A quiet evening in the backyard, just after sunset.
The grownups had just gone inside. The neighbors were over for supper.
I was a young child, about to go inside to wash my hands and be fed.
Just then the horizon filled with light and a massive silent ball of white flame shot across the sky and was gone. It took my breath away. Nobody else saw it.
A shooting star.
Not one of those flickering sparks that we usually see, a big one, a great sign from heaven.
Even stars die.
What endures?
What passes away?
All will be thrown down. Not one stone left upon another.
We will be hurt, betrayed, hunted down and tempted.
Don’t give up, don’t let go, hold on to the Jesus way of being in the world, endure.
God will be there guarding every hair on our head.
Hold on. Endure. We will gain our souls, we will find our lives.
This is how Jesus ends his public ministry, the events surrounding the passion begin soon.
Endure. God is present. Hold on.
Next Sunday is Christ the King Sunday, the last Sunday of the Christian Year, we end with the vision of Christ as a peculiar king, crowned in thorns. We finish up Luke’s Gospel.
A new year, the season of Advent begins soon, Matthew’s Gospel will soon consume our thoughts, imaginations and prayers.
Today we begin our farewell to Luke and his peculiar vision of God’s kingdom, full of parables, of welcoming strange visitors and neighbors, of being challenged to practice radical excessive hospitality, with a vision of God as prodigal and excessive in love and mercy.
What endures?
What passes away?
Hold on to the Jesus way of excessive hospitality. We will be tempted and taken advantage of, ridiculed and scorned, betrayed and hurt because of this. Don’t give in. Hold on. Endure.
We will gain our lives, our very souls.
Hold on. Endure.
Even the stars die and fall from the sky.
But the love of God, the Jesus way, endures and abides.