Gospel: Luke 21: 5-11
People come to Jesus marveling at the beauty of the Temple in Jerusalem - all its jewels and adornments. Yet it will all be torn down, all of it an illusion and distraction from what really matters. So it is with our constant perseveration over the end times - the endless predictions and false demigods of religion who make money off these things. Note how Jesus describes these end times: not very specific. It can and does describe every time and place. Why? Because the topic is not important.
What is important? Jesus came to announce that God's kingdom is here, and that our task is to extend mercy to others in the same way that mercy has been extended to us. That is our task, and that is what we constantly seek to avoid by focusing on all sorts of other questions that are fundamentally unimportant, such as the end times and Jesus' second coming.
In our own day we are enamored of the beauty of church buildings, and we are ever fixated on end times conversations. But each is torn down - churches close and are destroyed, and our endless procession of false ideas on end times are obliterated by the ongoing march of time. There is still time to concern ourselves with the one thing necessary - being merciful to others as God has been merciful to us, the real work of God's kingdom.
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