25 Pentecost B 28 November 14, 2021
Daniel 12: 1-3 Psalm 16
Hebrews 10:11-14 (15-18) 19-25 Mark 13:1-8
Some of the milestones in history have been created by what has happened to buildings.
9/11 is an event where buildings were destroyed as well as the precious lives of people and that has marked our history forever. But we did not proclaim the end of the world. We responded by destroying lots of building and people in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The Day that lives in infamy was an attack on the ships and the buildings of Pearl Harbor, and the people there. And we did not declare the end of the world, but we did unleash a response which included the only use of atomic weapons in human warfare.
Harm which comes to people and their homes create unforgettable milestones and those who have known the damage of Californian earthquakes and fires and landslides know that their lives were changed forever. You don't live the same after such a thing happens; one's life get redefined.
The greatest building and the greatest city of Jewish identity, the Temple in Jerusalem were destroyed in the year 70. And life could not be the same for anyone who lived in Palestine or who claimed Jerusalem and the Temple as their spiritual homes.
After the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem, life could never be the same. Though life does involve rebuilding and repetition of similiar events. Jerusalem has been destroyed and rebuilt several times. Although the last Temple has never been rebuilt, the portion of the Temple known as the Wailing Wall has been a constant symbol of the once complete standing Temple, and a spiritual pilgrimage place for many,many Jews.
The history of oppression, exile, destruction of cities and homeland are found throughout the history of biblical people. This repeating history is so common that a genre of history was created to respond to these recurring destructive attacks in the lives of people.
This genre of history is called "apocalyptic literature," and the Gospels include sections of the oracle of the Risen Christ speaking the various images of what has been called apocalyptic.
We have had to live with biblical literalists who have used the apocalyptic literature continually to presume to know God's will in our history about the end of the world and precisely when the armies of Jesus the King to return to make sure that "we the good guys" will win. Presuming to be insiders about the end of the world, creates community drama and entertainment and works to raise money to keep mega-churches and TV preachers in their high styles of living.
How can you and I acknowledge the apocalyptic genre of the Bible without avoiding it or without being embarrassed by scientific naivete?
Apocalyptic means an "unveiling." And one could understand the human history as becoming in time, as a continuous unveiling, as a continuous evolution, and as a continuous birthing process.
Might we take the insight of time being a continuous binary; the binary of before and after.
And if time is always a before and an after, where does the apocalyptic reside? Where does the unveiling occur?
Might we understand the apocalyptic as the threshold between the before and the after, as an extended time of adjustment to what has passed away and what has become new?
The oracle words of Jesus channeled by the Gospel writers in the aftermath of the destruction of Jerusalem deal with threshold, the unveiling of the new and different time.
Before the Temple and after the destruction of the Temple. That's where the unveiling apocalyptic experience is revealed.
What do the apocalyptic words of the Risen Christ reveal about life after the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple?
1-First a warning, about all the people who will claim to know why things precisely happened. The history of the world is the history of conspiracy theories being spun by people who claim to have secret knowledge and information. And it does give people the comfort of thinking that they are in control because they can provide an answer for why bad things have happened. Conspiracy theories prove that there is a "sucker born every minute." But the words of the Risen Christ warn against following the prophets of conspiracies.
2-A second insight of the Risen Christ about the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem is what we might call a supreme ambiguous positive. What is the supreme ambiguous positive in life? Labor pains, birth pangs. I've never had them, but I have experienced a person closely having them, and so I have also experienced the glorious new lives that followed the birth pangs.
Let us take the birth pang image from the words of Jesus as being insightful about the apocalyptic as the threshold between the old which passed away whether we wanted it to or not, and the new which is fresh but challenging because we have not yet gained the ability to learn new responses.
Our era like every era in our country is in its own kind of apocalyptic. There is an unveiling and we are in a liminal time between what is passing away and how we are becoming new.
Our country has seen a revolt against justice and kindness for all our people. Our country has seen a revolt against the basic science of vaccinations and wise behaviors during a pandemic. We have perhaps lost half a million lives needlessly because of our attitudes toward health science. The unveiling of how minorities have long been treated has angered people who do not want our unjust ways revealed. And we have been exposed in how we have failed at the equal provision of life, liberty, health and safety for all people in our society. We are uncomfortable and even angry that our failures are exposed. We are in pain; and as people of faith, we need to be those who can articulate these pains as "apocalyptic birth pangs." We need to hold on to the arrival of the birth of our better angels as people learning to live together well with mutual respect and integrity.
Today the words of Jesus invite us to the "apocalyptic," the unveiling during the time of birth pangs. Let us do our faith Lamaze methods of breathing prayer as we hold on to the birth of the better angels of people learning to live the life of God's love together. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment