"The birthpangs"-Sermon for Proper 28, Mark 13:1-8
So, there is a lot that I love about our new church. Some of my personal favs include all the glass in the worship space…all the natural light it lets in and the way it connects the inside to the outside. All of that light is intended to remind us of the never-ending light of God’s love that the darkness cannot overcome. And, the thin veil that exists between us right now and the world outside, meaning our glass walls, are intended to keep us connected, even as we worship, to God’s own actual magnum opus which is creation itself and all it contains, including, each of us. And, also, that thin veil is intended to remind us that our work as God’s love-spreaders and life-givers actually happens out in the world. In here we are fed and filled for that work with word and sacrament, by study and prayer, and through the relationships and the love we share with each other…but the world and lives we are to help transform more and more into God’s likeness, which is love alone, happens past those windows in all the spaces and places we live, move and have our being. I often say that church work primarily happens outside the walls of the church. Moreover, things like the cedar ceiling above our heads is, in part, to make us mindful of the world outside…that is the trees from which it came. And, the very intentional choice of painting the wall to your right blue is to call to mind a river flowing alongside us…the waters of baptism and Jesus reminding us that the water that he provides is the water of life that quenches all spiritual thirst and that wells up to eternal life.
And, when the weather is like it is today, I like to walk down and sit in the memorial garden. The design and materials are intended to mirror the church itself so they are seen as two parts of a whole rather than two individual spaces. And, as I sit in that space that already contains some of the earthly remains our beloved ones, I am drawn to think gratefully of my own saints, who are now in our Lord’s nearer presence, and give thanks for what they have given and taught me and remember that they remain with me…a part of me. Like the thin veil…the glass…that separates the inside from the outside in this space…our memorial garden reminds me that death is more gate than grave…that our God is the God of the visible and the invisible…that even in this moment and in each and every moment…we stand with, not separated from, but with the angels and archangels and all the company of heaven…that all our lives are forever connected and forever exist. For nothing can separate us…not evil, not persecution, or violence, or pain, or conflict or deep disagreement, or great loss…not even death itself…our most ancient of all foes…can separate us from the love of God that binds us all together…through the glorious resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord.
And, though I could go on…last one I promise…I love our bells, even if they are of the digital variety. To begin with, I love that I can begin to see the tower itself when I am still quite a ways down the road…for it reminds me that God is with us wherever we might go…reminding me that we are never really alone. The tower for me is like a great signpost marking our way and always beckoning us home…not to a building made of stone and steel…but the very heart of God…to a beloved community who counts me as one of their own…to the peace that passes all understanding that stands at the end of all things. And, the chimes to me are like God’s own voice singing out…just as we will soon sing out at Christmas, “Good tidings to bring to you and your kin”. Our bells are a sort of surround sound spirituality…singing out to our neighbors the words our hearts crave the very most…like God’s voice at Jesus’ baptism…you are all mine…I am so very pleased with you…I love you. And, that is, indeed what I hope you hear God saying to you when our bells ring, and I hope they might encourage us to use our own voices like church bells ringing out wherever we may be…courageous voices…affirming voices…unafraid to remind others that they belong to God…that God is so very pleased with them…that God and we love them…fiercely and forever…especially when that is the very thing they need to hear.
So, as I began, there is a lot that I love about our new church, and I hope there is for each of you as well. From the foundation to the finishes in the bathrooms…I also love the tile color in the bathrooms…each decision made was done with intentionality and, more so, love. For all of it is intended to root us in the love that was before creation, is now and which will be forever…the love of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Now, you might be thinking that I am sharing this love letter, if you will, for the gift of this new church and the joy it brings to me…really I hope to all of us…and for the hope and healing and meaning I believe this church will always bring for good and for God to all those whose lives we touch…again, you might be thinking, and you would be correct, that I share this all with you on this In-Gathering Sunday…to encourage all of us to sacrificially share, from our abundance, pledges of prayer, time, talent and financial resources…to be absolutely certain that we can care well and, more so, use well this God-given gift as a catalyst for life-giving ministry in the year to come. For I believe we are already and are to become more and more a center of redemption…a bright light…a city upon a hill…that resonates with the love of God for the very life of the world. And, indeed, this is, in part, why I began this sermon as I did on this In-Gathering Sunday.
But, but, I also want you to keep what I have noted about our new church home in mind, as we lean into our gospel lesson this morning, which provides a bit of a twist on things. For, at least to me, this story feels disrupting…even shocking, especially, for a community who has literally just built a new church. For, as Mark notes, as Jesus’ friends and followers are admiring their own House of God…the great Temple in Jerusalem…Jesus utterly disrupts their awe and reverie by saying, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”
Now, Jesus is perhaps being prophetic here…referencing a future moment in time…truly an awful and devastating time…that will really change the course of the world’s history…a moment whose resonance still impacts the world today…when some 40 years following Jesus’ prophecy…the Temple in Jerusalem is utterly destroyed by Rome…just as he said…inaugurating the Jewish diaspora. And, again, this 2000-year-old historic event continues to reverberate to this very day. For, I believe we see echoes of it in the war raging in the Middle East, in the Holy Lands. And, I for one think this is, in part, what Jesus is prophesying will come to pass.
But, thanks be to God, this is not all Jesus is prophesying will come to pass. For, he also suggests that all the pain and suffering…all the loss and confusion and uncertainty that exists in, not just the Middle East, but in all the world, including our own communities, is not the end of all things…not the purpose or finality of our existence. In fact, what he calls all of the yuck, the violence, the abuse, the injustice, the loss of innocent life, that exists in our world…he very specifically calls all of this…birth pangs. That is the pain that proceeds new life…the cross that proceeds the empty tomb…the empty tomb that firmly plants love and life in the very heart of all of creation…in the very midst of this broken and sorely divided world. Thus, through Jesus’ own birth pangs on the cross and then new birth in his resurrection that follows…rebirth, resurrection, the rebuilding of things previously torn down and destroyed by sin and death, including, our own lives…is what lies at the end of all things…the establishment of God’s own kingdom of love in our very midst, where sorrow and pain are no more only life that is everlasting.
And, it is for this reason that this building and, much more so, the lives that it contains ultimately exist…our own lives and the lives of all those who will follow us…all the future saints who will call St. Julian’s home. That is for us to be a beacon like our tower, a bright light like the light that floods into these windows, a surround sound spirituality like our bells, a reminder that life never ends only changes like our memorial garden…all of it…all of us…shining out…all crying out…as I said in my sermon two weeks ago…God’s love will prevail. For, it has been firmly established not in a tomb containing a lifeless body…but an empty tomb from which is birthed a new life…not just Jesus’...but all of creation’s…for Jesus is the first born from the dead…not the last…only the first. And, friends, this is the healing balm…the certain hope…the promise that joy follows mourning…that we need…those entrusted into our care need…our neighbors need…all those our lives touch need…for finding meaning, purpose and direction…for shaping a life that matters and makes a difference…to find some modicum of peace and way forward in the midst of life’s storms. In my mind, the work which we do together from this place, the prayer, worship, study, service and friendship building we render and accomplish here together empowered by and pointing to God’s love in the world, is the most important work we do…and so today I invite you to pledge your life and all it contains to it.
Indeed, there will be a day when this place no longer exists…when not one stone of this great building will be left standing upon another…Jesus is reminding us of this, as well, in his prophecy that sits before us today. At some point, I believe long, long into the future, this place will be among the old things that are passing away to make room for the new…the very next thing that God’s long arc of love through time and space will accomplish. But, for now, in this season of God’s great and joyful story of love’s ultimate triumph, I hope we will commit today to make a heartfelt pledge to care for it well, on behalf of, all those who will come after us, and I hope we will make a heartfelt pledge to provide the means to use it well, for the purposes that God has built it and placed it into our hands, in the present…such that not stone and steel…but human lives…shaped, formed and filled in this place might witness to the new life that God is birthing into our very midst…even and especially…as we, and many much more than us, still suffer from the pangs that proceed the birth. For our witness, our flourishing in the present and in the future is a life-giving foretaste and promise of God’s own love that will stand from forever to forever…till all the fallen stones and all the fallen lives are rebuilt by God’s resurrected love into that which God intended at Genesis 1:1…in the beginning. Amen.