Proper 28 C
November 13, 2016
Faith Episcopal
Church
The Rev. Valerie Ann
Hart
Luke 21:5-19
Imagine that a youth leader
brought a group of teenagers from rural West Virginia to New York City for a
field trip during the summer of the year 2001. As they drive through New Jersey
they get their first glimpse of the New York skyline. The teenagers are
impressed by all of the buildings, especially the Twin Towers of the the World
Trade Center. In the midst of all their enthusiasm for the great buildings the
youth leader tells them that one day those two great tall buildings will be
nothing but ruble, ashes and dust. A few months latter, on September 11 th, the
students along with everyone else are shocked at the destruction of the towers.
They ask their leader, “How did you know!” “Are you a prophet?” He responds
that he is not a prophet, he didn’t expect them to be destroyed so soon. He was
just trying to make the point that everything that is in time, every building,
every monument, everything created by human hands will eventually turn to dust.
Only God is eternal.
Some scholars say that the Gospel
of Luke must have been written after 70 AD because this passage foretells the
destruction of the Temple by the Romans. But Jesus doesn’t tell the disciples
when this is going to happen, just that it will someday. In fact, when they ask
him when he responds as if the disciples were asking when the “end time” will
come. He says that they should not let themselves be lead astray when people
say the “the time is near!” He says that there will be wars and earthquakes and
plagues before the final end of time. And he tells them “Before all this
occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues
and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my
name. This will give you an opportunity to testify.” It all sounds really bad,
but he then reassures them that “By your endurance you will gain your souls.”
When I was in Jerusalem I went to
the Western Wall, which ia all that remains of the great Temple in Jerusalem.
It is an amazing sight, a 62 foot high retaining wall built of enormous
limestone blocks. Most of the blocks weigh between 2 and 8 tons but the largest
is 43 feet long and weighs more than 500 tons. There is no mortar between the blocks
that are carefully shaped to fit together. To stand at that wall is an awesome
experience. The idea that people without machinery were able to build it is
amazing. That wall is just the retaining wall for the 36 acre area on which the
temple stood. No one is completely sure what the temple itself looked like or
where the Holy of Holies is located, but there is a large model of the temple
in Jerusalem that gives one a sense of its size and grandeur compared to the
houses around it. Today if you come into Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives you
see the space where the temple stood. Now the Dome of the Rock, a magnificent
structure covered with mosaics with a gilded dome, stands there. It is awesome,
but the temple which stood there in Jesus’ time was much larger and more
impressive.
For Jesus to be unimpressed by
this magnificent structure and to suggest that soon there would not be one
stone upon another was terrifying to the disciples. This temple was the center
of worship for the Jewish people of the time. It was the only place where one
could offer sacrifices to God. One might say that to them it was the doorway to
God, or the place where the divine and the material world intersected.
Not long after Christ’s death and
resurrection, in the year we call 70 AD, when the small Jewish sect that
considered themselves follower of The Way were firsts being called Christians,
there was a Jewish rebellion against Rome. In retaliation the Roman army tore
down the entire temple and its surrounding buildings, quite literally being
sure that not one stone was left upon another. It was the ultimate horror and desecration
for the Jewish people. They no longer had a place to worship God in the manner
that they had for centuries. The animal sacrifices could no longer take place.
And the people of Jerusalem who survived fled the area and settled all over the
Roman Empire.
This could have been the end for
the Jewish people, but they found new ways of relating to God. They continued
to read their scriptures and teach their children to follow the commandments.
They discovered that their faith was so much more than what was contained in a
Temple, so much more than the sacrifices. And because they fled Jerusalem they
became disbursed throughout the world.
The followers of Jesus who were
still in Jerusalem also were forced to leave. They took with them the teachings
of Christ. It was a time of struggle and persecution, but the faith spread.
Some were martyred and their courage brought more people to the faith. In a
time when there was no social safety net these Christians cared for one
another. When there were plagues they took care of the sick. When there was
famine they fed one another. And they invited everyone into their community. As
Paul wrote there were neither Jew nor Greek, male or female, slave or free.
Everyone was invited into the community and it grew. It was the most difficult
of times, yet it was that time of struggle and persecution that was the
foundation of what we now call the church.
During my recent travels I spent
some time in New Jersey. On Sunday a friend and I took the bus into New York
and went to the service at Trinity Wall Street. It is a historic church in the
city. It turns out that that Sunday was the 250th anniversary of the
founding of their sister church, St. Paul’s. The people of Trinity had helped
to build a church in the “suburbs” of that time so that people did not have to
travel so far to get to church. My friend and I then went to see St. Paul’s. It
is a beautiful small stone church that is the oldest building in New York City
to still be being used for its original purpose. Remember that 250 years ago
was 1766, before the revolutionary war. Right next to the church is the 9/11
memorial. When the twin toward fell many buildings around them were destroyed,
but St. Paul’s remained unharmed. Not a single window was broken. It and its
graveyard were covered with ash and ruble, but they opened up the church and
welcomed in the first responders who were dealing with the horrific
destruction. They provided coffee, food, naps on the pews and the presence of
clergy to listen and help the brave fire fighters and police officers who had
experienced the unthinkable. Little St. Paul’s became a beacon of hope and
place of refreshment and healing.
Two hundred and fifty years seems
like a long time for us in the United States, but when I was in the Holy Lands
I gained a different perspective on time. I remember visiting some ruins in
Amman, Jordan that included the ruins of a church that were at least 1000 years
old. You could walk over the floor where worshipers gathered and see some of the
tile decorations. A few of the columns that had held up the roof were still
there, broken and crumbling. The sun beat down through the emptiness. I was
able to discern a raised area where the altar would have been. I walked around
that church and imagined the people gathered there for prayer. I stood behind
the altar and as I looked out at the emptiness I could feel the presence of
priests who 1000 years ago had blessed wine and broken bread in remembrance of
the love and sacrifice of a man from Galilee. That church stands empty and in
ruins, but there are still Christian churches in Amman where people gather to
pray and remember. The Gospels are read, the bread is broken, new members are
baptized, and the amazing love of God is taught.
Every building will at some point
be but ruble and ashes. Everything that is of time will end. But God’s love is
eternal, the message of hope is eternal, the gift of Christ is eternal.
This message in the Gospel today,
this reminder of the fragility of the things of this earth, is important for
us, especially today. The unexpected conclusion to the contentious election on
Tuesday has left many people reeling. There are so many feelings. Some are
elated, some are grieving, some are afraid, some are hopeful, many are
confused. As we sort out our feelings and begin to move forward it is important
to remember that as Christians our primary allegiance is not to a party, our
primary allegiance is not even to a country, for these are of time and will at
some point be ruble. Our allegiance is to the God of love, the one Truth that
is eternal. The one who is, and was and is to be.
And our responsibility now is to
discern how God is calling each of us to live out the commandment to love.
Or as the prophet Micah put it:
What does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.
No comments:
Post a Comment