When Institutions Crumble

Sermon preached Sunday, November 13, 2022, the Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost, at Lutheran Church of Our Saviour in Chesterfield, VA.

You can always tell it’s close to the end of the church year because the readings get pretty intense. It starts getting apocalyptic here and it’ll carry us straight through the first Sunday in Advent—only two weeks away!—when we hear about people being taken and left.

But today, we get “nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.” And cautions about natural disasters. And warnings about coming persecution, arrests, and betrayal. And to kick it all off, some commentary on the temple itself: “the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.”[i]

It’s hard for us to understand the radicalness of this statement. It’s tantamount to blasphemy. As modern Christians, we know that the temple has, in fact, been destroyed. It never had the same place or piety around it that it did for the Jews of Jesus’ time or even, in memory, for the Jewish people of today.

The temple was the center of religious and political life. There were so many rituals and faith practices that could only be done at the temple. After carrying around the Ark of the Covenant for so many years, this temple was finally built as a real house for God, a place where God would dwell and where God’s people could be sure to be in God’s presence. It was the holiest of holy places and the mere notion that it might not last forever was the same as implying that God might not be around forever.

So, yes, we don’t have a temple to look to in the same way that those first-century Jews did.

But we have a whole bunch of other institutions that we put our faith in, don’t we? A whole bunch of other institutions that we put our faith in above even our faith in God. And it’s not necessarily the same institutions for all of us.

For some, it might be a community group or organization.

For others, it might be their school.

It could be a job, a company, a professional organization.

It could be our local, state, or federal government.

It could even be, bear with me, the Church itself.

The Church is an institution like so many others. Unlike others, God has promised to be present, but it is still an institution full of people who make mistakes, who have prejudices, who want to protect themselves, who are occasionally misguided, and who are subject to sin just like the rest of us. It does great things. And it has done and continues to do some really…not great things.

But when we think of these institutions that shape our lives and shape our way of thinking, we usually take comfort in them staying the same. We know, for the most part, what we can expect, or at least what our history has taught us to expect.

…So how do we react when things change?

When the temple was destroyed less than a century after Jesus made these remarks, it required a fundamental shift in the way that Jewish people expressed their faith. There were so many things that could only be done at the temple! So what were they to do?

What resulted was an incredible rise in the rabbinic tradition and the further influence and significance of synagogues. These were no longer just local places for the faithful to gather when it was not a pilgrimage festival, they became the center for Jewish life.

As we look at the institutions around us, what does it mean when things change? How do we react?

I’m going to look at it from an angle that is relatively low stakes: sports.

There are a lot of different sports. Team, individual, professional, races, games, scored competitions. All kinds. And each and every one of those sports looks different today than it did when that sport was first invented. Rules added or adjusted. Clarifications passed. Procedures to protect athletes.

And, you can bet, that with every change and adjustment, there was outcry. “You’re changing the game!” “That will make it too hard/too easy/too confusing!” “Why can’t we just do what we’ve always done?”

The example that comes immediately to mind for me is in Major League Baseball. Since the game’s inception, it has relied on a home plate umpire to decide where a ball crosses the plate: is it a ball or a strike. Now, however, every TV broadcast and sports app has their own strike box up that can show, almost instantaneously, where that ball landed. It’s led to one site that gives umpires a scorecard after each game, rating their accuracy. Sometimes it’s quite high, sometimes it’s abysmally low. Sometimes it seems to impact the outcome of a game, other times it doesn’t.

All of this is to say, in recent years, there has been a push to have strikes and balls called with technology, not with a person, to eliminate the human factor. I’m not here to debate the merits of one option or the other, but the amount of people who simply eliminate the idea all together without even considering why someone might thing it’s a good idea because it would “ruin the spirit of the game,” is astounding.

We don’t like it when our institutions change in ways we don’t expect or that we don’t like.

But change is a constant. No institution can remain the same forever, at least not without dying and embalming itself in nostalgia.

Aside from the pilgrimage festivals that were celebrated at the temple every year, the other reason the destruction of the temple hit the Jewish people so hard was because this was God’s dwelling place. The place they had built for God and the place God promised to meet them. And so when there was no more temple, they had to seek out God in other places…and God sought them out, too.

In time, those faithful mourning their temple, embraced finding God out in the wild. What was a horrific loss led to some inspired new ways of living.

As we look at our institutional church, we can look at all the change that has come about in the last two and half years.

I remember back in March of 2020, when I thought we were only going to be out of our sanctuary for two weeks, I remember being terrified and anxious about how in the heck we were going to do worship together.

But I livestreamed on Facebook from my dining room table with a five month old Owen in my arms and we made it work.

And then we figured out Holy Week, with a dinner devotional Maundy Thursday, pre-recorded Good Friday, and Zoom Easter Vigil.

And, we just kept figuring it out. Did I like the change? Absolutely not. But it needed to happen and we made it work.

And now, I can look back and see some of the benefits that forced adaptation brought:

Folks whose only communion and main connection with their church home had been coming from visits from their pastor and maybe a lay visitor? Now they could join back in!

The parent with a small child who wanted to join the midweek evening Bible Study but couldn’t because they needed childcare? They could hop on Zoom when their child went to sleep!

The college student or young adult who moved away from home and hasn’t found a new community but wants to stay connected? Easy to do!

And that says nothing about the technology learned that continues to impact and improve our communication and ministry in a variety of ways.

And so, when faced with change and uncertainty, we can wring our hands, worry, despair how the institutions around us aren’t the same as they once were…or we can listen to Jesus and focus on what matters.

Because Jesus tells us it’s going to be okay, in the end. After all his dire words, even admitting that some will be put to death, he comforts us: “But not a hair on your head will perish.”

We can be challenged, pressed, mixed up, lost, even put to death, but God will have the last word. When the stones tumble down, God will hold us fast.

Amen.

[i] Luke 21:6.

The Birth Pangs

Sermon preached Sunday, November 18, 2018, the Twenty-Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Littlestown, PA.

I come to the pulpit today knowing that these readings will trigger us in different ways. We hear these words, these warnings, and we look at the world around us—it’s hard to feel like these words were not written precisely for this moment. Violence continues, seemingly unchecked across all borders, across all continents, across all boundaries of race or religion or nationality.

As I explored the readings for this week, I realized that the texts were, of course, chosen for a three-year cycle and that every time they reappear, they seem prescient…but still these are readings for this week, this moment in time.

The book of Daniel tells us, “There shall be a time of anguish, such as has never occurred since nations first came into existence.” (Daniel 12:1) The Psalmist writes, “Protect me, O God, for I take refuge in you.”  (Psalm 16:1) In the letter to the Hebrews, we hear, “Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds…” (Hebrews 10:23-24a) Finally, in the Gospel of Mark, there is Jesus speaking to us from the last week of his life: “When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed…nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.” (Mark 13:7-8)

I’m tired. Jesus says not to be alarmed, but alarmed isn’t the strongest thing I feel. I’m tired—exhausted, really. I’m frustrated. I’m angry. I’m heartbroken. I am mourning and grieving the fact that violence seems to find a way to penetrate the places we deem sacred. I am weary of all the times I have seen the news and have had to stop and think about what this might mean for the world, or how in the world I can preach about it in a way that speaks God’s good news.

But Jesus says, “…do not be alarmed.” Am I alarmed? It’s not the first emotion I name, that would be the tiredness, but it’s there. I am alarmed at the speed with which blame is spread to innocent people who are fleeing violence. I am alarmed at how quickly we assume we could have saved more lives or prevented any deaths if we had only done x, or y, or z. I am alarmed at how retaliation is the most common response to any slight.

My alarm is not based in fear, but rather despair I tend to feel when nothing seems to change. We use the same rhetoric, the same strategies, the same forces, the same cries of “we must be united!”…and it is hard not to assume that in a few days, or weeks, or months, or, if we’re lucky, years we will be confronted with the same or a similar tragedy.

So, what to do with the alarm and the swirl of emotions roiling around inside us? How do we take steps forward? I think, for we who are believers in a God of life and light and hope, our first step is to go back to scripture, maybe even our readings for today. These words can help us, can help us orient ourselves and God in times of unrest and the unknown…but this happens best when we understand the context and background of this kind of writing.

The second half of the book of Daniel, where our reading today comes from, is a little apocalypse. Jesus’ words to his disciples in the Gospel of Mark have an apocalyptic bent to them. You’ve heard that word before—“apocalyptic”? It’s usually used to describe some disaster movie starring Tom Cruise or to highlight how bleak a society is as it’s described as “post-apocalyptic.” We link this word to disasters and movies about the destruction of the world, but that’s a bit of a misnomer.

“Apocalypse” means “Revelation.” The book of Revelation is an apocalypse. It means that something has been revealed to someone, or to all of humanity. There usually is quite a bit of violence and destruction, but also a lot of curious imagery and symbols that make the writing sometimes hard to understand.

At the heart of apocalyptic literature, however, is hope. Typically, these texts are written when groups of believers are facing severe persecution or hardship. They have watched their friends, their families, members of their communities be tortured or killed. There is little light in the world around them, so they look forward, they look to the future when God will right every wrong and, as the book of Revelation says, a future when God will wipe every tear from their eyes. Apocalyptic literature presents a hopeful vision of a promised time for those who are in tribulation now.

Again, the book of Daniel tells us, “There shall be a time of anguish, such as has never occurred since nations first came into existence.” (Daniel 12:1a) It sounds ominous and frightening…but then it goes on: “ But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book. ²Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. ³Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.” (Daniel 12:1b-3)

Again, in the Gospel of Mark, there is Jesus saying, “When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed…nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.” (Mark 13:7-8a) I can almost picture the images of tanks, explosions, and violence flashing on my TV screen. But Jesus, like the writer of Daniel, goes on: “This is but the beginnings of the birth pangs.” (Mark 13:8b)

Birth pangs. What are we laboring over? What is the world in labor with? Could it be that all of creation is pregnant with God’s promised future of love, life, light and reconciliation? Violence is nothing new. But could it be that this tragedy is not the end? That we are not headed towards death, but actually headed toward life?

When I am weary and tired, this is what I cling to. When I am afraid and concerned, I put my trust in God’s Word. When I struggle to find the good in such a tangled mass of evil and violence, I take solace in my belief that God at work, though I cannot see it.

“Do not be alarmed,” Jesus tells me, tells us, tells the world. Do not be alarmed because this violence and strife is not the end of the story. Do not be alarmed because we can proclaim our trust in Christ in the face of those who would urge us to despair or resort to revenge. Do not be alarmed because our world is laboring—God is bringing forth a promised future for all nations, all peoples, all creation. Do not be alarmed. Amen.