A Sermon preached by the Rev. Michael Anderson Bullock
[Daniel 12:1-3; Hebrews 10:11-25;Mark 13:1-8]
Sunday after Sunday, in our worshiping together, you and I rarely spend much time focusing on the “Collect of the Day”. As a result, I sometimes think that all the Collect of the Day does is allow late-comers to sneak into their seats, while the rest of us experience it as a signal to pay attention because the “real stuff” is about to unfold. Yet, being a “COL-lect” – that is, a particular kind of prayer that is designed to “col-LECT” us as God’s people, the Collect of the Day’s purpose is to help focus our attention on the point of the upcoming worship experience. So, right now, given both where we are in terms of the worshiping year (next week being the last Sunday of the liturgical year) and the tone and thrust of this day’s scripture lessons, I admit to being struck by today’s Collect. Of all the “Collects of the Day”, this is one that grabs my immediate attention. (I will mention another shortly.)
Of course, as a prayer the Collect of the Day first addresses God; and then asks God to provide something we need and cannot give to ourselves. As I say, today’s Collect of the Day leaps out at me. Specifically, I am intrigued by what the collect says about the Bible and the purpose of “all holy Scriptures”. I hope you recall that our collect says that “all holy scripture” is “written for our learning”. Now at first glance, this statement seems right or at least harmless enough. It says that scripture’s purpose is to teach – to teach us about God and the God-life and what both those items have to do with us.
“Learning” is the Bible’s purpose – or so says our collect for this next-to-last-Sunday of the worshiping year. Yet, with some reflection, this is a rather sharp statement. Sure, scripture can inspire and develop devotion. It can lead to a deeper spirituality and a richer prayer life; but in particular what this Collect reminds us of is that there is something so essential and so important to be learned from the Bible that we are specifically directed to “hear, read, mark, learn and inwardly digest” what scripture conveys so that, by good educational standards, we faithful students become what scripture teaches.
Given this, what do you think there is to be learned from scripture? More directly, what do you wish to learn from scripture? How would you put these lessons into words? How does what we learn from scripture shape and direct the way you and I live? More to the point, what’s the biblical story you and I need to “hear, read, mark, learn, and learn and inwardly digest”?
As I said a moment ago, there is another Collect of the Day that always speaks to me. It augments today’s offering and provides a focus that I think addresses directly the struggles and confusion of our own time. The prayer is this: Grant us, Lord, not to be anxious about earthly things, but to love things heavenly; and even now while we are placed among things that are passing away, to hold fast to those that shall endure…1 It would make such a difference to have this discernment in our lives; wouldn’t it?
In Mark’s gospel account (the one we read today), Jesus teaches his disciples something that both Collects of the Day hold. With both these collects in mind, listen to what the gospel lesson describes in relation to them.
As Jesus came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!” Then Jesus asked him, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.” [Mark 13:1-2].
The historical fact surrounding what Jesus said about the Jerusalem Temple occurred in 70 AD, when the Romans had had enough of the pesky Hebrews and crushed their resistance and in punishing retribution leveled the great Temple. But this specific history also speaks to something larger, more enduring: namely, that what we so easily regard as of lasting importance does, in fact, not last. For instance, when towers tumble as in 2011, when political power is lost and party standards fail (as some feel this month), when what we have relied upon and supported vanishes, is there more to our lives than this? In our own contemporary cases, the question is not “when” will all this happen? It has already occurred. Just ask a resident of Gaza or someone whose life’s work has been washed away by a hurricane or burned out by rampaging fire. Just ask those of us who treasure the rule of law and the justice and truth that are meant to flow from such guidelines and guardrails. Just ask the faithful followers of Jesus whose church and faith community are dwindling in a downward spiral. It’s not about “when” – when will these familiar, even treasured things pass away. Rather, the question is: What will we do amidst such upsetting changes and what part does our faith in God’s Christ play in responding? How will we keep our faith in such pressing experiences of wilderness and distress?
It's hard not to succumb to the terror of such experiences, to so much change, to so much chaos. It’s hard not to be overtaken by the sense of loss of what we know and the sheer panic of what darkness could possibly be next.
Again, Jesus’ words from Mark’s gospel speak to us and warn us all against forgetting our life with God and the story of being God’s people. Jesus says as much when he responds to his bewildered disciples' concern: “Watch out for doomsday deceivers. Many leaders are going to show up with forged identities claiming, ‘I am the one.’ They will deceive a lot of people… Keep your head and don’t panic. All this must take place, but the end is still to come…”. Then Jesus makes his essential point: “This is but the beginning of the birthpangs.”2
It is such times, our times, that require that we know the scriptural story of God and what that sacred story has to say to us in our faithful living during hard times. Clearly and unavoidably, we have heard more than some of us can bear. We have read the news; we have marked the essays and editorials. And like it or not, we have inwardly digested all the “noise”. It just seeps in like water in a damp basement. Yet, which part of what we have taken in has the capacity to nourish us, to stay the course of faith, to discern what lasts from what passes away?
As we Christians approach the completion of the liturgical year, the scriptures contain a tone that for most of us speaks a strange – even an unwelcome -- language. It is a language of visions and unencumbered truth, written in code form in order to evade those who would destroy anything and everything that does not compliment them and their manipulative agendas. These scriptures (admittedly not our favorites) take an apocalyptic form. Their purpose is to open the curtains of our historical reality to reveal to us what God sees about our lives. The apocalyptic literature seeks to give us a snapshot of where we truly are in life with specific respect to God and the God-life. The message is not about escape from the shape-shifting landscape of human desires but to provide to those who willingly hear, listen, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the piercing vision of pregnant hope, the strength not to run away from what threatens us, but rather to participate in the labor pains of God’s new life.
“Pant, pant, blow”: That is the mantra I learned in birthing class with Bev. Anyone who has gone through labor and been a vehicle of birthing new life knows the depths of its pain and how important it is to know how to participate in birthing. “Pant, pant, blow” is what a birthing partner intones to the birthing mother, when the labor pain becomes overwhelming – as it always does. Labor pain is so intense that (if one does not want to be anesthetized to the ordeal) it takes someone else to shepherd the woman through the process. Birthing new life is not a “do-it-yourself” project, although sadly some women have no alternative but to be on their own. Yet, Jesus reminds us (as do the scriptures for this day) that we live amidst things that are passing away. Is our response rooted in discerning the pain of such changes as labor pain or the fearful grief that comes from clutching that which is dying?
Especially for folks like us who live in the top five percent of the world’s wealth, what is passing away is what we have (for the most part) created and relied upon. Consequently, the “passing away” causes us great worry and anguish. Yet, Jesus and the day’s scriptures also remind us that with God we are in the midst of labor pains, the birthing of new life. The very serious and challenging issue from this situation is this: Is our struggle about dealing with the palpable pain of birthing new life; or is our struggle a desperate attempt to mitigate the anguish of death’s own dying?
I close with the aid of a poem that says succinctly and with deep clarity what I have struggled to convey.
This is not a metaphor. The temple will be destroyed.
What we love, what we thought permanent,
Will be thrown down.
Night descends.
Now, in the darkness, the light matters.
Jesus is not preparing us to picnic in happy suburbs;
He’s training us to live with grace in a troubled city,
to live with kindness and courage amid turmoil and loss.
When things fall apart, when chaos and fracture surround us,
We can stay whole.
When fear and anger rule, we can stay faithful to love.
When the temple comes down, don’t panic;
Stay kind.
Empire will come and plunder,
But they can’t take the light in you.
They can’t take hour courage to choose.
They can’t take our commitment to live with grace.
No one can take the Beloved from you.
That tender strong presence is in you to stay.
Despite what falls around us,
tend to what rises within us.3
Always toward life that lasts: So be it. Amen.
1. BCP. Collect for Proper 20; p. 234
2. Mark 13:55-6 -- The Message; 13:7-8 -- NRSV
3. Steve Garnaas-Holmes, “Unfolding Light, 11/24
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