The Rev. Keri T. Aubert       1 Samuel 1:4-20

All Saints Episcopal Church, South Burlington, Vermont        1 Samuel 2:1-10

November 15, 2009   Hebrews 10:11-14, (15-18), 19-25

Proper 28, Year B, RCL     Mark 13:1-8

In today’s reading from the Gospel of Mark, we hear Jesus correctly prophesy the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple. He’s right when he says, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.”[i]

Regarding this event, one Bible commentary remarks that, “Recent excavations near the Temple Mount in Jerusalem have revealed how the Roman armies in 70 c.e. used fire to undermine the foundations of the walls and then tumbled the huge stones down into a heap of rubble.”[ii] I read the commentary on Tuesday, so it was quite a coincidence to open Thursday’s Burlington Free Press and find this short article:

Israel displayed for the first time Wednesday a collection of rare coins charred and burned from the Roman destruction of the Jewish Temple nearly 2,000 years ago. About 70 coins were found in an excavation at the foot of a key Jerusalem holy site. The coins sit inside a glass case, some melted down to unrecognizable chunks of pockmarked and carbonized bronze from the flames that destroyed the Temple.[iii]

The question remains whether Jesus really did prophesy this event, because the Gospel of Mark was written down shortly after the destruction of the Temple. All the gospels were written down after the destruction of the Temple. The author of Mark, along with the other gospel writers, rather than offering a prediction, is more likely reflecting on actual events. He’s trying to make meaning out of a tragedy that would have profoundly shaken the Jews of his time. In many ways, the world as they knew it had ended. If you keep reading this chapter of Mark, it only gets more unsettling. This portion of Mark is often termed the Little Apocalypse. Each of the four gospels includes a similar section. The big Apocalypse is of course the Book of Revelation. The Book of Daniel is also apocalyptic.

Apocalyptic writing is characterized by concern with the end times. Concern with the end times did not begin or end with the writers of Hebrew and Christian scripture. The stream of popular books and movies continued this weekend with the opening of the film 2012. That film plays off the 5,000-year-old Mayan calendar, which ends on December 21, 2012. Some predict that something important will happen as the Mayan calendar resets at the beginning. I’ve heard that the date is being anticipated with bumper stickers that say “Shift happens.” Apparently some believe that it will prove to be the end of the world. I haven’t seen the film, but I have seen previews, and the special effects involving things like massive tsunamis and crumbling monuments are truly impressive. I’ve also heard that the plot involves a character named Noah and the construction of an ark. Somewhat predictably, the film has spawned a raft of tie-ins. On a tip, I checked last night’s lineup on the History Channel, and the titles of two of the three programs included the word “Apocalypse.”

It’s easy to dismiss 2012 as the latest Y2K. Of course, nothing came of that. But let’s try to take this latest round of doom saying at least a little seriously. After all, the way things are is not the way they will always be. Stones and buildings do come down. The fall of the twin towers of the World Trade Center was clear evidence that our way of life is not as invincible as we would like to think. The death of loved ones reminds us that we are not as invincible as we would like to think. Communally and individually, tragedy strikes, and we feel the effects for years to come. If our culture is particularly anxious right now, it may be because we are living in a particularly anxious time. We, too, have much to make meaning of.

Jakki and I had a brief conversation Friday morning about what we would do if the world was ending tomorrow. She said she’d go to church, and that she’d try to gather the members of the church—who are many of the people she loves most—for a potluck. She asked what I would do. “I wouldn’t do anything different,” I said. She replied, “So you’d go off to JUMP?” “Yes,” I said, “because I’d never believe it.” We laughed, but we were both serious. Our answers of course offer insight into some of our basic personality differences. But if we put our answers together, they offer a commentary on the paradox of the life of faith: We should live every day as if it is our last, and we should live every day as if we will live forever.

After reading the article in the Free Press about the charred coins from the Jerusalem Temple, I went online and found an image of one of those recovered coins. I imagined a person crafting that coin and the people through whose hands it had passed. I imagined a widow tossing it into an offering receptacle at the Temple 2,000 years ago. The destruction of the Jerusalem Temple was a terrible tragedy, but one wall was left standing. A hundred generations later, people still pray there. Jews and also Christians flock to the Western Wall, often leaving in the wall bits of paper with prayer intentions written on them. In a case of past meets future, I learned recently that you don’t even have to go to Jerusalem to leave your prayer in the wall: you can use Twitter to tweet your prayer to a young Jewish man who will do it for you.[iv]

In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus goes on about the hard times that are coming, but in the end, he says to stay calm. We can’t know when the end coming, so we should just go about our business. The trials he describes are just the beginnings of the birth pangs, he says, but we should remember that they are birth pangs. As Christians, we find our way though tragedies small and large by being part of a church that was built upon the resurrection of one who was crucified. From that tragedy came life. In a sense, Jesus’ crucifixion sufferings were our birthpangs.

Today’s reading from the Letter to the Hebrews tells us that Christ’s sacrifice leaves us both sanctified and perfected. In this condition, the author says:

. . . let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.[v]

Faith, hope, and charity. End time or no end time. Faith, hope, and charity. As we learn to integrate these virtues into our whole lives, we live every day as if it is our last, and we live every day as if we will live forever.

A noted Christian theologian recently reflected on his visit India’s Golden Temple, the most significant place of worship for Sikhs. He tells this story:

. . . I wanted to buy a souvenir for my two boys. Then it dawned on me: I hadn’t seen a vendor or a shop anywhere on the temple premises. “Thousands of religious tourists mill about here every day,” I thought. “There must be a place to buy souvenirs!” But there wasn’t.

You had to leave the temple complex and step onto the profane ground of surrounding streets to satisfy your tourist appetite. There peddlers were as busy as anywhere else in the world . . . . But not on the holy site—there the only commercial transaction that took place was the purchase of a “ticket” to walk across the bridge to the temple in the middle of the lake. The ticket was a bowl of porridge, the size of which depended on how much you paid. You could eat some of it, but you were expected to put at least a portion of it into large bowls. When the bowls were filled, they were carried off to feed the poor.[vi]

I was reminded of this last Sunday, when so many of you came forward at the offertory with not only your pledge cards but also your food donations. It was not my idea—it was Linda Morrell’s idea—and I’m glad she had it. Also last Sunday I mentioned during the sermon how one church’s worship committee meets every week after the service to answer this question: “At what point in the service did you most feel God’s presence?” After our service, Molly Dillon, who had served as a Eucharistic minister, suggested that the service participants try it out. Another great idea, so we did it. She and I both said that we most felt God’s presence during that impressive offertory. I understand that moment as a powerful convergence of faith, hope, and charity. As we Christians try to change the world, maybe it’s okay if some things fall away, if that births us into the presence of God.

This week I heard a story on NPR about the Mayan roots of the film 2012.[vii] It closed with a clip from an old song by the rock group R.E.M., which goes like this:

It’s the end of the world as we know it
It’s the end of the world as we know it
It’s the end of the world as we know it
And I feel fine[viii]

Faith, hope and charity, all manifesting the presence of God. Maybe it is the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.