Introduction
Living in the midst of a pandemic has left us all with a disturbing sense of unreality, where everything that was once familiar and comforting has morphed into a potential death threat. This reality makes it interesting to learn that the way some are choosing to cope with this trying and exhausting experience is to delve into the world of dystopian fiction.
Writing for The Guardian, Caroline Zielinski speaks of this saying, “My usual diet of light, escapist literature has been replaced by books featuring bleak futures, where people are forced to grapple with new devastating realities wrought by climate change, bio-warfare, pandemics, totalitarian governments or technology—choose your own misadventures. Other kinds of novels now seem irrelevant: why would I read about a bunch of friends who go on a holiday together when no one knows when they will next be allowed to leave their home, let alone the country?”
Dystopian fiction, and the way it aims to examine society’s problems and inequalities through a catastrophic lens, is eerily fascinating—you only need look at the popularity of books and movies—Orwell’s 1984, Brandbury’s Fahrenheit 451, Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Huxley’s Brave New World. Some more contemporary ones would include Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One and Susan Collins’ The Hunger Games. Dystopian stories are cautionary tales that force us to re-examine and ponder our own actions and place in the wider world.
Zielinski continues her explanation of the dystopian appeal saying, “I reach for them because I want to see how characters behave when their freedoms are taken away from them. I want to know what choices they make when they lose their jobs, their livelihoods, their families and friends. Dystopian fiction helps us think through what reality could be like, and shows us how people might cope with adversity. It is an escape from reality and a lesson-learning exercise that helps us ask the question: what kind of society do we want to emerge from this, and what individual and collective action must be taken in order to achieve that?”
Dystopian novels may be huge, but they certainly aren’t the first to captivate audiences through a story of apocalyptic turmoil. And our text for today is one of them where Jesus is warning his disciples of a time to come when the world would “all be thrown down. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes… famines and plagues; and…portents….” These were terrifying words to hear. Add to that, talk of the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem was earth-shattering for the first-century Jew, so much so that it would have seemed as though the end was near. But Jesus wasn’t just talking about what was to come in 70 A.D. He was also thinking about the era we find ourselves in today.
An age where, even though we belong to God, we find ourselves in a world that is groaning amidst a real life dystopian novel when people are quick to say, in some manner of speaking, “This is the end!” (A contentious and divisive presidential election has only added to these thoughts.) So the question becomes… How do we keep living when the world is being thrown down? The short answer, from Jesus himself, is through our endurance.
Move 1
Now the short answer in the beginning works, right? Lock-down for a few weeks…Home school for a month…no problem. But after eight months…endurance wanes.
Fortunately Jesus understood this kind of dilemma and so he does provide a longer answer. No sooner does Jesus give a dire, but dead-on, description of life in our world, than he issues a clear and enduring approach for how his followers should live in said world.
And, would you know, Jesus’ instructions say nothing about living in fear or building a bunker in the backyard. Jesus’ instructions say nothing about looking out for only yourself. Instead, Jesus’ approach is about dealing with your heart and mind, it’s about faith and hope. Jesus outlines in broad strokes what will happen, and then tells his people to live with readiness and awareness.
And while many might believe themselves to be ready and aware, the reality is the most common human coping mechanism is denial. It’s common to scan news headlines and think, “Nope—that’s not going to happen here.” Or say, Nope—that’s not true. But denial is not what Jesus wants from us. Followers of Jesus are to realize that tragedy, oppression, persecution can happen anywhere. We cannot deny that a global pandemic is happening. We cannot deny that a contentious and divisive presidential election has happened.
What Jesus wants from us then is to see the truth and reality and respond not with denial, but with a faithful focus and an enduring soul. Jesus wants us to realize this world is groaning under the weight of sin and despair, and those groans will only get louder until Christ returns to quiet them. But until that time, Jesus says, “So make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance” when trouble arrives. Meaning, he wants us to live with our eyes wide open, but our hearts at peace, and our minds confident, that God will give us the endurance we need to tackle the troubles of a deteriorating world that is being thrown down.
Move 2
Dystopian novels and movies, and Jesus, remind us that adversity comes to us all. And while it comes to us all, adversity often creates a platform upon which some will emerge and stand upon, as a force for good. This is what followers of Jesus Christ must be. Jesus challenges us to remember that our struggles in this broken world are platforms to stand upon as a force for good. He tells us, “This will give you an opportunity to testify” or, as another version of the text reads, “an opportunity to bear witness.”
We can live in a world that’s on fire when we realize that each time we are singed, or even burned we have an opportunity to show those without hope that, despite the circumstances, there is always a reason to hope—because in the end, no matter what happens, God wins. The people of God win.
We must remember this because there is a mission and an opportunity within every fire we experience in this world— and within every fire there is an audience too. An audience who is watching—be it a child, an unbelieving friend, a coworker, a stranger, or who knows who— all watching, and potentially benefiting from, the faith-filled, God-glorifying way in which we fight to endure and survive a world that is being thrown down.
Jesus urges his audience then, and his audience today, to live with a constant focus on how this story will end. He calls us to live with our hearts and minds anchored in the fact that in the end, no matter what happens, everything will be okay. Sure, the storyline will get scary, but when the last page turns, when the credits roll, Jesus promises that, “not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your souls.”
He is saying; in the end…God wins. The people of God win.
Move 3
Living in the midst of a pandemic has left us all with a disturbing sense of unreality. A contentious and divisive presidential election has only added to the upheaval we find ourselves within. We cannot, nor should we even try, to deny these truths. But neither can we vilify and demonize those whose perspectives on these realities differ from our own—for this is not how we endure. It’s how we perpetuate the destruction.
Instead, a far more constructive method would be to see the reality as Jesus calls us to, and take a page out of the dystopian fiction play book and ask ourselves, what kind of society do we want to emerge from this, and what individual and collective action must be taken in order to achieve such?
Ask this question, and answer it as a follower of Christ who abides by Jesus’ command to love God and neighbor, and we discover, clearly, how we persevere, how we overcome, how we endure.
Conclusion
We are tired of this pandemic. We are tired of the divisive and hypocritical politics on both sides of the isle. We are exhausted and broken by the tribalization and anger that characterizes our culture today. We are all tired and exhausted and we don’t know how to escape.
But Jesus does.
He shows us again and again how to be counter cultural—which is what an exhausted culture needs—an alternative to itself, not an echo of itself. Author and Pastor Cary Nieuwhof said this week, “A culture—tired of hate and division, yet caught in its grip— will only be released from it if there’s a clear alternative, and that clear alternative can be, and must always be, the church, with a message of hope-filled endurance.”
Authentic, grace-filled, hope-bearing, truthful, enduring people are what the world needs because hope counters exhaustion better than denial counters exhaustion—hope counters hate better than hate counters hate.
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So let us find the strength to keep going in spite of the problems and catastrophes and pandemic and divisiveness, by standing firm in the reality that we are all God’s children, we are all in God’s hands, and God is in control.
Let us hope in Christ—the one in the world who understands the world being thrown down, yet who transcends the world
Let us love as Christ loves us, for that is how we, and the world, endure and gain our souls. Amen.
Pastoral Prayer, November 8, 2020
God of all, we come to you today a collection of individuals who have been brought together in the body of Christ through faith, hope, and love.
But we come to you also as those who are tired, despondent, and weighed down with the burdens of a world caught in the grappling of devastating realities. The world is not how you would have it be, with a global pandemic taking its toll on all of us in its own way; along with division unlike anything we’ve experienced.
It all leaves us asking the question of the Psalmist… “How long O Lord? How long?”
We don’t know how long, but help us know again how you are always there to give us the endurance, strength, and opportunity we need to persevere through the fear, hate, and hopelessness.
Grant us this blessing again, blessing us to keep pressing forward because we are assured that these days are not the end of days, but rather these days are opportunities to give to the world a clear alternative to that which is so prevalent—an alternative that includes most especially hope and love.
This is especially an immense need today, O God, as we in this country are coming through a contentious election season that has been as divisive as any we have known.
As a result, some feel scared and lost; some feel more free and hopeful than ever; some feel unheard and unwanted, some feel angry.
Help us, we pray, to trust that no feeling is final, and only you will have the full and final word.
We pray for those who voted for President Trump… for those who voted for President-Elect Biden …for those who feel excluded by politics… that all will see a vision for the future that is set by you, and you alone.
We pray that whether or not our candidate of choice is in the White House we will still be united as citizens who are committed to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Help us then, to listen to each other, and hear any underlying fear that needs your love.
Help us to live into our best selves, even as others try to bring out our most fear-driven traits.
Keep us respectful, civil, kind, and loving, even to those with whom we disagree.
Keep us hopeful and loving with a commitment to always be the body of Christ that embraces all your children.
And may your way sustain us always in working for your will to be done on earth, as it is in heaven.
We pray that your ways, and your will, will be done…on earth, as it is in heaven.
Hear now we ask the prayers that come from our very souls, offered in this time of Holy Silence.
All this we pray in the name of Christ Jesus, who taught us to pray saying, “Our…”