Birth Pangs
Proper 28B-24
Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago
Do you see these windows and that great red granite cross? “Not one stone will be left upon another,” Jesus said (Mark 13:2b). On this penultimate Sunday of the church year our focus widens. These Sundays of November are sometimes called kingdomtide. We ponder the gospel against the sweep of human history, the rise and fall of nations, the wreck and ruin of civilizations, and the shadowy echoes of human endeavors long since forgotten by everyone but God.
God is nothing if not patient. We strive to love the God who burst on the scene 14 billion years ago in all of God’s complexity, mystery, and ever expansiveness, rooted in relationship and grounded in love. We see God’s handiwork in the Big Bang and more. Quantum physics teaches that the ultimate building blocks of the universe are not made of matter, but of a pattern of relationships between nonmaterial entities. If the ultimate building blocks of the universe are relationships, then is it much of a stretch to say the most powerful force in the universe is love? The God who burst on the scene 14 billion years ago in all of God’s complexity, mystery, and ever expansiveness, rooted in relationship and grounded in love plays the long game and so should we. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.
The great necropolis of Memphis, the capital city of the Old Kingdom of ancient Egypt now lies in ruins covered mostly by sand. I once rode a rented horse named Chocolate into the Egyptian desert near Cairo there, to see Sakkara, ancient Egypt’s first pyramid. Along the way I steered my horse through another building that appeared to be an ancient place of worship. As I rode through the front door, down the center aisle, across the spot I imagined the altar once stood, and out a hole in the back wall, I wondered; what sacrilege had I committed that day to whoever built that place and worshipped there? Will there be a day, when someone will wander through the remains of Immanuel? What comes of all our striving? What echo of our lives will persist in those days, when the very stones with which our church is assembled have turned to sand?
In Jesus’ day, the temple in Jerusalem was one of the most impressive sights in the world. Torn down twice since King Solomon built it, the second rebuilding was undertaken by Herod before Jesus’ birth. It was not finished until after his crucifixion.
When Jesus and the four disciples sat opposite the temple across the Kidron valley upon the Mount of Olives, looking down upon the temple, they were looking at a brand-new building. It was clad with so much gold, looking at it directly could literally be blinding. Forty years later, the Roman army knocked that temple off its foundations. They took its holy artifacts and marched them in a parade all the way to the streets of Rome. Thousands and thousands of innocent Jews were slaughtered in the streets of Jerusalem. Thousands were captured and sold into slavery. And thousands were taken from their homes and exiled into other parts of the Roman Empire. The destruction of the temple was unthinkable to the disciples. The fact of its destruction was bewildering to those who lived it. They surely thought it could only mean one thing—that God had abandoned them!
This passage from Mark’s Gospel is often described as a mini apocalypse. It may leave us feeling rather bleak and sad. The author’s intention is quite the opposite. The word ‘apocalypse’ means ‘unveiling.’ A problem that cannot be seen cannot be solved. A Christian apocalypse draws back the veil to reveal the loving hand of God at work in the world. We are meant to see what is truly eternal, to distinguish it from what is merely passing, and to glimpse the truth that will set us free. But of course, sometimes truth, no matter how liberating, is also quite painful and disorienting.
In 2016, American author and social activist Adrienne Maree Brown wrote in reference to racial injustice and the Black Lives Matter movement: “Things are not getting worse, they are getting uncovered. We must hold each other tight and continue to pull back the veil.” Brown’s words could be a summary of today’s gospel: Things are getting uncovered. Let’s hold each other tight and pull back the veil. (Debbie Thomas)
Just what is it that is getting uncovered in America today? The America I have always loved is the Statue of Liberty America. The words of poet, Emma Lazarus, are written there on a bronze plaque affixed to the pedestal, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” The America I love is a creation of immigrants who arrived here after the life they had known was shattered, by war, by despotism, by shifting political winds, and the rising tides of hatred. They come from every part of the globe, bringing remembered food, songs, prayers, customs, comforts, and worries to become new people in a new world.
But there has always been another America, just as singular and deeply rooted in the history of our nation that is being uncovered now. It is an America of, by, and for white men, built upon an economy of extraction, the culture of patriarchy, and a church corrupted by colonization and slavery. This America has re-asserted itself ever more forcefully these past ten years. It is a sickness dwelling in America’s heart that will not be healed by just pretending it isn’t there. You and I have no power to heal it. This disease lives in us. It affects and infects each of us. It cannot be healed except by the greatest power that exists in the ever-unfolding universe: that is by love and by the people who embody this love in their words, in their listening, in their discipleship, in their acts of compassion, and in their very lives.
Jesus compared the painful process of our healing to giving birth. Mark’s gospel has no account of baby Jesus, no manger, no shepherds, no wise men. Perhaps that is because Mark’s entire gospel is a nativity story. Jesus told them, “The kingdom of God has come near.” The time is fulfilled. The kingdom has arrived! Mark’s nativity is the birth of the kingdom of God in them and in us now, and about how we pass through to the next stage of human and planetary flourishing. (Diana Butler Bass, Sunday Musings, The Cottage, 11/17/24).
God is nothing if not patient with us. It began billions of years ago, from the birth of stars and the destruction of stars, from creation of the periodical table of elements, to the creation of single-celled creatures to today. In all of God’s complexity, mystery, and ever expansiveness, all things are rooted in relationship and grounded in love. We look to the future. We see the outlines of a new city, the new Jerusalem, rise upon the earth where there will be no more tears. God is making a new temple in which to dwell not made with human hands in human hearts cleansed, healed and restored by grace. God will dwell there forever. This is the advent of our God Mark’s gospel cares about. This is the joyous coming which Jesus’ promises. Have no fear. Be not afraid. See! A new world is being born.
