Daniel 12:1-3
Hebrews 10:11‑14, 19-25
Mark 13:1‑8
 
✠ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.
 
On Palm Sunday, Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the Temple and checked it out, and then he left town walking east briefly down into the Kidron Valley before ascending up the Mount of Olives.  He continued east to Bethany, a little village, just a couple miles from Jerusalem.  Bethany was his base for Holy Week.  The name ‘Bethany’ may mean “house of misery” or “house of the poor.”  I’m sure that’s an association you make when you visit Bethany Beach.
 
On Monday, Jesus came back to Jerusalem and challenged the religious establishment, the priests and rulers by disrupting the Temple worship, activity ordained by God.  Jesus drove out people who were buying and selling, overturned the tables of the moneychangers and sacrificial animal sellers, and prevented people from carrying anything through the Temple.  He denied the validity of Temple worship and called the Temple “a den of thieves.”  This so-called ‘cleansing of the Temple’ symbolized the destruction of the Temple, the imminent arrival of the end and judgment, and a coming restoration, a new and perfect Temple.[i]
 
Jesus had guts.  On Tuesday, he came back to the Temple and taught.  That’s the setting for today’s gospel.  Jews considered the Temple to be the closest point of contact between God and his people, at its center the Holy of Holies, the place where God dwelt, where he was present on earth.  The Temple complex, the meeting point of heaven and earth, reflected this prominence.  It was an enormous structure, a breath-taking architectural and engineering achievement, built to shock and awe.  Some of the stones were as long as thirty feet.  It seemed as permanent as anything.[ii]
 
As they were leaving the Temple that evening, one of Jesus’ disciples, remember they’re a bunch of bumpkins, gasped and expressed his astonishment about the place, and Jesus responded, “There’s not a stone in the place that’s not going to be in a heap of rubble.”

Jesus said this as he was leaving the Temple for the last time.  Again, he headed east toward Bethany, walking up the Mount of Olives.  He stopped on the Mount of Olives and looked back over Jerusalem.  It’s a magnificent view.  Now there’s a fancy hotel at the top of the Mount of Olives, offering a dazzling view of the Old City.
 
Jesus stopped and sat down.  The disciples were anxious, stunned by the prediction of the end of the Temple, the heart of Israel.  They could not imagine their spiritual, cultural, or national life without the Temple.  It was almost inconceivable that God would desire such devastation.  The Temple was his glory, wasn’t it?
 
      Take a moment and think of things you know, and rely upon, and love, and how you feel when things important and dear to you pass away: the shock, the uncertainty and fear, the sadness, the anger, the confusion.  It’s a normal part of every life, but it’s a deep challenge.
 
The jittery disciples asked Jesus, “When is this going to happen?  What are the signs that things are coming to a head?”  They were getting agitated, enthusiastic, seeking signs of the end of time.  To them, the destruction of the Temple meant the end of the age, the final reckoning, the judgment.  We make the same association between the end of time and judgment.
 
Jesus tried to calm them down by making a couple of points.  First, he said, “Beware of people claiming my authority.  They will lead you astray.  Don’t be distracted.  Keep the main thing the main thing.”  Israel had a long history of false prophets and deceivers.  The church has a similar history as well, with even more variety and more insanity because there are more Christians than Jews.
 
Second, as in every age, there will be all kinds of difficulties: war, international strife, earthquakes, famine.  These are a constant in human history.  Don’t be surprised about the prevalence of evil and suffering in the world.  Don’t worry.  Don’t panic.  Don’t focus your attention on trying to know when the end will arrive.  That distracts from the main thing.
 
Jesus concluded this part of his speech saying that these calamities were like birth-pangs for the coming of the Son of Man, birth-pangs as the Kingdom of God, the rule of love, breaks into the world and becomes established.  Think about that in terms of your own experience.  Often our own suffering, our own experience of evil, may be what turns us toward God.  It can make us understand our need for God, and we may become more open to God and God’s rule, his love.
 
Jesus gave this speech to his disciples Tuesday evening.  Two nights later, on Thursday, he gathered with his disciples and celebrated his last supper, and he commanded them to “do this in remembrance of me” and to love one another as he had loved them.  The Eucharist became our primary religious way to have access to God, to be one with him and each other.  No more Temple.  Now we have even more intimate access to God – he lives in us and we in him.
 
In a way, Holy Week was the end of the age.  A new age dawned as Jesus rose from the grave, Jesus the perfected, restored Temple.  The destruction of the Temple may have been a kind of end of the age, but it came with a kind of judgment the disciples didn’t expect.  The good news: the judgment was not of condemnation, not of separating people from God, not of consigning them to Hell, alienation and suffering.  Instead the judgment was to expand access to God, to make his presence more immediate, less restricted, to help humanity be closer to God.
 
But still today, when we think about the end times, when folks speculate about the Second Coming – a ridiculous phrase because Jesus is coming to us all the time, we typically associate the end with judgment that punishes, instead of judgment that expands and deepens our life with and in God.  Jesus message to us: Look beyond our experiences of loss and suffering, look beyond evil running rampant now, and trust God.  Have hope, confidence.  As we heard the writer of Hebrews says, “Provoke each other to love and do good deeds, come together and encourage each other.”  That’s our focus, our purpose, the main thing.
 
Of course, we can’t know the details of when the end will come or what awaits us at the end of time or our own end.  But we can trust God and encourage and support each other, and we can choose to see judgment and the end not as darkness and separation and punishment, not as something to fear, but as movement to a new fullness and unity.
 
Perhaps it’s refreshing to know that 40 percent of people who have been near death have reported a common pattern: a sense of journeying through a tunnel, a burst of light, a sense of being in the presence of a loving reality and of being out of one’s body.[iii]  Those who’ve come closest to death don’t report judgment and punishment, but love and unity.
 
      I’m not usually much for stories of near death experiences, but last month, Newsweek ran as a cover story a piece by Eben Alexander called “Heaven is Real,” and it attracted me because it suggests we don’t have to the end with dread and horror.[iv]
 
Dr. Alexander considered himself a faithful Christian, but a Christian more in name than in actual belief.  As a scientist and neurosurgeon, he knew better than to believe that there was a God who loves us unconditionally.  About four years ago, he had a near death experience when a rare bacterial meningitis began eating at his brain.  He fell into a deep coma for seven days during which his entire cortex, the part of the brain that controls thoughts and emotions, the part he says that “makes us human,” shut down.  Current brain medicine holds that the cortex generates our consciousness.
 
Although Dr. Alexander’s cortex stopped working, turned off, he says that he had hyper-vivid consciousness during his coma, and there is no explanation for how his conscious was functioning and active during that period.  He says that he journeyed to another dimension, “a dimension I’d never dreamed existed and which the old, pre-coma me would have been more than happy to explain was a simple impossibility.”
 
His experience in that dimension, one that has been described by countless near death patients, showed him a world “where death is not the end of consciousness but rather a chapter in a vast, and incalculably positive, journey.”  Yet according to current medical understanding of the mind and brain, there is no way he could have experienced what he did during his coma.
 
In the article, and also in his book about this, he describes being surrounded by super vivid aliveness and receiving a message with three parts: 1) you are loved and cherished, dearly, forever; 2) you have nothing to fear; and, 3) there is nothing you can do wrong.  His near death experience revealed to him an ever-evolving, mysterious, and complex universe yet a universe defined by unity and love and “known down to its every last atom by a God who cares for us even more deeply and fiercely than any parent ever loved their child.”
 
He recognizes how extraordinary and frankly unbelievable, even delusional, this sounds.  He mentions the looks of polite disbelief he encounters.  But then says, “One of the few places I didn’t have trouble getting my story across was a place I’d seen fairly little of before my experience: church.”
 
The core of what Dr. Alexander reports is the heart of the gospel: God who loves us without condition, without reservation, without limit; God who holds each of us as a precious child; God in whom all is well.  When we think of judgment, when we think of the end, our first associations need not be of harshness and separation but rather we can trust in love and intimacy with God.
 
✠ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

1 Kings 17:8-16
Hebrews 9:24‑28
Mark 12:38‑44

✠ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

      Today, Jesus observed some scribes and a widow.  It’s a striking and revealing contrast.

      Scribes were government officials associated with Jerusalem and the chief priests.[1]  They had intellectual, literary, political, and economic abilities and associated with the people of power and wealth.  While not one-percenters, they were among the elites.  They were authoritative teachers and enforcers of Jewish law and custom.  Mark described them as a political group opposed to Jesus, attempting to undermine him. 

      The scribes were not a wholly unified class.  As in our world, some would have been duteous officials of high integrity, and others would have been hypocritical, the kind of people Jesus described in today’s passage.  He said of them:

1)    They liked long, flowing robes.  They were ostentatious, seeking attention and showing off their importance. 

2)    They sought signs of respect in the marketplace.  They focused their energies on position and honor.  They sought prestige.

3)    They schemed for the best seats in the synagogues.  They had power and influence in the community, making policies and enforcing them.

4)    They devoured widows’ houses.  They took advantage of the weak, even defrauded them, to enrich themselves. 

5)    They said long prayers in public, vain prayers drawing attention to themselves, making a show of their faith.  Jesus taught people to pray privately and succinctly. (Matthew 6:5-13)

      It’s a dark, dismal picture: unfaithfulness, selfishness, and pettiness dressed up as faithfulness, holiness, and righteousness.  Greed hiding behind piety.  It’s hardly the story of just some scribes two thousand years ago, but religious people in every age and place.  We see it in our own world: religious people, often Christians, being hypocrites.  Jesus warned of ravening wolves dressed in sheep’s clothing. (Mt 7:15)  Those are hard, sobering words for any religious person, perhaps clergy especially.

      Before I was baptized, one of the main things that put me off about the church was religious people.  They looked like hypocrites, not worthy of trust.  I couldn’t imagine belonging to such a self-righteous, inauthentic group… a bunch of scribes. 

      Jesus’ account of the scribes allows us to make some inferences about them.  They seem closed up in their own world, pre-occupied, not seeing or hearing things they don’t want to see or hear, avoiding or ignoring unpleasant reality, blind to injustice.  They don’t see the poor, the people their living high on, but instead inhabit a narrow, small world.  Consequently, they have little compassion or empathy, cut off from the suffering of others.  There’s separation and exclusivity – aloofness. 

      As Jesus represents the scribes, they seem to have little real longing or passion for God, little felt need for God.  Instead they direct their energy toward self-justification, taking care of themselves, earning their place in heaven, self-satisfied and smug and brittle.  It’s a life with little room for grace and love.  They feel entitled to what they have and so have little gratitude, and life without gratitude is joyless.  They seem enslaved to their own desires and small concerns – not truly free.  In a sentence or two, Jesus sketched a dreadful way of life represented by the scribes.

      The widow.  In the Old Testament, widows were the common image of the oppressed and exploited, and God often expressed concern for them, but their life was tough.  The Hebrew word for widow signifies someone who is silent.[2]  In the ancient Near East, as in parts of the world today, women did not speak in public; they had no voice.  Widows were extremely vulnerable, especially if they had no sons or if their eldest son was not yet married.  A widow could not inherit or own property, even if her husband had been one of the rich scribes.  She was destitute, and the best option was a quick re-marriage or returning to her father’s home, neither of which might be possible.

      Jesus noticed wealthy people making large gifts to the Temple treasury, and then he watched a widow donate two mites, two small copper coins, the least valuable coins.  He said the widow had given more than the wealthy people.  It’s as if the church received a gift of a million dollars and a gift of fifty cents, and Jesus declared that the person giving fifty cents had made a bigger sacrifice.  The wealthy had given out of their abundance, and still had abundance, and the poor widow had given all that she had. 

      It’s not the amount that matters.  It’s the proportion.  That’s why in our stewardship teaching here we make such a big deal about proportional giving: being clear about our income, determining a percentage to give, trying to increase that percentage over time.  It probably helps to inspire the great generosity here.

      The widow gave all that she had to the Temple treasury.  A day or two before this scene, Jesus had called the Temple “a den of thieves.” (Mark 11:17)  Right after today’s gospel ends, as Jesus walked out of the Temple, he said, “There’s not a stone in the whole place that is not going to end up in a heap of rubble.” (Mark 13:2)  The widow gave to a corrupt institution, one that was exploiting her, helping the rich to live off the poor, and an institution whose time and purpose had come to an end.

      Compare the widow’s gift, her whole living – Jesus calls it, to the gift Jesus is about to make: his whole life.  This scene happens just a day or two before he’s arrested, tortured, and killed.  Jesus gave his life for all, including those who abandoned him, rejected him, ignored him, avoided him, tortured him, killed him.  Jesus gave his life for what is corrupt, for what needs reforming and renewal – for humanity. 

      Apparently, in making her gift, the widow was willing to be chumped, to be duped, to be suckered.  We could look on this as weakness and foolishness, or as remarkable faith: trust that God would care for her, that she’d be alright, that grace prevails; trust that she had something important to give; trust in the importance of being generous. 

      Generosity springs from gratitude.  Think of those moments in your life when you’ve been thankful.  Did you not want to respond, to do something kind or beautiful or magnanimous out of the gratitude you felt?  The widow didn’t give out of duty or guilt, otherwise she’d have put in the required amount, no more.  She gave because she had a grateful heart, giving to express thanks. 

      The widow lived on the margin, likely exploited, poor, vulnerable.  She had experienced dark and intense troubles, and she had compassion and empathy for others in need.  Giving the little she had to support the community, to support God’s work, to share what she’d received. 

      She has inner freedom, not self-preoccupied, not calculating, not fretting and anxious about little things, not needing recognition and honor.  She has perspective about what really matters.  She seems to possess the fruits of the Spirit: gratitude, peace, gentleness, joy, patience, goodness.

      Two pictures of people today: scribes and a widow.  Who would you rather be like?  When I rein in my piety, and get honest with myself, and really consider the circumstances of each person, I know that parts of me want nothing to do with the widow.  Her life involved real hardship: losing a husband, possibly a broken-heart, the fear and uncertainty of being on her own, overlooked, destitute, unprotected, and voiceless – the vulnerability, the loneliness, the struggle.    

      On the other hand, the life of the scribes attracts me: privilege, learning, education, respect, power, wealth, influence, ability, popularity, sophistication, importance.  But I recognize that these are the circumstances of each.  When I focus on character, I’m drawn to the widow.  It’s what I want for myself, for those I love, for my community, for all people.  The scribes and the widow are two kinds of character, two ways of life: one that leads to alienation, separation, fear, loneliness.  The other leads to connection, unity, love, trust. 

      When I look into myself, I see both ways warring within me.  Today’s gospel reminds us that we have parts of our character that are like the scribes and parts like the widow.  We’re not perfect, each of us is corrupt in ways and yet still longing for God – to be grateful, generous, trusting, compassionate.  Jesus came and gave himself to help us grow to become less like the scribes and more like the widow.  It’s why this parish exists, what we’re doing together.  It’s transformation: we can, and do, become more like Christ.

✠ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.


[1] Anthony Saldarini, article on ‘Scribes’ in The Anchor Bible Dictionary, Vol 5, David Noel Freedman, Editor in Chief, Doubleday (1992), p.1015.

[2] This paragraph abut widows from Bruce J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh, Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels, Fortress Press (2003), pp. 423.

Preached at St. Paul’s Parish, K Street
John 11:32-44

✠  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen. 

      Several election cycles ago, my child, quite young then, asked at the dinner table, “What is politics?”  I pounced and pedantically held forth, explaining that politics comes from the Greek word polis, city, that it’s about how people live together, make decisions, cooperate – or not.  Our dinner guest, a long-time political operative, interrupted me, “Your dad’s got it all wrong.  Remember the funniest thing James Carville ever said.  Politics comes from two words: ‘poli’ meaning many, and ‘ticks’ meaning those tiny, bloodsucking parasites.”

      Possibly since I’m not a professional, I don’t see it that way.  Politics is hugely important, fascinating, and exciting, but I’m really ready for this thing to be over.  I’m always grateful to be with you for All Saints and All Souls because at election time these feasts draw my attention back to the big picture, the most urgent and eternal truths.  Tonight I’m also grateful to Fr. Sloane for inviting me to preach.  He is one of the saints whose love and friendship strengthens, inspires, supports me.

      It has been a tough week for me.  Perhaps for you, too.  Several things have shaken me, not least of which was Sandy, something we’ve all dealt with.  I’ve seen lots of aerial pictures of the devastation – flooded neighborhoods, roads, and parking garages, the torched Rockaway homes, massive fallen trees, beached boats.  A lot of the pictures just awe and amaze and don’t get into the stories about people, and when that happens, the pictures distract us from the human suffering, the hurt and confusion and anxiety.

      Today’s gospel, Jesus weeping, his empathy with human suffering is timely.  The story helps us to acknowledge and accept our own feelings of loss and fear, be they from Sandy or anything else.  John’s gospel shows us that Jesus is not an aerial God, hovering above our sadness, detached from our experience.  He’s on the ground, weeping – with us, in us, for us.  He’s fully present to Mary and Martha and their community, entering their sorrow. 

      It’s a startling scene – the Son of God, the light of the world, emotionally troubled.  It shows us that sadness is a normal, regular part of our experience, not to be avoided or denied or ignored, but accepted, and hopefully accepted with a trust in God that ultimately all will be well. 

      We’re often a bit nutty about sadness, treating it almost as a stigma, as if something is wrong with us.  We may assume that if we feel hurt and sorrow, then God doesn’t love us, that it’s a type of divine punishment.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  When we feel sad, we can recall Jesus and his tears, all of his suffering.  Pain often is what breaks our hearts open and makes room for God.  It shows us that we’re alive, and it can help us connect to God and other people.  Jesus helps us find meaning in sadness.  That’s the first of four points of good news in today’s gospel.

      Second, why was Jesus upset?  He probably felt compassion for Martha and Mary who were weeping, distraught about the loss of their brother Lazarus.  But their sadness probably was not the primary thing that disturbed him. 

      Jesus’ tears, at least in part, were for himself.[1]  John didn’t tell about Jesus agonizing in Gethsemane.  Instead, John gave us the raising of Lazarus.  Here Jesus saw what was awaiting him – a grave with a stone covering the opening.  His conflict with the Jewish religious establishment had become intense and violent.  He had just escaped being stoned.  His disciples had warned him not to go to back to Bethany in Judea to visit Martha and Mary because of the danger to him.  Jesus had to know that by raising his friend Lazarus, he would enrage the religious authorities.  It would seal his fate. 

      Indeed, three verses after this scene, the Temple authorities were fretting that on account of the raising of Lazarus people now believed, that more people were following Jesus as Messiah.  They feared that the Romans would come and take away their power and privilege.  They plotted to kill Jesus.

      In restoring Lazarus to life, Jesus was facing his own death.  He gave life to his friend, but in doing so he laid down his own life.  At the Last Supper, Jesus said, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” (Jn 15:13) 

      A third point of good news.  Our reading picks up in the middle of things.  Jesus and Martha have just had a conversation about resurrection.  Martha expressed her belief that her brother Lazarus would rise at the end of time, that she could anticipate their reunion in the distant future.  Jesus had responded to her, “I am the resurrection and the life.” 

      What Martha didn’t get, what we have a hard time understanding, is that the resurrection and eternal life that Jesus offers is not far off, not in the distant future.  Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead not to comfort Martha and Mary, but to show humanity that his life and resurrection is here and now, and that changes everything.  His message: eternal life is available to us now. 

      Eternal life is not a very, very long time; it’s not merely in the future, then and there; it’s God living in us here and now.  It’s baptism.  It’s communion.  It’s love.  It’s God in us, you and me, the saints, giving us richer, fuller lives, giving us growth and learning, strength and gratitude.

      Sometimes we act as if our lives are mere preparation for things to come, always getting ready for something, preparing for the far off.  Eternity is not a future reward, not a quid pro quo.  Eternity is here, now, this moment, and always in the moment.  The good news is that we don’t have to wait for eternal life.

      A fourth point of good news.  Lazarus was raised from the dead.  His resurrection was different from Jesus’, sort of a resuscitation, or a restoration.  He resumed a “normal” life.  Lazarus came forth from the grave and then was freed from his graveclothes.  It is a metaphor for what happens to us when we follow Jesus, when Jesus becomes the core of our identity.

      Imagine your life without Jesus.  Where’s your center, your grounding?  Where’s your meaning and purpose in life?  What informs your values and behavior, your attitudes and habits?  What gives you hope or a sense of belonging?  Without Jesus, doesn’t it become more difficult to love and be loved, to find strength and guidance?  Without Jesus, doesn’t it become more difficult to trust other people?  Without Jesus, life is snuffed out in a grave.  That’s how I see it now, but I haven’t always.

      In college, I was a fierce atheist; it was at the core of my identity.  I’d only venom for Christianity.  But toward the end of college, adulthood beckoning, I wondered: Where do I go from here?  What am I going to do with my life?  Why am I alive?  What’s meaningful and permanent?  I longed to have purpose, to belong to something bigger than me, something eternal, good. 

      Grace prevails.  Swallowing a lot of misplaced pride, I did an about-face – not my first, or last.  I came to believe that nothing mattered without God, that the most important thing for anybody was to know God’s love, to be able to say, “I am a precious and dearly loved child of God.”  I saw God’s love in Jesus.  A year out of college, I got baptized.

      Baptism is a kind of death, dying to parts of ourselves, parts holding us back.  Paul wrote to the Romans, “When we are lowered into the water, it is like the burial of Jesus; when we are raised up out of the water, it is like the resurrection of Jesus.” (Romans 6:4)  That pattern of dying and rising is the pattern of life and growth… like tree rings, a continuing and growing pattern.  The pattern of dying and rising shapes and identifies the life of saints.  Our hearts grow in rings.

      The saints, the followers of Jesus, you and me, we know darkness and death, sorrow and pain, but we also know light and life, joy and delight.  We have been in the dark tomb, hearts broken, but have also been called out into the light.  Lazarus represents the life of God’s people, the saints.  The good news is that every one of us is Lazarus.

✠ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.


[1] Garry Wills, What the Gospels Meant, Penguin Books (2008), pp. 182-86.  This brief and excellent discussion of Lazarus was the source of points #2 and #4.