Apocalypse Now
Because i’m preaching in an ECUSA parish this AM that uses the BCP lectionary instead of the RCL, the readings are a little off.
- Daniel 12:1-13
- Psalm 16
- Hebrews 10:31-39
- Mark 13:14-23
(New Revised Standard although the parish uses The Message.)
It won’t be long now, he’s on the way; he’ll show up most any minute! But you need to stick it out, staying with God’s plan so you’ll be there for the promised completion.
I was told for most of my protestant, evangelical life down in Dixie that the whole secret of the Christian life was to hold that line in Joy… “It won’t be long now, he’s on the way; he’ll show up most any minute!” and to live that way.
Have you heard of this whole 2012 thing? Generally speaking, the world is supposed to end (or drastically change) on December 21st, 2012. It’s a bit of newage thinking, and bears all the marks of that bizarre form of American Apocalypse Spirituality. The Mayans (and the Aztec and the Incas, and sometimes the Hopi Indians, too) have some prophecies. The Mayans have a calendar too. Where our calendar has end points every 100 year and every 1000 years or so, theirs, however, reaches an end point every 5100 years or so and every 26000 years or so. 26000…
Well, guess what: by one calculation, that 26000 year cycle is ending on December 12th.
Naturally, there’s a bunch of people who would – generally – reject any of the truth in this building as being too white, too traditional too linear, middle class, too male, too European… who are running around making some serious claims about these Mayan prophecies. The world will end (or radically change). They’re selling books, making a movie…
Of course they’re all white, Americans of European ancestry… mostly male… mostly middle class folks. Ask actual Mayan elders (and there are many still…) and most of them not already in the pay of these white guys will tell you to go mind your own business. Today is today… we’re going to plant corn. The problem, of course, is all of those white Americans are reading the Mayan prophecies in ways that make no sense to the Mayans – claiming they are right, but the poor benighted non-white folks don’t know what they’re talking about… about their own prophecies!
Normally, I want to suggest, we take on our CHristian prophecies the same way. If you seen or heard anything about the “Left Behind” series of books and movies… or ever heard of Hal Lindsey or Zola Levett… many of the sects of Christians in the world today – from 7th Day Adventists, to Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Church of Christ and a few others are all products of prophets and reading prophets and thinking the end of the world is Just around the corner.
Instead of reading the prophecies as wisdom literature, a guide to growth and change, Americans (and Europeans) want to read an exact list of facts.
There’s an industry out there, catering mostly to white, middle class Americans… something about knowing the future and being terrified of it makes us happy to be who we are. But when the list doesn’t come true, most of us just move on – usually to a different list.
Although we don’t usually hear it in the more “liberal” churches, there’s something about getting all of these readings on one day that might make you wonder… “What’s up with this?”
In any news-worthy situation, reporters generally try to find answers to the normal questions:
Who?
What?
Where?
Why?
How?
Today’s readings seem to offer us a chance to peer into the future and find answers to those questions – about future events generally called “The Apocalypse”. You’ll stick close here if you remember the Mayans. We’re going to try to ignore our normal American tendency to look for a list of facts here… and instead treat these things as Wisdom literature. Ad I suggest they were read as such by the Early church. Instead of predicting the future (and setting a clock) lets look into the past – and examine the present.
Where is our Apocalypse now?
First, Why is this here?
Well, for a couple of reasons.
Modern scholars think that the general idea is about 40 years after Jesus’ Resurrection some horrible thing happened to Christians – indeed, to everyone – living in Jerusalem. This horrible thing was the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in the year 70, following a huge revolt in Israel led by the people the New Testament calls “The Zealots”. Until this time, Jews who believed Jesus was the promised Messiah worshipped – in many places – alongside their fellow Jews in synagogues and also in the Temple. In terms of practice they would have seemed like “regular” Jews of one sect or another, but in terms of Theology, they were starting to sound a little different. And their rites might have seemed normal, but they were beginning to develop special, Messianic meanings for them. Judaism at that time – like some Christian communities today – was very broad.
But when the temple was lost, the first cry to go up from Jews all over the world – messianic or not – was “WHAT DO WE DO NOW????” ANd to every suggestion offered, the reply was that most-common of unprinted liturgical responses, “BUT WE’VE NEVER DONE IT THIS WAY BEFORE!!!!”
Some scholars thing that Matthew’s Gospel was written as part of this post-temple Now What? situation. Most think today’s reading, called the “Little Apocalypse”, is also a reaction to the Temple’s fall. So the first answer to “Why”, as in why is this story here is because the community that produced and used Marks’ Gospel was lost and terribly confused.
Four and a half weeks ago I was laid off from my job. My week-day job, if you will. My entire reason for being in Buffalo was to be near my partner who lives in Canada, and – if you know anything about crossing the border – they don’t like to be told one is without employment! Likewise, without a job – and only getting $250 a week from the state – I began to wonder if I could afford to live here at all. Then there was the long, slow and terribly painful descent into depression because my job held a lot of my identity. The world seemed to be ending – even though my 13 housemates and sundry hippie friends kept assuring me this was only an extended low-budget vacation, I still ended up feeling pain at each act of kindness and, at one point collapsed in a pile of tears with icky thoughts of self harm running through my head
And that was only after 2 weeks.
Some days I just sat in front of my computer and refused to move.
The question “What” comes up now…
What is this, what does it mean, what now?
Christians in the first century, for various reasons, took these sayings of Jesus – and these parables – and looked back in the Jewish history and applied their developing understanding of Jesus’ ministry to these older events. And then they pulled that meaning into their own time: the temple’s earlier destruction meant that God was angry with Israel. The same must be true now… The only thing we can think of that Israel has done is… GASP! Killed Jesus and his followers!
Some scholars think the entire book of Hebrews is an extended argument about the temple being no longer needed, so it’s good it fell down…
I understand y’all here are having a bit of Temples falling down too…
And I bet (even though some decisions have been made) that you’re thinking, “What now?” And I bet some – maybe most? – of you are thinking, “But we’ve never done it this way before!”
Why do we have these readings now? You know that the western Church celebrates Advent on the last four Sundays before Christmas. We’ve still got a while to go before we get there. But the older tradition – in East and West – was to make Advent as long as Lent is before Easter: 40 days (or so). The Orthodox Churches, in fact, start Advent today. November 15th, every year, is the beginning of what is called the Nativity Fast.
First the Roman Catholics at Vatican II, and then the Episcopalians with the new prayer book in 1979 – and now even all protestants with the Common Lectionary – all start their “Advent Reading Schedule” at this time of the year. Today is the first “Adventy” readings… themes of Apocalypse, Kingdom and Prophecy will play out for the next several Sundays.
This is why this theme is happening now in the Bible readings, for us today: In an ecumenical way, it’s already Advent.
What, indeed, do you do now? The Church expected Jesus in short order, not 100 years later, or 200 years later. Not 2,000 years later: but now. How do you make plans when it might all end? If anyone tries to flag you down, calling out, ‘Here’s the Messiah!’ or points, ‘There he is!’ don’t fall for it.” That includes me – notice the Gospel says nothing about unbelievers getting misled: if ANYONE says, look, there he is…
You know, I fought through all the yuckiness. I made some choices about courses to take, some ideas about where to study what. And even started to reach out for some part time work so that I could make ends meet.
And then my former boss fired his secretary, apologised to me for making a mistake and asked me to come back. All my plans out the window.
It would be easy to blame the boss. It would be easy to blame the economy. It would be easy to blame the Mayans, for that matter, or global warming or Obama.
What causes the apocalypse in your own community? You’ve made plans, you’ve had discussions… but what do you do now?
Advent is about preparing for Christmas, of course, but also about preparing for Apocalypse.
That’s why the readings are so spooky… I think we’ve already seen what traditional bibles called “desolating sacrilege” here… If he let the days of trouble run their course, nobody would make it. But because of God’s chosen people, those he personally chose, he has already intervened.
Daniel, and the writer of Hebrews and St Mark all tell us the same thing: not predictions about the future, but that the future – no matter how messed up it might get – is ok. We can’t stop it, we don’t need to.
The Good News here, is Eucharist: what we’re about to give to each other, what we’re about to turn around and give to the world when we walk out of here. Thanksgiving: we take what we have (some flour, some grapes, some water) and we do the best we can, but something gets in. A bug, an impurity: yeast.
Bread rises, juice ferments.
The Body and Blood of God.
The thing about Advent is, we think we know what’s coming. We never know the outcome. The trick is, I think, to make Eucharist out of what we do as we do it, to take our steps (even the ones that go bad) and offer them to be the Body and Blood of God.
We move forward, and we sing. We dance. It won’t be long now, he’s on the way; he’ll show up most any minute.
