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I will begin with an academic citation. The uh name of my sermon is based on a 1987 song by R E M. Don't look it up on your phone now because it's an earworm and you will

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not be able to pay attention. Let us pray . May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight. O God, our creator and our redeemer, amen.

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The world is ending. It's happening everywhere in Japan and China. For instance, government leaders are worried that in 10 or 20 years, the population will be so top heavy with old people that there won't

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be enough young people to farm, to make things to run the government and well to take care of all the old people and shout out to all the white people in the congregation. I don't know when

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maybe in five years or in 10 years, but there will be a point in your lifetime and mine when white people would be the minority population in the United States. And if any of you have read

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Ted Smith's new book, you will be convinced that we are at the end of theological education as we know it. And finally, pardon me for mentioning the elephant in the room, climate change. It's

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getting hot in here and in many places, the water is already rising. Now the world has ended before of course, twice in the sixth century asteroids hit roughly the same spot in the Yucatan Peninsula,

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devastating the civilizations that were there. They also caused a period of cold weather across Europe that lasted for decades and caused tens of thousands to starve to death . The world ended for many societies in the Americas

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. When colonizers from Spain and Portugal and England and France and other places arrived, not so much because they were superior warriors, but they were very good at making others sick. When the world ends,

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there is always loss, always pain, always lament . So even if you haven't been going to church , you know that the world is ending. But if you are a Catholic or a mainline Protestant and

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have been going to church this fall, you know that as we approach the end of the liturgical calendar , the appointed Bible readings, focus faith and thinking to eschatological themes. The end of history, judgment

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, the power, see them to put it another way. All of these texts invite us to think about how to live when it's the end of the world as we know it. One such reflection is

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Matthew 25 which tells of the coming judgment of the son of man Jesus says all the nations will be gathered before him and he will separate people one from another. As a shepherd separates the sheep from the

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goats and this is not a pickup basketball game. This division is for keeps the blessed sheep will inherit the kingdom prepared from the foundation of the world. While the accursed goats are ordered to depart into the

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eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. What may be even more worrying are the criteria used in this eternal judgment bafflingly. There is nothing about maintaining a 3.0 GPA grade average at Austin Seminary.

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There is nothing about affirming the unaltered Augsburg confession, which Lutheran clergy are called to do. And there's not anything about confessing Jesus as your Lord and Savior . No, the actions that count are feeding the

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hungry, giving refreshment to the thirsty, welcoming strangers , clothing, the naked, caring for the sick and visiting prisoners. It turns out according to this vision of the end that the task for those who

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follow the way of Jesus is not to outmaneuver capitalism and neoliberalism and grind its bones to dust. The task is much more modest to figure out who the least of these are and to attend to their needs

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as best that we can. Now, admittedly, this is no easy task. It's not clear cut . I've been having conversations recently with people who are um on the side of the Palestinians in the war

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that Hamas recently started and I've had conversations with those who are on the side of the Israelis and like doctors without borders, Christians might be seen as aiding and abetting the wrong freedom fighters and surely Christians will

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be accused and found guilty of making solid citizens feel ashamed. That's what being a disciple means. But that's not the weird part of the story. If I understand the story about separating the sheep from the

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goats correctly, sometimes those who are following the way of Jesus have no idea that their actions honor him . They are less focused on motives perhaps ignorant of theology while they are focused on the needs of their

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neighbors. Last Sunday, in many protestant churches, we celebrated Christ, the King's Sunday. This festival was invented by Pope Pius the 11th. I'm sure a personal fave of some of you out there.

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In 1925 he invented this festival drawing on the rich biblical texts that speak about Jesus as King, he ordered Catholics to celebrate it annually in the 19 seventies . As Protestants worldwide became less uptight about doing stuff

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that Catholics did. This. Sunday began to appear in Protestant Lear and celebrate it. So why another feast day, Pious hoped that celebrating the universal rule of Christ would be a sign of opposition to the

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social problems of the 19 twenties. As a former Vatican diplomat, the Pope was concerned about the suppression of Christianity, especially in that upstart Marxist country that had just been invented the Soviet Union and the Pope

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was worried about the rise of fascism in Italy and in Germany. Well, if you looked at your news feed this morning or talk to your friends, I think you confirm, can confirm that forces rather

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like fascism are still on the prowl in Russia and Argentina. And most recently, I guess in the parliamentary elections in the Netherlands and today's neofascist care no more for peace and justice than the Voldemort's. That

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thought World War Two was a great idea. But we are Christians. No Caesar, no president, no Reich chancellor, no party secretary is Lord, only Jesus is whom God raised from the dead and

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seated at God's right hand in the heavenly places far above all rule and authority and power and Dominion and above every name that is named not only in this age but also in the age to come. So

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friends here, we sit at the end of the world as we know it, it's a big messy deal, but the end of the world is not the end of God's care for us. Jesus,

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the healer and teacher Jesus, the king crucified and risen is the symbol of God's endless supply of futures . And that's more than enough. I mean,