"Gutting It Out" - Luke 21:5-19 - November 18, 2001

There are times when my wife thinks I should worry more. She thought I should have worried more about flying recently. She thinks I should worry more about our children or what to get everyone for Christmas. But, when we flew home from Miami last weekend she really surprised me.

We had standby tickets to Dayton, via Atlanta at 2:20pm. I was nervous about making our connections and getting home on time. She told me to quit pacing and said, "Why don’t you just read a book or something?" The time came for our plane to leave and there were so many people on standby we didn’t make the flight. There was another plane leaving at 4:00pm but the odds of making that were next to impossible.

Needless to say my blood pressure was getting higher and I had visions of arriving home in the middle of the night, and being late for worship the next morning. Through it all my wife was amazingly calm. She didn’t pace, and she didn’t fret. She smiled and read a magazine as though nothing was the matter. She seemed to know that somehow we would prevail and to fret about it was a waste of energy.

I was amazed. My usual "worrisome" wife was reticent and relaxed. Perhaps she has greater faith than I realize or perhaps she knew in her heart that I would find a way to get us home. It turned out there was a flight going to Cincinnati and a connection to Dayton that would get us home about one hour later than scheduled. We had to go through the hassle of changing our tickets and being searched but this time we prevailed. Not only did we make the plane, we flew first class. All my worrying was in vane.

How frequently do we worry about things that never come to pass? How often do we play "what if" over and over again in our minds, losing sleep, getting impatient, wearing ourselves out emtionally and physically? Sometimes the problems of the day just seem to overwhelming for us and we worry ourselves sick. In the process we miss out on some of life’s most precious moments because we lack the faith to live.

Two days after we arrived home there was another plane crash in New York City. Once again the media world bombarded us all day with images of death and destruction. The hyperbole was similar to what happened on September 11th, 2001. Reporters were playing "what if" and the fear of flying and immediate threat of terrorism was once again penetrating our daily lives. Once again the worries of the nation were rising.

If we’ve learned anything the last two months we have learned that the world’s tallest buildings and the world’s largest flying machines are not invincible. Man-made objects simply do not last the test of time. They are totally vulnerable, just as our lives are when we do nothing to care for our souls.

Jesus told his disicples that even the most beautiful temple in the world would some day be destroyed. He was talking about the temple in Jerusalem, where a single block contained white and green marble 67.5 feet long and 7.5 feet high and 9 feet thick. An impressive structure whose Eastern side was completely gold plated. The disciples gasped with amazement as they were told that someday it would be no more.

They were totally perplxed, wondering when this might be. Certainly cause to worry. What would be the signs? How could they prepare themselves against such a disaster? Jesus, however tells them not to worry. He then reminds them of the reality of evil in the world. "There will be wars and nations fighting nations. There will be famines, pestilences (threat of Anthrax perhaps?) earthquakes and hurricanes. Even your relatives may turn against you."

Those were anzxious times in the early church. They had little hope and because of all the persecutions they were highly vulnerable. They could have easily given up, or worse, be misled by phoney voices who would lead them away from their faith. Jesus didn’t want them to be preoccupied with disasters. He wanted them to stay focused, to remain faithful. That is our task, our calling. We cannot control the events of the world, we can however be faithful during a crisis.

To give them assurance Jesus told them several things. (1) That rationalizing about the future would not help. Only God knows what will happen. (2) That the primary way to live is to live in the now, facing our immediate problems with faith and confidence. And (3) We are to endure, to be steadfast, and never give up. "By your endurance you will gain your lives, " Jesus said.

What does it mean to endure? Expresssions like, "Keep on truckin," or "hang in there," are just a couple that come to mind. For me it means simply "don’t give up." In James it says, "Blessed is the man who endures trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to those who love him." (James 1:12) Jesus wants us to endure especially when the chips are down.

Jerry Richardson faced an important decison in 1961. As a wide receiver for the Baltimore Colts, his job was high paying and glamorous. Then he was turned down for a raise he had requested, for only $250 a year. Rather than accept the disappointment, he decided the time had come to move on to his next dream; to start his own business.

Richardson moved his family back to his hometown of South Carolina, where he invested in a new fast-food restaurant, buying the first Hardee’s Franchise in America. He went from catching passes on Sundays to flipping burgers twelve hours a day. Afer hours he cleaned stoves and scrubbed floors. His reward? $417 a month the first year.

Richardson refused to punt. He applied his gridiron discipline to produce sizzling results on his griddles. He turned his locker-room enthusiasm into the friendliest service in town. Before long, business boomed. Today Jerry Richardson heads one of America’s largest food-service comapnies, with annual sales of $3.7 billion. Now he’s investing some of his profits in his next dream; ownership of the NFL’s Carolina Panthers. (from God’s Little Lessons on Life for Dad, Honor Books, Tulsa, Oklahoma)

Richardson was successful because he didn’t give up. But, although we build businesses, empires, institutions, organizations or even churches, these are only temporary. None can last forever. Just as the temple eventually crumbled, all structures and organizations will inevitably crumble too. It is our faith God wants us to maintain since only our souls can stand the test of time. This is what Jesus meant when he said, "Not a hair on your head will parish."

How hard it is for us to hear those words when innocent people died in the airplane crash last week and thousands in the month of September. Our world as we know it seems to be falling apart. Acts of terror, disasters, extreme weather patterns and the increasing costs of paying the bills cause us to think all is hopeless.

You may never get to build that dream house. You may never reach a point where you are financially secure and don’t have to worry about money. You watch the structures you have an affinity for, like old high school buildings and churches be torn down and turned into parking lots. Your "downtown" seems likely never again to be the social center of your community. The company you gave 30 years of your life to has gone out of business. Even your favorite swimming hole has become polluted.

These things, Jesus says are not cause for us to worry. By God’s standards they are only temporary.They are part of us but do not deserve all our energy. It is our souls that need our attention for that is the part of us that can last forever. We do not have to be successful we only have to endure.

Dr. Keith Wagner, St. Paul’s United Church of Christ, Sidney, Ohio