Do Not Believe Everything You Hear

 33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time Year C

Eight or nine years ago I was chosen to be a witness at a civil trial. As I sat on the witness stand, I was directed to “tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” This used to be called “swearing in,” or taking an oath. These days, they use language like do you “promise,” or do you “affirm” to tell the truth? This three-part oath means first of all, that a witness will tell the truth, that is, will tell the facts as they actually happened. The second part, the “whole truth,” which means that the witness will not leave any facts out, that is, will not deliberately leave anything important out of the testimony. The third and final part, “nothing but the truth” means that the witness will stick strictly to the facts, and will not add any speculation, or add any personal inferences, or add any embellishments to the testimony that could obscure the truth, or distract from the truth.

At that time that I was a witness, it got me thinking about the reporting that we get on the television news. I have to say, I haven’t watched television news for many, many years, and I will tell you why, because frankly, I just cannot trust it. Although I believe that the news they report on television is mostly true, I am not confident that it is the whole truth, and I am not confident at all that it is “nothing but” the truth.  I wanted to be able to give you an example of what I am talking about, but I did not want it to be an example too controversial for us here at Church. After I thought about it for a while, I remembered something that occurred over twenty years ago: in February of the year 2001, on Ash Wednesday, we had a 6.8 magnitude earthquake here in the area, centered a little north of Olympia. This earthquake is now known as the “Nisqually Earthquake.” Immediately after this quake, the local news found a place at the south end of downtown Seattle where a narrow brick wall had tipped over. This wall had wobbled in the earthquake, and a load  of bricks landed on a parked car. By mid-afternoon, all the local stations were showing a picture of an empty parked car which had been crumpled by the bricks. 

         By evening time, the news agencies had picked up the story, and the picture of this car was on all the national broadcasts. I started to get phone calls from friends and relatives around the country, asking me, “how bad is it out there?” Based on this one picture, people thought that our whole region had been destroyed, which was not the case at all. This was a situation of them telling the truth, but not telling the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. This led viewers to believe that our area was much worse off than it really was.

But this is not a sermon on television news. Still, I always encourage everyone to find out all the facts of the matter in any news story, and I always suggest that we never believe whatever we hear on the news without checking out all the facts for ourselves. 

         This sermon is about our Gospel, but it is related to this news phenomenon, because Jesus tells us today, “see that you not be deceived.” Today we celebrate the 33rd Sunday of Ordinary time, and next Sunday is the final Sunday of our Church year. Our Gospels of the past few weeks are a collection of Jesus’ teachings that come from the instruction that he gave his disciples very close to the time that he was preparing to ascend to the Father.

       Today in our Gospel, Jesus tells the disciples that the Temple in Jerusalem, the beautiful, ornate Temple will not stand for too much longer. Jesus says that the day will come when there will not be left a stone upon another stone that is not thrown down. Of course, when the disciples hear this, they want to know when it is going to happen. We know that Jesus has already told them about this that “no one knows the day nor the hour,” not even the Son, but only the Father.

Even so, Jesus warns them of the types of things that are going to happen before the end of the age: Jesus says, “many will come in my name, saying, 'I am he,' and 'The time has come,' and he directs the disciples not to believe in them. He also says at this time, there will be conflicts between countries, and that many natural disasters will occur before the end time comes. Still, Jesus warns us not to be terrified. Then he adds, “before all these things happen, they will seize us, and persecute us, we who profess our belief in Christ. 

       In one sense, has this not already begun? Many of us are careful about how and when we tell others that we are Christians, many of us are careful about sharing our beliefs in public, because, in the back of our minds, we may be thinking about the persecutions and mistreatment Jesus has warned us about. 

He tells us that we will even be handed over by our parents, brothers, relatives, and friends because of our faith in Him. And, he tells us that the persecutors will even put some of us to death. 

         We certainly understand a bit of what it means when Jesus says, “You will be hated by all because of my name.” We know that Christians are mocked and are often considered superstitious peasants by those who put their trust in Science and Political salvation. But even after Jesus gives us these dark predictions, He tells us to stay strong, because “but not a hair on our heads will be destroyed!” What can this mean, “not a hair on our heads will be destroyed,” if we are destined to be seized and persecuted, some will suffer death for His sake? 

What this means is precisely what Jesus has told us earlier, that we should not fear those who can kill the body, but cannot kill the soul. Those persons who might persecute our bodies, those who might cause us physical harm, they can do no harm to our eternal souls, they can do no harm to our eternal essence. It is then that Jesus reveals the solution to our struggle, when he tells us, “by your perseverance you will secure your lives." By our perseverance to the Faith in Jesus our Savior we will live, we will live eternally with Him forever.

This theme of perseverance has been a recurring theme in the Gospels of the last several Sundays: we are not to give up, we are not to give in. We are called to trust in Jesus, we are called to believe in his words. We are called to pray without ceasing, and we are called to proclaim to the world our faith in Him. We who are believers in Christ, we are not to give up. We are not to give up when it gets tough, we are not to give up when it gets personal, we are not to give up even when it begins to hurt! Our confidence in God should be so strong that we will be able to endure whatever comes our way. 

We who are believers, we who follow Christ, we celebrate the important events in Salvation History every year, as we celebrate the seasons of the Church Calendar.  During the Season of Advent, which begins in two weeks, we celebrate the Incarnation.  In Ordinary Time, we celebrate his ministry on earth. In Lent we celebrate His Passion and his death for our Salvation. Then, at Easter time we celebrate his glorious Resurrection from the dead. 

And each year in these last days of the Church Calendar, we recall the Lord’s teaching that we must persevere in our Faith, we do not give up! And if we persevere, if we are courageous to the end, we will witness the fulfillment of the prophecy of Malachi, which we heard in our first reading today. When the Day of the Lord does come at last, it will come“blazing like an oven,” and the proud and the evildoers will burn like stubble. 

But for us, the believers who persevere, for us who fear His Holy Name, says the prophet Malachi,  for us “there will arise the sun of justice with its healing rays” and then we will be gathered into Paradise to live with our Lord Jesus for ever and ever. Amen.