Year B
Proper 28
Daniel 12:1-3;
Hebrews 10:11-14, 19-25;
Mark 13:1-8
To really
engage with today’s readings, there is a need to understand the type of
literature they are, and more importantly to understand how this genre of
literature was used during the time they were written. You see, these are all apocalyptic literature. To make sense of today’s readings, we must
reclaim the definition and understanding of what apocalyptic literature is and
how these passages were understood when they were written, to understand why
they were even written. Tragically these
readings and many others along with the term have been high jacked and
manipulated—they have been used and abused to breed fear; to teach about a God
of judgment and vengeance; a God of exclusion.
These writings, however, were not meant to be that then and they are not
meant to be understood that way now. As
difficult as it may be to get our heads around; apocalyptic writing was meant
to be comforting, to be revelatory—to reveal an ever present, ever loving God
who is working with and through us, who is intimately involved in our lives, in
our suffering, and in our joys. Yes,
these writings and other apocalyptic literature are hard, they name hard
things, but what they are trying to do is to give meaning to that which seems—meaningless--,
to give voice to the anxiety and to remind us—to remind us that God has not
abandoned us even when we feel abandoned.
They were written to be a witness to the people then and to us now --a
witness of God’s presence in the face of loss and destruction; of anxiety and
uncertainty.
During
this time, the people faced a great deal of oppression both from the political
forces of the world as well as from division within the church—sounds kind of
familiar doesn’t it? These words were
written to bring comfort—it sort of feels like “with friends like this who
needs enemies”, but truly they were.
During this time there was a lot going on and the people were filled
with anxiety, with dread and with fear.
Cherished institutions ceased to function in meaningful ways, it didn’t
make sense—it was the end of the world as they knew it. And instead of increasing fear as some people
would like to do today, these words were written to bring hope—to bring hope in
the new beginning that was coming and that we now know did come.
Hope
is another difficult word to fully grasp.
The kind of hope God speaks of is not wishful thinking; it’s not the
kind of hope like “I hope I get a nap today.”
No this hope is belief—100% belief that things will be different; it is
pure and total faith. It is the kind of
hope Martin Luther King Jr embodied and expressed when he said, “I have a
dream”—he didn’t say I have a dream and I hope ya’ll are up to the challenge, I
hope it will come true. That’s the worldly
view of hope. If King had that kind of
hope, I’m not sure he would have been able to continue in his fight for justice
and equality; to continue to persevere when it seemed so immense and often
futile. But he did have hope. The hope he had believed that the world could
be and should be different even though all the evidence proved otherwise. King then was the voice, the hope against the
violence and oppression that existed then and we as the church can be the hope,
the voice who declares another way now. A
way that seems impossible, but we know that with God all things are
possible. We can be the voice that
shines the light on-that reveals a new way; a new world—the world that is and
is still yet to come. We can be and must
be the voice of that hope; we must be the incarnate here and now pointing to
the in breakings of the Kingdom of God—not focusing on the end of the world as
some want us to do. Not focusing on
trying to figure out; to calculate when the world will end and who will be in
and who will be out. No, as the church
we are called to focus on and to name not the what ifs but rather the what
nows. We are called to stand up and say
there can be and is a new world that has arrived and is arriving—a world of
mercy and righteousness and equality.
We
are called to give voice to the voiceless and hope to those who feel hopeless
even to and among ourselves. We must
proclaim a hope for and in the Kingdom of God—a time when justice and
righteousness will reign completely—a time when disease, cancer, depression,
grief and isolation, economic and environmental anxieties, oppression and
destruction are no more. This
apocalyptic language is speaking to give us comfort and reminding us that God
is faithful—it is not to minimize the truth of the times, but it is to maximize
the understanding that God’s activity in the world has been, is and will
continue to be present working with and through us.
I’m
going to let ya’ll in on a secret—and I know this will be hard for you to
believe, but my children do not always get along. Sometimes, they fuss and fight, and sometimes
they even provoke each other purposefully.
One of my children can just look at the others and gently shake his head
in a way that sends the others into orbit.
He knows how to get them, and it works.
I am not advocating sibling conflict, but there is something to be
learned from it; how does this child of mine know exactly what will provoke his
brother and sisters? How does he know
what will get them going; will get them heated up? It is simply because he has paid attention;
he has noticed that which will aggravate; that which will stir up a frenzy of
emotion—that which will get the others actively involved.
Our
epistle today tells us to do just that—to provoke one another to love and good
deeds. Provoking one another does not
have to be negative. To provoke is
defined as “stimulate or give rise to; stimulate or incite someone to feel or
do something” and that is what we are meant to do as a community of faith. As a community of faith that gathers; that
must gather not only here on Sunday morning, but also throughout the week and
throughout the world—the physical and the virtual world (Giving you permission to access all of your
social media), in our world we are
to provoke one another to love and good deeds.
To pay attention and to draw attention to those things in the world that
are unjust, destructive, and tragic—our love and good deeds could be as simple
as bringing a casserole to a someone facing a time of crisis; it could be
handing out hundreds of turkeys, visiting the lonely, or it could be speaking
out publically, marching in rallies, questioning the institutions. But all that we do, that we provoke one
another to do must point to the Kingdom of God here and now and the Kingdom yet
to come. It must point to the God of
love and compassion and mercy and inclusion.
Our words and actions must say there is another way to live and to be
and it is the way of Jesus Christ. All
these people trying to figure out when the world will end and judgment will
come don’t seem to understand that through the life and death of Jesus that has
already happened. It has already been
the end of the world as we know it, and gradually step by step, bit by bit, the
new world is awakening. Amen
