There's some church in New Jersey that pays its pastor to study popular culture. He, in turn, uses what he's learned to preach, relevant and interesting sermons.
It should be abundantly clear to you that no one pays me to do that. In fact, you should know that most of what I know about popular culture I've gotten from NPR or from one of our kids. That, in a large part, explains why my idea of popular music is all the stuff I heard in the 60s. It also helps explain why a song penned by Phil "Flip" Sloan and made popular by Barry McGuire came to my mind when I read today's newspaper and next Sunday's gospel lesson - Luke 21:5-19. Today's Times Herald Record (which we've been getting every day since we put up a camera to encourage an obviously literate thief to stop stealing the paper off the front stoop) had a story about how Newburgh's violent crime reached a 10-year high in 2012 (here's a
link to the story). After years of crackdowns on gangs, well-publicized trials, all sorts of hard work on the part of the local PD, and an awful lot of money, the spin is that
"Overall, major crime held steady" and that the City will hire three more cops.
A man I know responded to the story by saying the reason overall crime held steady was that half the City has been locked up. Although a bit too cynical for my tastes, his comment pointed to the truth of the matter - we're busy busting people and maybe even sometimes keeping people from committing crimes, but we've not addressed the reasons why our neighbors are killing, assaulting, or stealing from one another. We refuse to see that we cannot enjoy a safe and peacful life by keeping others in the margins, relegated to lives you and I would not want to live. We don't believe, we're on the eve of destruction.
Hey! That's the song -
Eve of Destruction. I finally found it on YouTube with a slideshow of photos of what's been going on in the world this year. It's a little dated but it still carries a powerful message about what we humans do to one another and how we refuse to accept responsibility for our own hands in things.
In fact, if we look around the world to see what's happening, it's easy to understand why folks who who link this passage with
Daniel 12 and conclude that were living in the last days. Although some point to all the signs that Jesus mentions in Lu
ke to make the case that the end will come any day, others say that the end may be coming but we're not that close. Among the latter are the good folks at the RaptureReady website who've developed a
"Rapture Index" which helps us get a sense of how ready we should be. The index hit an all time high of 189 in February but has slacked off to a mere 183 this month. I found that comforting until I read the footnotes that said we should fasten our seat belts if the index topped 160.
It's hard to predict things like the end. The Apostle Paul, for example, thought it would be in his lifetime and there was that preacher a couple of years ago who predicted two dates that didn't work. Luke, of course, had it easier. He wrote about Jesus' prediction of the Temple's destruction after it had already happened which, for me, is the best way to accurately predict the future - after the fact.
And, that brings me to the real gems in next week's reading - verses 14 and 15 which, in the NRSV read like this:
"So make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance; for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict." What I really like about it that it reminds us that while we're busy trying to keep a lid on crime and prevent ourselves - not necessarily others - from becoming victims or trying to figure out if and when the insanity will end, our real job is to open ourselves to God so that God can act through us. It reminds us of our call to connect with God in such a way that God can work in and through us no matter what's going in in our lives or in the world around us.
Learning to be God's instruments will not be the end. It will be the end of the beginning.
