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The Twenty-fifth Sunday after Pentecost November 15, 2015

This Weekend's Readings (click each reading to view the passage)

Daniel 12:1-3; Psalm 16; Hebrews 10:11-25; Mark 13:1-8

Pr. Steve's Sermon: #AreYouSerious?

Children's Sermon - Pushing Over Walls

Choir Anthem - Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us

Sermon Notes from Pastor Steve...

With presidential elections now less than a year away, terrorism on the rise (even before Friday's attack in Paris), and attacks on people because of their race or religion, there are a lot of important things that compete for attention in our daily news feeds. And so it was that this past week, attention shifted to that most important of all questions - whether the world was coming to an end because Starbucks removed snowflakes from its holiday coffee cup design!

As the best hashtag I saw on this so eloquently stated: #AreYouSerious? But some people really were serious. To some folks, removing even secular images like snowmen and snowflakes was the equivalent to saying "I hate Jesus." And just like that, the Starbucks coffee cup controversy became the opening salvo in the now traditional and predictable accusations that there's a "war on Christmas."

And so every year about this time, I'm tempted to keep using that "#AreYouSerious?" hashtag over and over again, because the whole "war on Christmas" thing seems both silly and illogical to me.

But here's the reality that really sets off many of the "war on Christmas" folks: our society really has changed and is changing. We are a multi-cultural and multi-religious society. In fact, the fastest growing "religious group" in the United States are folks who say they don't practice any religion at all. And frankly, many of the people who celebrate Christmas do so only culturally - they don't go to church and don't care at all about any of the religious underpinnings.

And so governments, and secular companies like Starbucks, who want and need to appeal to a wide and diverse constituency, have adapted to the changed reality.

But if, even subconsciously, you've lived your life believing that this is a "Christian country" and that Christian religion and Christian trappings should simply be part of the unchanging fabric of government and society, that new reality shakes to the core your image of the country in which you live. And the simple replacement of "Merry Christmas" with "Happy Holidays" can make it feel like your world is collapsing.

And often, what seems like an apocalyptic change to one set of people, can seem like #AreYouSerious? to another group, particularly if you're not part of the same culture. And so it's really easy for us to pass over the conversation in today's Gospel reading about the destruction of the Temple.

The story begins with Jesus and his disciples walking through the enormous and impressive Temple complex in Jerusalem. It was totally unlike anything most of Jesus' disciples were used to seeing, and they sort of stand there with bulging eyes and gaping mouths, and sounding somewhat like Little Red Riding Hood say things like, "My Teacher, what big stones these are!"

And this prompts Jesus to talk about what's going to happen when all of these big stones are thrown down - and the Temple gets destroyed. This story features prominently in the Gospels because less than 40 years later, there was a Jewish revolt, and the Romans did, in fact, destroy the Temple. The stones were, quite literally, thrown down and the Temple was never rebuilt.

But for Jesus' disciples, for Jews, and for virtually everybody living in that day, the destruction of the Temple was more than just a building that got knocked down. Instead, it represented a whole way of life that was going to be forever changed. It was, for them, an apocalyptic event that made their whole world collapse.

The destruction of the Temple represented the collapse of:

The social and political structure of life (this was the one unifying place, and it served that function for early Christians as well; and it was one of the few institutions that wasn't Roman controlled...)

The religious status quo (there was, and could only be, one Temple. After the Temple was destroyed, Jews had to figure out how to be Jews without a Temple; and for Christians, the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem meant that the center of the Christian movement shifted from Jerusalem...)

The sense of stability in the world around them (if the Temple could be knocked down, what else might happen? It must have been the same kind of existential angst we experienced on 9/11, and that Paris has been experiencing...)

"So really, Jesus", the disciples say, "when this happens, it must mean the end of life as we know it." It must be the end of all things. How could we possibly go on in such a different social, political and cultural environment?

In a sense, Jesus asks them "#AreYouSerious?" And Jesus tells them plainly it won't be the end. And while it will be difficult and very different, there's still more to come, and more that God will be calling them to do. And so rather than encouraging them to look for apocalyptic signs of destruction, Jesus instead calls them - and us - to:

Trust that God and God's plans are greater and more powerful than the calamity du jour - Over and over again in Christian history, Christians have worried that every plague, earthquake and "war on Christmas" is somehow a sign that God has forsaken us, or somehow lost control of history. Yet Jesus calls us to trust that God is not undone by things we think are catastrophes, and they don't stop God from working with us and in us. The Temple got destroyed. But the Jews and the Christian community still survive, and often thrive. That's part of what Jesus wants us to see ...

Not be distracted - even by stuff that darn well should be distracting. Not by wars (even the "war on Christmas") or rumors of wars. And the point is, that when we're distracted by the crazy and horrible stuff that always has and always will be going on around us, we can't focus on what God is doing and wants us to do to respond to the scary stuff that's going on around us...

Adapt - it's sometimes fun to rail against the darkness, but adaptive people light candles and turn on lights. After the Temple was destroyed, Jews figured out how to make synagogues the center of religious community. Christians ended up fanning out and making disciples in more places because they weren't so tied to Jerusalem any more. In fact, our societies and cultures are always changing, and Jesus' call isn't to rebuild the Temple so that things can go on as before, but to be ready and willing to adapt and be faithful in the midst of whatever happens ...

Jesus told his first disciples - and he tells us today - that there will always be wars, and rumors of wars and all kinds of other scary stuff that really does shake the foundations of our lives. But rather than telling us to duck and cover, Jesus instead calls us to trust that God has not lost control of history, or our lives. Jesus calls us to struggle against letting our lives be focused on the scary things around us. And Jesus calls us always to be people who adapt and live faithfully, no matter how the world seems to be changing around us.

Amen.