SerSM3dc17.doc Signs of the End or a Way to Begin -1- December 3, 2017 Lection: Mark13:24-37 This morning we heard one of those wild and crazy scripture readings that appear about once a year in the assigned lectionary -- usually on the first Sunday in Advent. This one is from the Gospel of Mark and it reflects a terrible time in the history of the early church a time of persecution and a time when things were so bad that it was easy to think about the end of the world. And for many people then, the world did end because the Romans marched into Jerusalem and killed everybody they could lay their hands on and those who remained ran away with little more than the clothes on their backs. And while this was happening the tiny community of Christians who lived in Jerusalem then, clung in their terror to the memory that Jesus promised them that he would come again. Well that didn t happen and that still hasn t happened despite all the predictions people make and depending on where you live in the Sudan or caught up in the ethnic cleansing in Myanmar or on the boarder between of Syria and Iraq, predictions about the end of the world can seem very real, because in too many places, the world as people have known it, is ending. Innocent people are killed or kidnapped or persecuted for their faith. And I suspect that many people closest to these latest outbreaks of evil are hoping that Jesus or 1
the prophet Mohammad or some other heaven sent savior will come again so that the final judgment can happen. Do you wonder where I am headed with this? I usually manage to be a bit more positive and practical but this is a tough scripture passage, so please bear with me, I m not finished yet. I have a few points to make. First off, things are tough out there in this world or ours. There is real evil it exists, you can see it operating in some of the crazy behavior we hear about in the States and elsewhere around the world. Things are happening that make reasonable people afraid for the future. Racism is condoned, immigrants are disrespected, the media is goaded and blamed and religious bigotry is tolerated and freedom of religion is turned upside down and used to justify and motivate the momentum of hate. Young people in the States and all over the world who do not feel they have any investment in the future are being seduced by the belief that violence is the way to solve problems or make a meaningful difference or that violence is the best way to claim and express religious or political identity. And it would be easy just to stand here and offer smug words of condemnation or to wring my hands about how God-awful those poor deluded fools who disagree with my enlightened views are behaving, wishing that they would sit down over a cup of coffee with me 2
sometime soon so I could enlighten them with my Christian understanding. And it would also be easy to suggest that the military be given a free hand to bomb those with whom we happen to disagree into the stone age or to meet the violence of nations with greater violence or to force those evil people into a different way of looking at the world more in tune with my ideas of how the world should be. And yes, let me say it sometimes force is necessary, sometimes sacrifice needs to be made for the sake of truth and yes, we need to speak out all of us for the sake of the truth as we see it..but the way of Jesus is a different way it is not the way of us against them or we have the truth and you don t have it and you need to get some of our truth or God doesn t love you. Between 1608 and 1638, Protestants and Catholics in Europe fought the Thirty Years War because they both believed that the other side did not know the truth about Jesus. Eight million people died because the spiritual ancestors of those beautiful people worshipping this morning in the Parroquia de San Miguel Arcángel disagreed with our spiritual ancestors and they all decided both Roman Catholics and Protestants, that the way of Jesus justified killing one another to make their way the only way. Do you suppose that made Jesus happy? In the year 1,000 an army of Western Christians sacked Constantinople, the capital city of the Eastern Christians because one 3
side used leavened bread in communion and the other side used unleavened bread. Thousands dead because of yeast or the lack there of, in the communion bread. Do you suppose that is what Jesus had in mind when he said: This is my body broken for you.. I do not pretend to understand the terribly deep hate that some of our Moslem sisters and brothers have for one another or for Christians. I do not pretend to understand the hate that motivated Christians to lead the Crusades. What is there about religion, theirs and ours and others, that turns love into hate and hope into fear? I know there is a deep history of mistrust and fear between Sunni and Shia Moslems and there is a legacy of tribal mistrust and hatred and ideas about vengeance that I do not understand complicating the whole situation but I do know my own religious history, I know the nastier violent parts of the Bible. And I know our own history as a people back in the United States. The history of slavery and the way we treated the people who were living here when we moved in, and the blood bath that was the American Civil War. Don t mistake me now. I am not suggesting for a moment that a bad past is any justification for evil in the present. Or that blame is a game that will win anything more than the same sort of misery that we see today. If all you or I have to say about the present is words of condemnation and blame, then I don t think we have anything to say that is either helpful or hopeful. 4
Let me suggest just a few ideas for you to think about. Buried right there in the middle of our Bible lesson for today and layered over and surrounded by all the scary stuff about violence and the end of the world sort of like the news reports many sit and listen to all day---is a little word from Jesus that is a big word about life. Like a flower planted in the desert, Jesus says heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was God and the word was power and the word was the way that leads to life. What is the Word Jesus is the Word, Jesus is the way and the way he laid out and the words he spoke will endure, not the hate, not the hopelessness, not the fear. Do you believe that? That s the promise that comes each year at Christmas. That s what born in the manger and all that Silent Night, Holy Night, candle glow, peace on earth stuff that s what it s about. That s the message, that s the promise. Question: Is that promise strong enough to confront the hate? Is that promise a truth by which you and I can live? Once again, I don t have a simple answer, but there are a few things that I would like to think about with you. The way of hate is not just out there or back home or over there in some other country or among people with whom we happen to disagree. Hate may manifest itself in the behavior of the followers of 5
any religion, but hate is tricky, because hate is evil and the sneakiest trick the devil plays is to get you and me to hate the haters and thereby wallow in the mud that has made this world miserable from day one. If becoming a bigot myself is my best answer to the bigotry of another, then hate wins. If enhancing my own intolerance is my considered intellectual defense to the intolerance of another, then hate wins. If manifesting my racism is my solution to the racism of another, then hate wins. If even suggesting for a moment that because I love God, others don t or that they are somehow less than the beautiful creations of God s love, then hate wins. And if I am so sure that my way of worship is the only way to worship or to pray, then hate surely wins and wins big time. Do you remember that little story Jesus told about seeing the speck in our neighbor s eye while failing to see the log in our own? There s an awful lot of that going around and I m sorry to say that some days under the influence of the harsh reality of this good earth, I fall into that mistake myself. I can t fix the Middle East. I don t know what to do about the word wars that seem to enflame international relations at the moment. I can t sort out the complexities that drive people to deny the humanity of other people. All I can do is get my heart and my head and my hands around the words Jesus said would never pass away. 6
I can love my neighbor. I can honor the image of God that I bear. I can love the power of love which is another word for all I believe about God. If I only believe in a God who is some distant being out there, way far away, sitting on a throne probably looking the other direction most of the time, then I can get away with all sorts of nasty behavior toward the person next door, but Jesus I love won t let me get away with that. God is my neighbor. You are my neighbor. The person who disagrees with me is my neighbor. Even the person who hates and behaves terribly is my neighbor and despite the fact that I have trouble saying it and often more trouble believing it, even that unloving, misbehaving, hate manifesting so and so who is attempting to tear the world apart, that person is my neighbor and they bear the very image of God. Now that s the theory, how do we make it work? Unfortunately, for most of us I don t think it works long distance thank God there are a few great people who can do it that way. I don t think it works when you or I wring our hands lamenting how awful things are. Turn off the news channel, leave the echo chamber and find someone who disagrees with you and take him or her to lunch. Make friends with someone who follows a different faith. Read a good book and learn something new about another religion. Practice your own faith so that it shows. 7
Recognize that if everyone you know agrees with you, you are probably living in the same far country where the Prodigal child squandered his inheritance remember that story? If your mind is made up and you know what you know and don t want to know more, then at least consider that you might have closed the door to the possibility that the Holy Spirit of the living God might move through you to make this world a better place. Change you mind. Love someone. Give something. Plant a tree. Light a candle. Go to the manger. Follow the star. Hold on to hope. That is the way that leads to life! And more people on that journey are exactly what this hurting world needs. Amen. 8