November 18, 2012 – Mark 13:1-8
Mark 13:1-8
Not One Stone
25th Sunday after Pentecost [Lectionary 33] – November 18, 2012
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
Earlier this fall I asked you to write down some hard questions about faith, God or the Bible.
And I received lots of good questions, like this one:
Should we be watching for the return of Christ and do you think we are in the end times?
It’s a great question, and it’s one that the disciples ask of Jesus this morning.
They’re in Jerusalem.
And it’s the last week of Jesus’s life.
He’s just finished teaching in the Temple and watching people give their offerings to
the temple treasury.
It seems that maybe the disciples have never been in Jerusalem before.
Because as they watch Jesus come out of the Temple, they immediately begin to
remark on the size and grandiosity of it.
They are simply in awe of the building.
And it’s easy to understand why.
During Jesus’ lifetime, the temple had been renovated.
Herod built huge walls enclosing the temple area:
in Jesus’ time, the walls enclosed an area of 36 acres,
which is the size of seven high school football complexes with
quarter mile tracks surrounding them.
The Wailing Wall is all that remains of those walls and it is 187 feet high,
the height of a 12 storey building.
These walls were painted with gold and its courts were paved with white marble.
Visitors said that when the sun shone on it in the morning you had to turn your head away
because of the brightness of its radiance.
It was widely regarded as one of the wonders of the ancient world and it was accomplished,
of course, at tremendous cost.
You can practically see the disciples gaping at it open-mouthed like
the country-bumpkins they are, saying, “Whoa, Jesus! Gollee!
these foundation stones are huge! Look at the size a’ them things!”
But Jesus: Jesus is not impressed by such things.
He looks at them and says, “You see these stones?
the day is coming soon when not one stone will be left upon another here.”
And they say, “What are you talking about?”
And you need to know that he’s not talking about the end of the whole world here:
he’s talking about the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem being laid waste.
And it was. Jesus can see which way the wind is blowing. Jesus is smart.
He knew the desire of many Jews to rise up in violent revolt against the occupying Romans.
And 30 years after Jesus died, they did.
And, in reprisal, in the year 70, the Romans utterly destroyed the Temple and
slaughtered many of Jerusalem’s inhabitants.
And although it may not have been the end of the world,
I’m sure that’s exactly what it seemed like to many.
I think Jesus is not impressed with the wonder of the Temple because
it just wasn’t good stewardship.
Poverty as a result of the taxation needed to build such structures was deadening.
And it wasn’t good stewardship because it didn’t help the people to whom Jesus is
most keenly aware of: the poor, the hungry, the sick, the vulnerable.
Indeed, the Temple was supposed to be site where God dwells and from which God works,
but Jesus has been critiquing that illusion throughout his ministry.
Upon his entry into Jerusalem he symbolically cleansed the temple and last week
he criticized those in its employ for devouring the houses of widows,
rather than having their interests at heart.
So he doesn’t seem all that upset when he remarks to the disciples:
Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.
And for him there doesn’t seem to be any question about it:
in Greek there’s a double negative, which is used to emphasize a point,
as if he were saying, There is absolutely no doubt that not one stone will be left.
Jesus simply knows what will come of violence: more violence, and more death.
So, ask the disciples, when will this be? When will the end come?
But for Jesus, this is not the end.
You’ll notice he never answers their question, right?
He never tells them when the end will be.
And he certainly never suggests that the destruction of the Temple is the end.
And boy was Jesus right about that: violence and destruction are seemingly never-ending.
It continues in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. It continues this week in Israel and the Gaza Strip.
Closer to home destruction continues in schoolyard bullying, job loss, apathy,
poverty, addiction, homelessness, hunger, and loneliness?
If only the destruction of the Temple were the end of violence and reprisal,
But the destruction continues: this is not yet the end.
And it is not the end because this is not the end God has in mind for the story of our world.
The extravagance of the Temple itself may not have been
good stewardship of the gifts of God’s manna.
And the violence of the rebellion may not have been good stewardship of the people’s gifts.
Perhaps the Temple needed to be replaced by a better site of God’s activity;
but perhaps it could have been done in a better way.
But removing the stones of what is – so that something new may come – is always a lot of labour.
A few years ago in my backyard I wanted to make room for more garden.
I don’t have a large backyard so I wanted to optimize the space.
The best place for a garden happened to be in the back corner, so I started to dig.
What I found when I dug down through a few inches of gravel was stones.
Big stones. What appeared to me to be leftover foundation stones from my house.
It looks like someone a hundred years ago had used these huge stones to make a pad or patio.
There must have been 40 or 50 of them, just like the one I brought here today.
I got a crowbar while I was on sabbatical and started to move them one hot summer day.
I got into a rhythm, and moved them one stone at a time, gently prying them out and
laying them on the lawn.
After several days and much sweat and strain, I’d eventually got them all out.
The hole they left was so big it took a couple of yards of soil to fill it in: it was immense.
But the point of all the digging and all the struggling and all the sweat was not
the pile of stones that I’d dug up.
The point was the garden we planted that continues to flourish and give delight.
A rose bush grows in the centre of it, at the end some beautiful irises my friend Arnie gave me,
and along the sides tomatoes and lettuces.
That was good stewardship.
It was hard work. But the point was not the difficulty and the sweat.
The thing with being a good steward is that it’s easy to think about the difficulty of it.
And it can be easy to miss the promise of the garden.
But the garden is the point.
Jesus encourages you to be faithful this morning, not to be alarmed or be led astray.
He’s telling the disciples not to be led astray by false messiahs into thinking that
violence will usher in God’s reign of peace and plenty.
The grandiosity of the Temple and of its sacrificial rituals will not usher it in,
and neither will the coercion and force of the Romans nor the violence of the rebels.
None of these things can usher it in because it is a reign of love, as we will see next week.
And love cannot be ushered in either by grandiosity and pomp and excess any more than
it can be ushered in by violence.
But it can be ushered in when God’s generous, faithful, steadfast, and gracious love that we
are about to know in Jesus is reflected in disciples’ lives that are
generous, faithful, steadfast, and gracious.
Don’t be led astray. Stay focussed on your task. Stay focussed on the promises of God.
Be good stewards of the many gifts God has graciously given you.
And remember the point is not the difficulty of being a good steward, but rather the garden.
When we talk about stewardship, we sometimes like to think that the work and the giving and
the generosity are the point: but they’re not: the point is what you’re growing here.
Jesus likens the time we are in to birth pangs: it is difficult, but when a woman gives birth,
the point is not the labour and the point is not the pain, the point is the new life.
When will the end come, the reign of God in all its glory?
We’d love to know, but that is not for us to know: even Jesus says “no one knows.”
What we are called to is to live now, to love now, to be good stewards now.
Are we in the end times? Yes! In Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection the end has begun.
Life will win in the end, the end is not in question.
Everything will be okay. That is the promise. But the end is not yet.
Violence is not the end. Destruction is not the end. Life is the end. Loving communion is the end.
Should we be watching for the return of Christ?
Oh yes, for we should allow God’s promises about the future to invade the present.
And if you look for Christ’s presence and activity, you begin to see it.
We’ve patiently moved a lot of stones together, friends.
We’ve laboured hard, but a garden is beginning to grow: you just have to look.
In the kindnesses we extend one another. In the ministry to our children and youth.
In the many hungry that are fed. In the children of this neighbourhood that are cared for.
In the homeless who are hatted and in the lonely who are visited.
God is working through us, right now: that is good stewardship.
Your generosity to this ministry in so many ways is good stewardship.
Your gently removing the stones of apathy and pride and
rampant consumerism is good stewardship.
Your working hard to build yourselves up into a better temple,
a temple of living stones, the body of Christ on earth where God seeks to dwell and work:
that is good stewardship.
Let us keep our eyes on the garden that is feeding so many here: that is the point.
That is the result of your hard labour and that is the point of your generous good stewardship.
Be faithful. Keep watch. Meet together weekly. Encourage one another.
Continue to provoke one another to love and good deeds.
And together let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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