Sermon:  “Under Attack”

It’s almost the end of the church year, so the lectionary gives us these end-of-the-world texts – Happy Thanksgiving!  But isn’t it ironic on this Friday 13^th weekend, the opening of the movie “2012”– about the end of the world supposedly predicted by the Mayan calendar – that we get this grim scripture from the end of Mark? It’s what scholars call “the little apocalypse” of Jesus.  I’ve been polling you all week, so I know some of you love these action-packed disaster movies, part of a genre my family calls “Friday night films.” We like them at the end of a stressful week – you know, no subtitles, nobody has to think much, or emote – things just blow up!  Others of you I know hate violent special-effects films.  After all, as Sissy McKee pointed out with her wonderful slideshow for Serendippers last Tuesday, with all the negative news out there, with the world under attack from a million different directions – with global warming, terrorism, AIDS, famine, cancer, economic collapse, swine flu – with all of this coming at us 24/7 from the media, a spiritual practice of gratitude, of looking for what’s RIGHT with the world, is a great antidote to despair.  That’s the spirit of our Christian practice of Thanksgiving.  Praise and prayer protects the soul from what is perhaps its greatest danger, fear.  Don’t we all, in these scary times, need to hear the message of the angels, the Good News of Jesus?

“Do not be alarmed… the one who endures to the end will be saved.”

Our text begins with Jesus predicting the fall of the Temple and the disciples asking Jesus to explain himself.  Today we forget how scary those words would have been.  The fall of the Temple doesn’t shock us – the most we’ve seen our whole lives is a 6-story ruin of the Wailing Wall, all that’s left of that holy site.  We never saw the Temple in its full glory, shining white in the sun on the top of Mount Moriah – it was huge!  It covered about 12 football fields of real estate, 3 wide by 4 long.  To get there from the Mount of Olives meant a hike down some 600 feet into the Kidron Valley and back up again.  From the bottom of the ravine, they’d be looking up a 60-story cliff just to the first stone blocks of the 10- to 15-story-high Temple walls, with still higher guard towers on top of that! 

I remember the first time I stood on the plaza below the twin towers of the World Trade Center.  That’s what Jesus and his disciples would have felt, these small-town fishermen from Galilee.  They couldn’t help but be amazed.  And the Temple was much more than a place of worship –as the tallest building in Judea, it was the national treasury, run by men of great inherited privilege, education, money, and power (some of them the corrupt bankers Jen preached about last week in the story of the poor widow) – not all that different from the World Trade Center!  Can we imagine a bearded religious zealot from nowhere, standing there in a cheering mob, predicting the thing could be thrown down?  Before 9/11 we wouldn’t have believed it could happen.  Destruction on that scale implied an act of horrific violence—like the Day of the Lord predicted by the prophet Daniel (quoted by Jesus) – the Judgment Day that Jewish apocalyptic literature said would begin right there at the foot of the Temple, with bodies of the dead piled high enough to fill the Kidron Valley.  That’s a chilling vision of the future.  Who could help but be alarmed? 

Later in this chapter (Mark 13), Jesus warns them to flee quickly, to not even go back into the house to get anything, to not even to put on a coat.  But do not be alarmed?  How is that possible?  Some of you, I know, remember what it was like on 9/11 to flee Manhattan, when nearly 3,000 people died there.  My dad’s cousin John was captain of a landing craft on D-Day, and every one of the men under his command died – it’s stunning to me what horrors some of you veterans did NOT flee.  But in times of war, civilians do suffer too – whether in Vietnam or Cambodia, or Darfur or West Africa, or Iraq or Afghanistan.  In Normandy I met a Frenchman, a cab driver, who had been a teenager on D-Day, and he reminded me that while some 2,500 Allied soldiers died on June 6, 1944 – between 15 and 20 thousand French civilians, his friends and neighbors, were killed in the invasion.

That’ terrible.  It’s terrible, I know.  It’s bad news.  We don’t like to think about it.  But aren’t we glad we have a Savior for grown-ups, who tells us the truth about evil in our world?  Aren’t we glad Jesus doesn’t coddle us?  He’s not Santa Claus or the tooth fairy – he doesn’t wave a magic wand and promise us “happily ever after”!  Instead, he gives us good advice about how to conquer fear.  Jesus calls us to stay close to him, in his Way of love.  He warns us to avoid false messiahs and prophets of doom who would tell us to make concessions to the ways of the world in times of crisis, in order to survive – instead, he urges us to come together in hard times, when nation rises against nation, and brother betrays brother.  We cannot let fear divide us, or damage the world’s faith.

My parents were teenagers in Fall 1941 – and the biggest news for them (and for other University of North Carolina football fans) over Thanksgiving had been the humiliating 20-0 loss of their beloved Tar Heels to the evil Duke Blue Devils.  My mom had a good friend, Frances, who remembered her loyal Carolina family was still lingering around the after-church Sunday dinner table on December 7 talking about the big game loss 2 weeks before, when the news came over the radio of the bombing of Pearl Harbor.  Frances and her parents were paralyzed with fear, but they remembered that it was the youngest daughter in the family, Rosalia, who broke the silence: “Daddy, which side will Duke be on in the war?”  They knew then it would be OK.  When the world comes under attack, we know we have to set aside divisions and reach out to help one another. 

That was the kind of peace through unity that Jesus urged his disciples to seek as they were hiding out there with him on the Mount of Olives, considering the end of days and filled with fear.  He warns them to avoid those who preach hatred and division – those who would have us rely on this world’s fear-based economy of accumulated individual wealth and power.  Instead he preaches courage and patience, as a midwife would counsel a woman in labor:  “Do not be alarmed, this must take place, but the end is still to come…. This is but the beginning of the birthpangs.”  He comforts us that our pain is only temporary – that from it God’s promised new life will come, whether in this life or in the next.  He offers the comfort of THE Comforter, the Holy Spirit, God-with-us, Emmanuel.  When things get bad, he sends us the Holy Spirit to give us courage, and even the words we need to speak.

That is great news, God with us!  That’s the Good News we in the church have to share with the world – especially in this particular holiday season.  Our Advent theme is one Jen and I felt people today most need to hear, that “with God, all things are possible” – because it’s easy to get discouraged, even within the church, when things look as bad as they do today.  That’s why, people of faith, the world needs to hear the message of the angels, the Good News of Jesus Christ, “Do not be alarmed… the one who endures to the end will be saved.”  This Advent, we hope you will come to church more often, and invite your friends – invite them for Thanksgiving Sunday next week.  Our church isn’t perfect, but it is full of wise disciples walking in Christ’s way of courage, love, and generosity – when the world would lead us into a place of fear, division and hatred, and hoarding.

Do you even know how much wisdom and courage you have shown during these hard times, as the world has been under attack from every side?  You inspire me!  Some of you have been out of work more than a year, but you’re still going to networking groups, and sending out e-mails, and going on interviews, and coming to church on Sunday to offer God your praise and prayer, and proclaim our hope of resurrection.  Some of you have been sick – or have loved ones sick or addicted or dying or in trouble – but you’re still going through chemo or radiation or enduring constant pain.  And you still come back to church on Sunday to offer God your praise and prayer, and proclaim our hope of resurrection.  You are wise and courageous disciples who believe, and yet you know in these times, more than ever, you need to hear and share the message of the angels, the Good News of Jesus, “Do not be alarmed… the one who endures to the end will be saved.” 

We Christians are just like everyone else in this besieged world – when we fall under attack, we feel fear.  The only difference is that we are doing our very best to listen to the Good News of Jesus, and the voices of the angels, who come into the midst of our darkness flinging light and hope and singing and shouting, “Do not be afraid!  For we bring you good tidings of great joy, which will be to all people!”

Thanks be to God for this Good News. Amen.

 

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Mark 13:1-13

13As he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!” ²Then Jesus asked him, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”

³When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, ⁴“Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?” ⁵Then Jesus began to say to them, “Beware that no one leads you astray. ⁶Many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray. ⁷When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. ⁸For 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.

⁹“As for yourselves, beware; for they will hand you over to councils; and you will be beaten in synagogues; and you will stand before governors and kings because of me, as a testimony to them. ¹⁰And the good news must first be proclaimed to all nations. ¹¹When they bring you to trial and hand you over, do not worry beforehand about what you are to say; but say whatever is given you at that time, for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit. ¹²Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death; ¹³and you will be hated by all because of my name. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.”