There are signs everywhere that inform our lives, some are a matter of convenience, and some a matter of life and death. "Danger", "Stop", "Help Wanted", "No Entrance", "Do Not Enter When Flooded".  They used to have that sign all over the place in Phoenix, and I thought, I wonder how dumb you would have to be to drive into a flooded road, but then of course, I found out that plenty of people did not really worry about getting stranded in a flooded car.  There are so many signs as we go about our day, that maybe we don't even actually SEE them anymore.  The message today is, pay attention to the signs.  And people have been trying to read the signs for a very long time. Arnold Windahl was my dad's 2^nd cousin, and a preacher at the local Lutheran Brethren church.  He sat in our living room one night when we were kids, and proclaimed in a loud, sure, strong voice - "The end is near!"  Lutheran Brethren preachers were apparently a little more certain about all of that.  After he had gone, my mother found my sister - a little girl, scared stiff by this preacher, she sobbed and said, "All I ever wanted to do was grow up and live in the attic and have babies, and now I won't get to."  People have been reading and interpreting the signs for centuries.

          When bad things happen, the announcements start coming, the end is near - and it has been for about 2,000 years.  I even get to wondering myself when there seems to be a run of devastating events, what is going on?  Is this it, or, as one of my friends and I used to say, the E-N-D?  Scripture pretty clearly tells us that no one knows the hour or the day, but it also tells us to pay attention.  There have been earthquakes and famines and plagues since about day 9, so again, pay attention, but don't get too caught up in trying to predict something that is beyond you.

          By the time Luke wrote, the people had already witnessed the fall of the stones, the fall of the temple.  Christians were being persecuted and fighting among themselves with whole families being torn apart by the conflict of belief and faith.  The temple had been the center of Israel's life, but also was a symbol of how far from God's call Israel had strayed.  That temple was a sign of a thousand years of God's dealing with Israel, but Jesus came to say that the kingdom of God, the rule of God was one that was about healing and welcoming the outsider and the least.  The kingdom of God was about caring for the poor and the widowed and orphaned.  How were they to keep on believing in God when God's own house had been destroyed?  For the readers of Luke, the days that Jesus had said were coming had arrived and the question was, "Now what?"  How do we follow faithfully when we have experienced so much loss?  But the word of the Lord was to expect and anticipate, out of the destruction new life was possible, but also to trust that whatever they needed would be provided by God.

          When we talked about these verses in our Bible study on Wednesday, I asked, "If you knew that it was all coming to an end on Jan 23^rd, 2009, what would you do?"  And generally the group thought they would probably just keep doing what they are doing.  Martin Luther once said in answer to a question like that, he would plant a tree.  As I said in last week's sermon, we live in that tension of living fully in this day, and anticipating the promised future.

          Part of our wondering and needing to pin down the day and the time is our need to control, to be in charge.  The message here is that it is God who will direct and provide, God who will guard and give us life out of death.  It gets pretty simple sometimes doesn't it?  God is God, and we're not.  There is a good deal of suffering that could be avoided if we could just get that much through our heads.  Only God has the big picture, we don't.  But we trust that God is the God of love, and that whatever the future holds, God will continue to bring all things together in love.  That does not mean that there will not be conflict.  Jesus is making it pretty plain in this teaching that he is not bringing about some sort of feel-good campaign.  He is saying that when you are truly part of God's mission in the world, there will be sacrifice, betrayal, opponents, and even death.  For his twelve disciples, there was persecution, and in many places of the world, that persecution continues.  What do these words have to do with us, safely at worship in Lake of the Isles?

          We too are sent as witnesses to a world that does not know about the kingdom of God.  Witness is not a concept that comes easy for us - we think; shouldn't we just leave well enough alone?  Does witness mean I have to go knocking on doors or handing out pamphlets?  I don't want to force my beliefs on anyone else.  Sharing what gives meaning to your life and forcing beliefs are two different things.  Living in the tension of life here and a future to come leaves us with the work of mission, helping others to know about the God who loves sinners and outcasts, the God who has room at the table for all people, the God who longs for the day when the whole creation will be restored.  We have a purpose - to follow Jesus, to be part of the healing and loving of the world.  Too many times we have given over the witness of Christianity to radical fundamentalists who are looking for ways to scare people into faith.  WE have given it over to people who are more interested in seeing how many people can be excluded than how many can be welcomed.  We have given it over to the TV evangelists who seem more concerned with teaching us how to gain material wealth than showing us the way of the cross.  The same day that I asked the Bible study about how they would act knowing the end was coming soon, I got a big brochure for a new church growth program - One Month to Live - to be fair, I don't know any more about it than what was printed in the brochure, but the goal is to have exponential growth in our church and asks the question, "If you knew you only had one month to live, what would you do to make what's left of your life really matter".  It's not a bad question, I'm just not sure I love the idea of having it as a church growth program?and maybe we have gotten too complacent, too caught up in the things that are temporary.  When we think about the end of the world, these words of Jesus are meant to instruct us - don't be led astray by people coming and pretending to be me, don't be terrified, don't try to prepare your defense in advance because I will give you words and wisdom, not a hair of your head will perish.  The end will come in many ways as surely as our bodies will die, but, as author and preacher Barbara Brown Taylor reminds us, "The one who is coming is not an enemy but a friend. He may come in the light, but he may also come in the evening, or at midnight, or at three in the morning.  Darkness does not stop him, and it does not have to stop us either.  Our job is not to lie in bed with pillows over our heads or to shove all the heavy furniture in front of the door for fear of the darkness outside.  Our job is to watch for the one who comes with healing in his wings and to open the door for him before he raises his hand to knock.  Who knows when that will be?  No one, that is who."

          Anticipate, give thanks, get about our work in the world, and trust God.  That's what it means to be ready.

AMEN