Birthpangs

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas

November 18, 2012; 25 Pentecost, Proper 27, Year B

Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

(Mark 13:1-8)  As Jesus came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, "Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!" Then Jesus asked him, "Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down."

When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, "Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?" Then Jesus began to say to them, "Beware that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name and say, `I am he!' and they will lead many astray. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. For 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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Then Jesus began to say to them, “Beware that no one leads you astray…  When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come.  For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines.  This is but the beginnings of the birthpangs.”  Mark 13:5-8

During a family reunion earlier this year, one of my relatives offered me a bit of wisdom and advice – a word about the future:  “The movie.  2016.  You gotta see it.  It tells the truth.”  I was curious.  I hadn’t heard of it.  I looked it up.  2016, Obama’s America is a beautifully filmed documentary telling how Barak Obama intends to carry out his father’s dream that the sins of colonialism be set right by downsizing America in order to increase the power of the nations that have been oppressed by U.S. and Western domination.  It is actually the fourth highest grossing U.S. documentary in the last forty years.  It purports to be an apocalyptic vision of the future.  It is a vision of great fear.

Following the recent election, citizens from more than twenty states have filed petitions, each with more than 25,000 signatures, requesting that their state secede from the union in order to create their own state government. 

A lot of people have an apocalyptic vision for our immediate future.  Many fear a nuclear Iran and the threat of radicalized Islam; many fear economic chaos and government activism; and some feel they must do something in order to escape.

So often our fears emerge from our focus.  We look at the big picture and at the enormity of problems and circumstances beyond our influence.  We hear of “wars and rumors of wars, nations rising against nations,” fiscal cliffs and income inequalities.  These things are so big, and we feel so small.

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

Jesus of Nazareth spoke those words as they gazed upon one of the most remarkable buildings in the ancient world, the largest building ever constructed on earth for the purpose of worship.  The largest stone in the Pyramids is 70 tons.  The Jerusalem Temple had 600-ton stones.  How small Jesus must have looked next to that building, especially when he was executed by crucifixion outside its walls.

Some forty years after these words were spoken, the Temple was destroyed.  At the same moment of the Temple’s demise, a small movement following the crucified Nazarene was quietly establishing underground communities of faithful followers throughout the Roman Empire.  Their movement would outlast the Eternal Empire of Rome. 

God is working.  Under the radar, behind the scenes, in humble beginnings.  God is working.  Trust God.  Switch your focus.  The Kingdom of God is not about great stones or empires or wars.  The Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, or a poor woman offering two coins in that great Temple.  The Kingdom of God is not so much about the ninety-nine sheep, safe and secure, but about the lost one that the Good Shepherd seeks. 

There are so many stories in the Bible about God’s working through the humble and meek.  Last week we heard about two immigrant women – one a foreigner, the Moabite Ruth.  The other, her mother-in-law Naomi, a widow with no male protector.  You don’t get any more marginalized than that.  Yet, thanks to Naomi’s creativity, Ruth became the great-grandmother of King David, himself an unlikely monarch, the seventh and youngest son of Jesse.

This week we have Hannah, a barren woman, unable to have children in a culture where producing children is a woman’s highest purpose.  Her family visits the ancient shrine at Shiloh.  Eli the priest is the person of importance in this powerful place.  Hannah prays earnestly, passionately.  Eli thinks she is drunk.  The hierarchy is wrong.  He cannot see rightly.  He seems not to have the capacity to discern the sacred from the secular.  The vested authority doesn’t understand.  But God hears Hannah’s prayers.  She will be given a son.  He will be Samuel, the first prophet of Israel and a great leader.

This morning we chanted the Song of Hannah.  It sounds more like the psalm a king or general might offer after victory over a mighty foe.  It imagines great reversals of power:

            The bows of the mighty are broken,*

                        but the weak are clothed in strength.

            Those once full now labor for bread,*

                        those who hungered now are well fed.

God raises the poor from the dust;*

            and lifts the needy from the ash heap

To make them sit with the rulers*

            and inherit a place of honor.

That sounds a lot like another hymn of great reversals:

            He hath put down the mighty from their seat,

                        and hath exalted the humble and meek.

            He hath filled the hungry with good things,

                        and the rich he hath sent empty away.  Lk. 1:53-53

Maybe you recognize those words from the Magnificat, the Song of Mary, another humble woman with childbirth issues.  A young peasant, she was presented with an unexpected, inconvenient pregnancy.  According to Matthew (1:18-25), it took an angelic visitation in a dream to convince her fiancé Joseph not to leave her.  Her baby, born in a stable and executed outside the walls of the great Temple, we call Savior of the World, Lord of Lord and King of Kings. 

He told us, “When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed…  (T)here will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines.  This is but the beginning of the birthpangs.”

Under the radar, there are always new things coming to birth.

The recent 50-year flashbacks to 1962 produced some retrospective on our closest brush with nuclear war, the Cuban Missile Crisis.  That same year China was reeling from a famine that scholars believe killed 45 million people.  45 million.  Let that number sink in for a moment.  And in Rogers, Arkansas in 1962, Sam Walton opened the first Wal-Mart.  I don’t believe it was reported in the New York Times.

In 1975, Saigon fell, ending the Vietnam War and the United States’ 15-year military commitment there.  That same year, the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia began a purge that would cost two million lives, and the U.S. federal government signed multi-billion dollar loans to save New York City from bankruptcy.  Also in 1975, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, twenty-year old Bill Gates and his friend Paul Allen started Micro-Soft.

Around the turn of the year between 1982 and 1983, the Mexican debt crisis was spreading throughout Latin America.  The entire city of Times Beach, Missouri was bought out and evacuated because of dioxin levels in the soil.  Over 2,000 Bangladeshi Muslims were massacred in Assam, India; and sixty-three people were killed in a bombing at the U.S. embassy in Beirut.  But also on New Year’s Day, 1983, the TCP/IP protocol suite was standardized, keying the development of what would become the Internet.

Do not be alarmed.  Do not be afraid.  “This is but the beginnings of the birthpangs.” 

God is always bringing to birth something new.  Today -- 2012 in the shadow of the coming of 2013 -- God is doing a new thing.  A new thing.  But it is happening so far off the radar, we can’t see it.  Not yet.  But it’s there.  It’s happening.

So, fear not.  Do not be afraid.  Do not be anxious.  Instead – trust!  Trust God.  Be of good faith.  And quietly, humbly, in your own small circle of relationships, do what Jesus has taught us to do.  Love God; love your neighbor as yourself.  And who knows?  Your humble faithfulness might plant seeds that God uses to heal the world far beyond our means or our imagination.  You may be this generation’s Ruth, or Hannah, or Mary.