Homily for Evensong, RCO Summer Course, 29th July, by The Rev’d Lucy Newman Cleeve
1 Samuel 6:1-16
Luke 21:5-19
May I speak in the name of the Father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
As musicians, you understand the power of beauty to move us – that moment when a resonant chord fills a cathedral space, when architecture and acoustics and artistry converge into something transcendent. The disciples felt something similar standing before the temple. They were gazing up in wonder at its massive stones, its beautiful decorations, its overwhelming grandeur: “Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and buildings!”
But this wasn’t just architectural appreciation. They were looking at the very symbol of God’s presence, the guarantee of divine protection, the centre of their religious and national identity. If anything could make them feel secure about the future, surely it was this magnificent temple that seemed to embody the divine itself.
Then Jesus said something that must have felt like a knife through their aesthetic appreciation: “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another.” It’s jarring, isn’t it? Like someone interrupting your most moving performance to announce the concert hall is going to be demolished.
No wonder they immediately asked: “Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign?” When the very thing that represents God’s permanence is threatened, we desperately want advance warning, some way to prepare, some sign to help us navigate the uncertainty.
In our increasingly uncertain times, we all know this feeling – when something we thought was permanent suddenly isn’t. The Philistines experienced it too. They’d captured Israel’s sacred Ark as a war trophy, but instead of victory, they got mysterious plagues. Their prize became their curse.
Desperate for answers, they devised an ingenious test. They took two milk cows – mothers with nursing calves who had never been yoked – and hitched them to a cart carrying the Ark. Every maternal instinct would drive these animals back to their babies. If they went toward Israelite territory instead, it could only mean divine intervention.
Against all natural instinct, the cows headed straight for Beth-shemesh, bellowing in distress as they left their young behind. Clear, undeniable proof that Israel’s God was real and active.
But when the disciples ask Jesus for similar certainty – a sign to help them navigate the temple’s destruction – he refuses. Instead, he promises something harder: “This will be your opportunity to bear testimony. I will give you words and wisdom that none of your opponents can withstand or contradict.”
Here’s the difference: the Philistines got their sign so they could manage a crisis and move on. But they also had to choose. They could have dug in defensively, holding onto the Ark as a trophy of conquest. Instead, they chose the harder path of acknowledging what they didn’t understand and making costly restitution.
Jesus calls his followers to a similar choice. In our own age of anxiety – when many feel that familiar foundations are shifting – we can retreat into defensive positions, trying to preserve some imagined golden age. Or we can follow Jesus’ harder path: seeing crisis as opportunity, uncertainty as an invitation to deeper trust.
Even as he warns of persecution and betrayal, Jesus makes an extraordinary pledge: "Not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your souls."
True faith doesn’t promise to preserve our comfortable arrangements unchanged. It promises something better: that even when everything we thought was permanent crumbles, we are held – soul-deep, eternally held – by something no earthly power can touch or destroy. The question isn’t whether we’re living in uncertain times. The question is: will we read these signs with fear or with faith?
Amen