Summer at Luke’s house just got uncomfortable. Jesus and the fire he brought to the earth; wishing it were already kindled. The fire of judgment. The fire of the Holy Spirit on the move. Jesus and the stress of completing his baptism; which is a reference to the cross. You may recall that expression from the funeral liturgy “whose baptism is now complete in death.”  Jesus and the harsh reminder that living the gospel is something other than one long, schmaltzy Christmas Eve with a cozy message of peace on earth. Jesus and a chilling focus on the family: father, son, mother, daughter, the in-laws. Jesus must have known that the most important relationships, that those closest to us, can sometimes be a hindrance to our walk with God. Like they say of preacher who is making the congregation uncomfortable, Jesus is meddling now.

Jesus turned to the crowds, and when he got their attention, when the crowds were listening, Jesus brought up the weather. Clouds in the west that bring rain. Winds from the south that bring heat. “You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and sky, but what about the present time?” Jesus asked with a bit of an edge, with a bit of tone to his voice, maybe with a finger pointed just for emphasis.  “You hypocrites…..why don’t you judge for yourselves what is right?” Judge for yourselves what is just and righteous and godly, judge for yourselves what reflects the kingdom of heaven, here and now, the present time. Judge for yourselves this present time. Jesus on the interpretation of the signs of the present time.  And Luke’s house just got very quiet!

Hypocrites. That’s what he called them; what he called those in the crowd, what he called us who find ourselves in that timeless gathering at Luke’s house, leaning in to hear and to live his gospel. You hypocrites.  If it were only that easy, Jesus. Interpreting signs. Whether you are an engineer inspecting a bridge, or a safety officer inspecting a mine shaft, or an investment manager inspecting the market. There is a certain frailty when it comes to interpreting signs, a certain “human nature flawedness” to it all. A doctor and a chronic illness. A mental health professional and the behavior of a patient. A parent and the struggles of an adolescent in the house. “Watch for the warning signs”, they say. But it’s never really that simple, never that clear. From understanding polling data to analyzing economic trends to assessing how the Jets are going to do this season. Interpreting the signs and the difficulty therein. It’s all part of being human; or to put it another way, there is a certain endless futility to it all, a rather well-defined limitation, humanity and the attempt to understand the signs. Clouds in the west. Winds from the south. The appearance of earth and sky, and everything inbetween. Frankly Jesus, we’re not all that great when it comes to the weather!

Hypocrites? Sometimes the signs send such mixed signals. Each year when our group arrives at the airport in Guatemala, we head off to Lake Attitlan for a day or so before the work begins at the Valley of the Pines School in Parramos. A bit of rest. A bit of group bonding. A bit of seeing and experiencing the culture of Guatemala. The lake is surrounded by three volcanoes that make for an incredible landscape. The sky is as blue as can be. The flowers are lush. The temperature perfect. The wind just right. No bugs at night. It is, in many ways, an idyllic setting. But the beauty of Lake Attitlan contradicts the other signs that cry out in Guatemala; poverty, political corruption, drug running, violence, literary rates. We were told that malnourishment in the country runs more than 50%; and in the rural areas it’s 80%. Several mothers told our medical team that it was the first time their child was seeing a doctor. When you go on the mission trip to Guatemala you can’t miss how the signs, how the indicators clash.

Earlier this summer, I was sitting on the bus with my traveling companions heading for a visit to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Pilgrims for centuries have journeyed to the church to worship at the spot where tradition holds that Jesus was born. Our bus stopped at a military check point in the wall that separates Israel from the Palestinian territory. There was a sign on the wall written in English, Hebrew, and Arabic. It said “Peace Be With You”. Every now and then the irony of a sign is like a kick in the stomach. At the church itself, the aroma of the incense and all of the candles lit by those in prayer and the sounds of Christians singing Christmas hymns in a basement shrine at the threshold of a grotto in the middle of June,  all of the religious stuff couldn’t cover the signs of suffering and tension and economic deprivation in the Little Town of Bethlehem; from huge hotels standing empty to whole families on the street begging for help, to the one man frustrated by our group’s lack of purchasing stuff there on the street who yelled out to us, “You pilgrims, where is your heart!” Religious signs, signs that have stood the test of time couldn’t compete with the signs of the present, the here and the now. Sometimes the clash of signs is just too much to process, to try to understand, to try to find sense, much less make it.  

Hypocrits? Actually, it seems like when religious folk go down that road, down the “interpretation of the signs of the present age” road, when anyone goes down that road just a bit, things get rocky. The “end of the age” preachers, the doomsayers, the rapture lovers, well, not one of them has been right yet when it comes to THE prediction. When disaster strikes or some horrible event cries out for explanation, there are those religious leaders who pipe up about the judgment of God. The judgment always miraculously seems to match their opinion; about people, about a nation, about who is going to hell. Sign and judgment in an unabashed, easy to detect, self-selecting, self-aggrandizing kind of way.  On the pastoral, more personal level, the appointed theologians, the resident, pastoral theologians, the local religious professionals, the clergy in a particular community of faith are so often expected to have all the answers, to render the God talk, to interpret signs of life and of death. Those ministers whose theological arrogance was long ago eroded by the weather of life’s storm, they know best that the “why” questions have the fewest answers, that when it comes to understanding the present time, well that kind of time is usually the most difficult to comprehend.

You remember in the Book of Revelation, John was shown a great multitude standing before the throne of God which no one could count, from every nation, and all the tribes, and all the peoples, and all the languages. They were dressed in white and waving palm branches and singing a glorious song of praise. One of the elders said to “John, who are these, and where have they come from?”  And John said, “sir, you are the one that knows.” You know. And what went unsaid, was “I don’t know.” A heavenly sign. A sign there in the kingdom. A sign there amid another timeless gathering of the faithful, the Great Cloud of Witnesses. John looked at the sign and said, “You are the one who knows”. I don’t know but God knows.

When I read this passage from Luke, when I sit on the front porch with Luke on summer Sunday, when the temperature at Luke’s house gets a bit uncomfortable, when I hear these words of Jesus about fire, baptism, division, and interpreting the present time,  when I imagine Jesus on the way to Jerusalem raising his voice and raising the stakes and raising the sense of urgency and pointing in everyway that he can to his own suffering and death, pointing to the sign that is the cross of Christ, when I come upon Jesus turning to the crowds and saying “you hypocrites”, I find myself wanting to saddle up next to John of the Apocalypse, John the Revelator, I want to stand next to John when he says, “But, Jesus, you’re the one who knows.”  And if the hypocrites are the ones who just don’t know about this sign or that, who aren’t ready to explain away all the things of God, who look at the world today and don’t always understand, who look at this present time and have more questions than answers, if the hypocrites can’t dot every “i” and cross every “t” when it comes to God and faith and life and the world and how it all comes together today, here and now, well, then count me in Jesus. Count us in!

What if the hypocrites were not simply the folks who couldn’t figure it all out? What if the hypocrites that Jesus called out, were those who could figure out the weather and then decided they knew everything else, those who knew a little, and then figured a little was enough, those who knew just a bit who then decided not to care about much else, those who long ago learned a few signs and then assumed that would do? Because, if nothing else here, Luke’s Jesus is certainly pumping up the sense of urgency to the gospel,  heightening the demand for a response to his teaching, elevating the intensity and the expectation for justice.

Here in Luke, somewhere between the parable of the Good Samaritan and the parable of the Prodigal Son, somewhere between Mary and Martha and Zacchaeus coming down from that tree, here in Luke, somewhere along that pathway to Jerusalem, as the cross draws ever closer, Jesus stops and points to the hypocrites who live as if their encounter with God is so yesterday! “Why do you not know how to interpret the present time?”

Interpreting the present time. Sensing an urgent opportunity to encounter the Living God.  Taking each and every moment as a pressing opportunity to give praise and be thankful. Accepting the here and now as a high priority opportunity to wash anew in God’s grace. Taking in the creation of each new day as a constant, persevering, driving, burning opportunity to work for justice and to live to God’s glory. 

Every generation has had the signs; an abundance of signs. Understanding those signs, doesn’t seem to get any easier. Jesus must have known that. Jesus must have understood, that we wouldn’t be able to just figure it all out. Because he gave us these other signs; the water of baptism, the cup of salvation, the bread broken? Signs of the coming kingdom of God. Signs of God’s promise. Signs for the hear and now in this life of faith. Jesus knew it wasn’t all that easy. He gave of himself there on the cross Jesus, the one crucified, the one raised from the dead. A sign of our salvation. He gave himself as a sign.

By my math, Ava is just a week past four months old. New parents sometimes ask about the appropriate age for baptism. There is no right or wrong answer. Sometimes the church office receives a call from the hospital with the hope to get on the calendar. Others wait, even until confirmation in the 9th grade. The Presbyterian Director for Worship states that “Children of believers are to be baptized without undue delay, but without undue haste.” That’s a fancy way of saying it is up to the parents. But the directory also goes on to say that “baptism signifies the beginning of life in Christ, not it’s completion…God’s faithfulness needs no renewal. Human faithfulness to God needs repeated renewal. Baptism calls for decision at every subsequent stage of life’s way.” (w-2.3007). Scheduling a baptism may be up to the parents. The urgency comes in the daily renewal of your baptism. The urgent expectation is that you would live into your baptism each and every day. The urgent demand on life is that your relationship to God wouldn’t be relegated somewhere along with casual chat about the weather. As Rudolf Bultmann described it, “God is the one who demands my decision ever anew.”  

The urgency of the present time. It’s about God and you. Here and now. But it’s never just about you. Never ust about me, because in this present time when signs are so abundant, we are called by God, called by Christ himself, who calls us with more than a bit of urgency, we are called to judge, and to work for and live for what is right, what is just, what reflects the very way of God, and to do that today.

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