My kiddo and I are reading an intriguing book—Tyger by the British writer SF Said. (Yes, autocorrect, it’s Tyger with a ‘y’!) The main characters are two brave immigrant kids and a magical talking Tyger. For the first hundred or so pages we puzzled over the setting of the book. There are many realistic historic details and yet something about them just doesn’t add up. Finally we did some research and learned that the story explores an alternate present. It’s set in 21st century London, but one in which the British empire never fell, slavery was never abolished, and technology evolved differently. Since learning this, we’ve had some great conversations about the story—what is the author trying to say by telling it this way?

I fully admit that upon first hearing, this morning’s Gospel text reads like a page from the Left Behind series. If you’re not familiar with it, here’s a succinct AI summary: “Left Behind tells a violent story about the ending of Earth … The true believers in Jesus Christ have been raptured, leaving non-believers behind on Earth, now a shattered and chaotic world.” And of course, interpretations like these go hand in hand with the troubling rhetoric this administration is using to justify going to war in Iran. I know it’s difficult, but I want to invite us to try to set that all aside and relate to this text differently. The Bible contains a good amount of material in the genre we call “apocalyptic.” It functions in quite a similar way as does a work dystopian fiction like Tyger. The word “apocalypse” literally means “unveiling.” So the primary aim of a passage like today’s is not to predict the future; it is to reveal something hidden. Apocalyptic texts function like a mirror that lets us look at ourselves and our world more honestly. They show us that the past, present and future are intertwined realities, that our history is alive and still happening.

Today’s passage is part of an extended section that comes after Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. A key focus of these chapters is Jesus’ critique of the religious leaders, who have chosen to respond to Roman occupation by collaborating with their oppressors, and in the process have enriched themselves and abandoned the people. Here’s a little taste of a long, scathing rant Jesus directs at them: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. […] Woe to you… For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.” ¹

As today’s reading opens, Jesus and his disciples are walking away from this intense confrontation. Jesus’ “prediction” that the temple would be destroyed is fascinating because at the time when Matthew’s Gospel was composed, it already lay in ruins. While some Jewish leaders collaborated with Rome, others, such as the Zealots, advocated for armed revolt. Matthew wrote these words 10 to 20 years after the first of three devastating Jewish-Roman wars. A multi-year siege of Jerusalem culminated in unimaginable suffering—the burning of the temple, the destruction of the city and surrounding villages, the slaughter of the population and the scattering of survivors. So Jesus’ words, “all will be thrown down” seem to relate not only to the temple and its physical stones but to the collapse of the whole nation.

Matthew portrays Jesus perched with his disciples on the Mount of Olives, looking across and down on the temple from a higher elevation. According to biblical tradition, the Mount of Olives was the place from which the Messiah would come to set the world right. From there, the disciples beg for a clear picture of the future: “tell us then, when will this be?” And in response Jesus issues an extended warning about false Messiahs and false prophets. He looks out over his beloved city and community and he sees the violence and suffering that permeates their past, present and future—wars and rumors of wars, famines, earthquakes, persecution, hatred, torture, death, and lawlessness. And he says, “Beware that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Messiah!’ and they will lead many astray.”

I believe that what Jesus is really saying here is that his leadership, grounded in divine purpose, is not aligned with any of the factions that compete for people’s loyalty. Both collaboration with the oppressor and armed revolt are self-destructive paths. In the words of biblical scholar Walter Wink, Jesus lived and taught a “third way” of non-violent non-cooperation with oppression. As someone pointed out in Bible study, Jesus formed a diverse community of disciples that included both a Zealot and someone who worked for Rome as a tax collector. Clearly, Jesus found a way to hold these people with opposing worldviews together with a loving creativity that must have transformed them both. His political vision was “the good news of God kingdom”—a non-partisan commitment to a society rooted in love of neighbor and a just sharing of resources.

In this passage, the notion of “the end” is a refrain. “What will be the sign of the end of the age?” the disciples ask. Jesus replies in a roundabout way that the end is not found in the destructive forces around them but in the spreading of the good news of the kingdom. “End” or “telos” in Greek can describe a sense of timing, but also has a deeper meaning that is about the completion or the fulfillment of God’s purposes. In this conversation between Jesus and the disciples about the end of the age, I hear a yearning for release from bloodshed, suffering, and cruelty. And I hear a longing for new ways of being to evolve, for the work of Jesus’ followers to come into its own, for a society of healing, feeding, and liberating to be born.

“And because of the increase of lawlessness, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.” In Bible study this week, we were all struck by these words, which feel so very relevant to our contemporary situation. The hardest thing right now, we agreed, is not to give up. Not to collapse. Not to let our love falter and fail.

Local journalist Sean Snow writes a daily post that appears in my neighborhood signal threads. Yesterday he started his post this way: “One of the stranger things about COVID was how many of us became sourdough people overnight. People were trading tips, sharing jars, and finding comfort in keeping this one small living thing alive during an uncertain time. On its own, sourdough starter does not look like much, just a cloudy little jar on a counter… but if you feed it, protect it, and pass it along, it grows into something that can nourish a lot of people. That feels like Minnesota right now. It rarely starts with something dramatic. It starts small, gets tended, and grows because people keep showing up for it.” He shared his daily list of the news, and then he concluded this way: “adrienne maree brown wrote, ‘Small is good, small is all.’ A sourdough starter takes patience at first. In the beginning, you have to keep tending it before you get anything back, trusting that something good is growing even when it just looks like a quiet jar on the counter. But once it is alive, keeping it going is much simpler. That is what this moment feels like to me. A city council vote, one court deadline, one bill, one hat, one neighbor showing up… each small on its own, but together becoming something strong enough to feed people through a hard season. Federal overreach depends on fear spreading faster than care. Our job is to keep feeding that care until it grows stronger than the fear. What we keep feeding will be what survives.” ²

Amen to that. Let’s keep our love warm, and strong, active and alive. Hold on, dear ones, here comes the dawn.

¹ Matthew 23:23–25
² Sean Snow on Facebook