St. Paul’s Church in
Bergen & Church of the Incarnation, Jersey City NJ
November 18, 2018
Year B, Proper 28:
The Twenty-Sixth Sunday after Pentecost
1 Samuel 1:4-20
1 Samuel 2:1-10
Hebrews 10:11-25
Mark 13:1-8
There is No End to God
I
suppose by now nothing much should surprise me, but I admit that I really am
surprised that there are still Christian preachers out there – including some
very popular and successful (well, by the world’s standards, at least) – some
big-time preachers out there who still push the message that if we believe the
right things and do the right things and, yes, give to the church the right amount of money, then God will surely
bless us with health, wealth, and happiness.
I
suppose that message still finds a big audience because so many of us are discouraged
and frightened, desperately looking for hope, searching for a way out of our
present troubles.
The
problem is that this idea that if we just believe and say and pay the right
things God will bless us with health, wealth, and happiness, it’s just not
the message of Jesus.
No,
Jesus is quite clear that his way is the way of the Cross – it’s the way of
love and sacrifice – and, it’s often the way of real suffering, too.
The
promise is not that God will make all of our problems go away.
No,
the promise is that God is with us through it all, through all the good stuff
and especially through all of the bad stuff of our lives.
The
promise is that Jesus is with us even unto the end of the age.
And,
the promise is that even when things seem hopeless and we seem to have reached
the end – well, the promise is that no matter how bad things are, God is still
at work.
Because there is
no end to God.
In
today’s gospel lesson, we pick up right where we left off last week.
You
may remember Jesus and his disciples have been in the Jerusalem Temple – the
center of Jewish religious and political life.
And,
while there, Jesus let the scribes have it, criticizing them for walking around
in their long robes, saying lengthy prayers just for show, sitting in the
prominent seats, and for devouring the houses of widows.
And,
while in the Temple, Jesus also observed the poor widow dropping her two small
copper coins – all that she had – into the Temple treasury. Jesus points out,
not necessarily approvingly, that this poor woman has given far more than the others
who merely give out of their abundance.
Now
in today’s lesson, Jesus and his followers walk out of the Temple and one of
the disciples - sounding very much like a country bumpkin making his first trip
to the big city – admires the magnificence of God’s house and exclaims, “Look,
Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!”
I
suppose the disciple must have expected Jesus to reply by saying something
like, “Yeah, I know. Pretty impressive, right?”
But,
instead, Jesus predicts the destruction of the Temple – “not one stone will be
left here upon another, all will be thrown down.”
And
after hearing this shocking and grim prophecy, the disciples understandably
want to know when all of this is going to happen, but instead of giving a
straight answer, Jesus warns the disciples – warns us – that other bad things
will come and some will be so bad that we’ll think it must be the end.
For
the first readers and hearers of the Gospel of Mark – and for us today – Jesus’
prophecy about the destruction of the Temple isn’t a prophecy – it’s
history.
The
Temple was, in fact, destroyed by the Romans in the year 70 and not much was
left, just a retaining wall that still stands – known today as the Wailing Wall
or the Western Wall.
The
destruction of the Temple was a cataclysmic event for the people of Israel, so
crushing that many Jews thought that this must be the end
– they thought that there was no way for the people of Israel to survive – no
way for the people of Israel to remain in relationship with God - without the
Temple and the sacrifices that took place there.
But,
God was still at work, inspiring the rabbis to reshape the Jewish faith, a
faith that has gone on without the Temple for two thousand years – through lots
of hard times.
There
is no end to God.
And,
when you think about it, for the first disciples that first Good Friday must
have really seemed like the end.
The
One that they had known as friend, teacher, and healer – the one they had
recognized as the long-awaited Messiah – Jesus had died the shameful death of a
criminal on a cross.
This
must have been a cataclysmic event for the disciples – for those who watched
from a safe distance and those who had completely abandoned him in his greatest
moment of need.
They
must have thought that this was the end.
But, God was still
at work, raising Jesus on the third day, inspiring the disciples to begin
spreading the Good News, spreading the Gospel far and wide, until it reached
all the way to Jersey City, and farther even than that.
There is no end to
God.
You know, it
wasn’t that long ago that some on the St. Paul’s side of our family wondered if
maybe we were approaching the end.
Although we had remained
a diverse and faithful congregation, attendance and giving had shrunk and the
best-case scenario was that we could limp along for a while, drawing more and
more from our investments, hanging in there for as long as we could.
And, over on the
Incarnation side of our family, it was just last year that you faced a big
decision about the future.
And, I don’t know,
when you made the choice to unite with your brothers and sisters on Duncan
Avenue, maybe for some of you that felt like the end, too.
But, we don’t have
to look very hard to see that it was most definitely not the end.
We don’t have to
look far to see that God was and is still very much at work, taking two sides
of the family and knitting together a stronger, even more beautiful and vibrant
congregation – a congregation increasingly free from worrying about survival
and much more focused on serving the community.
Look at the
Sandwich Squad.
Look at the
Lighthouse. Yes, the last residents have left 68 Storms and maybe at the moment
it feels like the end but God is still at work, putting together new and even
bigger pieces and I’m convinced that rather than the end we’re just at the very
beginning of a ministry to some of the most despised people in our community.
Look at Family
Promise, where by the latest count, seventy-eight people – our parishioners,
Grace Van Vorst parishioners, neighbors, friends – seventy-eight people
contributed to the success of our hospitality to people who for two weeks had
no other home but ours – a ministry that, I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, but
I feel like it has changed us – made us more joyful – somehow, I don’t know
how, made us freer than we were before.
There is no end to
God.
So,
like, I’m sure, all of you, I sometimes get discouraged and frightened by what
I see going on around us and in our country and world.
I
get discouraged and frightened watching California burn and the tides rise and
species go extinct.
I
get discouraged and frightened when I see the foundations of our democracy wobble
and crack.
I
get discouraged and frightened when I see our young men hanging out on the
corner with no real future and with so little sense of life’s value.
I
get discouraged and frightened when I see the desperate financial crisis facing
our public schools.
I
get discouraged and frightened when I see how easily things and people get
broken – one wrong move, one careless turn, one thoughtless word, one day
everything’s fine and the next day it’s not and there’s no going back to the
way things used to be.
Like
the disciples on Good Friday and like the Jews watching the Temple burn and
collapse, for us sometimes it seems like this is the end.
But,
then I come here with all of you and I see with my own eyes - and I remember -
that God is still very much at work.
There
is no end to God.
Amen.
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