Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, New York
It’s easy to see why
some people might think that the world is ending. Just hold up a newspaper in
one hand and Luke’s gospel in the other. “Nations will rise against nation”. There
will be great earthquakes. In various places famines and plagues. Dreadful
portents and great signs from heaven. They will arrest you and persecute you.”
Of course that depends chiefly on who you are, how rich you are, what color you
are, or where you’re from. Security, peace, and diplomacy have given way to
fear, violence, war, and terrorism. It seems like Temples are falling
everywhere.
This frightening passage not only looks
forward; it also looks back to the many times before now when humanity experienced
all these things and believed their world was coming to an end, only it didn’t.
The inexplicable delay in the coming of our Lord at the end time was one of the
stickiest problems the early church had to face. Jesus himself did not seem to
know the answer. “Truly, I tell you, this generation will not pass away until
all things have taken place”, he said, over two thousand years ago.
He says it as part of
his last public teaching. He has come to Jerusalem knowing he will collide with
the authorities there. He is sitting in the temple talking with his disciples
when some of them begin to admire the place, commenting on how beautiful the
stone is, and the gifts dedicated to God. Anyone who knows me would not be
surprised that I would be part of that conversation or maybe even initiate it.
Then Jesus reminds them that it will all be ruins someday.
He doesn’t say it to be
cruel. He is simply telling them the truth---that the things of this world will
not last---that even some place as stunning and holy as the temple will become
a ruin when the old world collapses in on itself. The temple was the center of
Jewish life. It was what structured their community and gave identity and
meaning. It’s the kind of news that makes you look around for someone who can
save you---someone who seems to have access to God’s calendar and who will tell
you exactly when the ship starts to sink so that you can make it to the
lifeboats in time.
Only Jesus does not
recommend that course of action. He warns against it, in fact. “Beware that you
are not led astray,” he tells those gathered around him; “for many will come in
my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and ‘The time is near!’ Do not go after them. When
you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for these things must
take place first, but the end will not follow immediately.” Do not go after
them. Do not be terrified.
We all have temples. Some have been given to
us, others we have built for ourselves. Sometimes our temples are people,
places, values and beliefs, institutions, dreams. They are the things that we
think structure and order our lives, give meaning and identity, providing
security and stability. At least we think they do, until they fall. We may not
like it, we may deny it, we may resist it, but the reality is things are
changing. Our world is changing, our country is changing, our lives are
changing. These are dark days when change brings loss or the fear of loss. Darkness,
I’ve discovered, is often the way we come to see. It may create the depressions that, once
faced, teach us to trust. It gives us
the sensitivity it takes to understand the depth of the pain in others. It
seeds in us the humility it takes to learn to live gently with the rest of the universe. It opens us to new
possibilities within ourselves.
Change has a way of pushing us into the
future. Many people will begin looking for signs about the future. But if we’re
not careful, we will be living in a future created in our heads. When Jesus
describes things that will happen, he is not asking us to speculate about the
future. He is offering signs that call us to be faithful in the present.
According to Luke’s Gospel they are not signs
of God’s absence but signs of God’s sure and certain presence. Nothing is going
on that is unknown to God---not the things in the news or the things in our
lives. God sees them and encourages us not to be terrified. To become terrified
is to become part of the problem. God has something else in mind, what Jesus
calls endurance. When all that is lovely to you, when all that is holy looks as
if it may soon be reduced to rubble, do not lose heart. Do not be terrified.
Hold on to one another and follow through. By your endurance you will gain your
souls. Staying in communion with one
another---holding onto one another through all the storms that blow around us---that
is how we know that God is still with us, no matter what the headlines say.
Come injustices, wars, persecutions, earthquakes, plagues, famines, we are to
hold on to one another---we are to endure ---because holding on to one another
is how we hold on to our Lord.
Sometimes, after our temples fall, we look
for a scapegoat, someone to blame or even demonize. We look for someone or a
group who does not think, act, or believe like we do. Democrats and Republicans
blame each other as do the conservatives and the liberals. Some simply give up
and despair. Some become angry, resentful, and fight back. Others will say it’s
God’s will or even God’s punishment. Many will look for easy answers, quick
fixes, something that will prop up the old structures and ways of doing things.
None of these are Jesus’ response.
So, what do we do on the day our temples
fall?
Jesus’ response is: Be still, be quiet, do not be led astray. Do not
allow your life to be controlled or determined by fear. Do not listen to the
many voices that would cause you to run and go after them. Endure, he says. Be
faithful, steadfast, persevere here and now. He is calling us to be present and
faithful in whatever circumstances we find ourselves. If we cannot find God
here, in our present circumstances, even amid our temple ruins, we will find
God nowhere. Too often, we believe and live as if the fallen temple is the end
of the story. It will be if we run away, scapegoat, respond with anger, or try
to put it back together like it used to be. The new story is how we discovered
God beside us in the temple ruins and how God rebuilt what we could not. It is
the ongoing story of God recreating life out of loss, a story of God rejoicing
and delighting in us.
The place of fallen temples is the place in
which God, speaking through the prophet Isaiah, declares: “I am about to create
new heavens and new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to
mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to
create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight. I will rejoice in
Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be
heard in it or the cry of distress” (Isaiah 65:17-19).
Those promises are fulfilled through our
endurance, our stability, by remaining fully present, faithful, no matter how dark
or uncomfortable life may be. In so doing we discover that God has always been
with us – in the changes, chances, and chaos of life; in the pain, loss, and
disappointment; in the destruction of our temples. Endurance, perseverance,
stability are the ways in which we offer God the fallen stones of our temples.
Stone by stone God will restore the beauty of our life and world. Stone by stone
a new temple arises from the rubble, and we are that temple.
