The End is The Beginning

It's an odd way to begin a new year. (So-called liturgical churches follow a calendar that ends with the last Sunday in November and begins a New Year with the season of Advent on the first Sunday of December.) Rather than hearing songs of auld lang sine; or toasting with champagne, the church has us hear another version of Jesus' last will and testament. Like Matthew's parable of the sheep and the goats (Matt 25), Mark's Jesus speaks about what we've come to call, erroneously, the second coming. If Matthew's version of Jesus’ last words challenges his followers with the image of judgment, Luke's version (Luke 21:25-36 is a call to watch for signs of the end.

Speeches about the end of history often use the language of apocalyptic. Apocalypse means revelation and apocalyptic has been widely used to speak of the end of time and events leading up to it in colorful, sometimes coded, imagery. Old Testament images, such as those drawn from Isaiah 13, in Jesus' words about a darkened sun and dimmed moon, and falling stars, are very common. In the Book of Revelation we have elaborate descriptions of the end times. In Luke, Jesus is more restrained, sweetening the revelation with the parable of the fig tree.

Here Jesus is the focus, describing himself with apocalyptic imagery from Daniel, chapter 7, about a "son of man" receiving authority to rule after centuries of "animals," who symbolize foreign political powers. It's Jesus who subverted the powers which destroy people, as we heard Mark tell us in his account of Jesus ministry, throughout this past year. As we heard and saw that ministry unfold, we came to recognize that it's Jesus and his rule which will outlast all such oppressors.

The folks to whom Mark was writing were very familiar with that sort of oppression. In earlier verses of this chapter Mark refers to the horrendous consequences of the Jewish revolt in the years 66-70, which ended with the Romans starving out Jerusalem before breaking through the walls and destroying the Temple. With this horror fresh in their memory, Mark's first hearers would have been able to relate to warnings about false messiah's and false prophets. They were in a good position to read the signs of the times. In Mark's view their times must be the last times.

It's very hard for most of us to walk in those shoes, whether the cobbler is early-Mark or later-Luke. What does it mean to feel that things are so bad the only hope is a quick end to the world? The poetry of pain and despair, the fantasies of escape and resolution, challenge us to silence, to listening.

What do people in such a situation need to hear from their God? What would a faithful and loving God say to people in such despair?

Like those early church communities, we're living beyond what was for so many, the real and final end of days. Like Luke's community of faith, we, too, have some time to gather together and to hear. And in that hearing we need to listen to the clear and convincing word of Jesus that, energy spent trying to guess at the end, or chart the details of the final plot, is irrational. Jesus says, "But about that day or hour no one knows, neither angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."

The word from Jesus, the word which God's struggling people need to hear; the word from our faithful and loving God is this, "Beware, keep alert..." This isn't a mandate to focus on predicting the future in a kind of "I know something you don't know" game, where me and my group engage our powers of prediction or claims to privileged revelation, and get a religious buzz out of applying biblical prophecy and believing we know - like those folks who put a sticker on their bumper that says, "In case of rapture this car will become unoccupied."

The Word from our faithful and loving God, the Word we need to hear, and the Word God speaks in Jesus says, "Stand up; Raise your heads, Live! Live in the authority by which you can trust. Trust that the Lord is our Father, we are the clay, the Lord is the potter, and we are all the work of God's hands."

That's what we know. That's the bold claim on which it is our privilege to stand. We to whom God has given the time and the space to see, and to reflect on, and to speak against what's going on in the oppression of folks whose suffering makes it impossible to speak for themselves, have a crucial role for change in the world. "Be alert!"

Watchful living has less to do with speculation about the end of the world and more to do with carrying on in our trust. And carrying on, as Jesus tells it, makes the date of the end irrelevant. Readiness has as much to do with being ready for living as it has to do with being ready for its ending.

In every age, folks get misdirected here. When a brother working in the fields along side St. Francis asked what he'd do if he knew the end of the world was coming, Francis is alleged to have said, "Well, I'd really like to finish hoeing this row." When, one autumn afternoon, Luther was asked what he'd do if he knew that the end of the world was coming next Spring Luther is said to have replied, "I think I'd still like to plant a little fruit tree."

You see, we don't have to fear the end because we've already been through the end. In every new moment, the world as we know it has come to an end. And by that end, a new beginning has dawned; a beginning wherein God is still God - we the clay, God the potter.

Every day we live in and for that time when God will tear open the heavens and come down. Advent isn't a season of waiting; it's a lifetime of waiting. Watching for what we've already lived through to occur again. God tore open the heavens and came down:
• at creation
• to stay Abraham's hand and spare Isaac's life
• to tell Pharaoh, ten times, "Let my people go!"
• in a manger
• to unseal the tomb
• to fill the disciples' hearts with fire on Pentecost day.

In Luke's day, to watch was to live the life of a disciple, with an eye to what was happening in the world. Living as disciples of Jesus, in our day, means nothing less.

I wish 2000 years of failed predictions made us more sober. But, too often, we've given in to the fear and withdrawn from the world. Too often we've chosen not to speak against the cries of pain we hear all around us. Too often, we've narrowed our focus, watching only the private footsteps of our own moral goodness. It's an attractive religion that lulls us to sleep easy. It's a harmless religion that teaches us to live stress free. But that kind of religion doesn't have much to do with the kind of engaged alertness Jesus speaks about; the alertness by which we recognize new leaves, and take up the work given to us until the Master returns.

December 1st, marks the 51st anniversary of Rosa Parks' refusal to give up her seat on a bus to a white man. Rosa Parks was tired. At the end of her long day at work as a seamstress, no one would have faulted her for movin' back. Was God indifferent to her oppression? Was God absent? Was God no longer at work for those who were waiting?

Somehow Miss Rosa came awake. Somehow she knew that the work needin' done had been entrusted to slaves until the master's return. So she sat, and the world she'd known so well, came to an end. This secretary to the NAACP was arrested and sat in a squad car. This woman who'd been denied voter registration sat in court and was convicted. This Sunday school teacher sat in jail. And for all of us, on the day that Rosa Parks sat, God had the last word, the world as we knew it ended, and a new world dawned.

Jesus' last words become our first words in the Church's New Year: a call to be awake to what's happening in our world and to be looking for and in tune with the One who comes, whether for the final time - as in traditional expectations about the Second Advent - or for any time, for now.

Now. Can we make the prayer of Isaiah our own? What would it feel like if God tore open the heavens and came down? Can we trust that we've already been through the end with this God? Can we yield, again, to the power of this God who has, with the gift of every new moment, ended the world as we know it?

We:
• leave home, and the world as we know it ends
• get married, and the world as we know it ends
• receive a diagnosis, and the world as we know it ends
• lose a parent, and the world as we know it ends
• divorce, and the world as we know it ends
• go to sleep at night and the world as we know it ends.

In such situations what do we need to hear from God? What would a faithful and loving God say to us? Can we trust that we've already been through the end with this God? This is what we mean when we make our Advent prayer: Come, Lord Jesus!

When Jesus comes into our hearts, he brings along all the needy of the world. To whom else would the God who works for those who wait for God bring those lost and least but to we whom God has called into the fellowship of Jesus Christ?

We who know so well this lesson, that some days God does seem indifferent and absent, cry out in our distress and in our longing, full of trust that Christ holds the future for ourselves and the world. We keep awake, not for the birth of an unknown babe whose life has yet to unfold, but for the return of the one who knows us and is known by us; for the One whose presence we feel and hear and touch, in Word and Sacrament, whenever the world as we know it ends and a new world dawns. We keep watch for the teller of parables, the banquet host, and the friend of sinners. We are waiting for the crucified and risen Lord, in whom we both know the sleep of heavenly peace, and the resurrection waking.

Not only don't we know the day or the hour, we also don't know whether or not God will ask us to stand up or sit down! Until we hear a clearer message from our faithful and loving God, Beware, as we hoe one more row against injustice. Keep alert, as we plant another fruit tree for the springtime of freedom. You see, the end, again, is the beginning, again!