Discernment, Patience and Hope
This is the message I preached on Sunday, 11/15 at St. Timothy Lutheran Church and St. Mark Lutheran Church.The text is Mark 13:1-8.
Our world seems to have gone right off the rails.
Crazy and awful things are happening everywhere; we have massive swings in the
weather, huge hurricanes and typhoons, a giant el nino in the Pacific,
unprecedented climate change and upheaval in the middle east; the latest of which is the 3 simultaneous
terror attacks last Friday in Paris, France. When we see such images, don't we
sometimes think, "Here we go again. When will the madness stop?"
It seems that today's gospel reading with its
apocalyptic overtones is exactly what we need to hear. Apocalyptic describes
the style of writing where the heavenly and earthly worlds seem fused. It's
like the curtain in a theater being drawn back--and suddenly we see things that
until now were hidden from view. Imagine a cosmic curtain, drawn back by an
angel of God, that suddenly reveals the world as God sees it, the world as it
should be, the world as it will be in the future when God's will is done on
earth as it is in heaven (Grieb).
The Jerusalem temple, which had been newly
reconstructed by Herod the Great was impressive. It was one of the seven
wonders of the ancient world. The temple complex was twice as large as the
Roman Forum and four times as large as the Athenian Acropolis with its
Parthenon. Today what remains of it are the huge retaining walls that supported
the temple. The enormous Herodian stones are as long as 40 feet, some of which
still stand as part of the Western or Wailing Wall.
Leaving the temple, one of the disciples said,
"Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!" Don't
the disciples remind you of country boys coming to the big city and can't you
hear John Denver singing "Thank God, I'm a Country Boy" in the
background? That's who they were. We can certainly understand why the disciples
would be so impressed and why Jesus' words that there wouldn't be one stone
left on another, were so puzzling and seemingly impossible. After all, this was
the dwelling place of God in the center of the known world--the symbol of God's
presence with Israel.
In today's gospel, three facts are pointed out. The
first is that God's people need a spirit of discernment, the second is the
church's precarious situation demands incredible patience. The third is perhaps
the most difficult, the church is invited to be hopeful.
The first fact is that God's people need a spirit of
discernment. The disciple's very public statement about the glory of the temple
is followed by private time together with Jesus at the Mount of Olives. There
the inner circle of disciples ask Jesus two questions: "When will this be
and what will be the sign" when all this will happen?Jesus' response is
not what they were looking for. Those come later in the gospel. Jesus said,
"Beware that no one leads you astray" (v. 5).
Those who would come in Jesus' name may not claim to
be Christ, but they claim to speak with his authority. Not only was Jesus
warning his disciples, but the church of Mark's time and our own were also
being warned against such false prophets. Sometimes what they say sounds so
good and seems like the right formula, but at heart, they worship at a
different altar. They offer a religion without the cross, something Martin
Luther called a "theology of glory."
False prophets are still around. Remember Harold
Camping who declared the end would be May 21, 2011? When that didn't happen, he
changed the date to October 21st of the same year. Can you think of other false
prophets that have been prominant over the last 10-20 years? Throughout the
ages there have been false prophets. This is just as Jesus predicted. The point
is that the wars, famines and earthquakes are not the signs of the time (as the
false prophets proclaimed) but only the beginning of the last period of
history. As Christians, we should be skeptical of anyone who claims to have
inside information when our Lord Jesus didn't even have it.
There is a psychological phenomena known as "the
Jerusalem Syndrome." People that seemed perfectly normal at home would
make a trip to the Holy Land. While there, especially in Jerusalem, they would
see themselves as prophets. I saw a number of such people while living in
Bethlehem. One man we referred to as the karate prophet. He would stand by one
of the gates of the Old City, dressed in a white outfit that looked just like
karate gear and proclaim his message.
There were others as well, like the woman who would
sing at bus stops in the Jewish part of Jerusalem. She carried an autoharp and
would repeatedly say "Brrrrrrr" as she strummed away. There were many
other odd people that one could not avoid in Jerusalem. The funny thing was,
they were perfectly normal once they returned home.
A spirit of discernment is so important. We can
nurture one by listening carefully and thinking clearly.
The second fact in today's teaching is that the
church's precarious situation demands of it incredible patience. Rather
than being alarmed, we are to take the long look, to be patient. The calendar
is in God's hands. As Peter wrote, "...with the Lord one day is like a
thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day" (2 Peter 3:8). If
Jesus didn't know when the end would come, what makes us think we can figure it
all out?
Whenever there is a new major world crisis, books
appear describing these events as evidence that the signs in the book of
Revelation are being fulfilled. Do you remember the Left Behind series that was
popular about 10 years ago? It's great fiction, thrown in with a little
theology, but still it's great fiction. The desire to use apocalyptic
prophecies about the end time to make sense of traumatic upheavals in the world
remains a significant temptation for many Christians.
Our one concern is to give testimony to the gospel.
Apocalyptic prophecies do not constitute the testimony about which Jesus
speaks.
The third fact in today's teaching is that in spite of
all that transpires, the church is
invited to be hopeful. Wars, threats of wars, earthquakes and famines are
nothing new and are not unique to our day. History is riddled with a list of
wars too numerous to mention, and natural disasters such as the destruction of
Pompeii in 77 A. D., the Lisbon earthquake in 1755, the eruption of Krakatoa in
1883, and the San Francisco earthquake of 1904, not to mention the plagues that
ravaged Europe come to mind. The readers of Mark's gospel found themselves
living in such chaos. All of it was and is to be understood as "the
beginning of the birth pangs" (v. 8).
Mark's gospel does not discount, but takes seriously
the reality of present suffering. Suffering's purpose is to signal the end of a
long time of waiting and the coming birth of new life. It is not meant to lead
us to despair, but to hope--to the anticipated dawn of God's new day.
So, do we still live in an apocalyptic world? Natural
disasters, which seem to behave more and more erratically are warning us that
as Hamlet said, "the times are out of joint." And we have the massive
displacement of people longing for a stable and peaceful life. They flee
violent, oppressive regimes. It is difficult to comprehend the terrors that
human beings are capable of inflicting upon one another (Grieb).
Church historians and those who watch the culture say
we're on the edge of an end time for the church's traditional role in society.
It may be the beginning of what God plans to do with his church. Church in the
rest of the 21st century may look radically different, but there will still be
God's people gathering to worship. Jesus has warned his followers to be aware
and watchful for the signs that accompany the changing of things. "Mark 13
warns against confusing religious institutions with the Kingdom of God or
thinking God's future is tied to their success or failure (Williamson, Mark,
241).
The feelings of fear and anxiety are the birth pangs
of something new. It is not something we should fear, but embrace, as the in
breaking of God's truth and justice into our world (Smith).
The Christian life is not about stones and bricks.
What goes on inside is what really matters. The life giving waters of baptism
are splashed, stories of faith are told, the meal of bread and wine are given
to all, and we gather as a community of faith, to build each other up, to
spread God's love in the community and to worship our Creator by bringing God our sorrows and joys. The stones
and bricks may fall, but God's church, the community he has called together,
will continue on--living and breathing in the unconditional grace of God.
Amen.
Sources
Brian K. Blount & Gary W. Charles, Preaching
Mark in Two Voices.
M. Eugene Boring, Mark: A Commentary.
M. Eugene Boring & Fred B. Craddock, The
People's New Testament Commentary
Rev. Scott McNally, pastor, Lutheran Church of Hope,
Broomfield, Co.
Pheme Perkins, The New Interpreter's Bible: Mark.
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