Proper 28 - 2025

Sermon for Proper 28, Year C
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
The Rev. Andrew McLarty

The Gospel today gives us one of those moments when Jesus speaks plainly about upheaval—about wars and insurrections, nations in conflict, and the very stones of the Temple being thrown down. It’s the kind of reading that makes us shift in our seats a bit, because it sounds simultaneously scary and uncomfortably familiar. Today we see wars and conflicts tearing nations apart, historically trusted bodies eroding their social equity, and establishments feeling wobbly. The patterns of life we counted on are smudging.

Whenever Jesus speaks as he does today in Luke, it’s not to scare us, but to remind us that God’s people have never been strangers to uncertainty. And more importantly, that God is not absent within it.

As I sat with this reading, I found myself remembering other seasons when our sense of normal was threatened. The pandemic, when overnight we were scared to be near each other. Or further back—the 2008 recession—when many lost or nearly lost all they had, when my little brother graduated college into a world that had no prospects for his future. Doors were closing faster than he could knock on them.

But here’s the deeper truth:

None of these moments were the end of the story.

They were passages, hard passages, but routes we had to move through in order to reach what came next.

It reminds me of that familiar children’s song, We’re Going on a Bear Hunt. Every time the characters reach some new obstacle—the deep river, the dark forest, the swirling snowstorm—they say, “We can’t go over it. We can’t go under it. Oh no! We’ve got to go through it!”

And honestly? That’s not just a children’s refrain.

That’s Old Testament. That’s the Psalms. That’s Gospel.

Because the Christian story, at its core, is the story of a God who does not take us over suffering, or lead us around hardship or death, but who walks with us through them. Redemption does not gloss past the errors and struggle. Resurrection does not skip over Good Friday. There is no Easter morning without the tomb. New life doesn’t come without something old falling away.

Death and suffering are not detours from the Christian story; they are necessary passages within it. Not because God delights in our pain, but because God transforms it. God redeems it. God brings life amid loss.

Jesus says in today’s Gospel, “By your endurance you will gain your souls.” He does not promise an escape route. He promises a way through, sustained by his presence, his power, and his unwavering love.

And here’s the hope:

Every time we have faced hardship, whether as individuals, families, or communities, we have discovered something on the other side—wisdom we didn’t know we needed, strength we didn’t know we had, compassion we didn’t know was possible.

So yes, things may feel like they’re bending. Some may even break. But God is still God. Christ is still risen. And resurrection is still out there, ahead of us.

We may not always see the path clearly, but we can repeat the refrain:

“We can’t go over it. We can’t go under it. Oh no! We’ve got to go through it.”

With Christ. And in Christ. And through Christ.

Amen.