One
of the nicknames for our text today is Mark's Little Apocalypse.
It
talks about destruction and doom and gloom. And if you're here today hoping for
a sermon about the exact timing of the end of the world, I'm afraid you are
going to be sadly disappointed.
Human
beings seem so obsessed with the end of the world, don't they? A movie just
came out called 2012. It’s about the day the Mayan calendar supposedly predicts
the end of the world -
I
think we have some belief that if we know when the end times will be, we can do
something about them. We can thwart the destruction and save ourselves.
That’s been the plot of movies like Armageddon, Deep Impact and Volcano. If we
humans pull together and do everything right because we know what is coming, we
can save ourselves.
Even
the disciples wanted to know when this supposed end would be. "Tell us,
when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to
be accomplished?" Tell us when the temple will fall Jesus. We want to be
in the know. We want to be able to prophecy.
Jesus’
answer is indirect. Instead of saying when the destruction will be, he warns of
speculation. "Beware that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my
name and say, 'I am he!' and they will lead many astray." Basically he
tells them, be very wary of anyone who claims to have the answers to these
questions. If anyone is claiming religious-sounding explanations for what is
going on and what it all means, be very careful that you are not being led
astray. Any mention of the end times will always see the rise of people who
claim to be able to make sense of it all and who set themselves up as the
trusted leaders who can either save us, or ensure our place in heaven. Be wary
of all such claims.
What
I think is interesting is that Jesus does not deny that there may be some
chronological relationship between violent world events and the hope of what is
to come. What he does do is make it clear that it is not a simple cause and
effect, or that God is pulling the strings and setting the wheels in motion.
"When you hear of wars and rumours of wars, do
not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. For nation
will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be
earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning
of the birth pangs."
Jesus
is not telling us to ignore wars and famines, or to pretend they don't matter.
But he is telling us to avoid trying to interpret them as signs of God's
activity. Sometimes an earthquake is just the plates of the earth shifting.
Wars are always the product of our own human folly. Famine happens in one place
in the globe, but there is plenty to eat in others. Yes, there is an inevitability
about the level of global catastrophe, but that doesn't mean that God is
engineering it and that it is all part of God's plan. Christ warns us not to be
led astray by such interpretations, however "biblical” and convincing they
may sound.
This
doesn't mean that God is idle in the world, either. Jesus does say that the
chaos is related to what God is doing — it is the beginning of the birth pangs
— but that doesn't mean that God is controlling the destruction and the famine
it. We don't accuse a baby of orchestrating the labor pains of the mother. But
something has to give if the new is to emerge, and sometimes that will be
traumatic. What God is bringing to birth has nothing to do with apocalyptic
violence and chaos, but human culture being what it is may well be reacting to
its approach by plunging itself into chaos.
But,
says Jesus, be careful not to get carried away by such interpretations. Don't
start thinking that everything is a sign and that God's actions can now be
reliably predicted by reading the signs in world events. I think we try to hard
to control God’s actions with our own limited understanding. God remains free
and will not be bound by our theories of culture or cause and effect. God might
bring something new to birth from the midst of the current chaos, and God might
not. Don't be led astray by simple tick-off-the-signs doomsday theories.
I
think the reason for the inevitability of global violence and catastrophe is
actually bound up with the nature of humanity itself, not because God is in any
way a contributor to violence. The way the world has always acted to keep
violence in check is by identifying a scapegoat. We want someone to blame. Then
we employ a sort of God-endorsed official violence to rid ourselves of the scapegoat
and re-establish order. After the first world war, the Germans identified the
Jews as a scapegoat, claiming a God-given mandate to rid the world of this
"problem." They found someone to blame for their suffering and pain.
After the second world war, we thought we were a bit more sophisticated, and
rather than scapegoat the entire German and Japanese races, we identified their
leaders as our scapegoats, which let us sacrifice them with a neat legally
sanctioned process. All of this enables us to avoid the questions about what it
was about all of us that drives us to such violence and chaos.
But
ever since his crucifixion, what Jesus has been doing is unmasking our
"legalized" violence, by showing that it is no better than the
violence it pretends to contain. And the more the distinction between
"legal" violence and "illegal" violence collapses, the
greater the risk that there will no longer be anything to stop the retaliations
of violence.
Yet
God has a different solution to violence. God sides with the victims and draws
the sting out of violence by walking into the face of it and returning only
mercy. This is so radically unimaginable to us human beings, we can't conceive
of embracing God's way. Violence in the world becomes inevitable when both sides
are convinced that truth and goodness are on their side. And yet neither are
willing to respond to violence by offering themselves as its recipients instead
of as its creators, as God teaches.
What
then are we to do? Well, if we had read further in this chapter from Mark, we
would have heard that Jesus' basic instruction is “Be Alert. Be on your watch.”
We hear the phrase vigilance a lot in today’s world, but this is not the same
sort of vigilance. The world wants us to be on the lookout for scapegoats. They
want someone to point to and blame so that they can employ their “legally
sanctioned” violence to create the illusion that the system is still “keeping
us safe.” I think the illusion is falling apart, though, because after years of
the "war on terror” no one really feels any safer.
What
Jesus is telling us here is exactly the opposite. Be alert lest you fall into
such games. Be alert lest you be led astray by official explanations, even
religious explanations, of the present violence and fall into participating
again in the same destruction that named Jesus as a scapegoat who must be
sacrificed to keep away the violent wrath of
During
one of my first classes in seminary I was in a small group with two other
people. It quickly came out that they identified as ‘Last Dayers,’
which was a term I hadn’t really heard before. I listened with a mixture of
fascination and horror as they told me we were in the last days and the end was
coming any day now. They were so grateful and blessed to be born in these end
times. The righteous shall be saved and the wicked damned. Hallelujah! So it
didn’t matter to them that there was poverty and suffering next door to the
school, because they would all be saved when the rapture happened. It wasn’t
important to search out justice for people because God was coming and would give
everyone the justice they deserved.
That
scares me. A lot. If we are convinced the end is nigh and just sit back and
wait for God to sort it out, what happens to the poor, the oppressed and the
downtrodden if we’re wrong? Absolutely nothing. They don’t get justice. They
don’t get food. Nothing changes for them.
There
is a fancy theological term for the study of end times. It’s called
eschatology. Kathleen Norris talks about it in her book Amazing Grace.
It’s a word she struggles with, but finally comes to terms with a way to
reconcile it. She writes, “What I mean is this: an acquaintance of mine, a
brilliant young scholar was stricken with cancer, and over the course of
several years she came close to dying three times. But after extensive
treatment, both radiation and chemotherapy, came a welcome remission. Her
prognosis was uncertain at best, but she was able to teach and write. ‘I never
want to go back,’ she told her department head, an older woman, ‘because now I
know what each morning means, and I am so grateful just to be alive.’ When the
older woman said to her, ‘We’ve been through so much together in the last few
years,’ the younger woman nodded and smiled. ‘Yes,” she said emphatically,
‘Yes! And hasn’t it been a blessing!’
It is a
blessing to see what each morning means. To live each day as if it were your
last. That phrase may be cliché, but its cliché for a reason. We need to be
present in today or we might miss the last. Our passage from Hebrews
tells us how we should act each day “And let us consider how to provoke one
another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the
habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day
approaching.” Encourage people to do good. Meet people’s needs. Not sit around
waiting for the end. Not encourage violent behavior. But do good. Love people.
We’re told to live each day fully, liveeach day as a
Christians as if you would meet Christ tomorrow and talk about your sins. That
is a blessing.
I think that
is why Jesus never gave the disciples a straight answer here. He never gave
them a time they could point to and predict. If he had, they would have no
reason to live each day fully. If you know when the end is coming, you don’t
worry about tomorrow. Instead Jesus gives us signs that point to every and any
age. We must always be alert. We must always be ready. And we must always live
each day as a blessing. Amen.