Sermon on Mark 13: 1-8
Empty Words and the Everlasting Word
We might well wonder in the shadow of the atrocity in Paris what we can have to say
of the love of God.
World leaders have used the expected and appropriate words – horrific, heinous,
deplorable, and in response, solidarity, courage, strength.
These sentiments are what they should say at times like this as again the world tries to
come to grips with the shock of such truly awful events.
Somehow, though, there is always a feeling that whatever language they can muster,
it will remain inadequate to reflect the greater depths of human anguish such
experiences create.
There are no words to comfort the families of the dead, nor to express the outrage we
feel at such wanton barbarism.
In addition to Paris, we remember too that Beirut has also suffered in these past days,
not to mention the ongoing suffering of any number of other communities in the
Middle East.
The world is coming apart at the seams it appears.
Many things have changed in our world since Jesus’ time.
What hasn’t is the ability of human sinfulness to wreak havoc on human life.
And for evil to be perpetuated in any manner of terrible ways.
How can we speak of love today?
Of peace and hope?
How is the word of the Lord to be heard, shared, uttered in our midst?
Perhaps we would do well to simply sit in the quiet, and let our silence speak of the
sorrow, indeed the deep lament we feel at the state of the world.
People in the west have moved away from the church, yet I’m pretty sure the
churches in France will be full this Sunday.
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Even people who brush off the Christian faith or dismiss it as a relic of a past time,
seem to know this is not how things are supposed to be.
In the aftermath of the crisis, the searching after something to hold onto, some word
to receive, some balm to feel, even simply a place to be with others, to pray, to sit,
remakes the church into a sanctuary once more in people’s eyes.
It may not offer easy answers to the pain, yet perhaps it will be a place to ask the
questions and sit with the grief in the company of others, and of God.
A place to listen.
The biblical witness reminds us that God is not into cheap talk at such times.
Words frittered away are like sand thrown into the wind.
They scatter and disappear, soon lost in the swelling tide of deeper waters.
God’s word is never like this.
Because what God says, is also what God does.
God’s talk is not cheap, it is backed by action.
God’s word is not empty because it is enfleshed in a person, in God’s very act of grace
in his Son.
God’s word, is the word made flesh who made his dwelling among us.
Jesus who came to be with us.
It was this same word made flesh that the world crucified.
Jesus put to death by the very self serving arrogance of humankind that plagues the
world still.
A life given up, for the very humanity which condemned him.
When God speaks, it is not in tones of triumph or anger, but in the defiance of
forgiveness, self offering, and a love that identifies with the deepest sorrows we
know.
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When the French people, and all others of goodwill in the world gather in their grief
this day, they won’t be alone.
And there will be a word to receive, to know, even through the tears.
And that word has a human face.
At the Men’s breakfast yesterday we heard from a man, Jon Owen, who is working
with socially depressed communities in western Sydney.
Jon is set within a context of human need of an immediate and enduring kind.
There are no simple and easy solutions to the problems in his community, and in fact
part of what he wanted to say was that seeing such places as problems to fix is in the
first place a unhelpful way of looking at things.
It was pretty simple to Jon.
His community didn’t need solutions it needed love.
People willing to love.
And love meant time, presence, commitment.
His message was strangely similar to the truth we affirm by faith that God has come to
be with us in Christ, in every way.
He wasn’t seeking to solve their problems, but to be there to say, you’re not alone.
You’re not alone whether you’re at home, or at the court house, or in hospital, or even
if you’re grieving the loss of a loved one, as so many around the world are today.
He challenged us to reflect on how words without presence in such communities mean
nothing at all.
Sand in the wind.
It’s okay to say you’re all about love of neighbour and stranger, even enemy, but if
you’re not there in the thick of sit standing alongside people for the long haul, talk is
cheap.
There’s no word without presence.
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No talk without action.
As James puts it, faith without works is dead.
Perhaps it’s fair to say love without presence is dead.
You can’t love from a distance.
You have to be there.
And you have to be there for the long haul.
Jesus was nearly at the cross when he spoke to the disciples about the Temple.
Like all human constructs it was coming down.
It wasn’t lasting.
It was going to be destroyed.
For all its magnificence it would crumble and fall, reminding everyone, especially the
disciples of the impermanence of this world.
Watch out, Jesus tells them, don’t be fooled.
There will be many things, even would be messiahs that claim eternal permanence.
They are illusions though, even this great building in front of your eyes.
Paradoxically, only the one who will be put to death is really permanent.
Only the love that gives itself away to nothing will last.
Only the word that has never stopped speaking, and never stopped being present, will
endure.
Whatever earthly power grabs are made by people who would will violence or
oppression, their so called victories will melt away in the face of the searing love that is
eternal in Christ.
The world did its worst to him.
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And he rose to new life crushing forever the power of death, which like the Temple,
will also one day crumble and fall.
We may want to say, don’t tell me, show me.
Don’t give me empty words, show me the eternal Word which is everlasting, that we
too may live.
In the lives of those who have followed in Jesus’ way by giving of themselves in every
way, right down to this present day, God has shown the world what love really is.
And our being present here today is our small way of saying to the world, and
especially to those who grieve this day, God loves you and is with you, and so are we,
whatever it takes, and wherever it leads.
Strangely enough, while Jesus tells the disciples to be aware, he also tells them not to
worry.
Watch that no-one deceives you, he says, and then do not be alarmed.
In our world fear is easy to create and very difficult to break down.
We may think we are somewhat cocooned in our little neck of the woods here in
Bowral, but as Jon Owen reminded us yesterday, just an hour up the road there are
human challenges and tragedies which we do well not to ignore.
The challenge of living for Christ in such a world is not to draw away into isolation, but
to engage with trust in God, and with our lives speak a word of love into the fear
ridden world.
Jesus’ death is a public spectacle and I like to imagine the soldiers at the foot of the
cross turning their heads in confusion as Jesus prays to God to forgive them.
There in that moment fear and the mechanisms of death, the powers and principalities
of the world are met with nothing but a quiet prayer whispered by a dying man.
And yet here we sit today, still praying that same prayer, ‘Father, forgive them for they
know not what they do.’, still hoping that the world can be a better place than this,
and people really can change for the better.
No doubt to some, faith in such things, faith in such a God, can seem fanciful in the
face of terror and death and fear.
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What place, we may ask, has love in a violent and unpredictable world such as ours?
The thing about love is that it wouldn’t be love if it sought to coerce by force or
violence.
Love conquers only ever with a plea that things can be different, that we can be
different, that our world can be different, and it starts today in the smallest gestures of
kindness.
The smallest ways of giving yourself away.
Of putting others first.
Of seeking to forgive rather than maintaining grudges.
The passage we’ve heard today from Mark 13 is not an easy one to come to grips
with.
It speaks in pictures as well as employing prophecy which points to the end, the end of
time, and the true end, or purpose of God’s providence.
It suggests to us that this is a broken world and that in some strange and obscure way,
the more broken it becomes the closer we are to God setting all things to rights.
Yet trying to predict anything, really, is a fool’s errand.
Everything will be thrown down Jesus says, yet the Kingdom of God will stand.
All the empty words will melt away in the face of the everlasting Word, and be on
watch that you don’t confuse one for the other.
The disciples were no doubt bewildered at much of what Jesus said, perhaps as we are
bewildered today as to how our little light can make a difference for the Kingdom, and
how our faith can really say anything at all.
Yet whilever our lives and our words point to the eternal Word, they will always mean
something, they will always have something to say.
Whilever we seek to be present to others, especially in times of crisis and heartache,
our lives will say something about love.
Whilever we make the hard decision to forgive, our lives will show that there is a
power greater than hate.
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Humanity has gotten very proud of its achievements, but in the Kingdom of God, the
greatest achievement is not measured in grand edifices or impressive resumes, it’s
measured in how deeply the everlasting word of love has become implanted in your
words, in your actions, in your lives.
Today as we grieve for the people of France, let us remind ourselves, and be reminded
by God that fear, death, violence is not the final word. Jesus is.
He who was, and is, and is to come.
The word made flesh was in the world, and came to save the world, not through
coercion but through love.
We follow in that same way, we follow that same redeemer, we seek to speak in our
actions and in what we say, that same word.
Would that God would give us the strength, the courage, and the grace, always to hold
to this greater way of Jesus.
For we ask it in Jesus’ name.
Amen.
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