"The Destruction of Our Temples"
Sermon Presented November 14, 2004
Luke 21:5-19
What are the most permanent things in your life? What do you count on to be there for you? No matter what you name--family, friends, home, or your church, you know deep down that they can vanish in a minute. We have only to remember the collapse of the twin towers of the World Trade Center, the top of Mt. St. Helens being blown off, or the sudden death of a loved one, to know that statement is true. Today's text is about the impermanence of our lives and our world, and the permanence of God's kingdom.
In Luke 21, the last scene of Jesus' public ministry, Jesus stands at the temple and points to the future demise of the temple and the persecution of Christians. He speaks of the End and many endings in between. Our lectionary text stops short of his words about the cosmic End, but gives us much to ponder about endings on the way to the End. What precipitates this teaching? Let's look at our text found in Luke's Gospel. Luke 21:5-19 (read text)
After watching a poor widow put her two copper coins in the temple box, those who hear Jesus honor her seem to overlook what he says. They quickly change the subject, remarking on the beauty and the glory of the temple. The temple was beautiful and glorious. Its beauty would dwarf that of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris or the National Cathedral in Washington D. C. Having taken hundreds of years to rebuild, the temple in Jerusalem must be God's permanent home.
But Jesus tells them that very soon this holy place will be destroyed. Their trust is misplaced. Nothing is permanent, nothing is lasting---nothing, that is, except God - and our souls. And when they ask for a sign as to when this will take place, Jesus doesn't give them one.
I believe that we look for signs so that we can maintain some semblance of control. If we understand the sign, we can prepare. We don't want to be unprepared. As the old saying goes, we don't want to get caught with our pants down. If we know that our tire is losing air, we can get it fixed before it goes flat. If we know that our computer will crash, we can either upgrade it or at least back up our files. Knowledge brings the possibility of control through preparation. Jesus says that there will be no true sign and that many false messengers will claim to possess the sign.
In the early 70's, Hal Lindsay wrote his multimillion best seller titled The Late Great Planet Earth. His premise was that all of the signs in scripture pointed to the coming of Jesus in the next 20 years. He became wealthy at the expense of those who purchased his books and tapes in a desire to recognize the signs and thus, be prepared. Jesus says that no one knows the time.
Just as the temple at Jerusalem had a life span, so do our temples. They will all come to an end. They may die of natural causes, cease to exist when those of us who inhabit them die or move on, or they may die from the assault of forces that are hateful to what we experience as holy. But most often our temples fall because we neglect them until they rot. The temples in our land are crumbling all around us.
Last Monday at Rotary, I sat next to the guest speaker, Chip Duncan, a Milwaukee author and documentary filmmaker. During lunch, he asked me what most people ask at first meeting: "What is the size of your congregation?" When I answered, he said: "Why do you think this is the case?" His question caused me to look beyond my pat answers as to why this temple is crumbling. Will we embrace transformation as an occasion for new faith or will we mourn its demise? We will look at this question as a congregation beginning in January.
Burning temples dot our world. Our cities, our economic structures, our churches, our denominations, our families and our values are smoldering. Jesus gives us advice on what to do when our temples come down. He tells us how to be faithful.
How will we be faithful to the end when we have no definitive sign? First, he says that we aren't to be misled. This isn't a time or place for naïveté. Next, he says not to despair. We should then improvise when the time comes, and not prepare our defenses ahead of time. Then comes trust. Jesus will give the right words of wisdom. And last, he asks us to maintain stubborn hope ("By your endurance, you will save your souls.")
When we put this into our present context, we get up-close and personal. You see Jesus isn't talking to just anyone whose temple happens to collapse, but to his followers, those who will have the courage to leave the ruins of the old system and with new faith, bear the persecutions that go with it. Immediately after saying that the faithful will be hauled before kings and governors, Jesus says: "This will give you an opportunity to bear witness." Persecution brings new opportunities. With God, closures become opportunities, and most of us can attest to the truth of this statement.
Edwin Robertson, in a biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, tells of visiting Hanover after World War II and meeting a German Baptist pastor. The man's church building had been bombed and his congregation scattered. But this is what he told Robertson: "At last I am free-free to be a minister of Jesus Christ. I am no longer trammeled by church programs." For the faithful there is freedom on the other side of crumbled temples.
We aren't to run away from a challenge and we aren't to cease working. We are to stand firm in the knowledge that all of life, all of time, our present and our future are in the hands of a loving God who will "give us a voice - and wisdom." This requires us to be open to something new rising from the rubble.
We can dream and speculate about when the end time will be and what it will be like. But that's all it will be - speculation. As we come to the end of this church year and prepare again to enter into the season of Advent, our trust remains in the God who was and is and is to come. This God controls not just our beginning, but our end as well.
Can we begin to see the possibilities that God places before us, or are we so caught up in the pain and grief and violence of our world that our vision is distorted? While Jesus won't tell us when the end will come, he tells us that life as we know it here will come to an end. We are invited to meditate on what that will be like, as well as encouraged to live in the here and now.
Although we understand that there will be many endings before The End, we think about the end time and we too want a sign. While Jesus assures us that we will see wars, earthquakes, famines, and pestilence, that is not the end. But in the midst of the calamities of life, we are to be like Jesus and remain faithful to God's call on our lives.
Every story has an ending, a final page, and a last word. Scripture insists that the earth as we know it will come to an end. Histories will terminate and the only existence we know will cease!
As we ponder the End times and our understandings shift over time, our faith may waver. Last week while reading Parker Palmer's book A Hidden Wholeness, I found a most meaningful paragraph that I believe is helpful. Palmer says: The deeper our faith, the more doubt we must endure; the deeper our hope, the more prone we are to despair; the deeper our love, the more pain its loss will bring; these are a few of the paradoxes we must hold as human beings. If we refuse to hold them in hopes of living without doubt, despair, and pain, we also find ourselves living without faith, hope, and love. But in the spring we are reminded that human nature, like nature herself, can hold opposites together as paradoxes, resulting in a more capacious and generous life. (Palmer, pp. 82-83)
Sometimes it takes all of our energy to endure - to survive - as we struggle with faith and doubt, hope and despair, and love and pain. But if we realize that "temples fall so that fresh forms of faith can rise from the ashes" (Duke), we will find faith and hope and love on the horizon. We will see transformation.
Sources:
New Proclamation: Year C, 2004, pp. 279-281
Christian Century, November 1, 1995, (Paul Duke) p. 1011
Christian Century, November 4, 1998, p. 1019
Parker Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward An Undivided Life, pp. 82-83
