To leaven the world with love
- Nov 15, 2015
- 6 min read
Mark 13: 1-8
Daniel 12: 1-3
Our readings from Daniel and the Gospel or Mark today are known as apocalyptic writings.
They are writings from scripture that have to do with the end times.
Oftentimes, apocalyptic writings are forged in times of great violence, suffering, or trauma,
and they try to draw meaning from these experiences and also give people hope.
The book of Daniel was written in context of invasion of Jerusalem,
and the desecration of the Temple, the site of Jewish worship, including the altar.
Given what Jewish people had already been through exodus and exile,
this must have been an extremely traumatic event,
an event that shook them, and their faith.
In today’s reading, Daniel has a vision of the people
being delivered from their anguish by a great prince, Michael,
and of people who had died rising to everlasting life.
I can only imagine, it must have been enormously comforting
for people to hear such words in the midst of such a trying time.
Then there’s our Gospel story from Mark.
Mark was written around 70 AD,
the time of the Emperor Nero’s persecution of Christians in Rome.
This was another time of anguish, a time of trauma,
a time when the early Church experienced violence like never before
It was also a time when early Christians were trying to make meaning
of all this in light of what Jesus had said,
and also to look for hope in his words and ministry.
And so, in the Gospel today, Mark emphasizes Jesus’ own words about the end times;
about what they will be like, and what they, as his followers, are to do.
There will be talk of wars, he says.
And nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.
And there will be earthquakes and famines.
But don’t be alarmed, he says. Don’t be alarmed.
The Holy Spirit will be with you,
he goes on to say just beyond today’s Gospel story.
The Spirit will help you proclaim Good News to the whole world,
and the Spirit will help you endure to the end.
Again, comforting words for people who wondered
if indeed their world was coming to and end.
Many of us have perhaps wondered this about our world this week.
Wondered if was coming to an end, or least wondered if it was coming undone.
It has been one hell of a week, one might even say an apocalyptic week,
a week when we haven’t had to imagine the kind of violence Jesus says will precede the end times.
Of course, I’m talking about the ghastly acts of terrorism in Paris,
attacks that claimed over a 130 lives,
and left many more injured, maimed and traumatized.
But then there was also the burning of a refugee camp, outside of Paris,
in the wake of the attacks, just hours later.
And the day before, there terrorist attacks in Beirut that killed 43 people,
and a suicide bombing in Baghdad that killed 30,
although these were barely covered by Western media.
Then there is what has been unfolding in our own country at the University of MO,
where the lives of Black students have been threatened
after protests of the school’s failure to address structural racism
Then there is our own city, where we are facing a homelessness epidemic.
I went to a Mass for Deceased Homeless People on Thursday at St. James Cathedral.
92 people died on our streets in the last year. 92 people.
Most of these deaths never even made the news.
Many of these people, human beings created in God’s image,
died alone and unloved, in the shadows of our prosperous economy
Our world, our country, and our city are a mess.
We don’t have to look to the Bible to see apocalyptic images: they’re in our midst.
In a way, we are in the same place as the people behind the stories
from the Book of Daniel and Mark’s Gospel.
Like then, we come, seeking to find comfort, and perhaps a little hope.
And like them, we’re asking how we are to live in this kind of world.
What are we do? How are we to respond?
We certainly have a couple options:
One is to simply stick our heads in the sand.
To ignore what’s going because it’s all too overwhelming to take in.
To go about our lives.
Another option is to share our heads, and say,
what is the world coming to? Isn’t that sad?
To stand back and observe all these events as if from a distance.
Another option is to allow our hearts to become hardened.
Perhaps to insist on revenge or even prejudice toward people,
even toward Muslims or refugees.
There has certainly been much talk about revenge in the past 48 hours,
including from presidents and political leaders.
Our response to these attacks will be merciless, they’ve said.
These are all ways to respond to the realities that surround us.
Ways that people, perhaps many people will respond.
But there is another way,
a way that isn’t distancing ourselves from violence and suffering,
or denying it,
or revenge or prejudice:
it’s the way of Jesus.
It’s the way of hope and it’s the way of love.
Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without waving, the writer of Hebrews says today.
And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds.
Not provoke to violence or revenge,
but to love and to do good deeds:
that is, love that is translated into action.
In light of everything that has happened in recent days, this might seem completely naïve.
How is love going to make this world a safer, more secure place, some might ask?
It might not. Love, the kind of love that Jesus brought and lived out,
has never been about making the world safer or more secure.
Lord knows, loving people certainly didn’t keep Jesus safe.
And maybe, if we’re really going to follow Jesus, we’re not supposed to live lives grounded in safety
and security either.
But rather, lives that are grounded in love.
Love that doesn’t hunker down or live in denial but that reaches out in compassion.
Love that doesn’t seek revenge but forgives, that shows mercy.
Love that would rather die, than kill.
This is the love for which Jesus lived and died.
It’s the love we are called to offer the world too.
Not just when it’s easy to do so, but now, when it’s hard to do so.
When it seems like just a drop in the bucket.
You know, my favorite parable of Jesus is the parable of the yeast.
The kingdom of God, he said, is like a tiny bit of yeast, which though small,
can leaven a large quantity of flour.
I love this parable.
It’s a parable that is partly about us and the love we’re called to offer the world.
Our love is like that yeast.
It might seem small when compared to violence, injustice and prejudice that exist.
But like the yeast, it can leaven the world with compassion, and forgiveness and life.
In fact, love is the only thing capable of making these things real in the world.
Of giving them flesh and blood, just as Jesus did.
You know, Michael Curry, our new Presiding Bishop,
has been talking a lot about how the church is called to be something he calls the Jesus Movement.
In other words, Jesus didn’t come to start an institution,
or to build a building, or create a social club.
He came to start a movement.
He came to show us another way.
A Way to life, the Way to love.
A Way beyond what often can be the nightmares of our own devisings
and into the dream of God’s intending.
That’s why, Bishop Curry has been saying, when Jesus called his first followers he did it with the simple words
“Follow me.”
“Follow me,” he said, “and I will make you fish for people.”
Follow me and love will show you how to become more than you ever dreamed you could be.
Follow me and I will help you change the world from the nightmare it often is into the dream that God intends…
Now is our time to go.
To go into the world to share the good news of God and Jesus Christ.
To go into the world and help to be agents and instruments of God’s reconciliation.
To go into the world, let the world know that there is a God who loves us, a God who will not let us go, and that (only) love can set us all free.
May we, the heart and hands and feet of Christ, be give strength and courage to leaven the world
with this love.
Amen.
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