What's really going on?

Proper 28 B 2009
(1 Samuel 1: 4-20; Ps 16; Heb 10: 11-14, 19-25; Mark 13: 1-8)


Once there was a wise teacher of meditation and prayer in the East. It is said that he used to amuse his community of followers from time to time by searching about the monastery, anxiously peering into rooms, under furniture, and into corners. When asked what he was doing, he would say that he was looking for his own body. The students always seemed to think this was hilarious, and, so the story says, “never understood what the teacher was getting at.”

I thought of that story this week as I examined the readings and kept in mind today’s Collect. “All Holy Scripture is written for our learning”, so take a big bite, chew it up, and swallow it down. Well, today we’re given a helping of liver and onions to take in. The Gospel text gives us images that lie deep within the nightmares of the human soul. Wars, earthquakes, famines, and the great Temple itself torn apart like the great buildings of the East Coast were torn apart eight years ago: apocalypse. It’s a deep dread common to us all. That fear—that one day the dreadful violent end will come—gives rise to literature and to entertainment—look at all the disaster movies past and present. Apocalypse always seeks a contemporary plausible face—anyone here remember Y2K? Anyone here plan to see the movie “2012”, supposedly about the disaster predicted by an ancient Mayan calendar? An actual Mayan recently said that he wished people would stop asking him when the world will end—as far as he’s concerned his people ended their calendar at the western year 2012 because they ran out of room on the stone where they were carving the dates! But still, the images and the fear—fed by our own dread and sense of helplessness, fed by the fact that in this world bad things, violent things, seemingly senseless things can and do happen. Above all, we fear that the world and our lives may be ruled by nothing more than random chance, or even a cruel and faceless will.

Apocalypse can be earth-wide and cataclysmic. Usually, however, apocalypse is more personal, a private tragedy. Neither I nor anyone else has the right to make simple clichés or statements about the suffering of another, so trivializing pain that can only be experienced in order to be understood. An example of such pain is the story of Hannah in the Old Testament today. Infertility is a bitter and personal pain. So is living with serious illness or chronic pain, or loss of a loved one, or addiction.

But private or public disaster is not the meaning of the word “apocalypse.” The word actually means “uncovering”, letting us see what’s truly present, what’s truly at work in the world and in our lives.

What’s truly at work is God is in charge, in spite of all evidence to the contrary. What’s truly present is a cloud of witness and a God who loves us beyond measure. What is truly at work is the Spirit changing and renewing us even when we do not see or feel that change.

So what are we to do? How are we to live?

Remember that Eastern spiritual master, and open our eyes to see what is most deeply true about us and about our world. Don’t run madly to look for answers in blind alleys. God is with us, within us, around us. In times of challenge and fear and risk, keep standing on what is firm and unchanging. Know that Jesus has passed before us, and in ways we cannot begin to understand he has walked all our paths before us. Walk with confidence, and walk in the ways that Jesus has taught. Let’s help each other to walk this path, let’s walk with each other through good times and bad alike. And let’s keep gathering together, let’s keep showing up to pray and to be Christ’s body together. We go through our challenges together.

For we are never alone, our lives are never meaningless, and we are never forgotten. Desmond Tutu said it more clearly than do I. “I have some good news,” said Desmond. “I’ve read the book to the end, and guess what? We win.” In spite of all that happens, we are seen, we are known, and we are loved. And like the infant prophet to be born to Hannah, new hope is coming to birth in us in ways we cannot fully understand.