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This World Is Not My Home
David Orendorff · Luke 21:5-19 · November 18th, 2007
This could be an anxiety producing and even depressing sermon. I ought to have a really good joke to open with, but I can't think of the right one, and even then it wouldn't be funny enough. So before I begin I want you to know that the Bible story is a comedy and not a tragedy. That is, no matter how tragic things appear, God's compassionate and generous love is always the final act.
It would be wonderful if in life we could just skip to the 21st chapter of John's Revelation and live every moment of now under the tree of life in the new heaven and new earth without tears or grief. But life is not like that. God has not written the drama of our lives with only great songs of joy, but also with great tears of grief. Today's scripture reminds of this all too well.
To get to heaven we pass through death just as Jesus did. But on the way, through the darkness, we are not alone. God is with us, loving us and staying with us now and forever. God's drama ends with resurrection and new life, eternal in the heavens. God's drama ends in relationships that are perfected in love. No matter what happens in the first and second act, God is there for us in the final act, a comedy of shalom. As Jesus says to those who suffer tragedy, “the reign of God is at hand.”
So, should you begin to feel a little anxious in the next few minutes, say to yourself, “Not a hair of my head will perish, for the God of love is with me.” Repeat that with me.
Jesus and the disciples are at the temple in Jerusalem. The temple was one of the great wonders of the world. Its limestone masonry had lasted a thousand years. For 30 generations this massive building, with its gold and art, its ritual and prayers, was the most holy of places, filled with the worship of God. Still today faithful people come to its remaining foundation to pray.
The disciples are looking at the temple, seeing its beauty and remembering the constancy of God it promises. Peace and war, famine and plenty, kings and tyrants, life and death, generation upon generation, come and go, but the temple remains. This is when Jesus chooses to say, “You know, someday the temple, this whole thing, is going to fall down.” He might as well have said, “The sky is going to fall (which it also turns out is true).” It was both an unfathomable and a threatening thing to say. In 70 AD Jesus was exactly right, and the temple fell.
Jesus reminds us of a thing we wish to forget: no institution, no matter how great, lasts forever-not churches, not governments, not friendships, not even marriages. Everything of this life is impermanent, is perishable, is mortal. Everything fails and falls someday.
It is time to repeat, “Not a hair of my head will perish, for the God of love is with me.”
So the disciples, who at this point could probably have used some anti-anxiety medication, become a little worried and ask, “When will this collapse be? How long do we have? What will be the signs?” Jesus goes from bad to worse and answers, “I don't know-someday, maybe today, maybetomorrow, maybe Friday of 2026.”
No one knows when the things they count upon for stability will fail. Our health could already be on its way out and we don't know it. My mom's recent cancer had been in her body for perhaps a decade and she didn't know it. We live in a kind of limbo waiting for the other lead shoe to drop on our head.
This is another good time to repeat “Not a hair of my head will perish, for the God of love is with me.”
Jesus then goes from bad to horrible. While we are waiting in anxious limbo for the Temple to fall, while on our way to our deaths, we can expect the following events to plague us. We will suffer the lies of leaders who promise help and don't deliver. There will be wars and conflicts. And when we think we can stand no more, there will be bigger wars and more death. And if we aren't fighting each other, then we are fighting nature as she shakes the earth, as she blows our houses down. And when it is not raining so as to drown us, we suffer droughts, famines and pestilence. And when we think we can stand no more, Jesus tells us more is coming. We will be persecuted not only by our enemies, but by our families and our friends. We will be hated, arrested, put on trial, imprisoned, and even killed.
And this is yet another good time to repeat, “Not a hair of my head will perish, for the God of love is with me.”
What makes this so depressing and frightening is that Jesus is right. This life has nothing permanent, disaster can strike at any time, and there are many troubles out there just waiting to get us.
After 12 verses Jesus finally says, “But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your lives.” That is the best he can do? We are to hang in there, keep a stiff upper lip, while the world perishes?
A former parishioner passed on to me an email from LaMar Price, a former pastor of his. Price wrote of an old hymn his mother sang to him when he was a boy. It is short and goes like this:
This world, this world is not my home.
This world, this world is not my home.
This world is but a resting place.
This world, this world is not my home.
This hymn reminds us, as Jesus reminded us, that this world is not permanent, is not always safe and is not our real home. Jesus is not original in this knowledge. Way back before Jesus, God said to Abraham, Know this for certain, that your offspring shall be aliens in a land that is not theirs, and shall be slaves there, and they shall be oppressed for four hundred years.
And the four hundred years stretched into four thousand years. Lamar Price writes:
By “this world” I understand “the present order of things.”
It is the present “system” of competing cultures, nations, tribes, languages, economies, gods and goods. These are things that divide us, make us different. The competition has led to a lot of hatred, distrust, just plain cussedness as well as world wars.
The present world system is already judged. It is flawed. It is self-destructive. It is temporary. It will eventually implode and come to an end. If it is my “home,” then when it is gone, I am “homeless.”
Price continues:
However, two thousand years ago a new system was introduced. The new system is a system of love. That new system is eternal. Every heart is drawn to that new system of love. Kingdom love is an initiating kind of love. It seeks the well being of others as well as that of one's self. “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Eternal love is patient, kind, and merciful. The one that introduced this new order told his fol-lowers, “By this shall all know that you are my disciples, that you shall love one another.”
In “this present world system” one's power and authority is the measure of greatness. But in the new order, the kingdom of love, the greatest is the servant of all. This is the eternal system. This is our true home.
Wars will come and go. Disasters will come and go. Suffering will be here today and gone tomorrow. But our true home is none of these. We are the children of God, the beloved of God's infinite heart. And in our true home, God's love is permanent, secure, and without tears. To this Jesus says, “Not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your lives.”
The temple and the sky may fall, but the love of God is forever. Our future is not in the stones of the temple or in the studs of this building, or the institution it houses. Our home is in the reign of God's love now and forever. Our home is in the heart of Jesus as he embodies divine love for us in every now. Our home is in the Holy Spirit as it blows into our lives with surprise, peace, wonder and joy. The good news is that the temple and this home will fail but the love of God is forever. So we say, “Not a hair of my head will perish for the God of love is with me.”
Amen and Shalom.