Sermon: Can bits and pieces a kingdom make?
Interesting readings for an Anniversary Sunday! Both of them featuring the temple of God in ruins!
In the time of Isaiah 65, the people of Israel -- back home after generations of exile, are wondering what to do with the rubble and ruin they have come back to. Isaiah speaks words of hope to them -- telling God will create great (and new!) things of them and their mess.
In the time when the Gospel of Luke was written (after 70 CE), the Temple in Jerusalem has been destroyed by the Romans (in 70 CE). It was a deeply traumatic event for the people of Israel and for the believers in Jesus, because both communities had counted on the Jerusalem temple being the place from where God would begin the redeeming of all the world. With the Temple destroyed and God not stopping the Romans from doing it, their faith is shaken. In writing this chapter of the Gospel, the early church recalls words of Jesus that offer reassurance and hope.
What shape are we in today? As a church? As a community of faith?
Has any part of what we used to be, been destroyed and ruined?
Are we confident in the power of God to create new, great things here? To grant us the wisdom to speak and act out God's love in whatever ways make sense today?
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