Wicker Park Lutheran Church Rev. Chrisida Anandan November 27, 2022 Grace and Peace to you all in the name of our Christ Jesus! Keep awake, and be ready are the watchwords that we hear from our gospel reading today. This week, especially the week right after thanksgiving with so much cooking, eating, traveling, and hosting families, we may be exhausted. Unlike the Lutheran churches in the US as far as I have seen, the sermons in my church back in…
So I’d already made up my mind I was going to preach on the Jerimiah reading, and I opened it up and started reading and instantly felt super guilty because…last time I preached I told you all that “woe” means like yikes. And…that continues to be true, when it’s a New Testament reading and the word is being translated from Greek. But Jerimiah’s in the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament so we’re translating that word from Hebrew. And when it’s coming from Hebrew it’s more…an audible sigh, dismay, lament even. These are the feelings bestowed on those shepherds this morning…
Today’s gospel has an apocalyptic tilt to it that seems to tell of the end of the world. We heard of wars, insurrections, earthquakes, famines, and plagues. We might easily relate with that vision as we watch Russia slaughter innocent people in Ukraine, and as we relive our collective trauma during the investigation of the January 6 insurrection. So too, we continue to live with the medical plagues of COVID and RSV along the social plagues of racism and sexism. As inflation grips the globe and once generous donors tighten their pocketbooks, the most vulnerable go hungry and homeless. And, the impacts of climate change caused by wealthy nations have brought destruction on the most vulnerable nations. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think we are living in apocalyptic times and the end is near…
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