Scripture Reading: Luke 12: 49-56
Prayer:
Sovereign Lord
Be with us we pray
Send your Holy Spirit down upon us
Our Teacher of your knowledge
Give us eyes to see,
Ears to hear
And an understanding of the signs of the time we are in
And we pray this in the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior
Amen
Sermon:
In this morning’s reading from Luke… Jesus is talking to the disciples in verse 49-53…telling them that He is going to usher in a new age…that this will be an age…a season…where there will be division of people. He came to transform a sinful world…this kind of transformation does not come easily. Jesus came to establish the Kingdom of God.
In verse 54…Jesus turns His attention to the multitudes. Jesus puts them on the spot…they can tell the weather by the signs that they see but they don’t realize…they can’t or refuse to see…to read…the “signs” of the present times…Kairos…they are living in. They can read weather signs that are key to physical survival (they get the weather right even without having the Weather Channel) but…they have not learned to read signs of the present time that are key to their spiritual survival.
So my question is…why did Jesus call them “hypocrites?” Well…while they were wasting their time on “cloud watching”…the kingdom of God was awakening…unfolding…right before their eyes and they don’t see it. Jesus is standing among them with signs that He is the Messiah and the beginning of a new age and they refuse to believe! Jesus gave signs in the fulfillment of scripture and in the miracles He performed. How could they not come the conclusion that Jesus was the Messiah…mountains of evidence had piled up and all the evidence conformed perfectly to the predictions of the prophets? I think they could have really used a CSI team. Now they really know how to follow the evidence and come to the right conclusion!
Today…we are not as much an agricultural people and no longer know how to read weather signs. We get our weather from the Weather Channel. We are more concerned with political and economic signs. We are more concerned with what Congress will do and how will it effect us. We are more concerned with the new road and how it will effect us. We are more concerned with Stock Market signs and if they will go up or down and how it will affect our investments. We are much like the people whom Jesus is speaking to. They too were interested in the signs that would influence their economic future.
Verses 54-56 of this morning’s scripture reminds me of a verse from an old Chicago song. It states, “Does anyone really know what time it is? Does anyone really care?” How do we see the signs of our time? What are we doing as Christians…as a church…to help God’s “kingdom come” here in our Kairos? Are we more in-tune to the “weather” signs than we are to the “spiritual” signs of our times?
This way of thinking also makes us much like the people to whom Jesus was speaking in that, we are focused on the political and economic signs and care little about the spiritual issues of today.
My second semester at Springfield College…I took part in a class called Liberation Theology. We went on a trip to Mexico to work with the indigenous people there. This is where I learned about Kairos Time. It is the present time. It is the time to act. The people that we worked with know about Kairos time. They take action against injustice. They deem this their Kairos time. Their lives are in danger because of what they stand up for but they realize that this is the time…God’s time…to right the wrongs in their lives. They step out in faith knowing the victory belongs to the Lord. Kairos time is not always popular or convenient.
I read a story about a man named William Wilburforce. He was a man who stood in the gap. In the time of slavery he believed that slavery was a great evil…and he stood up against British Parliament to say so. He felt God-called to oppose slavery. Now you have to remember…at that time…slavery flourished. Many people…including many Christians…embraced slavery. They couldn’t imagine life without slaves and felt they would not survive without it. They even devised justifications for slavery…some that were even derived from the bible. They even went as far as denying the humanity of dark-skinned people.
Wilberforce’s efforts divided “divided father against son and son against father”. But Wilburforce was victorious in the end. Three-day’s before his death…Parliament passed a law abolishing slavery for British citizens. This encouraged people who were against slavery in the United States. The United States went through the Civil War over this before they could put aside the “unnecessary evil” but it was abolished in the United States as well. This was Wilberforce’s Kairos time…his time to act…the time was now for him.
Luke’s scripture is calling us to do something. It’s a sign. So how do we know if it is our Kairos time? Well…we can start by looking at the world around us. We see earthquakes and tsunamis…there is pollution and global warming…there is extinction of animals and cultures…there are wars and famine…there is disease and corruption all around us. All you have to do is tune into the news and see it.
We see the entertainment industry promoting sex and violence and then we protest efforts to curb its freedom even though it corrupts our children. We see people dying from starvation on the TV and go to our dinner tables of abundance and don’t even think about how we can help. We hear stories about Christians being persecuted around the world and forget they are our brothers and sisters. We walk by the person on the street or even our neighbor looking for help and don’t even bother to share the Good News with them or a kind gesture. God calls us to step out in faith and help those around us. We are to be in the world trying to make a change…not of the world and conforming to it.
So…what are we to do in our Kairos time? How should we act? How can we make a difference? Well…one way is to “pray on out feet.” We need to pray for those who are in need in the world. Prayer is always a good place to start but we need to also get out and put feet to our Outreach Ministries outside the walls of our churches. We need to go out and make disciples of all nations. We need to give hope to the last, the least and the lost. We need to be the bearers of “Light” to a world filled with darkness. With out having laborers in the vineyard, who will be there for the harvest? A deeply rooted commitment to people is far more important than the concept of what they are going through. We need to be aware of what is going on in faraway places as well as here at home. We need to realize that people are being violated and destroyed. We must take a stand and act.
We as Christians need to stand up for what is morally and ethically right. Yes…there will be division…even within our own church…but that fact doesn’t let us off the hook and allow us to be complacent. We are to stand in the gap and fight for what is right.
Our one true God is a God of the poor, deprived, and the forgotten. When He sent His son to be with us, He didn’t send Him to be with the Pharisees and the Sadducees. When Jesus came He spent His time with the outcasts, the tax collectors, and the sinners. He gave them hope and a purpose in life. He told them of the Good News of the Gospel. If we are to be His disciples, we too must go to the lost, broken, oppressed and marginalized. Jesus empowered people by giving them the Good News; we in turn must do the same.
To know God is to do justice. Faith without action is dead. You cannot have true faith and just sit there and watch while His children are being crushed and destroyed. You cannot just sit idly by while your brothers and sisters are being tyrannized by not only their society but also by our own. We need to think about how Christ would have us act. How Christ would want us to react to the injustice not only in our own community but also in the larger community of the world.
We, as a church, need to “step out of the boat” and start being concerned with the community outside of our church walls. What better way to bring the Good News to the lost than to be a witness to them within their own “comfort zone”? We are taught in Isaiah 1:17 that we need to “learn to do good, seek justice, defend the orphan, and plead for the widow.” By empowering those around us to make a change they can in turn change and redirect their future. We must remember that it is not power that is evil; it is what we do with power that defines it evil or good.
Society teaches us to accept the situation we are in. We are not to make waves. Some churches teach us that it is God’s design for your life. Keep enduring your situation and you will be rewarded in heaven. Praise God that this way of thinking are gradually beginning to be fought against. We can all strive to live life abundantly as God has promised.
Do you feel disrupted and confronted within your Spirit? Our Spirit knows it’s Kairos time! It’s time to act and not look away! It’s time to step out of our comfort zone and reach out to those around us! It is time we realize the God’s time is not our own and it is now God’s time and time to act for God’s purpose.
It’s Kairos time. It is time we take a stand for Gods creation. It's time to right the wrongs that our sinful nature has created. It’s time to step out of the boat and be the disciples that God has commissioned us to be. It’s time to be our brothers, and sisters, keeper. We need to proclaim…like Isaiah…the Spirit of the Lord God is upon us, because the Lord has anointed us; He has sent us to bring Good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners.
How do we interpret our present time? What are we focusing our attention on? Among the many bushes growing on the mountainside of life…do you see the one that burns without being consumed…or do we miss it among the many?
I would like to leave you with a quote from Walter Rauschenbusch’s book Christianity and the Social Crisis…
The Church must either condemn the world and seek to change it
Or tolerate if and conform to it
In the Latter case it surrenders its holiness and it’s mission
May we ever be in the world and not of it.
AMEN
by Pastor Ruth
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