Sermon - Year B, Proper 28
Written and Delivered by The Rev. Mary M. Phelps
Mark 13:14-23
Today's readings all use apocalyptic language. "Apocalyptic" comes from a word that means "revealed." The last book in the Bible is called the Apocalypse, or Revelation, the revealing of what is going to happen at the end-of-time. It is customary for the readings on this Sunday to be about end-times as we wind down the church year with next Sunday, the feast of Christ the King, being the last Sunday of the liturgical year.
The entire thirteenth chapter of Mark's gospel is fertile soil for people who are fascinated by the end of the world. Throughout history there have been people who have speculated when the end will come, and some even have set specific dates, gathered hundreds of followers who have abandoned their families and lives, only to have the date pass with no earth-shaking event happening. The end-times figure prominently in sermons by evangelicals more interested in the next world than in this one. On the other hand, there are pragmatists and believers in progress who largely ignore this chapter thinking that preoccupation with the end-of-time is an immature waste of time. Yet, the chapter is in our Scriptures, and the Church feels what we heard today from Mark is important enough to be our gospel at the end of the Pentecost season every three years. So what do these words of Jesus have to say to Christians today?
In Mark, Jesus, quoting from Daniel said, "But when you see the desolating sacrilege set up where it ought not to be (let the reader understand) ..." I can't help but immediately think - understand what! What was so obvious to Mark's audience within about 30 or 40 years of Jesus' death that he didn't have to explain what a "desolating sacrilege" was? Why should we care? We should care because if the Gospel is to be God's word to us today, it has to say something about us and the reality of today and today's needs.
This would be a good time for us to go back and pray again the collect we prayed earlier this morning. Let us pray. "Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that they may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen."
It can be difficult, but valuable for us to read this passage from Mark, inwardly digest it, figure out what it means and then apply it to our own lives.
In the beginning of chapter 13, as the disciples admire the grandeur and beauty of the Temple in Jerusalem, Jesus tells them that the Temple will be destroyed. The disciples ask when that would happen, and what signs they should look for before that would happen. Jesus doesn't answer their questions directly, but instead he tells them how they are to conduct themselves in times of turmoil and persecution. Those instructions involved discipleship; the mission of the disciples is to spread the gospel. Social and political upheavals of the time are not to be mistaken for the end-of-time. In those times false teachers will try to lead the faithful astray saying the end is near, but they are not to be followed. Disciples have one task: to teach and follow the gospel.
Scholars believe that a "desolating sacrilege" refers to an object or person that profanes the sanctuary. In Daniel it refers to the destruction of the Jewish Temple in 167 B. C. E. by the Greek ruler Antiochus Epiphanes. The Temple was rebuilt, and by the time Mark wrote his gospel that second Temple may have been destroyed leading scholars to believe "desolating sacrilege" referred to one of two other people. If it had not been destroyed the phrase refers to the Roman Emperor, Caligula, who attempted to have his statue installed in the Temple and worshipped as a god in 40 C. E. If Mark wrote after the Temple was destroyed in 70 C. E., then scholars believe Titus, at war with the Jewish Zealots, destroyed the Temple after it had been desecrated. For anyone living in that time this would be more that "hard times"; it would signify the end of life as they had know it; it would have meant the end of the world.
Jesus gave the disciples explicit instruction that once the Temple was defiled, destruction would come fast and furiously. Everyone was to flee immediately without going back and gathering things to take with them. "Woe to those who are pregnant or nursing in those days. Pray that it may not be in the winter." Suffering would be great for all during this time especially for those encumbered with small children that would make traveling slow and difficult. In winter it would be especially harsh when food was scarce and rivers frozen over.
Jesus was telling the disciples that end-time suffering would be very different than the persecution they could expect when proclaiming the gospel in routine times. That they can endure, but for God's beloved children to endure the end-times God would have to intervene and shorten those days to come.
Jesus concluded by telling the disciples that false prophets and messiahs will produce signs and omens to lead them astray. They are to watch and stay alert because they will not need any detailed signs or new information in those days. Jesus has already told the disciples everything they needed to know.
When the Temple was destroyed it did cause massive upheaval. The Jewish historian, Josephus, wrote that there were three million people in Jerusalem for the Passover, and one and a half million of them were either killed or enslaved by the Roman army. They faced starvation and deadly disease; the dead were left where they died because there was no place to bury them. Those that escaped this wrath were displaced and forced to work out a new way of living. But the world did not end.
When Jesus' disciples asked for signs that the end would come he only gave them vague clues about coming wars, famines, and earthquakes. Since the tribulation in Jerusalem in 70 C. E. the world has witnessed among other things the horror of the Holocaust when six million Jews and their sympathizers died in Nazi concentration camps, the death of millions of people under Stalin, the destruction of Hiroshima by the atomic bomb, the butchery of thousands of people under Pol Pot, the attack on the world trade center in which thousands lost their lives.
Century after century massive groups of people have suffered and died from starvation like so many of our African brothers and sisters are now. Natural disasters have forever changed our world and countless numbers of peoples lives: a probable comet that darkened the world and drove the dinosaurs to extinction, earthquakes, and tsunamis. The list is endless, yet none of them were God's ushering in the end-of-time.
Jesus told us that when we hear that there are coming wars we are not to be alarmed. They will happen but the end-of-time will not come. Not even the angels or Jesus himself knew when the end would be - that is only known by God. Jesus didn't give the disciples the kind of signs they were seeking. Instead he told them to faithfully preach the gospel and leave God's job to God.
Several thousand years later, there are some people who today believe the events happening in our times point to the end of the world being near. They believe the apocalyptic writings in the Bible, especially the book of Revelation, are guides for deciphering when the end will come. They try to match current events with the images and prophesies found in those writings. When they do this they sadly pretend to know more that God's own son did. Often these people take little responsibility for the world whose destruction they watch for with detachment.
Prophesies in the Bible are not the foretelling of the distant future. They provide a commentary on the present situation that was happening when they were written. Prophets point out what will happen if people's attitudes and behaviors do not change. They provide a hopeful glimpse of the future despite the misery the people of the time were living through.
It's seductive to look for hard and fast answers when so many things seem to be going wrong in our world. We can feel things are so out of control that no one person or any group of people can begin to make a difference. Jesus doesn't tell his disciples how to read the signs of the times and forecast the future. He calls us to faithfulness. He did not promise that we wouldn't live through painful events, and he most assuredly did not say he'd swoop in and rescue us from them. But he did say in the end God would overcome world suffering and evil.
In the meantime wars, earthquakes, and famine continue. We are to be witnesses of God's love. We are the ones who can bring the love of God to those who are hurt, those who have lost their home and family members due to bombs and guns, those who live through the destruction of earthquakes and hurricanes, those innocent people who are maimed and tortured in power struggles, those who are dying of HIV/AIDS and hunger.
In unsettled times like ours people often tend to horde resources. Many live their lives through the lens of scarcity instead of shared abundance. The advances in medicine and technology our country and others have made, make it possible today to eradicate or severely slow down the spread of HIV/AIDS, and through altered genetics, eradicate hunger in the world. Each of us truly can be a faithful witness to the gospel; each of us can make a difference.
You have probably heard us talk at St. George's about the MDGs, the Millennium Development Goals, and you hopefully have been reading Philip's monthly newsletter articles on these goals. In case you haven't, I want to share with you a portion of what is written in a pamphlet provided by Episcopal Relief and Development. "At the start of the new millennium, leaders from 191 nations - including the United States - agreed on a plan to cut extreme global poverty in half by 2015. Together, they created the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Development is about freedom from misery and suffering, hunger, illiteracy, disease, poor housing and insecurity." There is much more you can understand about this by asking for and reading this pamphlet yourselves. You will find out what you as one person can do to make these goals a reality.
Jesus gives us the knowledge, and where-with-all to understand where God needs us to be. And that is where God is: with the poor, the lonely, and the needy. Jesus tells us not to be afraid or alarmed by the magnitude of these things, but to live confidently as his faithful disciples knowing that in the end God will be triumphant.
We are to be aware and watchful, not alarmed and scared. We are to be faithful witnesses and givers in this time, not looking for signs of the future. And through it all we are to live each day knowing that God is working in, for and through us simply because he loves us.
Mark 13:14-23
Today's readings all use apocalyptic language. "Apocalyptic" comes from a word that means "revealed." The last book in the Bible is called the Apocalypse, or Revelation, the revealing of what is going to happen at the end-of-time. It is customary for the readings on this Sunday to be about end-times as we wind down the church year with next Sunday, the feast of Christ the King, being the last Sunday of the liturgical year.
The entire thirteenth chapter of Mark's gospel is fertile soil for people who are fascinated by the end of the world. Throughout history there have been people who have speculated when the end will come, and some even have set specific dates, gathered hundreds of followers who have abandoned their families and lives, only to have the date pass with no earth-shaking event happening. The end-times figure prominently in sermons by evangelicals more interested in the next world than in this one. On the other hand, there are pragmatists and believers in progress who largely ignore this chapter thinking that preoccupation with the end-of-time is an immature waste of time. Yet, the chapter is in our Scriptures, and the Church feels what we heard today from Mark is important enough to be our gospel at the end of the Pentecost season every three years. So what do these words of Jesus have to say to Christians today?
In Mark, Jesus, quoting from Daniel said, "But when you see the desolating sacrilege set up where it ought not to be (let the reader understand) ..." I can't help but immediately think - understand what! What was so obvious to Mark's audience within about 30 or 40 years of Jesus' death that he didn't have to explain what a "desolating sacrilege" was? Why should we care? We should care because if the Gospel is to be God's word to us today, it has to say something about us and the reality of today and today's needs.
This would be a good time for us to go back and pray again the collect we prayed earlier this morning. Let us pray. "Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that they may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen."
It can be difficult, but valuable for us to read this passage from Mark, inwardly digest it, figure out what it means and then apply it to our own lives.
In the beginning of chapter 13, as the disciples admire the grandeur and beauty of the Temple in Jerusalem, Jesus tells them that the Temple will be destroyed. The disciples ask when that would happen, and what signs they should look for before that would happen. Jesus doesn't answer their questions directly, but instead he tells them how they are to conduct themselves in times of turmoil and persecution. Those instructions involved discipleship; the mission of the disciples is to spread the gospel. Social and political upheavals of the time are not to be mistaken for the end-of-time. In those times false teachers will try to lead the faithful astray saying the end is near, but they are not to be followed. Disciples have one task: to teach and follow the gospel.
Scholars believe that a "desolating sacrilege" refers to an object or person that profanes the sanctuary. In Daniel it refers to the destruction of the Jewish Temple in 167 B. C. E. by the Greek ruler Antiochus Epiphanes. The Temple was rebuilt, and by the time Mark wrote his gospel that second Temple may have been destroyed leading scholars to believe "desolating sacrilege" referred to one of two other people. If it had not been destroyed the phrase refers to the Roman Emperor, Caligula, who attempted to have his statue installed in the Temple and worshipped as a god in 40 C. E. If Mark wrote after the Temple was destroyed in 70 C. E., then scholars believe Titus, at war with the Jewish Zealots, destroyed the Temple after it had been desecrated. For anyone living in that time this would be more that "hard times"; it would signify the end of life as they had know it; it would have meant the end of the world.
Jesus gave the disciples explicit instruction that once the Temple was defiled, destruction would come fast and furiously. Everyone was to flee immediately without going back and gathering things to take with them. "Woe to those who are pregnant or nursing in those days. Pray that it may not be in the winter." Suffering would be great for all during this time especially for those encumbered with small children that would make traveling slow and difficult. In winter it would be especially harsh when food was scarce and rivers frozen over.
Jesus was telling the disciples that end-time suffering would be very different than the persecution they could expect when proclaiming the gospel in routine times. That they can endure, but for God's beloved children to endure the end-times God would have to intervene and shorten those days to come.
Jesus concluded by telling the disciples that false prophets and messiahs will produce signs and omens to lead them astray. They are to watch and stay alert because they will not need any detailed signs or new information in those days. Jesus has already told the disciples everything they needed to know.
When the Temple was destroyed it did cause massive upheaval. The Jewish historian, Josephus, wrote that there were three million people in Jerusalem for the Passover, and one and a half million of them were either killed or enslaved by the Roman army. They faced starvation and deadly disease; the dead were left where they died because there was no place to bury them. Those that escaped this wrath were displaced and forced to work out a new way of living. But the world did not end.
When Jesus' disciples asked for signs that the end would come he only gave them vague clues about coming wars, famines, and earthquakes. Since the tribulation in Jerusalem in 70 C. E. the world has witnessed among other things the horror of the Holocaust when six million Jews and their sympathizers died in Nazi concentration camps, the death of millions of people under Stalin, the destruction of Hiroshima by the atomic bomb, the butchery of thousands of people under Pol Pot, the attack on the world trade center in which thousands lost their lives.
Century after century massive groups of people have suffered and died from starvation like so many of our African brothers and sisters are now. Natural disasters have forever changed our world and countless numbers of peoples lives: a probable comet that darkened the world and drove the dinosaurs to extinction, earthquakes, and tsunamis. The list is endless, yet none of them were God's ushering in the end-of-time.
Jesus told us that when we hear that there are coming wars we are not to be alarmed. They will happen but the end-of-time will not come. Not even the angels or Jesus himself knew when the end would be - that is only known by God. Jesus didn't give the disciples the kind of signs they were seeking. Instead he told them to faithfully preach the gospel and leave God's job to God.
Several thousand years later, there are some people who today believe the events happening in our times point to the end of the world being near. They believe the apocalyptic writings in the Bible, especially the book of Revelation, are guides for deciphering when the end will come. They try to match current events with the images and prophesies found in those writings. When they do this they sadly pretend to know more that God's own son did. Often these people take little responsibility for the world whose destruction they watch for with detachment.
Prophesies in the Bible are not the foretelling of the distant future. They provide a commentary on the present situation that was happening when they were written. Prophets point out what will happen if people's attitudes and behaviors do not change. They provide a hopeful glimpse of the future despite the misery the people of the time were living through.
It's seductive to look for hard and fast answers when so many things seem to be going wrong in our world. We can feel things are so out of control that no one person or any group of people can begin to make a difference. Jesus doesn't tell his disciples how to read the signs of the times and forecast the future. He calls us to faithfulness. He did not promise that we wouldn't live through painful events, and he most assuredly did not say he'd swoop in and rescue us from them. But he did say in the end God would overcome world suffering and evil.
In the meantime wars, earthquakes, and famine continue. We are to be witnesses of God's love. We are the ones who can bring the love of God to those who are hurt, those who have lost their home and family members due to bombs and guns, those who live through the destruction of earthquakes and hurricanes, those innocent people who are maimed and tortured in power struggles, those who are dying of HIV/AIDS and hunger.
In unsettled times like ours people often tend to horde resources. Many live their lives through the lens of scarcity instead of shared abundance. The advances in medicine and technology our country and others have made, make it possible today to eradicate or severely slow down the spread of HIV/AIDS, and through altered genetics, eradicate hunger in the world. Each of us truly can be a faithful witness to the gospel; each of us can make a difference.
You have probably heard us talk at St. George's about the MDGs, the Millennium Development Goals, and you hopefully have been reading Philip's monthly newsletter articles on these goals. In case you haven't, I want to share with you a portion of what is written in a pamphlet provided by Episcopal Relief and Development. "At the start of the new millennium, leaders from 191 nations - including the United States - agreed on a plan to cut extreme global poverty in half by 2015. Together, they created the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Development is about freedom from misery and suffering, hunger, illiteracy, disease, poor housing and insecurity." There is much more you can understand about this by asking for and reading this pamphlet yourselves. You will find out what you as one person can do to make these goals a reality.
Jesus gives us the knowledge, and where-with-all to understand where God needs us to be. And that is where God is: with the poor, the lonely, and the needy. Jesus tells us not to be afraid or alarmed by the magnitude of these things, but to live confidently as his faithful disciples knowing that in the end God will be triumphant.
We are to be aware and watchful, not alarmed and scared. We are to be faithful witnesses and givers in this time, not looking for signs of the future. And through it all we are to live each day knowing that God is working in, for and through us simply because he loves us.