November 19, 2000
Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost
Thanksgiving Sunday
CHRISTIAN GOSPEL: Birth Pangs of New Life ~ Mark 13:1-8
Like many of you, I'm continuing to deal with a little bit of respiratory flu and a cough and a sore throat. It doesn't lend itself to a solid night of sleep and I find that as I'm waking up during the night that I seem to be dreaming almost the whole night long, going in or coming out of sleep. Last night, even though I tried to focus my dreams on this particular passage to see what might be rolling around inside, every time I woke up I was aware of an image of people preparing for a recount . Now, it really didn't have anything to do with Gore or Bush. I'm personally not too worried about which of those gentleman ends up being the next president. But every time there was this image of people getting ready with ballots, wanting to count, wanting to move ahead and come to some decision about something. I spent most of yesterday trying to relax and watch football games through the day. Sometimes two at the same time with the picture in picture going back and forth to see what the Rose Bowl picture and the championship bowl picture was going to look like. So if I would have been filled with dreams about footballs flying through the air I could have understood. Like most of the rest of the general public, I'm really willing to wait and see this whole election process out. At the same time, the news commentators and the folks who have to fill the airwaves and the newspapers are talking about the possibility of us being in a constitutional crisis. Is the country going to fall apart through all this dissension? Where is it all going to lead us? This idea of crisis is not an unusual one. It may be in part a function of the media, but no matter what, it seems like we are more stimulated by bad news than we are by good news. We are always looking at things from one of the darker corners. I know that there were times, before the recent dot.com, when most economists were saying that we had reached the golden age in the United States and that in the future our children could never expect to have the same level of income, the same security that we experienced. Then, ten years later, couples twenty years younger than us are buying seven hundred thousand dollar houses for cash. I said, "Well, there was something wrong with that forecast." At any stage along the way there will be cries going up about a shortage of teachers or nurses or engineers or ministers. Somehow we make our way through, and then there will be glut in one or another of those areas. Then we'll come round to another low point again. There are always doomsayers ready to stand up and say how the world, civilization as we have known is almost at an end. How many of you still have supplies from Y2K? We didn't buy very much in the way of emergency supplies. We have a case of water in the garage yet that we bought just in case we ran a little short that first week or two. Think about how much money was spent, how much time was given to talking about the problems that were going to happen when the computers couldn't handle the change over to the year 2000. If we think about the hysteria that existed and then how little actually happened, we can see again how much we give ourselves to the gathering clouds of crisis only to find out that it was a false alarm.
There are people who are always trying to figure out when the end of time is going to come. When is the end of the world going to happen so we can get ourselves prepared? We've heard of groups over and over again who have set a date and have sold off their land or have even committed suicide, anticipating that they were at the end of time and that they were going to be moving to the next spiritual age. Many folks find the encouragement for that in our Bible. The Book of Revelation is particularly a place that people turn to read images about the end of time. They try to take news reports, countries that exist now, world leaders, wars that take place and fit them into the puzzle of the images of the Book of Revelation. They attempt to anticipate exactly when the end of time is going to come. The adult Sunday School class studied the Book of Revelation a year ago. It was very clear, in all the materials that we used, that the Book of Revelation was written for the Christian church at a particular time in the history of the church. It was at a time when the temple was destroyed. There was a move to draw a clear line between followers of Judaism and those Jews who had become followers of Jesus of Nazareth. When the temple was destroyed the focus for the Jewish faith was also destroyed. The Jewish leaders decided they needed to tighten up the rules to make sure that the faith would continue on even in the midst of all the oppression and trial. So they said you need to decide if you are a Christian or a Jew. At the same time the Roman Empire was continuing to try to protect all of its power. It had no desire to have a new group rise up that owed allegiance to some other king instead of Caesar. The author of the Book of Revelation was warning the Christian church of the times and tribulations to come, not 2000 years down the road, but within their very lifetime within the next couple of years. He said, "You're going to have to be strong because people will persecute you for your faith and some of you will even be put to death for the things that you believe. But you need to stay strong in that faith because it is the only right way to live."
This morning's scripture passage from the Book of Mark is coming from a very similar time period. Mark was probably written about 60 A.D.. Some years after Jesus' death and resurrection, but not yet to the point of the destruction of the temple which took place somewhere around 100 or 110 A.D.. But even at that time the Romans were beginning to persecute the Christians. The words that we read in the Gospel of Mark, coming from the lips of Jesus, are words that are included because Mark is speaking to the early church and encouraging the followers of Jesus to remain constant in their faith. He is saying , "Now that you believe in Jesus, don't expect that everything is going to be fine. Don't think we have come back to the golden age and that there will be no difficulties at all." Mark said exactly the opposite will be the case, "Even though you know the love of God revealed in Jesus Christ there will be difficult times ahead. There will be war and famine, there may even be friends or members of your own family who turn their backs on you, who don't understand your faith. You need to understand that these difficult times must be endured because they are giving birth to new things beyond. If you want to see what God is doing in the world, you need to remain faithful to the message that Jesus shared with us. People will prefer to look at the possibilities of doom and destruction and don't really want to spend much time looking at the possibilities that can come out of difficult times. But the possibilities that are offered to us in times of change, are exactly what we are called on to be watching for patiently. When Jesus speaks to his disciples he says, "Don't give up easily. Stay the course. Watch for what God is doing in life. God will be active."
If you have been at some of the memorial services that I have officiated at during the last couple of years here, you will know that I frequently say that we don't have a clear idea about what heaven is all about. We do have confidence that God's love is stronger than death, that life will be the last word. But to talk about the great garden up in the sky, to talk about sitting on a cloud and playing a harp is just hopeful dreaming, because we have no evidence. What is important, more and more for me, is to understand that the victory of life over death is every bit as much for this world as it is a promise of something in the next world. When we face death we need to be able to find the courage to continue living. We need to find meaning in this life even though great change has come to us. I've shared the words of Frederick Buechner about people who have died. He says, "It's much more than a remembrance. We can say we have fond memories of our grandmother or grandfather but there is a continuing relationship that takes place." I experience that as I move to different stages in my life. Let me give you an example. When I turn on television and watch the music videos on MTV, I'm sometimes shocked by the words. If our kids are in the room, I'm sometimes embarrassed by the gyrations of the dancers. When I look at the music of the younger generation and start to render judgment, I occasionally stop and remember that my parents were having similar feelings about rock and roll and flower children. Many of you could probably tell me stories about the generation before that. Beatniks or flappers that interested the kids and scandalized the parents. When I recognize that, I start to have a new understanding of what my parents went through when I was a teenager. As Cindy and I are now dealing with a 20 year old, an 18 year old and a 15 year old, and we think about what we are called on to do in terms of guidance and discipline and encouragement I have some new insights. My parents speak to me again, and I learn some new things.
If there is anything that is constant about the world, the cliché goes, it's that everything is always changing. When you are in very difficult circumstances, oppressed by another government, in time of famine, in time of great destruction I think that it's appealing to look for a point in the future where things will be changed and where we will be set free. But for those of us who live comfortable lives I think that there is a tendency to look backward to time where we think things were much more secure and safe and solid then we perceive them to be right now. Certainly it's often that way in the church. I know I've shared a story with you about an evangelism meeting that I remember very clearly from some fifteen or twenty years ago. Representatives from churches were gathered together to learn about how they could increase their church membership and one of the Conference ministers stood up and said, "How many of you would like to have new members at your church?" Everybody's hands went up. Then he said, "No you don't. You don't want new members at your church. You just want things to be as good as they used to be. The church that you remember. You want it to be like it was. But let me tell you that if new people come, the church won't be like it was. It will be something entirely different. And the new people who come in will want to paint the wall a different color. They'll want to do change a traditional celebration. They'll want to do some new things and it won't be like it used to be." It's easy for us to want it to be like it used to be. It's much harder to prepare ourselves and have appreciation for what things are going to become. I remember the first congregation that I served, a little country church that was established in 1868, they had us by a few years here. Most of the membership at that time, was made up of families that could trace their way back to the beginning of the church. Many of the seventy and eighty year olds who were there had been born and baptized in that church, confirmed, lived their whole lives in that area. They were good strong church members, pillars, always there to volunteer, always there to put their money in the offering plate. As we began to attract more younger members, I remember talking to one of the older women and I said, "You are always ready with your support, I hope that you will happily continue your support when the new people who are coming are bringing changes that are not changes that you would choose for the church." We can be thankful for the blessings that we have in our lives. We can sit around our thanksgiving table and give thanks for home, for food and for family. The verses of scripture that talk about God's future are a challenge for us and they call on us to be open, to be watchful for the things that God is going to be doing in the future. If this world were perfect now, if everybody had food and a place to live, if all the animals and the birds and the plants were healthy and thriving, if there was no hatred and no war, then it would be fine for things to stay as they are. But if we're going to solve the problems of the world, things will have to change. Things will have to change in our hearts. Things will have to change in our lives. Things will have to change in our church. Things will have to change in our country. Things will have to change around the world. We need to be watchful for those changes. We need to try to determine if changes are being motivated by God's love and if they're not, then we need to stand up and speak out against them. But if things are being motivated by God's love, we need to be open to that change and give thanks, not only for what has been but for what is yet to come. May God's Spirit be with us. Amen.