The Day is Coming

At a student conference at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California, I first encountered a mature, muscular understanding of the Christian faith I had received from Sunday school.  The Rev. Joseph Wesley Matthews had been holding forth for several days on an understanding of the faith that led to intentional living, cruciform living for the world.

The energy level of those days was unbelievable.  Methodist students from all over California had assembled for that week.  And the air was electric with possibility, with hope.  I remember on one break, several of us male students and their pastors had gathered around a piano singing “For All the Saints.”  The bond of that male camaraderie was nothing like anything I had experienced in the church.  Yes, “Through gates of pearl streams in the countless host.”  Indeed, a taste of heavenly bliss.

As we broke for lunch, over the PA loudspeaker, boomed an urgent announcement, “Jim Donaldson, this is your eschatological moment!”    Oh oh.

Eschatological — of final things.  A moment of being called to account.  Dealing with final judgement.  Yes, we’d absorbed a lot of theological jargon in those few days.

But in a sense, that conference was an eschatological turning point, days of decision, for many of us.  More than one that week began a journey leading to the ordained ministry.  We were, in a way high on a conversion experience – a decision for a life of intentionality.  I can say I’m here in the church because of that week in Stockton.

The prophet Malachi proclaims such an eschatological moment in the life of the people Israel.  “See the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evil doers will be stubble, the day that comes shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.”

Out of this moment of crisis shall come a sprig of hope.  “But for you who revere my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings.”

One of my favorite hymns, “Once to Every Man and Nation,” speaks to such moments of decision, eschatological moments when our entire life is summoned before us.  “Comes a moment to decide…for the good or evil side.”

While the theology might now be somewhat questionable and the imagery sexist, the truth of this hymn is that in the life of a person and nation, there are critical moments.  Eschatological moments when it’s all on the line.  As the old union song asks, “Which Side Are You On?”

America presently faces such a moment.  As more and more of the Epstein files come to light, we now have three of Jeffrey Epstein emails attesting that Donald Trump knew all about the underaged girls being raped and trafficked by him and Maxwell.  In fact, one avers that Trump had been alone with one of those girls in Epstein’s house for several hours.  What was going on?  I doubt he was helping her with her math homework.  Certainly not a paper on morality!

In this critical moment of decision, who will we be as a people?  Will we join with the MAGA cult to sweep this all under the rug?  Ignore those brave women now coming out to testify to the horrors of their ordeal? 

Amazingly, maybe we will.  The House of Representatives has been away on vacation for seven weeks, in part to avoid seating a new representative who had pledged to sign a discharge petition to force a vote on releasing the entire Epstein files.  Yes, hiding in order to protect child rapists.  And depriving children of their nutritional benefits only to protect these rapists.  Depriving one in eight Americans who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits to protect these traffickers of girls?   And a tawdry president attempting to cover it all up.  Yes, what WAS he doing alone in that room for several hours with that underage girl?

Once to this nation can’t come soon enough the moment to decide.  November, 2026 awaits our judgement of it all.  Judgement of this corrupt administration and of all who have by their obfuscation and silence have countenanced this criminal sex trafficking ring.

Oh, and just why might Ghislane Maxwell now be ensconced in a country-club prison with room service?  Of course, it wouldn’t have anything to do with her silence, would it?  Or a presidential pardon? 

This is America’s eschatological moment.  We stand before the bar of history.  Whose side are we on?  The day is coming to decide.

The protectors of the world’s climate are now gathering in Belém, Brazil over these next few weeks for COP30.  COP30 stands for the 30^th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.  That’s a mouthful, but all stands for our collective effort to combat global warming.

Needless to say, the United States is absent, having pulled out of the Paris Accords under this anti-science administration.  Yeah, “Drill, baby, drill” – “Dig, baby, dig.”  What could possibly go wrong?

Well, plenty.  Sarah Palin may have suggested that we don’t need all this “sciency stuff,” but what you don’t know can actually kill you, and the planet.

The Paris Accords, due to the temporizing position of the Obama administration, watered down a critical goal – to keep global warming at or under 1.5 degrees Celsius increase – an increase 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit.

Beyond that, we approach or exceed critical “tipping points,” beyond which there is no return.  Climate disaster becomes a run-away freight train barreling through the coming centuries to the planet becoming a crispy critter.

Those pesky climate scientists warn us that we have already exceeded that goal and are on the way to a 2-degree Celsius increase – some even thinking that enough warming has already been stored in our oceans to take us to a 3-degree Celsius increase in warming.

The root cause driving all this, at the very bottom, is a predatory capitalist system demanding, “More, more, more.”   As the economics professor Richard Parker said, “Only a fool or an economist would believe in the possibility of infinite growth in a finite system.”  Our Mother Earth has its limits, and we’re exceeding them.

At a three degrees Celsius increase, what is the future?  The Amazon, due to the shift in the jet stream, looses its rainfall, becoming as arid as the Gobi Desert.  All gone.  The great Amazon River with its piranha and fresh water porpoises.  howler monkeys, spider monkeys and jaguars – all gone.  Statuesque mahogany trees, Brazil nut trees, and the immense Kapok tree.  And did I mention the cacao tree, yes, your Hershey’s chocolate bar gone to extinction.  All the shifting sands of an Oklahoma Dust Bowl.  And what about my coffee?  Huh? – now, this is getting serious.[1]

And worst, all that carbon storage the Amazon provided.  That jungle is truly the lungs of the planet.  Our world is becoming a runaway freight train headed to oblivion as tipping point after tipping point is passed.

In the days of flood, drought, tornado, and wildfire comes the moment to decide.  Our planet’s eschatological moment.  Will we opt for a livable future or an unknown hellscape?  Poor Luther James, we have dropped a very heavy load on his shoulders.

Luke’s gospel warns that those standing for what is right will be hauled before the authorities.  Before ICE and the machinery of government weaponized against our citizens.  We must be ready to give an account for ourselves who believe in Torah Righteousness and Gospel Goodness.   In this contest, “you will gain your souls.”

I believe the evidence is in — that Malachi’s promise, Luke’s promise is worthy of our faith.  “But for you who revere my name the sun of Righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings.”  And power our future.  This last November the American people rejected MAGA extremism and the starvation of our children as the cutoff of SNAP benefits was used to punish our most vulnerable.  We will reject sexual predation of the most vulnerable.  And Global Weirding.

This administration may not be present at the COP 30 conference, but our Governor Newsom has led a large delegation to place a marker down, that America will accept its responsibilities.[2]  And, without the Trumpy folks present this time, just maybe this time we will accept a realistic goal for action.  No more aspirational, pie-in-the-sky “hopium.”  The delusional thinking of the past is a narcotic the planet can no longer afford.  It is our eschatological moment to decide.  The day is coming.

Bill McKibben, in his new book, Here Comes the Sun,[3] lays out the realistic possibility of a living future for our Mother Earth.  We have it in our capacity to amend our ways.  Much damage has been done, irreversible damage.  But we can yet adopt to something like a 2-degree Celsius increase.

“In the US, something like 42 percent of the energy we use comes down to how we heat our air and water, cook our food, dry our clothes and drive our cars.  That is to say, almost half of the emissions are the result of decisions we make around the proverbial kitchen table…a big part of Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was designed to push those decisions toward the clean and efficient appliances I’ve been describing” – heat pumps, induction stoves, bikes, electric vehicles. 

Just ditching the gas stove can be done for an induction burner at $60.00 to $100.  Of course, a full induction stove will cost around $2000 and you will probably need new cookware.  But all this is possible. 

In that legislation, the IRA, approximately a half trillion dollars was allocated to help America adapt.  Until it was canceled under this administration of anti-science know nothings.  It is up to us to chose the future we want.  The tools are at hand.  Yes, the day is coming – a day when we either burn the place down, as with the fires of last year, or we “cool it,” as the kids would say.  The day is coming.  Our moment to decide.

Momentum is building for solutions.  Time magazine in its November 10th issue, featured a large number of activists, scientists, and others on the front lines working for solutions, and sounding the alarm – yes, that a five-alarm fire is in the making.  Our climate crisis is finally getting front-and-center attention necessary to grab collective attention.[4]

And I believe the American people will choose wisely.  As my friend Vern was wont to say, “Timing is everything.”  The day IS coming.

I close with my favorite quote from James Baldwin on our collective responsibility, our pledge to one another, from his essay, “Nothing Personal.”

Listen to James Baldwin in this essay, he admonishes:

“For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; The earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us.  The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.”[5] 

Through the power of the Holy Spirit, might we pray for the strength and wisdom to keep the Christ Light burning brightly now and, in the days to come, that we might not be found wanting of any good grace.  Let us commend the faith that is in us.  All to the “Glory of God and our neighbor’s good.”  Amen.

---

[1] Mark Lynas, Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet (Washington, D.C., National Geographic, 2008), 140-143.

[2] Melody Gutierrez, “Climate Gives Newsom a World Stage,” Los Angeles Times, November 13, 2025

[3] Bill McKibben, Here Comes the Sun (New York: Norton, 2025).

[4] “Climate: The 100 Most Influential Leaders Driving Climate Action, Time Magazine, November 10, 2025.

[5] James Baldwin, The Price of the Ticket (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1985), 393.

November 9, 2025

Pentecost 23, Proper 28

Malachi 4:1-2a; Psalm 98;
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13; Luke 21:5-19

 
“The Day is Coming”