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Nov.
16, 2003 (Jimmie Johnson)
Old Testament Lesson
I Samuel 2:1-10
Hannah prayed and said, “My heart exults in the LORD; my strength
is exalted in my God. My mouth derides my enemies, because I rejoice
in my victory. “There is no Holy One like the LORD, no one
besides you; there is no Rock like our God. Talk no more so very
proudly, let not arrogance come from your mouth; for the LORD is
a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed. The bows of
the mighty are broken, but the feeble gird on strength. Those who
were full have hired themselves out for bread, but those who were
hungry are fat with spoil. The barren has borne seven, but she who
has many children is forlorn. The LORD kills and brings to life;
he brings down to Sheol and raises up. The LORD makes poor and makes
rich; he brings low, he also exalts. He raises up the poor from
the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit
with princes and inherit a seat of honor. For the pillars of the
earth are the Lord’s, and on them he has set the world. “He
will guard the feet of his faithful ones, but the wicked shall be
cut off in darkness; for not by might does one prevail. The LORD!
His adversaries shall be shattered; the Most High will thunder in
heaven. The LORD will judge the ends of the earth; He will give
strength to his king, and exalt the power of his anointed.”
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Gospel Lesson Mark 13:1-8
As he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him,
“Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!”
Then Jesus asked him, “Do you see these great buildings? Not
one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”
When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple,
Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately,
“Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that
all these things are about to be accomplished?” Then Jesus
began to say to them, “Beware that no one leads you astray.
Many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and they
will lead many astray. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars,
do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to
come. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom;
there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines.
This is but the beginning of the birthpangs.
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What if you knew the end of the world was coming? Maybe that’s
not the best way to state the question. What if you knew the end
of your world was just around the corner? How would you change and
how quickly? Would it be overnight? Would it be by sundown today?
I remember my surgeon telling me: “If it has spread, perhaps
5 to 10 years.” I noticed he was looking down at his note
pad, writing, scribbling the words “5-10 years” on the
paper. I didn’t blame him. I wouldn’t want to look patients
in the eye and tell them about the real possibility of their lives
ending by a certain time. Everything went my way, and it hadn’t
spread as most of you know. But, I kept that piece of paper with
his scribbled writing on it about “carcinoma”
“if spread 5 to10 years.” I get the note out and read
it ever so often for an attitude check.
When you are told about the possibility of your life ending, it
gets your attention. Some of you have been told this. You’ve
lived with this talk about an ending. If you haven’t been
told your life will be ending, there are people you love who have
been told to expect the end. How did it affect you?
The disciples must have felt their tummies flip flop, roll and dive,
when Jesus started talking to them about the end. They had been
sightseeing. This was their first trip to Jerusalem. In Mark’s
gospel this is the only time Jesus and the twelve are in Jerusalem.
They are taking in all the sights--Trump Tower, Rockefeller Plaza,
where Katie and Matt do the Today Show, St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
It is all so big and beautiful in the city. One of the disciples
couldn’t contain himself. The others may have been trying
to be cool, but one of them spoke what probably all were thinking:
“Wow, look at that!” “That place is gigantic.”
“Look at the size of that.” The Temple was everything.
The existence and the appearance of the Temple were the signs that
God was still God: the ultimate sign of reliability in life. Emotionally
they considered the Temple the center of the universe.
Jesus responds to the disciples’ conversation about bigness
and lavishness and security by saying, “You haven’t
seen anything yet. All this will be knocked down like a pre-schooler’s
house of Legos!” And then he goes on to talk about the end.
We don’t know if he is talking about the end of the world
or the end of his life. But what we are sure about is that he is
talking about the end. There is only so much time left. “Disciples,
do you have what it will take to endure? Will you still believe
when everything is taken away, when the whole structure of your
life disappears? When a wrecking ball hits your life, will you still
hang in there? Will you still have gratitude and faith? Will you
still believe after the wrecking ball?”
It could be, though I am not sure, but it could be that Jesus is
talking to himself as well as the disciples. When he is on that
cross that seems more and more to loom on the horizon, will he still
believe and trust the Father?
There was the likelihood that coming into Jerusalem, Jesus and the
twelve passed by the sight of crucified men lining the road. It
was the Roman way of crowd control. Crucifixion was used to maintain
civil order. The cross was not invented for Jesus. It was a daily
brutality in his world. But by the time they had arrived in the
city, the disciples have put those ugly crosses out of mind. All
they are thinking about is how big and how beautiful, how wonderful
the city looks, how blessed they are to get to be a part of all
this, and how soon Jesus, their leader, will be in charge of all
this beautiful glory. But, Jesus could still have been thinking
about those crosses and the men pinned on them, thinking about the
likelihood of the conflict between himself and the civil and religious
leaders.
Some forty or so years later, the time Mark was writing this gospel,
the Christian community had endured its first major persecution.
The Temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed by the Romans. Jews and
Christians were horrified. The very symbol of reliability that there
were order and rules and justice in the universe, the Temple was
gone. It had been reduced to a mound of burning rubble. Christians
like Mark were remembering that Jesus had preached to them about
living through the wrecking ball, enduring the end when it isn’t
the end.
What would you do if you knew your life or the life of someone you
love was soon to end? Would you be less argumentative? Would you
be less tight with your generosity? Would you tell them how you
love them? What if we knew our congregation only had six months
before it was closed? Would we try to enjoy every Sunday together?
Would we try to start one final mission project? Would we make a
gift to Meals on Wheels or Mission Waco or Salvation Army or the
Industrial School in South India? Would we forget about some of
the small feuds and hurt feelings? Would the issues for you be different?
Surprisingly, Jesus goes on to tell the disciples that when it looks
as if the wrecking ball has done all the damage it can do, it is
still not the end. It can still be the time of faith and hope. When
Jesus tells Peter, James and John and Andrew about war and social
upheaval, family disintegration, a flood of refugees, and false
religious leaders, Jesus tells them that such terrible things aren’t
the final word about God and God’s plans. They are not the
signs of the end.
If you look carefully, Jesus is talking about faith and enduring
in this passage from Mark. Jesus says what looks and feels and smells
and sounds like death is really a birth. New life is about to be
born out of the loss and the pain and the end. When a woman gives
that final push with all she has and for a moment hovers between
life and death, expending all her energy, suddenly in that moment
of relaxation, that’s the moment of the baby’s head
crowns and emerges. A new life, a future is delivered, not an ending.
Look, the church, this symbolic building, lives and dies by the
faith that specifically in Jesus there is revealed, given, promised
the way that all things shall go. Look, are those moments of our
deep experience when we glimpse that reality is trustworthy and
that all will be well, are these true intimations of our ultimate
destiny? Or, are they merely fleeting and illusory consolations
in a world of actual and absolute transience where nothing lasts?
Look, the real question that brings us here to this symbolic building
is not whether our existence might possibly be immortal and if so,
what part of it; no, the question we want to know is will love endure,
will it stand forever? Will love endure when all else ends, will
the love out of which we receive ourselves and which makes us feel
alive when we ourselves offer it, will love last? Will love last
after the wrecking ball?
If God is, as Christ teaches and we Christians believe, “the
God of love,” then love will indeed endure. “Many waters
cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it” (Song of
Solomon 8:7). Not even the waters of cosmic chaos nor the tumultuous
breakers of human evil can quench God’s love.
Nobody gets out of this alive. The tomb receives all of Creation,
everything is reduced to dust, and even the foundation stones crumble,
yet Jesus promises the end is not the end. It is almost too good
to believe, isn’t it? That’s one very good reason, I
believe it. I know some argue religious faith is a fantastic myth
told to help us face the end of all we love, but I think such hope
is a beautiful gift suggestive that we are indeed destined for love
and that since love lasts,
we are not fools for loving.
When we are told that the end is coming, it is shattering. In the
face of such devastating news, we cannot know for certain that it
results in a birth, but we can, however, trust. In the end, every
world view rests upon trust, in that none can be conclusively demonstrated
to be true—atheism included. Our choice will rest upon probability,
rather than certainty, our hearts as well as our minds.
Yet, this is nothing new. Jesus is telling us this in this passage.
When the end is coming, will you trust? I’ll propose to you
an experiment. Let’s live not the rest of this year, or even
this month, no, let’s commit to living just this week as if
that is all the time we had and yet believing what we do and say
will last forever. What words would you like to be your last words?
What actions would you like to have be your last actions? The experiment
is for this week: say those words, do those deeds.
If God is, as Christ teaches
and we Christians believe, “the God of love,” then love
will indeed endure. “Many waters cannot quench love, neither
can floods drown it” (Song of Solomon 8:7). Not even the waters
of cosmic chaos nor the tumultuous breakers of human evil can quench
God’s love.
Nobody gets out of this alive. The tomb receives all of Creation,
everything is reduced to dust, and even the foundation stones crumble,
yet Jesus promises the end is not the end. It is almost too good
to believe, isn’t it? That’s one very good reason, I
believe it. I know some argue religious faith is a fantastic myth
told to help us face the end of all we love, but I think such hope
is a beautiful gift suggestive that we are indeed destined for love
and that since love lasts,
we are not fools for loving.
When we are told that the end is coming, it is shattering. In the
face of such devastating news, we cannot know for certain that it
results in a birth, but we can, however, trust. In the end, every
world view rests upon trust, in that none can be conclusively demonstrated
to be true—atheism included. Our choice will rest upon probability,
rather than certainty, our hearts as well as our minds.
Yet, this is nothing new. Jesus is telling us this in this passage.
When the end is coming, will you trust? I’ll propose to you
an experiment. Let’s live not the rest of this year, or even
this month, no, let’s commit to living just this week as if
that is all the time we had and yet believing what we do and say
will last forever. What words would you like to be your last words?
What actions would you like to have be your last actions? The experiment
is for this week: say those words, do those deeds.
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