Apocalypse now
Sermon on Mark 13:1-8
When I listen to the radio, it often feels like we live in the end times predicted in our Gospels.
It feels like things are just getting worse. Every day. Covid isn’t going away. Many countries are preparing to spend another Christmas socially distanced with online worship services.
The number of people living below the poverty line declined for a little while thanks to stimulus checks and is rising again with prices for food and gas spiking. And then, there is the climate, our greatest patient, experiencing fever dreams and shivering colds and floody noses all at once and all at extreme levels.
Every year more and more people lose their homes due to catastrophes or illness or jobs that don’t pay a living wage. The lucky ones can double up with relatives or friends until no one wants to host them anymore. Others move into their cars, and some must live out in the streets. Unprotected, vulnerable to people, animals, and harsh weather conditions.
It feels like things are getting worse. It feels like the apocalypse is near.
And it is. It has already begun. Things are getting uncovered.
Lots has been said in the past 2 years about the many truths that the pandemic has uncovered. Truly apocalyptic, truly uncovering times. About the huge differences in income, in flexibility to work from home and to manage childcare without schools. About the persistent inequity along racial lines, the immanent racism, and the myth of the American Dream. We have always known that hard work doesn’t necessarily make one rich. Otherwise, all the single moms in this country working many jobs would be millionaires. Yet, many of them struggle with paying the rent and getting food onto the table.
Apocalyptic work is the work of uncovering the truth. In our days, journalists often take on that job. Like a friend of mine, Gabrielle Lurie, who works for the San Francisco Chronicle. I met her when I helped a homeless family in Berkeley get connected to resources. Gaby was writing a long-time story on them, following them for over 6 months as they tried to piece their lives together. And just the other day, I saw another article on unhoused neighbors in Oakland, Gaby was one of the journalists who spent a lot of time with the people. Their stories are heart-breaking and heart-warming. Stories of losing the family’s home and now living within a few blocks from those childhood places. But, in shelters and tents. With little hope. Some got sick and lost their jobs, some got a messy and expensive divorce. Some fought with their families over the inheritance. What they all have in common: There are no simple answers, no easy ways out and there is no single person to blame. It’s complicated. It has a lot to do with the system we are living in. It feels irreversible with the current prices rising even more. And yet, the little hope to find a roof over their head again, keeps them going. One of the guys, who had battled cancer, said: “You know, I was lucky, an organization picked up my health care bills for my cancer treatment. Once I was cleared, I was released. Out into the streets. Who does that? Who pays thousands of dollars to cure someone just to send me back into my tent?”
It’s a 2-way-question to me. Who does that? Who thinks that the life of an unhoused, sick man is worth that much money? And, who does that? Who pays for a cure and then stops caring for the man once he is healthy again? It’s an apocalyptic question. A question our society has to bear to be asked.
People are starving. For food. For attention. For love. For a roof over their head. For a life in dignity. People want to be seen. To be valued. To get a chance again in life.
And while we feel for these less fortunate neighbors, while we pity them, donate money to wonderful organizations like Abode, we also often are afraid of them. Of their smell, their problems, their hopelessness. But really, I think we are afraid to hear their stories. Because those stories will often reveal one thing: That those unhoused neighbors once were kids, too. Loved by parents. Kids who wanted to be superheroes, doctors and astronauts and teachers and millionaires. Kids with dreams, parents with dreams for their kids. Some have grown up poor and just never made it out of that circle of poverty forced upon so many in this country and this world. Others grew up in middle-class families and then, something happened. A divorce, an illness, death of someone dear, the loss of one’s job. Things that have happened to many of you.
Things that happen to people during a lifetime because life is messy. Which is why it can be scary to listen to the stories of our unhoused neighbors. Because they are often so ordinary. They could have been our story, hadn’t we been lucky. They could have been your kids’ stories. When the first jobs out of college don’t cover the bills. When someone needs to deal with their mental health first or with a chronic illness and 40-hour weeks are just out of the picture. When drugs take over or crime.
Of course, we can take the self-righteous route and simply say: Well, we always helped each other, it’s what families do. We can say that, forgetting that it’s often not about love or care but about the question of whether we can afford that help. Or not. And so many families simply cannot. And so often, it’s generational. Poverty is generational. That’s another one of these apocalyptic truths.
Things are getting uncovered. And it’s not pretty what we get to see. It’s scary. And because we are living in these apocalyptic times, we can’t pretend we don’t see anymore. Jesus took that privilege away from us when he claimed that the truth will make us free. And nothing else. And that he, Jesus, is that truth. He also never said it would be easy to be his follower. To follow the truth is never easy.
Sure, we can still deny what we see and know to be true. But that’s hard, too. Just exhausting in a different way.
2000 years ago, Mark quoted Jesus saying: “When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. 8For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.”
It sounds like a description of our times. With earthquakes and famines, and wars that don’t ever seem to end. They just seem to evolve into different conflicts. Indeed, it is a description of our times. As it is one of Jesus’ times. And of Mark’s times. Mark wrote his Gospel during (or just after) the disastrous Jewish revolt against Roman imperial occupation in Palestine (66 – 70 CE). Mark’s world was shattered and shaken to its core. The Roman armies vanquished the rebellion and destroyed the Jewish temple, desecrating what for Jews was nothing less than the sacred heart of the world.
The end must have felt so near. It was the only thing that made sense. Especially since the temple had just been finished 7 years before its last destruction. Built out of large stones, 35 feet long by 18 feet wide by 12 feet high! No wonder, Jesus’ friends marvel at its sight. And they wonder why Jesus doesn’t. Why he must be so pessimistic. “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”
Jesus sees things differently. Where his friends are impressed by appearance and massiveness, Jesus sees behind the scenes. That the Jews are only granted as much freedom as the Romans can bear. That their freedom is a freedom in bondage, dependent on the powers that rule. That they might feel strong now, strong enough to look down on Jesus and his friends, strong enough to persecute him for his unsettling Gospel of love and inclusion. But that their days are numbered as well. Not because God doesn’t love them anymore. But because they trusted the powers and let those powers divide them as a people.
Jesus sees behind the walls we have put around ourselves and behind our masks. Jesus sees that we are only granted as much freedom as the economic powers around us can bear. That our freedom is a freedom in bondage as long as we allow people to be treated so badly around us, to be denied the human right of housing and health. That we might feel strong enough to look down on the unfortunate homeless people around us. Strong enough to often just wish they would disappear and not be our problem anymore. Not because God doesn’t love them, but because we just can’t stand the sight of them. And the knowledge that our way of life makes others suffer in poverty. Because we trust the economic powers around us more than God’s life-giving word. Because we still hope that Jesus’ words of great buildings tumbling isn’t a word for our times anymore. That it has come true often enough in the past and won’t happen again. While secretly we all know that yes, it will happen again. The uncovering of truths won’t stop until the end of the days. We can be scared. Or, we listen to the second part of the Gospel story, where Jesus teaches his disciples what to do and how to live when the walls come tumbling down. Jesus insists on calm strength and generous love in the face of the apocalyptic.
Don’t give in to terror. Don’t despair. Don’t capitalize on chaos. God shows us how to bear the apocalypse well. With the radical, self-sacrificial love Jesus models on the cross.
What’s happening, Jesus promises at the end of this week’s Gospel reading, is not death, but birth. Something is struggling to be born. Yes, the birth pangs hurt. But God is our midwife, and what God births will never lead to desolation. Yes, we are called to bear witness in the ruins, but rest assured: these birth pangs will end in joy. A new era is dawning. And we get to be a part of it. We are apocalyptic people. People who can stand the truth, people who don’t look away. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Homegrown and homeless in Oakland story by Kevin Fagan, Sarah Ravani, Lauren Hepler and J.K. Dineen
