Pregnant with hope - Advent Lutheran Church

Mark 13:1-8

As he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!” ²Then Jesus asked him, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”

³When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, ⁴“Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?” ⁵Then Jesus began to say to them, “Beware that no one leads you astray. ⁶Many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray. ⁷When 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 birthpangs.

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This is the age-old story right? A tale as old as time. Over and over again through God’s story that is laid out for us in the Bible, we hear about people who have been given everything, squander it, and turn back to God with their hands on their hips saying, “well, when is it going to get better? What are you going to do what you promised?” As my theology professor puts it, rather harshly, if humans had the choice between a bucket full of ice cream and a dog turd, we would always choose the dog turd. It doesn’t make any sense but it’s true. We know well these stories of waiting and wandering and wondering.  

At the very beginning, God’s people were already given everything, perfect creation, harmony, and shalom with our God. 

And we chose to neglect God. Yet our God is faithful and gives God’s people another chance for shalom, gifts them the commandments and boundaries to live within so they can prosper. But they chose to turn away from God, to continue to fight and worship other gods and neglect people, and lust after earthly things. 

So God, who is faithful and merciful, gifts us Godself in Christ Jesus. And we are given new life. New life in Jesus Christ, in his life, death, and resurrection. Yet the world continues to live like nothing has changed. 

This is what Jesus is describing here. More than that, I think that’s what the author of Mark’s gospel is trying to explain. Written about 30 years after Jesus’ death, there were wars going on, there was famine, and imposters, and kingdoms rising against kingdoms. It was all happening. The temple was, indeed, about to be destroyed. And Jesus’ followers wanted to know why. Why are all of these terrible things happening? When will it end? When will all be back to the way it should be, the way God originally intended? We often ask why God lets bad things happen in this world. But we should be asking why we let bad things happen in this world. 

The gospel text for this morning cannot be separated from last week’s text. Just before this story, Jesus is sitting in the temple watching the haughty priests give their money with flourish and circumstance. Then a widow comes in with her two coins and gives all the rest that she has. He admonishes the priests and religious leaders, saying that they devour the widows and orphans. The temple was built on the backs of the most oppressed and ostracized in the society. 

Yet as they are walking out the temple, his disciples says, “Look at how beautiful this is! Look at these stones! It’s so impressive!” And Jesus replies that this grandeur is nothing. This building is temporary. In fact, it will be destroyed. And I think what Jesus says has everything to do with what they just witnessed inside the temple. 

You see, the temple was supposed to be a gift from God, just like creation and the commandments. It was given to the Jewish people as a place to worship and be present with God. Instead of being nomadic people who carried the ark of the covenant around with them, they would be able to settle down and worship and be present with God in this one holy location. It was also supposed to be a place of community, where the people on the margins were taken care of and included, where resources could be brought together for the benefit of the whole community. 

But instead, they made the temple into something gaudy and gross, something that was no longer praising God and furthering God’s will but exploiting the most vulnerable for the sake of the most rich and powerful. It was grand and beautiful with it’s large stones and buildings, but it was rotting from the inside out. The very structure was crumbling under the corruption. And it would be destroyed. 

It sounds a bit familiar doesn’t it? I was recently chatting with a friend who said, “my dad was watching the news yesterday and he turned it off in a flurry and said, ‘I’m telling you, we’re living in the apocalypse.’” She was surprised when I said, “well, he’s right. We are living in apocalyptic times.” I think she thought that as a pastor, I would roll my eyes or wave away his thoughts. But it is true! Apocalypse means unveiling or uncovering, and we know that from the time God was revealed to the world in Christ Jesus, we have been living in apocalyptic times.

That’s why a lot of the readings we hear during Advent are very apocalyptic. It’s also one of Jesus’ first public statements, “the Kingdom of God has come near!” Which might as well have been “the apocalypse is now!” Jesus has given us the gift of this declaration, sort of like a rumble strip on the side of a highway, meant to jar the community awake as it nods off and drifts toward the ditch. Yet we so often choose to ignore it. 

God came to us as God’s own self to let us know that times are a-changin’ and we better be prepared… and we, more often than not, ignore it. God came and walked among us, healed and fed and preached, and died and rose, yet we act like nothing has changed. We, like the disciples, sit here with our hands on our hips looking up and saying, “well, when is it going to get better?” 

But God has already given us everything we could possibly want or need. We have the opportunity to join in this apocalyptic work of unveiling and uncovering. We have been made new and changed by God’s faithfulness in Christ Jesus, but we have chosen to stay the same. 

More than that, we have been washed in the water of salvation and brought into the body of Christ, but we still choose to live as if we are not redeemed and forgiven. 

We have been gifted this meal that we are invited into every single week, to literally have Christ become a part of us and instead of consuming it and letting it consume up, we spit it out as we curse one another, neglecting our neighbors, and ignoring our siblings. 

In this time of unveiling, where we see structures that are rotting from the inside out, when we see systems that are intended for good being used to exploit and diminish. We have an opportunity. We can fall asleep like the disciples did as Jesus prayed in the mount of olives. Or we can stay awake and keep watch. We can join the unveiling of brokenness and sin. And we can seek and tell the truth. We can be midwives in the birth of the reign of God in this time, actively helping the world move through these birth pangs as they grow longer, stronger, and closer together. We can join in this holy work as we see it unfolding. 

We have the opportunity in this time of deep division, sorrow and fear, to remind the world that it is pregnant with hope. In this holy time of waiting, we have the opportunity to believe survivors, welcome refugees and asylum seekers, we have the opportunity to love and affirm the identities of our transgender siblings. We have the opportunity to gather with one another and provoke one another to love. We have the opportunity to invest in young people through camp and campus ministry. We have the opportunity and privilege to stay awake and notice racism, sexism, ableism, and ageism when we see it in our communities and structures. 

God has given us the gift of this community, this baptism, Christ’s body and blood in this bread and wine, so that we can be midwives to the world that is groaning in birth pangs. So that we can be a part of the kingdom come that we so often pray about. Let’s not squander this gift, let’s not allow this opportunity to pass us by. We are called into the work of midwifery, holy waiting, and holy ushering, and through God’s grace and faithfulness, we have everything we need to answer the call.  

Amen. 

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This sermon was preached at Advent Lutheran Church in Orange Park, Florida on November 18, 2018. 

All Saints' Day - Hope Lutheran Church

John 11:32-45

³²When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt (threw herself) at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if (only) you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

³³When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. ³⁴He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.”³⁵Jesus began to weep. ³⁶So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”³⁷But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” ³⁸Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. ³⁹Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” ⁴⁰Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” ⁴¹So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. ⁴²I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” ⁴³When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” ⁴⁴The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

⁴⁵Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.

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Today we celebrate All Saints’ Day. It was actually three days ago on November 1st, but we celebrate together today, on All Saints’ Sunday. It is a festival day honoring all of the saints, known and unknown. Generally, we spend a lot of time talking about death around this time of year. 

Which is a little weird, right? There seems to be a movement away from the language of death in our society. We don’t say someone “died” much anymore. We code our language. In hospitals, sometimes nurses will say that someone “expired” or “passed away.” When people are killed in disaster or tragedy, the news often tells us how many “victims” there were. 

And this maybe seems even stranger. Because we are living in a time when death seems to be happening ALL THE TIME. It seems we are unable to go a week or two without hearing about someone else “passing away,” or more “victims” being claimed. It is impossible to escape this news and these euphemisms for death. 

But if we are going to fight against something, we have to name it for what it is. It is death. It is murder. It is violence. And, make no mistake, it is the enemy. 

This morning we read what is possibly Jesus’ most significant miracle. It doesn’t get much more impressive than raising someone from the grave who has been dead for four days, right? 

Unfortunately we only get a piece of this challenging and beautiful story in the lectionary. Right before the passage we read this morning, Jesus was teaching somewhere out side of Judea and Lazarus’ sisters sent word that Lazarus was going to die. Instead of immediately going to be with his friends, these people he dearly loved, Jesus stayed a little longer teaching and healing. Eventually, he headed into Judea to see his friends. As Jesus arrives, Martha went out to greet him and professes her faith in Jesus but also make the accusation: “if only you had been here, our brother would not have died.” Then Mary comes out to meet him and makes the same accusation: “If you had been here, our brother would not have died.” Even the people who had come to grieve with Mary and Martha said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man kept this man from dying?” 

And that seems like a fair assessment of the situation, I think. They had sent word to Jesus before Lazarus had died and he didn’t come. Now Lazarus was dead and there was no hope. Sure, Martha says, we believe that Lazarus will rise again in the resurrection in the last day. But that doesn’t take away the sting of loss right now. But Jesus says to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, ²⁶and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” 

And then he proves it. Jesus proves that there is no place so dark, so disgusting, so far gone that he cannot call us by name, and say, “Come out!” 

There is a lot of darkness, a lot of death, too much of it, today. 

Just in the past few weeks we have come face to face with too much death. 

Three people were killed at a video game tournament in downtown Jacksonville last month.

Six people were shot near a laundromat not too far from my husband’s church last week. 

Eleven people were murdered in a Pittsburg synagogue last week. 

After a murderer tried getting into a Black church to kill those inside, he walked to the nearby grocery store and killed two people there instead. 

Two people were killed and 5 more were injured in a shooting at a yoga studio in Tallahassee this week. 

As we speak, roughly 3,500 Central and South American refugees — about 2,300 of whom are children— are traveling out of a situation of death into what they hope is life and safety.

My dear friends, death is the enemy. We know this to be true in the deepest parts of our hearts, but we don’t often name it. Death’s extended family— sin, despair, brokenness, and division— are also the enemy. But it is death that is a threat to our sense of purpose, imagination, and value. 

Death has always been the enemy. It was the enemy back in the time of Isaiah. Death was the enemy in Jesus’ time, and death is the enemy today. And sometimes, especially on this All Saints’ Sunday, it seems as if death is winning. Just as Mary and Martha mourned for the coming Jesus, believing he was too late to save their brother, we often cry out to God, saying, “if only you had been here, if only you had answered our prayers, our loved ones would not have died.”

But I am here to bring you good new of great joy, dear friends. It is not too late. In fact, we live on this side of the resurrection. Jesus has already conquered death and the grave. It no longer binds us. Jesus has met us in our grief, called us by name, and said, “COME OUT.” 

Come out of death. Come out of despair. Come out of fear. Come out of the darkness. Come out of the grave. Come out of hatred. Come out of brokenness. 

Child of God, come out! 

It’s a beautiful thing, being called out of the grave and into life. Because that is truly what we are made for— life. Life in Christ. 

That is the miracle that we witness this morning and as we remember our friends and family who died before us. That there is life on both sides of the grave. It doesn’t take away the sting and stench of death— death is, indeed, the enemy. But Jesus has overcome it for our sake. For our sake he was crucified, died, and was buried. 

It is in our baptism that we are called into life, out of the grave. Not just to save us from hell. No, Jesus saved us by his death so that we might be resurrected with him into service for one another. 

You see, Jesus begins this miracle by calling Lazarus out of the tomb. But he invites the community to complete the miracle. 

When Lazarus comes out of the tomb, he is still bound by grave cloths. He is still tangled up in the nastiness of sin and death. But Jesus says to the community, “unbind him and set him free.” 

Jesus has already conquered death, but it is up to us, the community, to continue that work and unbind one another and set each other free. This is holy work. This is saintly work. The life of the saints is now. The life of saints is that which we witness. Lives lived as saints is what we are called to do and to be. 

In the wake of the terrorist attack on Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburg, the Jewish community came together and asked for something specific from their friends and family. They asked for light. They asked that their loved ones’ memories be a blessing. They asked that people perform mitzvahs, or acts of kindness. Because in the midst of hatred, fear, and death, our Jewish siblings know that life prevails, life wins. 

We must believe that loving our neighbors is never for the sake of eternal life after death, but always because it is a means by which death itself is overcome here and now. Loving our neighbor as ourself is the means by which we fight off death every day and we are able to see the saint in all. Without this mandate, this principle, we allow death to infringe on our lives prematurely. We allow it to enslave us and keep us bound. 

So, on this day, All Saints’ Sunday, we remember those who have joined the church triumphant this past year. We thank God for their lives and their witness to the glory of God. But we must also remember our role as the church militant. The church that continues to struggle against the grip and fear of death, even as we proclaim the resurrection. Because it is only through this struggle against death and all of its relatives— fear, anger, division, and apathy— that we can truly experience life.

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This sermon was preached at Hope Lutheran Church in Satsuma, Florida on November 4, 2018.