conjectural navel gazing; jesus in lint form

what is this..."sleep"?

Mark 13:1-8
13:1 As he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, "Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!"13:2 Then Jesus asked him, "Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down."13:3 When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, 13:4 "Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?"

13:5 Then Jesus began to say to them, "Beware that no one leads you astray. 13:6 Many will come in my name and say, 'I am he!' and they will lead many astray.13:7 When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. 13:8 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.

Oy.

So, I went to hear the CSO last night. Koday. Gershwin. Old friends. New friends. Wondrous. Afterward I met Trish at a local bar. She was there with the Caged Dames cast. The last performance is this afternoon, so they had a wee shindig last night. We arrived home around 12:30. Asleep by 1:00. Up at 2:00, 3:15, 4:45. Screw it. I'm up.

*urggle*

Pop tarts and milk to get the brain goin'. Coffee is brewing. I will shut this mac off and use pen and paper again this week. I feel the need to write and not type. Some day I'll understand what the difference means to me.

Right, OSU won. Congratulations to the victors. Condolences to the not-so-victorious. Anything else I forgot?

Right. Prayer needed. Deo gratias.

Okay...so, I changed my mind. Follow the extended link to read the outline-ish thing of my sermon. It was simply faster to type it up. - Tripp (6:45am)

Sermon: Community Church of Wilmette

Mark 13:1-8

 

Apocalypse When?

 

I.               Speaking of Visions

a.     Revelation and dreams…a new heaven and a new earth…behold, I make all things new.

b.     Seeing what God sees…

                                               i.     See the poor.

                                             ii.     See the downtrodden.

                                            iii.     Know that we too are seen and loved by God.

c.     Apocalyptic visions

                                               i.     Where the theological rubber meets the road

                                             ii.     Scriptural explanation

1.     On the heels of last week’s passage

2.     Is this an architectural tour?

3.     This is God’s own Temple and Jesus says that it will crash to the ground.

4.     This is God’s own city and Jesus says that it will crash to the ground.

 

II.             So, what does it matter for today?

a.     Following September 11, 2001, many proclaimed the end times, the apocalypse, when God would come again to set things straight.  Here are the trials, the tribulations, the wars and famine.  They are right here, televised in our living rooms.  We don’t have to make them up. This is Ragnarok on channel 7. 

b.     Contemporary examples:

                                               i.     You see it in books…

1.     Edgar Whisenant 88 Reasons Why the Rapture will be in 1988

2.     Planet Earth – 2000 A.D. by Hal Lindsey

3.     The End of the Age by Pat Robertson

4.     Left Behind by Time LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins

c.     Left Behind

                                               i.     Who is reading these books?

1.     Well, the Left Behind authors have sold more copies than Stephen King and John Grisham.  1 in 8 Americans have read at least one of these books.  After the tragedy of September 11, the recent volume in the series, Desecration became the best selling novel in the country.  The books are also incredibly popular with the soldiers in Iraq.

2.     For those of you who think in terms of marketing…”The ‘core buyer’ is a 44-year-old-born-again Christian woman, married with kids, living in the South.[i]”  So, it is quite possible that you may not have read these yet.  But with at least 62 million sold, the “core buyer” statistic may not matter.

                                             ii.     What is the theology behind the books?

1.     Well, this is harder to say.  LaHaye has been involved in the Religious Right movement since its inception.  And he has a reputation there of being a loose cannon.  Jenkins is younger, a baby boomer and, though conservative in his own right, is much less flamboyant in style.  LaHaye provides Jenkins hundreds of pages of scriptural interpretation and predictive exegesis.  Jenkins gleans plots and through lines from the scriptural outlines that LaHaye provides.

2.     The theology is, not surprisingly, fundamentalist and nominally evangelical.  This is a paraphrase of a literal reading of mystic visions and prophesy…from both the old and new testaments.  The Pope is the assistant to the anti-Christ.  In the story, the responsible Jews convert to Christianity. 

3.     The sole purpose of the books, however, is to save the soul of the reader.  They are composed to inspire, to enthrall, and to entertain.  But the intention is simply to provide spiritual answers to real world questions.

4.     I will confess that I think it is bad theology.  I think it may even be harmful theology.  But I don’t want to be distracted by that issue.  I want us to be aware of the number of people reading these books.  62 million.  Not all are adherents to the theology of the authors.  This is true.  But I wonder what the readers are looking for.

5.     The books provide certainty in a time when little certainty seems evident.  The books provide meaning when little other interpretation seems real or relevant.  People are grasping at straws.  People are reading books…fantastic and entertaining books.  Through these books they are being provided with a vocabulary to interpret their own lives.

                                            iii.     This is not a new theological diversion.  Jenkins and LaHaye are not the first to attempt this kind of meaning making.  Chiliasm was one movement from the second and third century.  Prophets were predicting the day and the time of Christ’s return.  Montanists in the second century, followers of Montanus, gnostics who developed quite a following also predicted the end time.  In the years leading up to 1000 AD hysteria swept Christendom.  Again and again such dreaming and meaning-making has come to the fore…1528 with followers of the Reformer Hans Hut, in 1534  with Melcior Hoffman.  There are the famed Crusades and their Apocalyptic warnings.  And the list goes on[ii]…even to the present day.  This theology is not new, or relegated to simpletons and the superstitious.  Throughout the centuries, intelligent and enlightened people, our own contemporaries, have engaged this body of thought.  And we must take it seriously.  You see, this tradition provides answers to long-asked questions about suffering and oppression…long-held desire for freedom and peace.  The impetus for such theology and the need it expresses is utterly understandable and reasonable.  People are frightened.  In a “post 9-11 world” people are afraid.  And, it is quite clear that this is not the only time when the world has seemed uncertain, that people have felt afraid.  But people do feel fear now…and not simply about the war.  For many, it simply feels like the end of the world.

                                            iv.     The trouble with this theology is not that it is inaccurate, or that it misuses scripture (Though, I might want to argue that some day.).  No the real trouble is that it distracts us from what is real, from what is true about our lives.  It is a spiritual opiate.  It takes us away from seeing where God sees as we discussed last weekend.  It takes us away from acquainting ourselves with a God who heals the blind, and lifts up the lowly.  It keeps us from understanding the place of visions and dreams in our lives like we discussed two weeks ago.  “Behold, I am making all things new…” The Spirit of God was breaking into the world on the island of Patmos and John the Revelator wanted us to know about it.

                                             v.     End time professions and promises steal hope.  They create opportunities for disillusionment.  They will break our hearts.  They are meant to give comfort and hope.  They are meant to save us from ourselves.  But they don’t. 

 

III.           The Alternative?

a.     God’s word is clear.  John 14:3 “I will come again and take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.”  This is a real promise by Christ himself.  In our scripture reading today it is Christ himself that makes the proclamation.  So, we cannot ignore the idea of a return.  But we are not to let it distract us either.  We are to prepare the way and proclaim the time in how we love one another, how we care for the poor, protect the weak and allow ourselves to be vulnerable.

b.     We must share God’s mercy and patience.  God desires the redemption of the whole world.  “God is patient, ‘not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.’” (2 Peter 3:9)[iii]We are called to tell all the world about the Love of Christ.  We are to demonstrate and enliven what it means to be reconciled to one another and to God.  This is redemption.  This is repentance: to love one another.  Then people may see a vision that they never dreamed possible.  Maybe then we would not need the distraction of a countdown to the last day…Such a spiritual discipline strikes me as being like holding one’s breath, closing one’s eyes, and hoping the boogey man will go away.

 

IV.          The Discipline of Giving Thanks

a.     This is not The Theology of the Optimist.  This is not a half-full theology. This is the theology of one who has seen God and desires to see God again.   This is the theology of one who knows that God is present and real.  Thanking God is the proclamation that God is active and at work in this world, in our lives.  It is the discipline of shedding light in the deepest darkness.  It is salvific and true.  It is not kowtowing to the divine.  It is the proclamation of revelation.  To thank God for what good God has done in the past and in the present is to say that God will be good in the future. 

b.     Thanking God is an act of justice and mercy.  Naming what God is doing and participating in it is justice.  We are called to feed the hungry.   To show God’s love in an act of generosity is to give thanks for God’s presence in the world. 

c.     Celebrations of gratitude like Thanksgiving itself are shared moments of awareness of God.

d.     This is not a Pollyanna Theology.  It does not deny suffering.  It does not whitewash suffering.  No.  God meets us in our suffering.  Jesus touches our deepest wounds and desires our wholeness.  But sometimes we cannot see this.  Sometimes we cannot offer gratitude.  This, brothers and sisters, is why God grants us one another.  If you are too weak to give thanks, then let us shine that light for you.  There is oppression.  There is loss.  There is grief.  God promised that we shall not be left comfortless.  We are God’s body.  We hold that light of God’s grace for one another.  When I am too weak to see, someone else will shine a light.  Someone will come and love me in the name of Christ.  Someone will set me free.  Someone will heal my blindness.  Someone will lift me up.  Jesus will come in your hands, in your embrace.

e.     So, now you see.  We are the light bearers.  As it is written somewhere, we dare not keep that light under a bushel.  This is our burden and our joy.  We are to make certain that people can see their way through the darkness.  We are to help them see that it is always the end of all things, that God is always breaking into our lives and making us new.  This is our sacred burden and our joy.

 

Amen.