seminary and become a Lutheran pastor, thus beginning what I'd consider a recovery period after the troubles of '08.

Zealand Trail, 2012.

As my brother and I pulled into Dolly Copp campground to prep for our hike two summers ago, it felt like that "recovery period" was ending... I had slowly regained my confidence in the intervening three years and began coming to terms with the anger I felt at the Divine for everything inflicted on my family and I in 2008.  My renewed sense of confidence had emerged in a quieter, calmer manner than that of the innocently joyful days of my youth, but that didn't mean I had lost my playful sense of competition at all... which meant that although my brother Darren had never hiked in the White Mountains before, I was taking him on an introductory march over one of toughest trails in the state.  Darren was probably in better shape than I was, so I knew he could handle it, but I also knew he had no idea what he was about to get into.  Since he seemed to always think himself tougher than me, I figured it was about time to put his notion to the test.  On the other hand, I felt deeply satisfied to be spending a long day hiking with my brother.  We had only become close after my mother's death, so I considered the trip a celebration of our new found closeness... the dynamics of brotherly relationships are interesting, right?

Near the summit of Mount Guyot, 2012.

Starting out around 6:30am, we made okay time up three and a half miles of the Daniel Webster Scout Trail, although Darren was lagging a bit more than I expected.  Once we got out of the trees near Osgood Junction though, he quickly picked up his pace.  Although we had hiked fairly quietly (the stoic awkwardness of two brothers who have not been close still lingered between us), once we attained the ridge, that quickly changed... It was a bright sunny day, and having never been above treeline before, Darren absolutely loved it, yelling out that he couldn't wait to tell his buddies back home in CT about the trip.  The bummer though was that he thought this was near the peak of our adventure, so when I pointed across the Great Gulf at Washington and told him we were following the whole horseshoe-shaped ridge-line all the way around to its summit, Darren wasn't too happy we had that long to go.

After quickly bagging Mount Madison, we headed down into the col to rest awhile and had a late breakfast at Madison Hut.  As familial awkwardness retook us, there was some brief talk about the views, a conversation to which my vain attempt at sounding like an expert about the AMC hut system made a grand addition.  Heading out of the col we passed by Star Lake and joined a large number of hikers heading up to bag Mount Adams.  With Darren once again lagging near the summit, I finally came out and asked him why he was going so slow... that's when an amazing blessing came in the form of a heavy gallon jug of iced-tea Darren thought would be a good idea to bring along on the hike.  As he pulled the jug out of his day-pack and dumped the full gallon out on the side of the trail, swearing his head off all the while, I immediately started chiding him about his mistake, as any good older brother would.  He remained pretty upset with me for the next hour or so, but event completely broke the ice between us- we realized it was okay to be vulnerable around each other for the first time in years, and our relationship has never again descended into silence.

Mount Washington, 2006.

We proceeded to the top of Mount Adams quite quickly, and after descending into Edmunds Col for a short rest, we hastened to summit Mount Jefferson... the ice-tea had definitely slowed us down, and I was increasingly worried we might not make it out to Pinkham Notch before sunset.  I don't remember much about the mad-dash across the final 2.5 miles of ridge line from Jefferson, past Mount Clay and up to the summit of Washington, outside of all the brand new curse-words I learned as Darren yelled most of the way.  We eventually made it to the final summit, and astounding all the motorists who had came up on the auto-road, triumphantly pointed across the Great Gulf toward Osgood Junction to indicate where we started.  Luckily I picked up a flashlight in the summit gift shop, as making our way down Lionhead's as it got dark without one (Tucks was closed for restoration work) would have been less than ideal.  With the awkward gulf between us now gone, on the ride home we were able to reflect about our mom, our emotional recovery process after her passing, and how much we greatly looked toward the future.

God's peace,
Dustin

Dustin is currently a vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

Preaching on the End of the World, Pentecost 33B

What follows is a very rough draft of a sermon I'll be preaching at Saint Peter's Jazz Vespers service this Sunday.  It's on the lectionary text for the week, Mark 13: 1 - 8.  Would love to hear some input.

I can specifically remember being a vulnerable, nervous little ten-year-old sitting at my grandma’s house and watching TV after dinner, when a program came on about the predictions of Nostradamus, the upcoming Y2K bug, and thus, the apocalypse described in the Bible… the end of the world. Scared nearly half to death, I quickly ran into the kitchen and offered to do the dishes for my grandmother… since it was 1996 and I only had four years to earn God’s favor and be chosen as one of His elect before the start of the new millennium, I figured I should get to work doing nice things for everyone right away. Luckily, my grandmother could sense I had something more than just being helpful on my mind, so instead of handing me the sponge and dish soap, she stooped down, wrapped me up in a big hug, and asked me what was wrong. Although she had never taken a Bible course on Revelation, Daniel, or the ‘little apocalypse’ that today’s text from Saint Mark is a part of, after finding out what I had been watching, she aptly told me not to worry, and that God, as she knew through Jesus, was a loving God.

While my grandma definitely helped me feel a bit better that night, for the next four years I was never entirely able to shake my fear of God’s impending judgment as the millennium turned. I greatly worried that every subsequent military confrontation… think the Kosovo War and expanding the no-fly zone over Iraq… would spiral into nuclear war. I read Biblical texts like the ‘little apocalypse’ from Mark 13 over and over again. I learned that Jesus gives similar discourses about the destruction of the temple, the coming of false messiahs and nations rising against nations in Saint Matthew and Saint Luke as well and eventually came to think that even if Jesus wasn’t talking about the new millennium in these texts, it sure sounded like God was a vengeful God, and thus that I needed to appease him with good behavior. The dawning of the new millennium came and went of course, and after four years I was able to breathe a sigh of relief.

With this background in mind you can imagine both my disappointment and laughter when while watching TV at a friend’s house this past summer, I swear the History Channel had cut out the same old footage of a “Bible expert” talking about the apocalypse that I saw back in 1996 and reused it in a similar program about predictions by Nostradamus, a Mayan calendar and other sources that the world would end not in 2000, but 2012. Of course, a fascination with the end times, as well as the prediction that they’re close at hand, is as old as humanity. We can’t help but question the eventual fate of our loved ones and ourselves… and much of the time we approach these questions with fear. We fear whether we’ll end up on God’s good side, whether heaven exists at all and we especially wonder what the “birth pangs” Jesus mentions in today’s text might look like. Throughout our Christian history, there have of course been many answers to these questions, but they’ve tended to fall into one of three camps.

There’s one view primarily based on what I’d consider an overly simplistic reading of texts like today’s “little apocalypse.” It argues a final day of judgment will be preceded by the removal or rapture of God’s few chosen people from Earth, a time of great chaos and suffering, the reign of an anti-Christ and maybe even an additional thousand year reign of Christ. All or some of these things may happen in a variety of different orders, depending on whom you talk to, and needless to say, this view has some problems. It leads us to believe that since God is just going to destroy the world anyway, we might as well take from and abuse her as much as we want, a belief that leads to things like climate change and thus perhaps the destruction wrought on our region by Hurricane Sandy. It also leads us to wonder whether we’re one of God’s chosen or not and thus we either end up like me as a ten year old, terrified and living in fear of God’s wrath, or instead believing we are the chosen ones and folks different from us are not.

Since it’s more common for fundamentalist groups or silly books like the Left Behind series to put forward this first view about the end of the world, more progressive Christians like me and I imagine many of the people here tonight find it easy to push aside such views aside as unenlightened or pessimistic. A second view however is something folks like us often fall victim to… it essential argues that through our human action we can build the kingdom of God on Earth. Once we collectively earn it and all learn how to live with Christian goodwill for each other, Jesus will come down from heaven, hang out with us, and we’ll all have a big party. It sounds really nice at first, but this view has problems as well. Over a hundred years ago as Christians optimistically joined together to spread the gospel around the globe through missionary activities, they often ended up supporting oppressive colonial empires and destroying indigenous cultures. The Second World War especially put a damper on this idea of a Christian utopia, but nowadays… and I’m often guilty of this… it’s easy to think that if we just focus a little more on social justice as the Church, everything will be fine and all the ills of society will be solved. Although we certainly are called to help our neighbor, critique systems of oppression and improve the lives of everyone, we can’t do it all on our own… You see, when you boil down the first and second views about the end of the world I’ve discussed so far this evening, they both share an even deeper problem… they’re primarily about what we’re doing, rather than the absolutely amazing things God is doing and will do through Christ.

A third view about the end of the world, and I believe the right one, doesn’t fall into that trap. It’s the view held by Augustine, a view held by many of the sixteenth century church reformers and certainly the view held by my grandmother, who told me as terrified boy clinging to her for comfort, exactly what I needed to hear… that God is a loving god. I believe this view of the end times is what Saint Mark puts forward as well. It’s a view that argues while we might not have the details, all that we truly need to know has already been revealed… that through Christ’s death and resurrection, the kindom of God is in-breaking.

Mark, as the earliest of the canonical gospels, was written for a community in the midst of great turmoil. Not just the temple, but in fact much of Jerusalem had recently been leveled by Roman legions. Civil war had broken out during the Year of Four Emperors. People were living under a highly oppressive patriarchal system. No wonder they thought the end of the world was near. But into this community would come the story of the Son of God who not only healed the sick, fed the hungry and cast out demons, but even more amazingly rose again after being crucified by that very same system of violent oppression. At the moment Christ breathes his last, the temple curtain that secludes the dwelling place of God is torn in two… God no longer is in just that space, but is with all of us… the kindom of God, while not fully realized, is in breaking. And through Christ, we already know what that kindom is like, and what it will be. In Christ’s resurrection we know that the forces of sin, of violence and death can never win, that God will be there again and again and again, to comfort us, to wrap us in a warm embrace, and let us know that we are loved.

God's peace,
Dustin

Dustin is currently a vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.