The Future Present

At first I was annoyed with that smile, but as it went along I realized that the actor was not trying to make it into a superior looking smirk, and it wasn't a fake pasted-on smile.

He was showing Jesus' smile of joy and delight at being with his people.

This is the kind of sharing that Jesus likes; when the crowd is paying close attention, when they discover what he wants them to know a bit at a time, and when they move to do as he directs.

It is the same kind of smile (I hope!) that I have when we are on one of our catechetical trip adventures as we do each year.

I have usually gone weeks earlier to each of the places we later visit as a group, and I already know what to expect and how to get there.

I can hardly wait to help everyone else discover the things that I have already found.

I hope that everyone will be as intrigued or informed, or surprised as I have been.

But it is hard work getting to that point.

Bernadette and I research the places to visit, plan the best routes, judge the time needed for each part of the day, arrange for transportation, plan for food, etc.

So when the day comes, we are revealing to those on the trip each place and event one at a time.

We are sneaking up on another of those wonderful big words. Watch out! Here it comes: proleptic eschatology.

Don't turn off: It is a big term for a very important idea.

It means that we are now being directed not by the past, by all that happened in days of old, but by the future, specifically, by the future that God is revealing to us a little bit at a time through Christ Jesus.

He has gone ahead of us.

He has faced every obstacle,

he has planned the route,

he has been through everything that we will face, the easy times and the times of great difficulty also,

he has even faced that final enemy death and has conquered it from the inside out.

So now he beckons us to walk toward him, to walk with him toward that future that he already knows,

to allow him to open up that future a bit at a time,

to have that future change not only the direction of things now, but also the tone of everything that we are and everything that we do.

The movie-makers and Michael J Fox were tinkering around the edges of this idea in the “Back to the Future” movies some years back.

There we saw what would happen when evil controlled that kind of knowledge.

It was an utter disaster for humanity; it was a triumph of greed and violence.

It led only to darkness and despair.

How different it is in what our Lord Jesus says and does.

He knows that not only is there the cross but also the resurrection.

He knows that not only will we have troubled times and great difficulties, but also we will have a place at the final banquet table.

I suppose we could receive that news and withdraw from everything and everyone else and just wait for heaven.

Now and again there are groups that will try this:

--the group out in California a few years back that was going to catch a ride on the tail of a comet to carry them to some Nirvana.

--then there was the Jim Jones group that tried to force heaven with a mass suicide 25 years ago.

--there were the Millerites who gave away all their possessions and went to a hilltop in NY state in the 1840s and waited for heaven.

--and lots more such events over the centuries.

That approach is always a dead-end.

Rather, Jesus is sending us back into living now with the certainty of his promises,

his promises which will be true,

and thus they are true,

and are becoming true to us day by day.

That is “proleptic eschatology”, the future joy of heaven directing our present,

giving us a sample of that future now, changing and coloring our present experience of life because of how it will all turn out.

The baseball training camps open next week, I think.

How would things be different if we knew for a fact that the Pirates would win the World Series this year?

--not just wish that be so,

--not just hope that somehow that would happen,

--but know it for a fact.

We could endure the insults and jeers,

we would buy the season ticket

we would plan our time around late October,

we would smile in knowing that that the prideful Yankees would fall short just like they did in1960.

It would change everything about our lives, if we knew that for a fact.

Sorry, sports-fans, there is no “proleptic eschatology”, no way to be directed by the future, for baseball,

but there is for the shape of our lives in Christ Jesus.

Often we think of “Resurrection” as something in the past, but really it is of the future of God.

The resurrection appearances of Jesus to the disciples were a bit of the future, a bit of the outcome of everything coming back into time.

It is for our sake, to let us know about that outcome, to inspire our living with resurrection in mind.

Since it is true, life is worth living!

When we know that the pains, sorrows, and troubles that we must face don't get the last word,

we are much more willing to wade into them and persevere.

And we have a pattern to follow.

The formative story of the Old Testament is the Exodus

--Israelites caught in slavery in Egypt

--the rescue by God

--the water-crossing

--the formation of community of the covenant at Sinai

--the wandering in the wilderness

--the entry into the promised land, even though they messed up things shortly.

The Gospels present Jesus' life as an Exodus with eternal implications:

--after his birth, Jesus is sent to Egypt

--he is brought out again

--he has a water-crossing in Baptism at the Jordan

--he calls together a covenant-community thru the disciples

--he has time in the wilderness

--his passage is fully and perfectly completed in cross and resurrection.

And the pattern is repeated in our lives, too:

--we are caught in the chains of sin and death. That is our Egypt.

--we have a water-passage in Holy Baptism

--we are placed into the covenant-community with Jesus at its center.

--we have lots of wandering in the years of our lives.

--and our journey is to be completed in the resurrection promised us by Jesus.

What a promise! What a certainty!

What a framework within which we can live!

We notice that the Beatitudes go back and forth between present tense and future tense:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn; for they will be comforted.

And that is the point: we don't have to choose only one tense.

What will be already is, in anticipation and in come cases in clear view.

Someone will say, “I still don't get it, pastor.”

So come to communion where we act out exactly what we've been talking about here.

It is the resurrected Lord Jesus coming back from the future to meet us here at the communion rail,

to encourage us,

to point us in the right direction for us to travel.

Is this the great banquet? Yes, in anticipation, and as an appetizer.

Is it the fullness of the great banquet?

No, not yet; but it is such a sure thing that we can say Yes!

Are we sharing this communion with our beloved family members who have died? No, not yet; but in anticipation, yes we are!

what goes on in heaven is brought back to us to sample.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

We are blessed...because the future is becoming present. Amen!

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.