Sermon by Reverend Dr. John W. Mann | November 17, 2024

Mark 13:1-8

The folks at Round Lake Presbyterian Church decided to construct an addition to the church building. It would expand the basement area where the fellowship hall was and it would add some office space. They called in a backhoe operator to excavate. When the foundation to the building was revealed, it looked as though it might collapse. Work came to a halt. Questions of what we do now were bandied about.

It was decided that the best way to go forward was to carefully dig out the section of the foundation needed to open the basement, and to firmly shore up the opening. People said things such as, “They did the best they could at the time with what they had to work with.” After about a day of men working shifts with a sledgehammer, a hole of around 12 inches could be seen. It took two more days to complete the opening. Those church folks back in the “olden days” actually knew something about building a solid foundation. Things are not always as they seem at first glance.

We hear it said often enough that “the church is not the building.” True enough. We could be church without the stone and mortar. But the building speaks in a way; the building says something about the church that gathers within it. Every church I have served has had building issues. That is because every church I have served has met in a building. Church people can become very attached to their buildings. Buildings become part of people’s life story.

Jesus and his followers were visiting the Temple in Jerusalem. The Temple was a grand spectacle of a building. Huge and impressive – just the kind of building that says, “We take our religion seriously.” One of the friends of Jesus commented, “Wow! Just look at the size of it. Look at the size of these stones. You just can’t take it all in. It’s amazing.”

And Jesus said, “It won’t last. As great as this building is, not one stone will be left on another.” Oh great. Thank you Jesus for being such a downer. Can we for once make an observation without you getting all apocalyptic about it?

Later on, when they had settled down for lunch, they could see the Temple as it dominated the skyline of Jerusalem. “What did you mean?” they asked him. It was more or less the end of the road for Jesus. They had arrived in Jerusalem. This was where he would meet his destiny. Though it was the end, it was also like many endings, a new beginning.

Today we come to the end of our journey through the story of Jesus as told by the writer known as Mark. I appreciate the way Jesus is portrayed in Mark. He is basically Jesus, the guy. The guy who comes along to shake things up and turns things around.

We’ve heard stories of how Jesus came on the scene to announce what he termed the Kingdom of Heaven. He said that it has come near. What he revealed about that realm of God was that it was not housed in a building. It was evident in community. The community was meant to have certain traits.

Jesus worked to build a community where everyone is welcome. He reached out to people on the margins and sometimes just his touch was enough to heal – especially for people who had been pushed aside and branded unclean.

He challenged people’s assumptions about life, status, culture and God. He told stories that opened new ways of seeing. He showed how random moments can be divine appointments. He talked about tough issues like money and divorce.

The last story that we hear from Mark’s portrait of Jesus – the resurrection – is a story of loose ends and uncertainty. We might want more than that, but when we look at life in the here and now and when we try to gaze into the as yet unlived future, we see much that is uncertain. But that is life.

There are many stories that would lend us certainty. They usually end on the motif of, “And they lived happily ever after.” We know that when it comes to real life, the lives we live, that there is more to happily ever after than what meets the eye.

While we may predict the future, we can’t predict the future with any certainty. We can chart the strong possibilities that actions will have consequences. We can choose from amongst possible outcomes. But we can’t know for sure. That’s why casinos are in business – they make money off the losing bets.

We like to look back on momentous events. They remind us of where we’ve been. When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, it was thought to signal the end of communism as a viable political system. There was a sense of optimism that a new era had begun. One of the more positive outcomes from the collapse of communism in 1989 was that world leaders were beginning to talk about a “peace dividend.” Now that the world was a safer place, there would not be the need for countries to spend so much on the military. Swords could be beaten into plough shares.

We naturally wondered what the 21^st century would bring. What new wonders and delights awaited us there? What advancements of science and technology would improve our lives? Now we’re well into the third decade of the 21^st century. The novelty of it as a new time frame has worn off. In school we studied history as a timeline. One event after another in a clear step by step order. History is more like a complex web of connections. We can pluck the strings of 9/11 and there resonates a connection to the trenches of World War One.

The story of Jesus in Mark’s portrait was written about a generation after the events it describes. It was not an age of information like the one we live in. History was not an instant event like it is now. Perhaps allowing real meaning to emerge over time is not a bad thing.

The story of Jesus in Mark is divided into sixteen chapters. Chapters 11-16 tell the story of one week in the life of Jesus, the last week of his life. A lot is packed into those last days. Chapter 13 is a lengthy monologue in response to a seemingly offhand comment about the Temple in Jerusalem.

“Look at those large stones. What magnificent buildings!” The Temple was a magnificent structure. There was a perspective at work. It suggested the awesomeness of God. Like many such buildings it made people feel small and insignificant. But at the same time, because it was built by human hands, people could take pride in it as an accomplishment. A monument to God and to human ingenuity.

What sometimes happens with buildings, over time people began to blur the lines between the building and what it was meant to represent. The building was meant to reflect God, not to contain God. But it was easy enough to believe that God was there more than anywhere else God might be.

That was the primary conflict in the life and work of Jesus. When he came on the scene and said that the kingdom of God was at hand, people could take it to mean that God’s realm was “coming soon.” But what he also meant was that God’s intention for humanity was “at hand,” as in nearby; not confined to a Temple in Jerusalem.

He often said, “It is among you; it is within you.” His stories about growing things illustrated that God’s Spirit was at work in life. His actions of healing and blessing demonstrated God’s work immediately “at hand.” When he would say to people, “Your faith has made you well,” he was implying that “God’s realm within you has accomplished this miracle.”

But, for the people who made their living on a religion based on the Temple, everything Jesus represented was a threat to their existence. What if people actually started to believe that they didn’t need a building in order to worship God?

Yes indeed, look at those large stones. What a magnificent building. Jesus said, “The whole thing is going to come crashing down. Not one stone will be left standing.”

Did he know something that no one else knew? The Gospel of Mark was written around the same time that the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans. The Jews had launched a rebellion against Rome and for a short while they were successful. The Roman legions withdrew and returned to Rome to sort out a matter of succession – who would be the next emperor.

The rebels took the withdrawal as a sign from God. Just like in the stories of old, God came through. Now they would go on to bigger and better things. Now the Messiah could come onto the scene.

But the Romans came back with a vengeance. Once they breached the walls of the city they tore down the symbol of Jewish resistance and utterly destroyed it. They slaughtered the inhabitants of the city by the tens of thousands. It was very much the end of the world as they knew it.

The Romans tore down the walls, but they could not destroy the spirit. People scattered throughout the world. Christians and Jews and none of the above went elsewhere and lived and thrived and carried on with the spirit of their lives.

It is the Spirit that keeps us going. God’s Spirit amongst us; working in our lives; reaching into the world through us in the life we live beyond the walls of this building. We can’t predict the future, but we can trust in God.

The Future, by Rainer Maria Rilke

The future: time’s excuse to frighten us;

too vast a project, too large a morsel

for the heart’s mouth.

Future, who won’t wait for you?

Everyone is going there.

It suffices you to deepen the absence that we are.

The realm of God is at hand, amongst us, through our hands and hearts, and out there beyond these walls where life is lived. Amen.