This sermon is based on Mark 13:1-8. It was offered at St. David's Episcopal Church in Minnetonka, MN. It was one of those times when the Gospel dealt directly with current events. I wrote the opening prayer. I found the concluding prayer in a Facebook message from The Episcopal Church.
Let us pray. Dear Jesus, be with all who weep and mourn and
worry. Give strength and healing to those who have been injured in body, mind
and spirit. Help us understand how these recent incidents are "the
beginning of the birth pangs." (Mark 13:8) Guide our words and our
thoughts, our media and our outrage. Help us to always rely on you for strength
and courage. Amen.
I don’t know when others
heard about the attacks in Paris the other day, but I didn’t hear until after I
returned home from an overnight retreat.
We had been learning about how, at creation, God’s love overflowed. God’s love was so big, it boiled over and
became Earth and beyond. We talked about
a creation cycle, where recorded time is meaningless. We considered paradoxes where the
immeasurable Holy One is paired with the tiniest molecule. How is God in the tiniest bit of creation? We
closed our eyes and looked for God, imagining what God could look like. We sat in silence and contemplated our
intimate communion with God. We pondered
how we can see through God’s eyes, not dimly as Paul writes, but clearly, because
as a beloved child of God, we each contain the DNA of the divine.
I chose to drive home in
silence. I let my thoughts take me
through the retreat’s rhythm of eating, reflecting, praying, silence and
sleeping. I decided I did not have
enough time to be fully present in retreat before emerging back into
reality. I was hoping to ease in
slowly. Reality had other plans…
When I turned on the radio I
learned that Paris was shaken by bomb blasts and gunfire, killing over 120
people, harming even more, creating a state of emergency and the closing of
borders in an attempt to keep people safe.
Later, I learned there had
been a 7.0 earthquake and a small tsunami off the coast of Japan.
Reality can sometimes be
overwhelming.
Overwhelming or not, we live
in a world where people do terrible things, often for misguided reasons. How I react in the face of such universal
tragedy matters. It just seems like
there is an awful lot of tragedy in the world.
I don’t want to be numb to it all.
I don’t want to pretend to understand.
I don’t want to ignore it. I
don’t want to live in fear. I want to
see the good in the world. I want to see
God in the world, especially in the midst of all this hurt. I want to know that God is in that tiny
molecule, too.
Jesus spoke of days like
this in today’s Gospel reading. He said
we would experience wars and earthquakes and famine. He also said we should not be alarmed, that
these are things that must happen.
I'm sorry, Jesus, but I was alarmed
when I heard the news. It’s easy to be alarmed
after 9/11. It’s easy to be concerned
when Syrians are fleeing their war-torn homeland. It’s easy to be shocked when we see photographs
of blanket-covered bodies on streets and babies bodies washing up on shore. It’s easy to be fearful when there are people
in the world who do not value the divine gift of life. Even though the most recent atrocities and
natural disasters are not happening right here, it can be easy to worry. “What if it were here?”
Must these things
happen? Must the walls that protect us
fall down?
When what we are talking
about is our trust in God, then sometimes that answer is ‘Yes.’
Over and over in scripture
we are confronted with stories of disaster, war, and human failing. So often, it is after the destruction of
something, …like Sodom; or of everything on earth but the Ark; of crops and
water supplies; of Job’s family and way of life; of Jesus… that people
understand the power of God, that people begin to see their relationship with
God as pivotal to their very survival.
Sometimes communion with God is strengthened when all they thought they
knew is taken away. These stories are
shared to teach us that God is present.
That God’s promise is to always be present.
That’s
what Jesus was trying to explain to his disciples that day when they left the
temple, distracted by the enormity of the boulders supporting the temple. Jesus was reminding them that humans are
often distracted by things that take their attention from God. He instructs his followers to stop being
distracted by temporary things. Focus
instead on God. God is not
temporary.
Unfortunately,
humans just don’t learn. Sometimes
the foundation needs to be shaken to destruction before people can trust in the
Creator.
Let me be clear: I do not want to minimize the depth of
emotion that stems from personal, communal, national or international
loss. I do not want people to think I
believe war or famine or natural disasters, where the death within creation
shakes me and drives me to both my tears and my knees, is without real, complex
emotions. Today it feels like people who
…have no regard for the sanctity of life,
…who likely do not see the divine in the eyes of others,
…who see the bombing of their own body as a holy sacrifice,
…and who choose to follow a radical religious or political leader,
are simply taking away innocent lives for illogical and irrational reasons.
…who likely do not see the divine in the eyes of others,
…who see the bombing of their own body as a holy sacrifice,
…and who choose to follow a radical religious or political leader,
are simply taking away innocent lives for illogical and irrational reasons.
But I will say it
again. Sometimes the foundation needs to
be shaken to destruction before people can trust in the Creator.
In this passage from Mark,
after all this language about death and destruction, about war and famine and
earthquakes, Jesus talks about birth pangs.
And amongst all that negative language I hear that one kernel of hope,
because I all know that the trauma and pain of labor results in the miracle of
new life. It’s how I know there is hope.
Jesus called the upending of
our lives “birth pangs.” It is through
the pain of birth a new creation is born.
In this story we can look backward, knowing that the Temple, that
building the disciples were distracted by, will be destroyed. We know, also, that Jesus’ death leads to His
resurrection. These words of Jesus were
written years after they were spoken; they were written well after those who
followed him would have learned they had to let him go for their own holy work to begin. It is in hindsight where our vision is often
the most clear, where the messages and insights are most understood. It is far easier to understand the course of
history as lessons learned
… in hopes that the worst of them will not be repeated
… and that the best of them will.
… in hopes that the worst of them will not be repeated
… and that the best of them will.
And
here we are ... again. The universal
sense of security has been shattered ... again.
The need to hunker down under figurative and literal blankets, hiding
from the atrocities of the outside world has begun … again. There is 24 hour news blasting images of
insecurity.
Some
people who use social media have changed their profile photo to something about
France in solidarity. Some have filled
their statuses with prayers for peace, for healing, for understanding. But soon, I suspect social media will be
filled with cries of terrorism, intolerance and hate.
Some
of us are shocked by the horrific images, while others may not even bat an eye
because they have become desensitized and are no longer affected by this type
of event that seems to happen so often.
I
can’t un-see what I have seen. I am
different because the world is different.
A
cry goes out, “Where is God in this?” WHERE is God?
I
want to yell: God is in this! THIS is in God! God is HERE!
Time
and time again I am reminded that God is present. In the small moments of my fears and
longings, in my joy and in my thanksgiving…but also in the broad moments of
world-wide fear and concern, God is here.
God
never leaves. That’s the promise. It is through the pain and suffering that
this idea is the most distant for some and the most present for others. It is through these moments where God weeps,
where God consoles, where God holds the beloved creation tightly, embracing
both weakness and strength, independence and co-dependence, radically inviting
creation into God’s relationship of hope, of peace and of love.
Let us pray.
Compassionate God and Father
of all,
we are horrified at violence
in so many parts of the world.
It seems that none are safe, and some are terrified.
we are horrified at violence
in so many parts of the world.
It seems that none are safe, and some are terrified.
Hold back the hands that
kill and maim;
turn around the hearts that hate.
Grant instead your strong Spirit of Peace -
peace that passes our understanding
but changes lives,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen
turn around the hearts that hate.
Grant instead your strong Spirit of Peace -
peace that passes our understanding
but changes lives,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen