Awakening
John Shuck
First Presbyterian Church
Elizabethton, Tennessee
November 27, 2005
First Sunday of Advent
Mark 13:24-37
This is the first Sunday of Advent. We begin a new church year.
Advent is the season of preparation for Christ’s birth.
Advent also looks ahead to the Christ’s return on the clouds when he will gather the elect from the four corners of the earth.
Advent looks both backward and forward in order to speak to that sense of “now and not yet” that we experience in our spiritual quest. The kingdom of God is here, but not yet fully here.
Advent is a season characterized by longing, expectant waiting, and finally awakening.
During Advent we sing “Come Thou Long-Expected Jesus/Born to set thy people free/From our fears and sins release us/Let us find our rest in Thee.”
I thought that during Advent I would return to the lectionary. The texts for Advent are poetic, mythical, and disturbing. The text before us is troubling, especially when we don’t have an ear for it. We have become tone-deaf to hearing stories largely because of our insistence on literal thinking. Also, our ears have been damaged by apocalyptic ranting. So we have to deconstruct before we reconstruct. I need to begin with a few words about the apocalyptic mind.
What do you do when your hopes have been dashed and when things continually look worse than better? When confronted with their fears and sins some people and some groups of people tend to think and behave apocalyptically. They think that something dramatic will happen or that something dramatic has to happen. They may further think that they have a part to play in this drama.
Suicide bombers, terrorists, fathers who kill their family members then themselves, high school students who shoot their teachers and classmates, leaders of nations who feel their mission is to rid the world of evil, are all desperate people—apocalyptic people. Some of them act on behalf of a religious agenda, for instance, a promise of a glorious kingdom for their act of martyrdom. Some are not motivated by religion but their own demons. But all are without hope for this world. For them, this world and their lives are beyond redemption and the only solution is a violent exit for themselves or for others or for both.
Apocalyptic thinking is as popular now as it has ever been.
This past week I found a web page entitled “Rapture Ready” http://www.raptureready.com/index.php
This website contains a “rapture index” which puts a number value on various indices. Like a consumer price index, the rapture index evaluates things that need to happen before Christ returns. The website calls it “A Dow Jones Industrial Average for Endtime Activity.” For example as of November 21st, the rapture index was at 156. Now that is not as high as it has been in recent years, such as right after 9/11. But it is up there.
The rapture index includes a total of 45 categories that relate to prophecies in the Bible. These include natural disasters such as famine, earthquakes, hurricanes. That category is pretty hot right now. Also, there are economic categories such as unemployment, inflation, interest rates. Plus an odd collection of things like Satanism, moral standards, arms proliferation, and liberalism.
The person who runs the “Rapture Ready” web page, apparently keeps an eye on the news and makes a mathematical accounting of biblical prophecy being realized before our very eyes. Here is the irony: The worse things are, the higher the number. The higher the number, the more likely that conditions are favorable for the rapture to occur. If the rapture is a good thing, something folks want to happen, if “Come soon, Jesus” is something that is prayed for, then those folks are in the odd position of rooting for bad news. You want the economy to tank. You cheer the hurricanes, and you are definitely against peace in the Middle East. Bad news is good news.
How mainstream is this thinking? We can call the “Rapture Ready” guy a kook. But, this thinking seems to be more common than I thought. Consider the sales of the Left Behind books. Yes, they are fiction, but they are fiction with a message. Many of the people who I have spoken with who read these books believe that these things are going to happen. They put their hope in it.
Intelligent people believe in this end time business.
People with influence believe this.
People with the power to make decisions that affect our future believe in this.
How sincerely will folks who believe that the rapture will occur in our generation, work for peace, for the environment, for long-term solutions to our problems? Now, it is not my business to tell people what or how to think. But because the Christian tradition and our scripture fuel this thinking, as a clergy person, I think it is important for me to offer a critique and a different view of Christian hope.
I might as well do it today, the First Sunday of Advent, when Mark 13 is our text.
Jesus begins this discourse by predicting that not one stone of the temple “will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.” Jesus is asked when this will happen and he begins his monologue. Jesus says there will be false teachers claiming to be him. There will be wars, earthquakes, famines. Jesus speaks to his followers and says that you will be handed over to councils, beaten in synagogues, but the Holy Spirit will give you the words to speak. The one who endures will be saved. When you see the “desolating sacrilege” then people in Judea must flee to the mountains. There will be lots of suffering. Hope it doesn’t happen in winter. He again warns them about false messiahs. Then he says that after the suffering, the Son of Man will come in glory gather up the elect in the clouds. All these will take place when you least expect it; no one knows the hour, so be awake.
The 13th chapter of Mark, which contains the longest speech attributed to Jesus in Mark, is in my judgment, a work of fiction. Most of Mark itself is fiction. Most of the Bible is fiction. It doesn’t mean that the gospels or the Bible do not have historical echoes. I think they do. It doesn’t mean that the gospels or the Bible do not contain wisdom, beauty or truth. I know they do. Much of the Bible, to use a phrase by literary critic Harold Bloom, “finds me.” But hardly any of it finds me at the literal level. How might a Christian understand, appreciate, and be found by the gospels and the Bible and even passages like the one we read today?
A disclaimer: I do not insist. What I say regarding scripture is my own way of coming to terms with it. I may change the way I think tomorrow. If what I say is helpful, then use it; if it is not helpful, then disregard it. Here is my approach as of today:
In regards to reading scripture, I take two steps.
First, I try to understand it historically. I try to understand as best as I can how this text came to be and how its original hearers understood it.
Second, I try to enter into its literary world. I suspend disbelief so that it might find me as it found its original hearers.
To the first task of understanding this text historically, we need to look at the time it was written. Scholars believe that Mark was written in the midst of the Jewish War between 66 and 70 CE. This war was devastating for the Jews. The Romans destroyed Jerusalem. The Temple was destroyed. The Temple has never been rebuilt. Part of the western wall of the Temple still stands. It is called the “Wailing Wall.”
The Gospel of Mark was written in light of this event with a couple of questions in mind. Has God abandoned us? What do we do now?
The author of Mark, took the figure of Jesus and wrote a story about him. Mark included apocalyptic imagery from the book of Daniel and elsewhere. He took elements from the Hebrew scriptures, such as creating the story of the crucifixion based on Psalm 22. Mark included miracles common in pagan mythology as well as the mytheme of the dying and rising god and applied these stories to Jesus. And he had Jesus predict the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple.
The original hearers heard that God had not abandoned them. God had instead had acted through Jesus. By participating in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and in looking toward his return, they would find hope and a purpose. What should they do? Do not be afraid. Endure and believe.
Mark was written when all hope was lost. It was written to ignite hope. Did the people who originally heard Mark’s story think it was a story or did they think it was literally true? Biblical scholar, Dominic Crossan, arguably the leading historical Jesus scholar today, addressed this question:
“Did the original hearers take these stories literally and we are so smart that we ought to take them symbolically? Or did they originally take these stories symbolically and we are so dumb that we have been taking them literally?” He suggests the second option is true, that we have misread the scriptures that were originally intended as story.
--paraphrase from memory from Dominic Crossan in the PBS video “From Jesus to Christ”
As the tradition developed and Christianity moved toward orthodoxy, a more literal mindset won the day. We have been plagued by it ever since. We have become tone-deaf because of it.
Here is how I enter these stories today. I say this by way of illustration. Last week we went to see the latest Harry Potter movie. I do not believe that Harry Potter is a real person. I do not believe that there is a Hogwarts. I do not believe that many of things that happen in the Harry Potter movies happen somewhere in the world or somewhere beyond it. Harry Potter, both in movie and in book is fictional. But I like it. I like to enter into Harry’s world. There is a great deal of wisdom in Harry Potter. You can only get there by suspending disbelief and flying along with Harry on his broom.
When Harry Potter, our humble and virtuous hero, has a choice to make between rescuing his competitor or winning the prize for himself, he will make the right choice. Harry will do the right thing and it is good. It is good because I am reminded that there is a right thing to do and that there are people who still believe that and do it, and that maybe I can do it, too.
I enter the world of the Bible and of the Gospels in a similar way. I don’t believe that we should expect a literal return of Jesus any more we can expect to fly on brooms. But, if we allow ourselves to suspend disbelief and enter into its world, its wisdom will find us.
What is Advent for me? How do I sing, “Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus”?
Advent speaks to something deep inside of me—a longing—that I cannot bring to consciousness except to sing about it. “Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus” is the cry of my soul for transcendence. It is my longing for a Thou that can find me.
Advent speaks to our longing. We long for peace, hope, love and joy. We know we have had tastes of them, but our daily experience reflects more of their absence than their presence. We long for meaningful relationships and activities. We long to be able to turn on the television and not be confronted with violence both real and imagined. We long for a world in which no parent outlives her child. We long for a world in which no child ever goes to bed hungry. We long for a world at peace. We long to be more content than anxious.
Advent acknowledges that our longing is real. Advent gives us space and a season to name that longing. Advent invites us to awaken to the presence of God. Listen to these verses we heard this morning:
“From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates.”
--Mark 13:28-29
Who is near? “Thou” is near. The Divine One is present. Advent tells us that when things are at their scariest--when life is the darkest, the light comes. In Advent the longing leads to awakening.
As I am entering my 45th Advent I am becoming aware of loss. Am I entering my middle years? I am not sure what the entry age is for that. I am not a kid anymore. My kids are in college. So there is a longing. A longing for what? To be 25 again? A longing for the kids to be little again? No, not really. When the kids were little, the house was filled with energy. Games and school meetings, rules and forgiveness for infractions, messes to clean up, stories to read. The house was vital and I felt important and needed. That is the loss and the longing. I long for a feeling of vitality; I long to matter. Perhaps as the hymn says, I also long to be released from my fears and my sins.
Advent this year will give me an opportunity to name this longing and to anticipate that the Divine One will respond with an awakening. You never can predict what kind of awakening will occur, but with the longing comes the awakening. You can’t awaken unless you first experience the longing.
That is, for me, the practical aspect of Advent. It is a good time to embrace our longing. To name it and to wait for the Divine One, the Thou, to speak to it. For what are you longing? Look there. Be there. Let that longing have its say. Then let the presence of God like the fig tree put forth its leaves and awaken you to a new day.