November 2, 2003 Sermon by Tim Lusk

In today's reading out of Mark's gospel, we hear a story of some disciples who wanted to know all kinds of things about the future, and a Jesus who wouldn't tell them what they wanted to know. We hear a story of people who are facing hard times, and a Jesus who had some words for them that were both encouraging and difficult. The way I see it, this is one of those texts that can be especially tough for us because we are separated from the disciples by so much time and distance. So I'd like to begin this sermon by going through the text again, a little more slowly than it was read the first time.

Jesus and a few of his disciples are leaving the temple. According to Mark's gospel, this happens during their first and only trip into Jerusalem – these disciples are from smaller villages, and they aren't exactly cosmopolitan. They walk out of the temple, and are struck by the size of the buildings. Jesus is less impressed than they are, and he puts a bit of a damper on their enthusiasm. He points to those buildings – those buildings that so easily impressed his companions – and simply says, “not one stone will be left here upon another.” However imposing the buildings may be, they are not permanent.

A little while later, Jesus and four of his disciples – Peter, James, John, and Andrew – are sitting together on the Mount of Olives, with a great view of the temple they'd left just a few minutes earlier. The disciples' question is not a surprising one: they've just been told that Jerusalem's most magnificent buildings are to be torn down, and they want to know when. They say to Jesus: “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?”

What happens next is really important to this story: Jesus doesn't answer their question. Instead, he starts in on a list of things for them to watch out for, things that they need to be careful of. He warns them that people will come – in his name – to deceive them. Wars and famine and earthquakes... they can expect all of these things, but they should not be alarmed by them.

If the disciples thought that this was bad news, they must have been disappointed when Jesus continued, and the news only got worse. He tells the disciples that they will be persecuted, and brought to trial. Families will be divided, and they will be hated... all in Jesus' name. Of course, Jesus also promises to be with them, he promises that the Holy Spirit will speak for them when they are called to speak before the authorities, he promises that those who endure to the end will be saved. But at this point in the story, I wonder if any of this would have sounded like good news to the disciples. I wonder if perhaps the good news slipped between the cracks of the painful warnings that Jesus had given them.

Traditionally, when the church has read this portion of Mark's gospel, it has argued that Jesus is telling us about the future: “Someday, all of these things are going to happen to you.” There may be some truth in this way of thinking. But what I would like to suggest today is something different: this text is more about the present than the future. And if we use this text to help us think our own present, rather than our own future, I believe we'll find many more meaningful ways of applying this text to our own lives.

But before going any further, I need to tell you what I mean when I say that this text is about the present. After all, Jesus very clearly says that these particular things will happen – and that certainly makes it sound like Jesus is talking about the future. It seems strange, at first glance to suggest that this passage in Mark is about the present.

Mark's gospel was written to a community that was living in dangerous times. People debate whether it was written in the hills Palestine or in the city of Rome, whether it was written before or after the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. We simply don't know as much about Mark's gospel as we would like. But what we do know is this: in any of the times or the places where this gospel is likely to have been written, Mark's community was living in a time of violence, a time of persecution, a time when even if the temple hadn't already been torn down, that possibility would have come to seem more and more realistic.

When Mark's community heard this gospel read aloud to them, they surely would have recognized their own, present-day lives in the text that we read today. The events that Jesus described would not have sounded strange and distant. Rather, they would have seemed quite real. They would have heard, in Mark's gospel, a description of their own lives, and some advice about how to handle the difficulties that they faced. Through Mark's gospel, the word of Christ came to the community: do not be alarmed at what is happening around you, do not give up hope in the face of persecution, do not be anxious about what to say before the authorities, for the Holy Spirit is with you.

The disciples in this story would have heard Jesus' warnings as dire, and frightening. But Mark's community – the people for whom this gospel was originally written – must have taken heart when they heard Jesus' words: I knew that this would happen, but I you have not been left alone. So... we have a pretty good idea of how Jesus' words must have sounded to the disciples in the story, and we have a pretty good idea of how Jesus' words must have sounded to Mark's community. But how do these words sound to us? Do we take this as good news, or bad news? How do we make sense of Jesus' words, and use them in our own life of faith?

This is not an easy question to answer. After all, our lives are quite a bit different than the lives of the disciples portrayed in Mark, just as our lives are quite different from the early Christians for whom Mark wrote his gospel. But my sense is that if we can name some of those differences, it will be easier for us to make sense of today's reading in our own lives.

I suppose that one of the most significant differences between our own community and that of Mark's gospel is a matter of privilege. The community to whom Mark was writing was a community experiencing persecution, a community who was living under the occupation of a foreign power. They could be loyal disciples of Christ only by putting their own well-being at risk. It's possible that they had witnessed the destruction of the temple – the center of the worship for the Jewish people, including the early Christians who had not yet left their Jewish communities behind.

We, on the other hand, are living far more privileged lives than the first readers of Mark's gospel. I recognize that there are Christians in other parts of the world who experience persecution at the hands of their government, but that is not the experience of Christians in America. While it can be challenging to speak up in a way that might make us unpopular, I doubt whether any of us could easily imagine what it would mean to risk our lives in order to testify to the work that God has done through the person of Jesus. We live in a country where we can take our religious freedom for granted.

I suspect that it is also difficult – if not utterly impossible – for us to imagine what it might be like to live in an occupied country. Indeed, we live in a nation that struggles with the powers and responsibilities that go along with being the world's only “super-power”. We see bumper stickers that say “live simply, so that others may simply live” - and this reminds us of our enormous share in the world's resources – in terms of the environment, politics, and certainly in terms of the military. If you imagine a totem pole of social status, we American Christians are far, far closer to the top than those early Christians who first read Mark's gospel.

So, unlike Mark's community, we don't connect to Jesus words very easily. We aren't dealing with persecution, and we are not living in an occupied country – in fact, we live in the occupying country. Jesus' words seem far away, and distant; they are words that describe someone else, some place else. And yet, I believe that there are meaningful ways that we can connect with this text. Even if the challenges and difficulties that we experience are not the same challenges that Mark's community dealt with, we do have problems of our own. And I firmly believe that the words of Mark's gospel can still speak Christ's words to us, in our own situation, just as they did to Mark's original audience. The challenge for us is to discern what Christ might be saying to us through this text, in our own time and in our own place.

Like those first disciples who were so impressed by the big buildings, we are easily awed in the face of wealth and prestige. And even though we aren't persecuted because of our religious beliefs, we do live in a culture where Christ's most central commandments are not accepted. Public figures may pay a lot of lip service to Christian values, but power, prestige, wealth, popularity: these are things that that Jesus does not seem to be much concerned with. If anything, he warns his followers that all of these things can easily distract people from the Kingdom of God. So you see, though it would be wrong to say that we are persecuted, we do live in a time when our culture does not always make it easy to live out our faith in Christ.

Our difficulties aren't limited to our privilege, either. We live in a time when almost every second of the day is scheduled; it is difficult to withdraw to the wilderness, as Jesus did, for times of prayer and solitude. We live in communities, yes, but it's not always easy to find meaningful ways of learning about our neighbors, and so we feel separated from those whom we have been called to love and serve. We have personal challenges as well – the struggles of illness, the grief of losing those we love, the fear of loneliness, the pain of broken relationships. All of these things and many others can make it difficult for us to have faith.

Imagine, for a moment, that someone was going to write a gospel for this community. Imagine that someone was going to portray Jesus' ministry in the way that best helped us to hear Christ's words for us. Imagine that, in this gospel, Jesus is sitting on the Mount of Olives (or maybe Thumb Butte?) with his disciples, and that what he says is intended to directly address the situation in which we live. What do you think Jesus would say?

What I have done here today is to list some of the things that make it hard for us to have faith. But I, of course, cannot tell you exactly what Jesus would say. I do have some ideas: just as Jesus said that the Holy Spirit will be present as his followers face challenges, I suspect that he would tell us the same thing. I suspect that he would remind us to remember that our buildings, our institutions, may not be permanent, and we should remember to place our highest loyalty with the Kingdom of God. But this is only a beginning; this question has no easy answer. Rather, it is a question that requires the discernment and reflection of us all.

I may not have an easy answer, but I can give you this good news... the Bible is full of words that were first given to people in specific situations to help them better understand what it means to be people of faith. I take it as given that God cares very much about specific people, in specific times and places. And while there may not be a book of the Bible that is written just for us, I do believe that there are many stories in that Bible – as well as the stories of Christians throughout history – that can help us wrestle with what it means to be a people of faith.

I suspect that many of us long for a word of God, intended specifically for us, in our own time. Let us pray that we might be a community that helps one another to search for that word, and to share that word with the world around us. Let us remember to pray together, in the words of this morning's hymn:

Word of God, come down on earth, living rain from heaven descending:
touch our hearts and bring to birth faith and hope and love unending.
Word almighty we revere you; word made flesh, we long to hear you.

Amen.