We’re going to talk about fundamentalism today. We’re going to talk about how we read texts like this in the midst of war and rumors of war. But first, I’m going to open with the same goofy and light-hearted introduction that I wrote on Monday. Because I think in the face of the week’s events, maybe the Holy Spirit gave me this opener so that we could start this sermon with a good chuckle.
So, perhaps you’ve heard about the latest threat to Christmas, Jesus, and the world as we know it. Actually, I’m going to hope you haven’t and that I am the only one lucky enough to have this most recent controversy blowing up my Facebook news feed, but anyway, here it is.
That’s right friends. In case you haven’t heard, this seemingly innocuous cup is in fact a vicious attack on all we hold sacred. Why is this cup a problem, you might wonder? Notice the lack of snowflakes. Last year’s cups had snowflakes on them, and the removal of the snowflakes is clearly an attempt by Starbucks to do away with Christmas.
Now I don’t get this argument at all. It is advent after all, and as a good Lutheran liturgist I think the cups should be blue for most of December, and should then switch to white and gold from Christmas Eve until after Baptism of our Lord Sunday. Red is the color of Pentecost, Starbucks, get it together! And as for the snowflake pattern, well, as a Californian the snowflake never made much sense. Who’s ever heard of snow on Christmas? That’s just weird.
So clearly I’m being overly judgmental and snarky about people’s response to this cup. And if I’m honest with myself, my snarky response is really an example of the exact same fear that is driving the cup people. Because of course this fight isn’t really about cups at all. Or Christmas. This fight is really about relevance, about continuity, about whether the things we base our trust in are secure enough to hold us in the midst of a world that feels increasingly out of control. And that, snowflake or no snowflake, I totally get. The world is big and scary and chaotic. This week especially, one only has to turn on one’s television to see a world that looks out of control. And in the midst of all this uncertainty, we search, we yearn, for something to hold onto, something to make sense of senselessness. In this search for meaning, it is so tempting to fix our trust or our blame on anything that feels solid, even if that thing is small. So snowflakes on Starbucks cups aren’t an important symbol for me. That doesn’t mean that I don’t have equally inconsequential things that I think need to stand in order for the world to make sense. We all do. And this isn’t a modern development; longing for consistency is part of the story of being human.
This search for stability is really the point of our Gospel reading for this morning. This morning the journey is over. Jesus and his disciples have arrived in Jerusalem, and things are increasingly spinning out of control. The religious authorities who have been pursuing Jesus looking for a chance to destroy him are getting closer and closer. The end is near. The disciples couldn’t see it yet, but they could feel it. They could feel that sense of anxiety and unease, that queasy feeling deep within you that tells you something is wrong. And though they did not know what chaos was in front of them, they were subconsciously searching for something stable, something lasting, something to assure them that nothing would change. They found that promise in the temple.
“Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings,” they marveled, gazing up at the huge stone edifice that dominated the Jerusalem skyline. The temple, remember, was the center of the Jewish world. It was the location of the holiest of holies; it was the place where God dwelt. It was a massive and magnificent structure, the sheer scale of which dwarfed everything around it. Looking upon it, its weight, its girth, the disciples were able to push down the fear that was churning inside of them. Certainly a faith based on a building that solid could never be toppled.
Except, that it was. Not forty years after these words were spoken the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, never to be rebuilt. If you go to Jerusalem today, you will see it now just as Jesus told the disciples. Not one stone is left upon another, all has been thrown down.
For the disciples, the destruction of the temple represented nothing less than the end of the world. So when Jesus told them it was going to be destroyed they begged Jesus to tell them when this would take place, and how they would know it was happening. Please Jesus, if the world and everything we know and hold on to is going to be gone, please at least let us know, what are the signs of the destruction, how will we know that the end has come near?
But Jesus doesn’t answer their question. He doesn’t tell them what to look for; he doesn’t tell them how to escape. Instead he tells them not to be afraid. Instead he assures them that what looks like the end is not the end, it is merely the beginning. “Many will come in my name,” Jesus said, do not follow them. When you hear wars and rumors of war, do not be alarmed. Nation will rise against nation, there will be earthquakes and famines, but even this is not the end, even this is just the beginning.
Wars and rumors of war, nations rising against nation, earthquakes and famines, this passage seems like it war written for the events of November 13, 2015. But the sad truth is this passage was not written for us. Or at least, it was not written only for us. Wars and rumors of war, nation rising against nation, earthquakes and famines, these things are sadly not unique to our time. We said in Bible study, only half joking, that when we look around the world, we sometimes wonder if maybe free will wasn’t God’s best idea. For all our vast intellect, we humans are a very violent species.
Mark’s Gospel was written around the late 60s/early 70s CE, during the Roman/Jewish War. This was an incredibly brutal experience for those who lived through it. Blood ran in the streets, the temple, that seemingly indestructible building of large stones; was destroyed. These words from Jesus brought those first readers of Mark’s Gospel, people living through what seemed like the end of the world, incredible comfort. These words from Jesus revealed to them that their hope was not from a building, but from the living God. A God whose central truth is that resurrection always follows death, hope always rises over despair, and the worst thing that can happen is never the last thing that will happen, because God has no end.
Scary, evil, terrifying things will happen, Jesus told the disciples, and none of those things have any bearing on the coming kingdom of God. God’s presence is grander than the grandest of temples, stronger than the strongest army, more stable than the earth itself. Scary, uncertain, even evil times are not end times, because God is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. God is the stability that holds us, the center in which we can place our trust.
These words from Jesus can bring us comfort too. When we are faced with earthquakes and terror, when we feel like the world is shaking, these words from Jesus can remind us that no matter what happens, the end is still to come. So we can stand strong against violence, we can stand firm against those false prophets who tell us that this is the end and tempt us to evil. As Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” And because Jesus told us it is not the end, we can stand up against evil. We can join with our Muslim sisters and brothers in denouncing fundamentalism in all its forms. We can work for peace, we can work for justice, we can believe that a different world is possible, because the temple was destroyed in wars and rumors of war, just like Jesus said it would, and it was only the beginning.
God’s presence is stable when all the world is shaking. God’s promise is true when nothing else will hold. God is the one who casts down walls of oppression and persecution and lifts up those who tremble and fear. Whether you are longing for the powers that hold you captive to be toppled, or desperate for something to catch your own fall, God is there. No matter what happens, no matter what you face, you can hold fast to this promise: God is eternal, God will not falter, and this is only the beginning. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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