Just the Beginning

 Mark 13:1-8

November 14, 2021

He Wept Over It
Enrique Simonet

Jesus and the disciples have

finished their travels around Israel,

and they have finally come to Jerusalem,

where Jesus is debating with the

religious leaders who he had

predicted would arrest and kill him.

 

The temple that they were coming out of  was impressive.

It was the Second Temple.

The first was built by Solomon, David’s son and that was destroyed.

This was called Herod’s Temple

because the Herod family spent a lot of time

adding on to the temple that was built.

 

It took nearly 100 years to build the addition.

It took 10 thousand laborers

the stones were between 1 and 100 tons.

Most of them were 10 tons each.

It was adorned with gold.

 

The temple was supposed to be built

for the glory of God, but of course,

it was also built to show the glory of King

Herod and his kingdom.

The might and strength of the structure was intimidating.

 

Might and strength are impressive to humans.

The illusion of permanence is  tempting.

We like to think that some things will last forever.

Things that humans create like buildings and

cities and societies and religion can be impressive.

But we can sometimes confuse the strength

of human made things with God.

The disciples were taken with the large stones

and the impressive structure of the temple.

The temple had been standing where

it was for 500 years, it probably seemed like

it would last forever.

So when Jesus said that it would be destroyed,

they were probably shocked.

But he was right.

 

Around the year 70 CE, about 40 years

after Jesus death, the Roman army came in

to Jerusalem to put an end to the ongoing

Jewish insurrections against their leadership.

They meant to take over the temple

and make it a temple to one of their gods,

but in the midst of the battle,

someone set the beams inside the temple on fire

and it started to burn.

Since it seemed like a loss, they broke the stone

to steal the gold gilding out of it.

The impressive temple that took hundreds of years to build,

only took about a week to destroy.

In that event, it’s estimated that The Roman Army

killed 600,000 Jews.

The rest they evicted from Jerusalem.

 

The gospel of Mark was written around this time

and the events of 70AD were certainly a factor

in the writing of this gospel.

It must have been terrifying.

It must have seemed like all was lost.

Even like God was in jeopardy.

 

Terror has been part of our world for a long time.

humans killing humans has been a part of our reality

since Cain killed Abel it’s a foundational

event of our existence.

Even then, we knew it wasn’t right, but still it goes on.

 

We have had quite a few terrifying days in our lives:

D-day, Pearl Harbor, the Cuban Missile Crisis,

9-11, the Boston Marathon, January 6^th,

And the seemingly endless string of mass shootings

in our gun-obsessed country.

Life can be terrifying.

 

But the violence that we see today is not new.

The weapons are different, but the terror isn’t.

In the gospel,

Jesus warns his disciples and us that as we’re waiting,

we will see many of these kind of things.

We will hear about wars and rumors of wars and other scary things,

But he tells us that we shouldn’t be led astray.

 

On one level, these apocalyptic texts like this might not

seem very comforting.

They remind us that nothing will last forever,

this world that we love: the people the buildings,

institutions, relationships, nothing will last forever.

Life is uncertain.

Everything, even the strongest things, are temporary.

 

But in some ways this gospel is comforting.

It helps us to put things in perspective.

It reminds us that the world has

been shaken before and we are still here.

And it reminds us that even when these awful events happen,

people of faith need to keep our heads about us.

The temptation then is the temptation now.

Like Jesus says, people will come,

many of them in Jesus name,

and look at these events and they will say

“that this is it, this is the end.”

They’ll tell us that it’s the end of the world as we know it.

Plenty of preachers have been doing this for decades.

 

They basically look at events and say

it’s the sign of the end times,

(like there is any proof of what that will look like at all.)

Then they insinuate that we should act differently.

That we should abandon our integrity,

and our morality, and our standards of right and wrong,

because times like this call for drastic measures.

That we should abandon all hope for humanity,

because this time is different.  Regular preachers,

TV preachers, and Q-anon, and all sorts of other

conspiracy theorists have been doing this for years.

Wash, rinse, panic, repeat.

 

But as Jesus says, it’s not the end.

These times may be difficult, but it’s not the end,

Jesus actually says, we should see it as a beginning.

Jesus tells us to see these pains as birth pains.

The time of pain that comes before  joy.

 

It’s a time when we should cling harder to our

teachings, to our integrity, and to our hope.

 

All these wars  and violence

will not be the end, because wars and violence

and tragedy will not have the last word.

  

The world would like us to all lose our heads.

War-mongers would like us to be angry

and demand that we divide into them and us.

They would like to see more violence and retaliation.

Hate groups would like us to lump all strangers

and refugees together and blame them for all sorts of things.

The TV news would like us to keep watching

obsessively in fear for the next tragedy.

The devil would like for us to

give up in despair, to lose hope in humanity,

lose hope in peace, lose hope in hope.

 

But Jesus asks us to keep things in perspective

and not to let us get caught up in hype or despair.

And so I mention this.

I’ve probably said it before, and I’ll say it again:

 

Although it doesn’t seem like the case,

Actually, right now we’re living in one

of the most peaceful times in the world’s history,

There was an article in the Wall Street Journal

several years ago.

 

Violent crimes are falling in every country,

Even in places like Mexico that we think

of as out of control, the murder rate was almost

 ¼ of what it was in 1940.

There are less wars between countries,

less civil war, less personal violence.

 

 I’ll read you the beginning of the article

so you know I’m not making it up myself.

It's impossible to learn about these catastrophes without thinking,

"What is the world coming to?"

But a better question may be,

"How bad was the world in the past?"

Believe it or not, the world of the past was much worse.

Violence has been in decline for thousands of years,

and today we may be living in the most peaceable

era in the existence of our species.

The decline, to be sure, has not been smooth.

It has not brought violence down to zero,

and it is not guaranteed to continue.

But it is a persistent historical development,

visible on scales from millennia to years.

 

Just in the last 60 years, deaths from

violent crime, brutality and war have fallen significantly

all over the world.

The difference is, we now we hear about every

tragedy, as its happening, not days or weeks or

even months or years later like we would have

back in the old days of 1995 and before.

 

We see video and pictures as it’s happening

we hear stories, like we’re there,

we see videos, we are emotionally

invested and involved in these acts,

not just distantly removed,

reading about the statistics later.

 

And as humans, we are horrified by the reality of violence.

Rightfully so.

We’re realizing that it doesn’t have to be like this.

We are growing more empathetic to other people

even people of other nations.

As a human race, we are beginning not to tolerate this.
We’re not in agreement about what should be done,

or how to stop it, but we’re all in agreement that

these incidents are tragedies shouldn’t be happening.

 

If we can see through the tragedies, and our sorrow

we have to see, God is doing something here.

 

And even in the midst of horrible events,

we see signs of hope and openness and people’s

desire to help.

 

Like the sainted Mr. Rogers said to

his audience of preschoolers,

“When things get scary, always look for the helpers.”

They’re there. All the time.

 

Alongside the acts of  horrible, terrible, meaningless

violence, something wonderful is being born:

Empathy, compassion, grace.

We might be in the middle of birth pains now,

but something is being born here.

It might not be born in any of our lifetimes,

but I have hope that God is doing something here.

 

As Martin Luther King Jr. wrote

in a time in our history so filled with violence and hatred:

I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically

bound to the starless midnight of racism and war

that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood

can never become a reality...

I believe that unarmed truth and
unconditional love will have the final word.

Jesus reminds us that

As long as we’re on this side of the kingdom,

our lives will be filled with beginnings and endings.

things dying and things being born again.

This is one of the lessons of the cross

 

Another lesson of the cross is that pain and death

and violence, will not have the last word.

It cannot have the last word.

Because God will have the last word.

 

And our faith doesn’t lie in big stones,

or military might, or institutions,

it lies in the eternal love of God  

 

And the love of God is not based on

our strength or the size of buildings

we can use to keep us safe.

The love of God is not based on our security or

success in anything.

 

The love of God is based only on God’s love.

It is the Alpha and the Omega,

the generator of the universe.

It will be forever.

God’s love will have the final word.

The Smell of Death, the Hope of the Resurrection

 John 11:1-45

All Saints

November 7, 2021

 

Right before Jesus gets to the tomb,

Jesus talks to Martha. She is crying.

She frankly sounds a little angry.

She tells Jesus, “If you were here, Lazarus wouldn’t have died.”

 

I think we’ve all felt like her at some time.

Where was Jesus when we needed Jesus? When we prayed and prayed? What was he doing?

 

And in response, Jesus says: “I am the resurrection and the life.”

And then he asks Martha: ”Do you believe this?”

 

Martha says she does believe.

Of course she believes.

She believes, but her belief is not

changing the situation here and now

where her brother Lazarus is most definitely dead.

 

Most of us here would say the same thing if we were asked that, I think.

We do believe in the hope of Jesus.

We believe in the forgiveness of sins and life everlasting.
We believe that good has the power to conquer evil.

We believe that the arm of the universe bends toward justice.

We believe that God can overcome the power of death.

We believe. Of course, we believe.

But what does that have to do with right now?

 

We believe all those things, but we also know death.

We know what it tastes like, what it sounds like and feels like.

We know from experience that every life will end at some point.

And we know the sadness and horror of life cut short,

by illness, by tragedy, by accidents, by hate, by viruses.

We believe in miracles, but we know death.

 

And we know that for every one miracle of life

for every one story of Lazarus,

there are hundreds of stories of miracles that haven’t happened.

We believe, Lord, but that doesn’t change reality

that doesn’t change that people we love die.

 

Sometimes religion pits belief against reality.

Sometimes religion pits belief against sorrow.

Some people act as if people of faith are supposed to

turn off our minds and emotions, live in denial,

like we are supposed to look at tragedy and sadness

in the face and smile serenely and say “we’re blessed.”

As if people of faith should never be sad.

 

But when Jesus finally gets to Mary and the rest of the mourners

waiting in front of Lazarus tomb, they are all crying

Jesus doesn’t look at them and say,

“If you really believed, you wouldn’t be sad”

He doesn’t say, “Don’t cry, he’s in a better place.”

Or “God just called another angel home”

or any of the other platitudes people give at a time of grief.

 

In the face of the very real death that surrounded them,

Jesus wept.

The shortest, most succinct sentence in the bible.

In the face of death, Jesus cried.

 

Jesus understands our pain,

All life on this earth is a precious thing.

Not disposable, not dismissible, not insignificant.

It counts. It hurts when it ends.

 

Now I read one commentary that said that Jesus wept

out of frustration and anger at the lack of faith of those around him.

 But that’s just silly, isn’t it?

 

Jesus was sad.

His friend Lazarus died. 

His friends Martha and Mary were in sorrow.

 

Jesus was human. Fully human.

And Jesus knows what we go through

Shalom
Youram Raanan

when someone we love dies.

Jesus knows the smell of death too.

And Jesus knows first-hand that as human beings of faith,

we live in a place that is “in between”.

 

We believe in the life to come,

but here life has not yet won out over death

hope has not fully won out over despair

 

We still face the realities of this world.

What a difficult place to be

We are in between with one foot in the world

of overwhelming losses, and grief, and pain,

we have one foot in a world of injustice,

violence, illness, sadness.

And we have another foot in the hope of life to come.

We live constantly straddled in the middle of reality and hope.

And Jesus, is there with us - in this in between place.

Crying at the loss of his friend.

 

Jesus wept and God suffers with us.

If this was the whole story, it would be good news enough,

But it is not the end of the story.

 

The whole story is that at the door of that tomb

in that in-between time when reality

was slapping them all in the face,

Jesus yelled, “Lazarus come out of that tomb”

and the dead man did.

  

When each of them were full of doubt, and anger and sorrow,

Jesus brought a bit of the Kingdom of God into that place.

Jesus brought the smell of hope into the

stench that was in the tomb for four days.

Jesus brought some of that life to come right into

the hard world of reality, in-between time they were in.

 

On All Saints Day,

we remember those people that we have lost

in this year and in years past.

We grapple with the reality of this world,

the fragility of it, the finality of it.

 

These past two years have been full of death.

Even if someone we know hasn’t died from COVID

the stories are all around us.

We have lived with the direct fear of

death near us more in the last two years

than we have in the recent past.

 

Was this trip to the grocery store or the dentist

going to be the one that lead to a

very painful and terrible end for us?

And all this is going on with the same level

of violence and trauma and illness that

goes on in a normal year.

 

The bad news is that we have become so familiar

with the smell of death right now, that it

may not even bother us much anymore.

 

But the good news today is that

But we also believe in God. Not just any God.

We believe in the God who has power over time and space,

We believe in the one who is the Resurrection and the Life.

 
We believe that God has the power to make life out of death.

Here and now. God has the power to make changes in this world

to make justice and peace and to rebuild lives broken by

violence and tragedies and pain and viruses.

We have seen it and witnessed it, like those

people standing at Lazarus’ tomb have seen it.

 

So even though we have one foot in reality, we still live with hope.

We know that God is always making life out of death

here on earth. We know that God is still bringing hope

to hopeless situations, brining help to the helpless,

and joy out of sadness.

 

We believe that even after death,

God’s power is even stronger.

We believe that a time will come when the saints

of all time will be joined with God.

When we will know fully of God’s love,

when we will all eat at God’s banquet table

united into one big family.

 

And when we share communion at this table each week

we know are sharing with all our brothers and sisters in Christ

past and present and future of every time and place,

When we eat at this table,

we are making a testament about God’s power.

 

Right now, we are people living with the reality of death

But we are also people living with hope of the resurrection,

the expectation of new life.


 We have one foot in the kingdom of this world,

and one foot in God’s Kingdom.

And that has the power to change everything.

 

 

Reformation! Dedication! Celebration!

October 31^st 2021

Reformation Dedication Celebration

 

Today, we are combining celebrations.

We are celebrating the dedication

of the sanctuary which this congregation

has been working on in one way or another  

for about six years.

 

And we’re also celebrating the Reformation

which began in 1517 with Martin Luther

nailing the 95 theses to the

door of the Wittenberg church in Germany.

As Lutherans, we look to Martin Luther for guidance,

he was the founder of our denomination,

and he was a wise professor as well as a man dedicated to Jesus.

 

People knew he was important, even when he was alive,

so lots of his letters and conversations were written down,

so you can find a Martin Luther quote for almost anything,

so I wanted to look up an inspiring quote that he might have about

church buildings, sacred spaces, the places that we

celebrate God and Christ and here’s what I found:

 

For where God built a church,
there the Devil would also build a chapel.

 

Not quite the inspirational quote that I wanted

for the celebration of our sacred space

but what else do we expect from Martin Luther?

Always keeping us humble and on our toes.

 

He’s probably made a good point about church buildings though.

They can be delightful, but they are also problems.

They are the bane of some churches existence actually.

Buildings are temporary, they decay, they leak,

they get musty and smelly they fall down around our heads,

Sometime their upkeep ends up being

a lot of the focus of a church’s activity.

Sometimes they become a church’s only focus,

And people tend to use them for comfortable security.

We lock ourselves up insider rather than

taking our ministry out into the world.

 

Actually, the building of St. Peter’s basilica in Rome

and the money extorted from faithful Christians with the

threat of hell in the form of indulgences,

 was the impetus  for Martin Luther’s 95 thesis

 

Many a church conflict has been started

over the church building:

who has control of the kitchen,

what color should the carpet be,

to have kneelers or not to have kneelers

 

Anything that a group of people can disagree about

about power, aesthetics, and finances comes

up in the construction, care, and maintenance of a church building,

And everything in a church building gets raised to the level of

a divine disagreement as we try to guess

which way God would like the furniture arranged.

 

So maybe it’s proper that Martin Luther

reminds us to look out for the devil’s chapel

in our church buildings.

  

But even the cynical Martin Luther can’t deny

that church buildings are also wonderful things.

They contain our history, they tie us back to

those who worshipped God here before us.

They will remain, in one way or another,

long after most of us have gone.

They are testaments to the faith and conviction of God’s people.

They evoke memories, they connect us to

those who have passed through before –

the ancestors of our faith.

 

Even St. Peter’s Basilica stands as one of the marvels

of history, art, and architecture, preserving

masterpieces from some of the most talented artists in history.

 

And our more humble buildings of congregations

around the world aren’t just buildings, they are the place of our faith.

The place where we have loved and hugged,

and prayed and helped one another.

It’s a place used for worship, music, prayer.

 

This building and other buildings like it are the places

where we do the work we are called to do in the world

it is one of the most important tool of our ministry

Much of the work of the church goes on inside these walls.

Therefore these are sacred spaces.

 

Which brings me to my next quote from Martin Luther:

 

Anyone who is to find Christ must first find the church.

How could anyone know where Christ is and

what faith is in him unless he knew where his believers are?

  

The church building is the place where the congregation is found,

the central location for us all to meet one another

and, most importantly, where other people know to meet us.

 

It’s where we come for worship, and also

for meetings, gatherings, meals, to make

sandwiches and lunches for hungry people,

to give our blood, to house the homeless.

It’s where we collect food and make quilts

it’s where we have baptisms, and weddings, and funerals.

All the milestones of our lives happen here.

 

Church buildings are where God is found.

I mean we know that God is everywhere,

God is in trees and skies and sunsets

and in city streets, and schools, and bars even.

As Martin Luther said, God is found in our cabbage soup

but we know that God can reliably found here

where we share God’s word and sacraments.

 

For those who are seeking God, the building

is a landmark: people know that here,

we will be washed in God’s cleansing water,

that we can find Jesus body and blood,

where we know that we will be fed and forgiven.

 

And this is a place where people can find a message about God.

Where people can come for a message and sign of

God’s love and acceptance and abundance.

It starts here and leaks out into the world.

 

And that is because the people gathered here

have experienced God’s grace and love for themselves

and want to share it with others.

That’s what a church –  is people

shaped and inspired by God’s Word and

gathered together by the Holy Spirit.

 

As we always try to remember,

the church is not the building, it is the congregation.

 

Which brings me to my last quote from Martin Luther:

 

Now the Church is not wood and stone,

but the company of believing people;

one must hold to them, and see how they believe, live and teach.

 

Today is also another celebration,

the 48^th anniversary of the founding of this

congregation.

 

Today we celebrate Christ Lutheran’s dedication

to this Hilton Head Island where it was founded.

And we celebrate this congregation’s vision and tenacity.

It’s ability to overcome obstacles.

To take risks even in times of uncertainty.

We can see that embodied in the

completion of this renovation and

in the joy and vision of all the

people who have made it happen.

 

Today we celebrate the presence of God

in this place at 829 William Hilton Parkway,

We celebrate the love of God that is found in Christ.