Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost

The Rev. Michael Lemaire The sermon uses the story of the failed Millerite rapture predictions to explore why people long for the world to end: because the real world feels unbearably painful. Drawing on Jesus’s prophecy of the temple’s destruction, the preacher shows how ancient and modern communities alike cling to apocalyptic hope when everything familiar collapses. But prophecy and visions of a perfect future can become escapist fantasies. Isaiah dreams of a world without suffering, yet our own world remains filled with war, grief, and injustice. Instead of waiting for God to fix everything, the gospel points us toward endurance, love, and the everyday practice of kindness. Like Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem teaches, only when we know sorrow can we recognize kindness as the deepest thing. In a broken world, kindness is the call, the task, and the sustaining presence.