From the Pulpit: The Signs of the Times

The Rev. Canon Leonard Hamlin had stepped away for vacation, hoping to avoid some of the troubling headlines in this bruising age. No such luck.

Preaching from the Gospel of Luke, where a fiery Jesus excoriates the crowds for falling to see what is plainly in front of them, Leonard said their times were not so different from our own:

The more I read, the more the first century world mirrored our world. It was a time of military occupation. It was a time of economic disparity. It was a time of social stratification. It was a time where fear was maintained through violence and legal manipulations all under the cover of justice.  The more I examined that that time, the more it looked like this time.

But it was in a moment like that, that Jesus clearly moved onto the scene, stepped further into what was going on, looked at the landscape, and that the proclamation of the Kingdom of God was heard.

Clearly there was an expectation that change was coming because of his witness, because of the disciples, that change was possible. And even in our present today, many ought to meet us in certain places and feel that no matter what go is going on, that even if we’re reading the signs of the times, that victory — that change — is still possible.

That it is possible for neighbor to love one another.  It is possible to take care of those who are most in need, to help the loss and to lift up those who have been beaten down because of Christ.

I remind us that we are called in this moment to hold scripture in one hand and to hear the cries of the world in the other.

We are called to respond with the strength of love and with a witness of sacrifice.

We are called to speak to the moment that we find ourselves in, and not the moments that are behind us or try to rush to close the blinds on the future that’s in front of us.