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A Long, Long time ago

Posted on December 28, 2015 by megancastellan

Happy Fourth Day of Christmas!  I hope everyone is enjoying a well-deserved rest over these holidays.

Advent ended for me in a whirl.  I had grand plans this year of doing so much holiday baking, of discovering new cookie recipes, of wandering aimlessly through the Plaza lights, reveling in the scenery….absolutely none of that happened.

Instead, as my parish admin put it, “People just people-ed all over everything” as is wont to happen around major Church feasts, and I did absolutely no baking whatsoever.  I managed to ship off my family’s presents on the absolutely last day possible, and I did no aimless wandering anywhere.

The Fourth Sunday of Advent is always one of my favorites.  We get to read the Magnificat and talk about Mary, Mother of Jesus, who is easily one of the most kickass women in all of scripture, and a good model of the priesthood**

So despite the fact that my brain had reduced down to mush, and I was amusing myself making lists of biblical mascots for the deanery***, I wrote this.  See what you think.

December 19-20, 2015

Advent 4

Luke 1:39-47

 

So, I, like the rest of America, has been obsessed with the musical Hamilton for a few months now.  It’s the story of Alexander Hamilton–American founding father–as told through hip hop.  Believe me when I tell you that it works.  

One of the central themes of the show–all of which: book, music, lyrics, everything, is written by a young Puerto Rican man–is that who tells the story is important.  Easily the most important thing.  The show is narrated by Aaron Burr–who shot Hamilton, but it’s sort of meta-narrated by Hamilton’s wife…who, in history, survived to tell Hamilton’s story….never mind.  Just go see it.

Here is why I’m telling you this.  There are two stories about what happens to his parents before Jesus is born–one in Matthew, one in Luke.  Two versions of the annunciation.  
Matthew tells it from Joseph’s perspective.  Joseph is hanging out, minding his own business, when he hears that Mary, his fiancee is pregnant.  Joseph decides to be nice about it, and break up with her quietly, rather than make her go through the (literal!) public stoning which would otherwise ensue.  Sweet guy.  

Then, he gets an angel appearing in a dream, which tells him, not so fast.  “Do not, in fact, be afraid to marry Mary, because she’s having a special kid.”  So, Joseph changes course, and all is fine. (Until the magi and Herod, and that’s later.)

But Luke is another story.  Luke’s gospel tells us about the angel that appears to Mary, informing her of the coming birth.  It’s Mary’s story here, rather than Joseph.

And that makes a difference.

 

We see, from Mary’s perspective now, as she hears the news of the angel, processes it, consents to her role in this weird little adventure, and immediately, as our story kicks off today–races off to see her cousin.

And it’s detours like this one which are instructive.  Mary could be heading off to see her cousin for any number of reasons–we aren’t told why she’s going exactly–she misses her, she just likes visiting Elizabeth, she wanted to empathize with another relative who was also pregnant, she wants to fact-check the angel, who told her about Elizabeth’s pregnancy…but it’s worth noting too that there’s also a less cheerful possibility for her trip.  Like we saw in the Joseph story, there was a harsh penalty associated with young women turning up pregnant out of wedlock.  So Mary just might be following the age-old tradition of heading out of town until the scandal had died down, and her life was no longer in danger.

Regardless of whether this was the case–the stakes were higher for her anyway.  She was involved in this story in a different way than Joseph–she had more to lose.  No one’s going to be hurling rocks at Joseph because of what they assume about his life choices any time soon.

 

Perhaps this is why Mary plays twenty questions with the angel once she hears the news.  The angel tells Mary she’s blessed and highly favored, and Mary wants to know what on earth this means.  The angel tells her she’s about to have a baby, and Mary wants to know exactly how.  Mary, in other words, is not going into this blind or uninformed.  She’s doing her homework.  She’s asking questions, taking notes, voicing opinions.

So when she says that she’ll do it, it’s not passive–it’s the furthest thing from it.  Mary’s obedience here is active.  She actively engages with what she’s been tasked with.  All right, I’ll do it!  And we’re off to the races.

 

Because as soon as she sees Elizabeth, Mary takes the opportunity to sing out the news of what has happened.  My soul magnifies the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my savior.  He has cast down the mighty from their thrones and has lifted up the lowly.  He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.  

 

Mary’s song recaps what has just happened to her, but it also goes a bit farther.  Mary’s song–and you can think of this as Mary’s own Broadway style show stopper, where the character becomes so filled with emotion that they have to start SINGING–basically sums up the whole gospel that she, Jesus, and the disciples will spend the rest of the gospel trying to live out.  This is the gospel message Jesus preaches.  This is the good news the apostles later tell.  But it starts here–with Mary’s agreement.  It’s Mary’s “I will” that starts the ball rolling–her consent to be an active partner in this unfolding plan.

 

God, after all, isn’t all that interested in passive obedience, in passive followers.  God wants us to think, to question, and to figure it out as we follow in the way.  Our relationship with God is a two-way street, founded on our free will, and our ability to engage with God’s mission in the world.  

When God lifts up the lowly, when God casts down the proud, and feeds the hungry, that requires our engagement.  That requires our participation.  

When Mary says that her soul magnifies the Lord–that means that she’s doing something. So when we echo her language, we’re committing to the same thing.  Both that we would be willing to be lifted up, fed and used in such a way, but also that we would give ourselves to take on this mission as well.  That we would promise to be co-agents of this mission along with God.  

 

There are, after all, enough puppets in the world.  There are enough idols begging for blind faith and obedience.  God doesn’t need any more.  What God wants isn’t puppets, but Marys.  People willing to be bearers of good news on the mountain.  People willing to risk for the sake of the gospel, and participate in God’s plan of a new world.  God needs us to birth a recreated world as a teenaged girl did so long ago.

Amen.

FURTHER IMPORTANT AUTHOR’S NOTE:  This is where my original sermon ended, as given.  However, my rector commented, in the 10:30 announcements, that while he had never, in over 30 years of ministry, corrected nor challenged a fellow cleric’s preaching, wouldn’t it have been better if I had ended with “as a teenaged girl did, a long long time ago, in a Galilee far, far away”?

So I promised that I would make the addendum on the blog.  Because Star Wars fandom is JUST AS VITAL as the Hamilton fandom.

   

**And it’s not just me saying this–it’s the pre-1920s Vatican saying it as well.  Long story–I will unpack in a later blog post.

***A real thing!  When I get punchy, I get creative and punchy.  Occasionally, the entire clergy of the metro KC area bears the brunt of it.

 

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Bonhoeffer, and the death of dualism

Posted on December 8, 2015 by megancastellan

I’ve been thinking a lot about Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
Listening to the tenor of the debate in this country ratchet up and up and up, as politicians call for rounding up and deporting immigrants without papers, registering Muslims in a database, closing mosques, and now, closing the borders to anyone who professes Islam, it is hard not to feel like we’re in a scary time warp.

Bonhoeffer, after all, faced similar problems.  When the Nazis began forcing Jews out of government jobs, schools and other opportunities, Bonhoeffer and Karl Barth wrote the Barmen Confession, upon which the Confessing Church was built.  Bonhoeffer would spend his life articulating the gospel in defiance of a government that was bent on evil and destruction.

The man was a brilliant theologian, and by the end, before he was arrested, he had been forbidden from speaking or publishing anything at all–so afraid of him was the German government.

Bonhoeffer is a good figure to bear in mind these days, I find, not only because we are currently being faced with similar challenges (stay or go?  Speak out or stay quiet?) but because he is so hard to classify in the ways we like to use in the church.

Bp. Dan Martins set up one of these time-worn classification systems recently, and I can’t help but wonder where on earth Bonhoeffer would have fit.  Bp. Martins describes the church as being filled with two sorts of people: those who are progressive, in favor of gay marriage, women’s ordination, and generally have little use for the Prayer Book and its language (these people, he finds, usually have an active dislike of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ), and those who believe steadily in the historic faith once received, the BCP as written, and enjoy Mel Gibson’s Aramaic epic.

The Mel Gibson thread, he argues, is actually the most important one, as these divisions mostly come down to what we believe about Christ–either you believe Christ was a person motivated by love and justice, urging us to do likewise, or you believe that Christ was the incarnate Word of God, through which all may be saved.

 

All right.

First of all, as the theologian of blessed memory Edward Schillebeeckx once said, “Any attempt to introduce a dualism here is the work of pure evil.” **
There really aren’t ever only two types of people.  There are billions of types of people, because there are billions of people.  (Or, if you’d rather, there ARE two types of people–those who believe there are two types of people, and those who realize there aren’t.)
All of which to say, people are complex.  They don’t fit neatly into either one thing or another.  And then, people frequently will change their minds on you, and then you have to reconsider your whole system.

This is actually important, because when you embrace a dualism such as this, you disallow for the possibility of people like Bonhoeffer–people who devoutly believe in the historic creeds of the church, and because of that, strive for justice, freedom, and peace.***

It is a troubling novelty in the last few decades that progressives have consigned orthodox faith to conservatives.  We, undoubtedly, have done a poor job of explaining our positions in theological terms, rather than just ideological ones.  And the tragic outcome of this failure is the common misconception that believing in Jesus’s love means you probably hate someone else.  It is a PR disaster on an epic scale, and you only have to look at the rising number of ‘nones’ to see the results.

It is more than possible to be progressive while embracing orthodox Christianity–indeed, I would even argue that it is necessary.  Taking seriously the Incarnation means that you also must take seriously the value of human existence–this tangled mess that God loved so much as to want to participate in.  To believe in Christ as God implies that you will honor each person as Christ, since God has so honored humanity with his presence.

The Christian story is one that confounds easy dualisms–God speaks alike to men and women, faithful and faithless, the hopeless screw-up, the person who manages all things well, and everyone in between.  When we accept the Christian narrative as normative, then we accept that God uses and speaks through all sorts and conditions of people; that God prizes and intensely loves all sorts and conditions of people.

I am not a feminist, an LGTBQ ally, or a believer that #blacklivesmatter in spite of my Christianity.  I am a feminist, and an ally BECAUSE of my Christianity.  It is my faith that tells me that everyone is important, that everyone matters, and that my call is for the common welfare of all.
** Know who excels at irony?  Theologians.

***It’s positively Hegelian, I tell you.

 

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People get ready

Posted on December 8, 2015 by megancastellan

My parents were here for Thanksgiving.
They traveled all the way out here for a full 3 days, and got to experience most of what Kansas City has to offer.  We went to many restaurants (including Joe’s KC for BBQ).  We went to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, and the WWI museum.  I gave them a driving tour of the Plaza, all lit up.  And they tried in vain to figure out where Kansas was.
(“It’s across that street.”  “It can’t be!  That’s a neighborhood!” “Yes. That’s Kansas.” “In a neighborhood?!  With different license plates and everything?!” “Yes.  Because it’s Kansas.”  “But where’s the river?” etc.)

They also got to hear me preach, which doesn’t happen all that often.
Preaching (or doing anything, really) in front of one’s own family is rough.  Jesus wasn’t lying with that crack about prophets not having honor in their own hometown.  The trouble with your own hometown is that this is the town that conflates grownup, professional you with the you who once was madly in love with Beanie Babies.

Here’s what I said.

Rev. Megan L. Castellan

November 28,-29, 2015

Advent 1, Year B

Luke 22

 

The good news which I have for you this day, is that whatever odd little subgroup of humanity you may belong to, TLC has a reality show spotlighting you!  Yea and verily, TLC has shows about people in over-large families, people who compete in child beauty pageants, people who have multiple wives at the same time, little people, little people who then get married, people who obsess over strange things, people who have psychic experiences while living in Long Island, and people who experience regrettable tattoos, and people who are mall cops.

It’s a veritable cornucopia of the strangeness of humanity.  

And, then, there is a whole OTHER subgenre of people who are concerned that the end of the world is upon us–the preppers.  

These are a group of people who are collecting supplies to prepare for the end of society as we know it–usually canned goods, potable water, generators, ammunition, things like that.  And not surprisingly, they are not generally a cheerful bunch–mostly, they grimly await the chaos they expect.  In fact, as I was researching this, the star of the biggest prepper show was arrested and put in jail on weapons charges.  

To these folks, the end is something you have to prepare for grimly, by cutting yourself off from everyone else, and hunkering down.  Since the worst is coming, best to minimize the damage to yourself, so that you can survive.  Everyone else can just fend for themselves.

That’s one way to go, certainly.

Probably not the Christian way, however.

In the gospel. we’re again in an apocalyptic section, where Jesus is again talking to the disciples about what’s going to happen to them.  Or, to be more precise–he’s talking to the community that Luke’s gospel is written to about what is currently happening to them–lots of scary things involving Roman persecutions and the fall of the Jerusalem Temple.    And again, it sounds scary to us.

But, I would like to point out that at no point in any of his apocalyptic diatribes does Jesus recommend building a bunker.  Or stockpiling food.  Or retreating to the desert.  (That was John the Baptist, and he didn’t last long.)

Jesus, on the other hand, says that when you see all this horrible stuff happening, look up!  Lift up your head!  Get ready!  Because your salvation is coming.

Be on guard, and don’t be weighted down with worries of this life.  Because that day is coming unexpectedly.

Don’t move out to a cave, and give up on the world.  The kingdom of God is still near you.  Right now.

They must have thought he was nuts.

Where’s the kingdom of God when our temple is being destroyed?  Where’s the kingdom of God when Caesar is hauling us off to the lions?  Where is my nice cave when I need it?

The kingdom of God, though, doesn’t emerge in a cave.  Or in a bunker.  Or in a top-secret, super-safe facility in an undisclosed location.  The kingdom of God emerges in community.  Where two or three are gathered together in the name of Christ, and when we share together the love of God.  That’s what the kingdom looks like, and that, we cannot do if we choose to hide in a corner, away from the world.

The kingdom of God does not come apart from the world, with all its chaos, and its turmoil–the kingdom comes in the very middle of of all of that mess.  Unlikely as it feels.

So, our response as Christians to when the world seems about to turn upside down cannot be to beat a hasty retreat to the nearest cave.  Or to batten down the hatches in fear and ride out the storm.  We cannot let fear run our lives, and cut ourselves off from each other and from the world God made and loves.  

 

Our response when everyone around us cries that The End is Near! must be to dig in our heels, and take the gospel even more seriously.  We must give even more generously, do even more good, seek even more after mercy and justice.  We must remember even more deeply to be the hands and feet of Christ in the world.  We have to care for each other even more.  And maybe it is foolish, and maybe it is risky, and maybe it is even a bit dangerous–but it is in the times when the world seems the most dangerous when it most needs the kindness that Christ teaches.

 

It’s the beginning of Advent today, though we’re disguising the color a bit, due to another mass shooting.  But honestly, I think our red/blue mix is appropriate.  Because, contrary to what Hallmark tells us each year, Christ didn’t come into a peaceful world.  It wasn’t a settled world, with everything perfect, Mary, Joseph just hanging out lazily with some picturesque hipster shepherds.

That world was a mess, too.  It was violent–there were wars, rebellions, prejudice, and disease.  Jesus would become a refugee before his second birthday.  It’s not so different from our world.  And, in fact, believe it or not, there were quite a few sects of Jews who were all about hiding in caves and waiting for the end of the world back then.  That’s how bad it was.

But it was right in the middle of that mess that Christ came.  In the mud, in the straw, in the dirt and heartbreak.

And that is where he sends us too.  

So, be strong.  Lift up your heads.  The kingdom of God is near!  

 

Amen.

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In Which Megan writes an extra sermon by accident

Posted on November 24, 2015 by megancastellan

I spent the last few days at the Gathering of Interim Bodies in Baltimore, MD, and came back Saturday night.  Contrary to the way it sounds (like a symposium of plague contagion), it was a lot of fun for those of us who enjoy thinking about church canons and governance (all 3 of us).  And we got a lot done.  For example, I succeeded in getting my commission to rename itself ‘Commission for Law and Order’, and to employ the regular use of sound effects borrowed from the show.

But, the aftereffect of these several days of continuous meetings was that I had the fixed idea that I was supposed to preach on Sunday.  So I wrote a whole entire sermon on the plane ride home, only to land at KCI and realize that no, my rector was supposed to preach.  I had a #bonus sermon on my hands.   Sort of the reverse of that clergy anxiety dream–instead of showing up with no sermon, I showed up and had an extra one.

But I’m rather fond of what I wrote, so I told Twitter I would post it here.

Happy early Thanksgiving, blogworld!  I am very grateful for you.

 

Rev. Megan L. Castellan

November 22, 2015

Ordinary Time, Proper 29

John 18

 

(If my kingdom WAS from this world, my followers would fight.  But as it is, my kingdom is not of this world.)

 

While I was in Baltimore, this past week, I had dinner with my (very Catholic) grandmother and aunt.  Whenever we get together, it’s basically a running ecumenical dialogue, and this time was no different.  They were telling me of this trip they had taken over the summer to York cathedral in England, with my teenaged cousin.  While on the tour, guided by an apparently-quite young English docent, they saw a tapestry of St. Peter, being handed two keys, one silver, one gold, by Jesus.  

The docent remarked that she’d been asking everyone, all the clergy she knew, what on earth the keys were about, and no one could tell her.  My grandmother fixed me with the same glare she gives her parish priest when she is displeased with the sermon, “Do YOU know why Peter would have keys?”

I was pretty sure this was a test.  “Yeah—they’re the keys of the kingdoms—signifying whatever he looses on earth will stay loosed in heaven, and whatever he binds on earth, etc.”

Grandma nodded emphatically.  “Yes!  Exactly!  And Clare knew too.  BUT THIS PIPSQUEAK OF A DOCENT HAD NO IDEA.”

 

I consoled her by pointing out that I could make no excuses for the English educational system for clergy, but clearly it was an abject failure.  But, I don’t think they’re going back to York any time soon.  

 

In thinking about it since, I’ve been wondering if in fact the docent’s ignorance of the symbology of Peter’s keys is more attributable to Englishness than an educational gap.  England, after all, is a place where there is only one operational “key”—there’s one law governing both church and state, the church is established, and no separation seen between them.  So perhaps it’s not so natural to think that Christ would pass off to Peter two keys: one for heaven, another for earth.  Perhaps it’s not so natural to think that these would be separate—another Protestant innovation to the faith once handed down.

 

The danger seeing only the one key, however, is that it lulls you into complacency.  Since the time of Constantine, Christendom has wanted to claim that it’s kingdom is THE ONLY kingdom, that it’s realm can be the only realm exists on earth.  Any other realms, any other kingdoms must either convert, or be subsumed in our wake.  And thus, in our history, we’ve been susceptible to thinking that the way of these earthly kingdoms must be the way of the heavenly.  

 

I mean, there are kingdoms which claim the name of Jesus.  There are kings all over the place speaking of their prayer life.  There are kings duking it out on the news about how all good citizens were Christians….so, it can be tempting to believe that Christ’s kingdom and our earthly kingdoms are the same.  Or at least close enough for jazz, becoming a mortifying thought, as we watch the kingdoms furiously rage together as well.  

 

And we should be aware that there are people who have staked their entire careers on continuing that line of thought.  

 

But we should also be aware of this conversation between Jesus and Pilate.  

 

Pilate, who decides to have an existential debate with Jesus at his trial, asks Jesus who he is, where he has come from, and how is it that people call him a King?  

 

Jesus replies, in typical Johannine fashion, that he is a King, but a SPECIFIC KIND OF KING.

 

There’s a political context here which is important—Pilate is the governor of a rebellious province sent to quell dissent.  (Think Hunger Games.)  For Jesus to stand before him and claim to be a king is as rebellious as you could possibly get.  It is Katniss giving that salute in the arena.  (Just watch the movies.  I think the only people following this sermon right now are tweens.)  

 

Sure!  I’m a king, Jesus says (Which means that Caesar, Pilate’s boss, is in trouble.  So that’s treason, number 1.)  But I’m a different sort of king. A different sort of Caesar.  

 

Because if I were a king from this world?  My followers would be fighting right now.  But they aren’t.  Because I’m different.  Because they’re different.  

 

And therein lies the difference.  Caesar fights.  Caesar kills.  Caesar destroys, and wastes human lives on his own behalf.  

 

Jesus doesn’t.  Jesus is different.  Jesus is a different sort of king.

 

Which means that when we claim Jesus as our king, we cannot live by the rules that make sense in other kingdoms.  The standard in this kingdom is different, because it’s measured by Jesus’ self-giving love.  Not fear, not political calculation, not what will keep everyone safe.  

 

But love.  

 

This is not a very attractive way to run an earthly kingdom, at least for long periods of time.  Not if you want to be wealthy or powerful.  Not if you want to do well, or get rich.  

 

This Sunday is called in many places Christ the King Sunday, and that’s actually because in the mid 1800s, the pope felt his earthly power slipping away, worried he was losing his grip on his empire, and created a holiday to remind Christendom who was really in charge.  (Spoiler:  The Pope.)  

 

But he wasn’t fantastic at holding an earthly kingdom either.  

 

But my sisters and brothers, we aren’t called to run an earthly kingdom.  When we are disciples of Christ, we aren’t called to figure out the least dangerous path to take, the way to live free of fear, or how to stay safe forever.  

 

Safety, for the disciples of Jesus, is not our king, and it cannot be our goal.  Love.  Love for every human under heaven.  Near and far, citizen and refugee, documented and undocumented, that is our goal.  

 

And Jesus is our only king.  

 

Amen.  

 

 

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When you can’t hide under the bed

Posted on November 17, 2015 by megancastellan

I realized, recently, that I have a habit of compulsively searching for good news.  I have a deep-seated fear of being thought of as a Debbie Downer in conversations, so whenever I vent to someone, or break some bad news, or discuss some awful aspect of the world, I try to tack on something good, however small.

Traffic was horrible, global warming threatens us all, and the American healthcare system is a waking nightmare.  (But cat vs cucumber exists!)

I have 3 conference calls in a row, hosted by people who don’t understand the value of keeping their phones on mute when not speaking. (But, know what’s awesome? The Great British Bake-Off!!)

The good things never cancel out the bad–life doesn’t work like that–but they do help keep focus on something other than the refrain of “EVERYTHING IS AWFUL” all of the time.

But lately, the struggle to find good news has been harder than normal.  My parish is dealing with several parish leaders’ health crises, one on top of another.  Couple that with the spotlighting of racism at Mizzou, and the violence around the world, and by the time word broke about the attacks in Paris, I was about done.  I was ready to crawl under my bed, and listen to Hamilton** until the world decided to get its stuff together.

Then, you know, I had to preach.

There are times, hopefully brief, when good news is difficult to find.  And I’m not a preacher who believes that the job of the pulpit is to dispense sunshine over everything.  Preaching should be truthful, since Jesus is, y’know, the Truth–so ideally, preaching should name where we are,  name where God is, then take a guess at where we’re called to go next.

So, easy stuff.

Anyway, here’s what I ended up saying.

 

November 15, 2015

Ordinary Time, Proper 28

Mark 13

 

Every year, when we approach these propers, I think that surely, this will be the year when they seem out of place.  When the world will be so quiet and blissful that the oncoming of Advent and the prophet’s lamenting and calling for justice will just seem off key, because the world will finally know a moment of peace and wholeness, and all we’ll have to worry about is actually who’s done the Christmas shopping.

 

But every year, when I read over Jesus’s warnings about the end, and the destruction of the temple, and wars and rumors of wars, I wonder again if he had access to Twitter.  Or some sort of  first-century social media.  Because every year, this idea of a world on the verge of collapse seems all too familiar.  

 

As it does today.  Yet again, we’re witnessing violence and bloodshed around the world–the attacks in Paris Friday night, the attacks in Beirut, in Syria, the earthquakes in Japan, and the hatred that seems to be fester everywhere you look these days.  Not to mention the smaller, more personal earthquakes that affect us as well.  It’s a lot.  And it’s a mess.  

And it has made me wonder several times this past week how soon we could colonize Mars, because that seems like a nice option.  

 

In this equally-scary sounding gospel, Jesus and the disciples are still hanging out in the temple, where they were last week.  And they’ve just witnessed one of those small earthquakes.  A poor widow (poorest of the poor, last of the least) came in and gave away the last of what she had, to support a rich and exploitative temple system.  Jesus is upset–wouldn’t it have been better if one of the rich priests had given more, instead of this widow giving away all she had?  

And in response, they have this conversation here.  The disciples marvel at how large, how fixed, how immovable the whole thing is–the Greek here (yeah, I know, but bear with me. Because I’m going to talk about the Greek again.)  The Greek here can be read like the disciple is frustrated, and not just in awe.  “Good grief–how big this system is!  How immense!”  How could it ever change?  It’s too big.  It’s too broken.  It’s too much to hope for.

 

And then comes Jesus’ apocalypse.

 

Here’s the thing about apocalypse.  Powerful people never write them.  Not real ones anyway.  Powerful people, who have all the money, all the power, all the control, never want the world to change in major ways, because they like the world as it is.  

The people who write apocalypses, stories where the world changes so dramatically as to seem like it’s ending, are people who have no money, no control, no power.  They’re people who have nothing, and are getting kicked around by everything and everyone. Because apocalypses are built around the idea that when everything has gone so terribly wrong that there’s no hope left, God will still come and save God’s people.  God will still turn the world back around.  Because nothing is too big for God.  

 

So when confronted by the enormity of the corruption in the Temple system, which is basically their entire socio-political structure at the time, Jesus assures the disciples that it’s huge.  And it’s wrong.  But God is still working and God is still here.

 

In fact, there’s something weird about his little apocalypse speech that he gives.  (And here comes Greek lesson #2!)  The verb tenses start changing around from future to present to future and back to present.  Which is not really what you’d do, if you were Mark (or whoever) writing a speech trying to foretell coming events.  

Scholars think that one possible reason for this is that the writer wrote this part while the Temple was actually being destroyed, while there was a massive war on–when the Jewish people rose up in revolt against Rome, and got destroyed as a result–another small earthquake.  And so, the events described here aren’t misty in the future–they’re happening to Mark’s audience.  They’re happening now.  The audience is living through their own apocalypse–their own enormous big, bad thing.

 

So it’s in response to an actual war that Jesus gives this speech, reminding them that God is still here and God is still working, and the story isn’t over.

 

Wars aren’t new.  Violence like we’ve seen this week isn’t new.  The human capacity for brokenness isn’t new.  Suffering and death aren’t new–and we are faced time and again by problems that seem insurmountable, unfixable, and intractable–in the world and in our own lives.  

 

But what we are promised today is that we have a God who will stay with us through the earthquakes.  Through the wars.  Through the upheavals of our lives.  We have a God who will stay with us no matter what comes.  

 

Because even though this world can be scary, and it can be,  And even though we can face the worst problems imaginable, God-in-Christ promises that none of this is the end–that God will bear with us through even the worst of it to make a world that is not broken, that is not scary, but that is whole, and fully redeemed.  

 

And that is where we place our hope.  

Amen.

**Just through ‘Room Where it Happens’.  I’m not an emotional masochist.  One does not listen to ‘It’s Quiet Uptown’ or anything after, and expect to feel better about life; one listens to that and pulls the car over because you’re sobbing too hard about historical figures that you’ve become very emotionally invested in.

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