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November 18, 2007 Proper 28 C In God We Trust The Rev. Dr. Lawrence S. Hunter
Did you catch the Collect of the Day? You know, that second prayer we pray after the service begins, when we’ve barely caught our breath from getting to church. “Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scripture to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them….”
All holy scripture to be written for our learning…. And then we had today’s gospel reading!
Let’s see, now, Jesus prophesies the destruction of the Temple and intense persecution for his followers. Well, we’re his followers, right? This gospel reading makes it kind of hard to “shout with joy to the Lord … lift up your voice, rejoice, and sing” as the psalmist writes. But, all holy Scripture is written for our learning, so what can we learn from this?
Let me set the scene with a little background. Jesus and his disciples are in Jerusalem. Following his triumphal entry on the back of a colt, Jesus goes to the temple where he drives out the marketing staff. He stays, both to teach and with his disciples to perform their religious duties. After watching a poor widow put her small offering into the box, Jesus praised the poor woman for her contribution. Those sitting with Jesus seem to ignore this and quickly change the subject. They remark on the beauty and the glory of the temple. It was, after all the center of their religious world. The temple and its beauty was the earthly home of God.
It dominated Jerusalem. Part National Cathedral, part Statue of Liberty, part Supreme Court building, part Federal Reserve Bank – the temple stood as an architectural sacrament testifying to the blessedness of God in and over an obedient people. It stood as a “light to the nations,” to those who were still in darkness, representing what life under the One God could mean. What site and symbol in Hebrew culture could be more reliable? What element could be more secure, more dependable, more trustworthy? None.
At the time of Jesus, this was the third temple structure to have been erected on this site. The first, built by Solomon, had stood for 400 years until it was destroyed by the Babylonians in 587 BC. The second was built by those who returned from the Babylonian exile between 520 and 515 BC. It was desecrated by first the Greeks and then the Romans as they conquered the Judean territory. Then in 37 BC, Herod the Great became Roman client king in Judea. He embarked on an ambitious building project that restored and doubled the size of the temple. The historian Josephus records that Herod put 10,000 people to work on the project, and trained 1000 priests as masons so they could labor within the most sacred precincts of the temple. The breathtaking structure was completed in ten years, but detail work continued for years, causing some Pharisees to observe, “this temple has been under construction for forty-six years.”
Almost all of Jerusalem was engaged in some kind of work that had a connection to the temple. Craftsmen made and maintained the necessary ritual objects. There were incense makers; there were those who traded in sacrificial animals, and countless others who provided lodging and food for the pilgrims who flocked to the temple. Nearly all inhabitants of Jerusalem deposited their money at the temple and currency changers and bankers were associated with it. Then there were the priest, a hierarchy fixed for three centuries, including the High Priest, the priests, and the Levites. These leaders not only had sacred functions, but also oversaw the financial and legal systems that underpinned an entire culture. The temple, with a thousand years of history, was destined to last for a thousand more.
Even today, 2000 years later, nothing can look more permanent than the massive stones at the base of the Temple walls in Jerusalem. The day that Jesus looked at them, brand new and shining in the sun, they must have been the epitome of absolute permanence. And yet Jesus said, “the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.” And the people couldn’t believe it. They trusted in the temple as the visible symbol of the nation. In fact, Jesus words would be used as evidence against him later at his trial. But about 35 years after Jesus spoke these words, his prophecy came true. The Romans utterly destroyed the temple in Jerusalem. It has never been rebuilt.
There were some, though, who realized the destruction of the temple was a possibility, for they, like we, lived in violent times. They wanted to know the signs that such things were about to take place, perhaps so they could be in control and avoid the turmoil. He warns them against those who would lead them astray by saying “the time is near.” How often have we read or heard about small groups of believers who become convinced by a leader that the end of the world is right around the corner. Just this week I read about a cult in Russia where more than two dozen members are holed up in a forest near the Volga river, awaiting the end of the world with the coming of spring. Member of this cult also believe that the Universal Product Code, you know that bar code on packaging, is the mark of the Antichrist! Talk about being led astray. It would be funnier if it weren’t so sad.
As we gather to celebrate today, we are at the second to the last Sunday of the church year. It is appropriate that, as the church year ends, the gospel readings deal with endings. Today, Jesus teaches about the end of time and what leads up to it. We are not to worry about the end, but to remain faithful no matter what happens. Because God is faithful to us. Jesus points to the impermanent nature of human life. Try to think of the most permanent things in your life. What are those things that you count on to be there? No matter what we name we know, whether or not we will admit it, that all of these can be gone in a minute. I remember growing up in Washington state and thinking that Mount Saint Helens was the most beautiful and majestic mountain, nearly perfect and definitely permanent. Then a volcanic eruption blew the top off the mountain and it has never been the same. I remember, too, feeling utter dismay when the World Trade Towers collapsed. It was beyond my comprehension how 110 story buildings could disappear in a matter of seconds. We in the Bay Area know how quickly a ship off course crashing into a bridge support can send 58,000 gallons of oil into a fragile ecosystem, fouling water and shore, endangering fish, shellfish, and birds.
Even more than the gospel is about the impermanence of human life, it is about the permanence of God and God’s kingdom. And about the futility of putting our ultimate faith and trust in anything but God. We, however, tend to find our security in the seen and not the Unseen, the visible, not the Invisible. We identify any wondrous part of creation, or culture, and then place it on a par with God – the sun, the oceans, or military might, Wall Street, the White House, or Congress. We forget that God is wholly Other, qualitatively different from any element of the created order – and that this God alone deserves our unwavering trust.
How easily we can fall into the very human “temple syndrome” – that is putting our final trust in a person, in a human capacity, or in human institutions rather than relying on the Living God. Sometimes a story helps. One disclaimer: I am not anti-science or scientists. It is just a story.
It seems that a team of scientist is sitting around discussing which one of them should approach God and inform the Divine that they do not need God anymore. Finally, one of the scientists volunteers, and goes to tell God the news.
The scientist approaches God, and without so much as a bow, starts in: “God, a bunch of us have been thinking, and I Have come to tell you that we really don’t need you anymore. I mean, we’ve been coming up with great ideas, discoveries, and advances – we’ve cloned sheep, mapped the human genome, made great strides in stem cell research, and are on the verge of cloning human beings. So you can see, we really don’t need you anymore.”
God nods understandingly, and replies: “I see, well, no hard feelings. But before you go, let’s have a contest.”
The scientist says, “Sure, I’m all for it – what kind of contest?”
“A human making contest,” God declares.
“Great, no problem,” the scientist answers. He bends down and picks up a handful of dirt, and says, “OK, I’m ready!”
And God says, “No, no. You get your own dirt.”
As we come to the end of the church year and prepare once again to enter into Advent and the feast of the Incarnation, just what are we to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest from today’s gospel? How about this: we believe in the God who was and is and is to come. It is this God who controls not only our beginning, but our end as well. Secure in the knowledge that our end is in God, we are free to live in the here and now. We are free to love and care for one another; we are free to love and care for God’s creation. And that something worth learning, for it is true freedom.