25th Sunday after Pentecost

Grace be to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Every time I read today’s gospel, I have to think of my first visit to New York City. I was 17 years old then. We had taken the train from Long Island. As we emerged from the subway onto the streets for New York, my eyes were automatically drawn upwards. Those sky scrapers were so high you couldn’t help but look up and be amazed. I had never seen buildings that tall in my life. I was speechless, and maybe my mouth was hanging open, too.

That’s how I picture the disciples. They were from the backwater of Galilee, country men, who had never seen any buildings more then two stories high, buildings made of stones and clay, with roofs of wood and straw.

Now they were in the city of Jerusalem. They are touring the temple. It was the biggest, grandest, tallest, strongest building they had ever seen. It truly was amazing. King Herod had designed and built it to amaze. The disciples remark on the large stones. Some of the foundation stones for the temple platform were 30 to 40 feet long and up to 9 ½ feet high. That is impressive to us, who have seen large buildings. Imagine the awe of those disciples from the country side.

We people admire big, solid buildings, because they give us a sense of might and stability and accomplishment and safety. On that first day I spent in New York City, we went up to the top of the World Trade Center. I still remember the tourist brochure we were handed. Its big bold headline read: The closest some of us will ever get to heaven.

Cute. But also a little full of itself, I thought. As if they were saying: We can get you to heaven, or almost. That’s how awesome we are.

Getting the people to heaven, or at least connected with heaven, was also the purpose of the temple in Jerusalem. That was where the high priest resided. That was the only place in the world where faithful Jews could bring their sacrifices, to atone for sin or give thanks for the birth of a child. That was where the Holy of Holies was located, the place where heaven and earth met. A truly remarkable, hugely important place.

Don’t be too impressed, Jesus says to his disciples. All this will come crashing down. The disciples must have done a double take: These huge solid stone come crashing down? Are you serious?

We never thought the World Trade Centers would come crashing down, but they did. The Mayans never thought their impressive temple pyramids would falter, but the jungle has reclaimed them. The Greeks never thought their Colossus of Rhodes would crumble, but it was felled by an earthquake.

Time and again, people have thought their buildings solid, invincible, eternal, only to be disappointed. The same happened with the Jerusalem temple. Just as Jesus predicts today, that temple would be destroyed in the year 70 by the Roman army.

Such immense destruction is always a shock. It is especially disorienting if the building had religious significance. It is one thing to lose a tall office building. It is another to lose the place where people can meet God.

The people Mark wrote his gospel for were facing exactly this disorienting situation. The temple was gone. The Romans ruled. The Jews were beginning to recognize these Christians as a separate group and were kicking them out of the synagogues. Jesus still hadn’t come back. Life was hard. The future was uncertain. It was a mess.

In today’s gospel text, Mark addresses this disorienting situation of the early church. He does so by using apocalyptic imagery and language.

Apocalyptic developed as a religious genre in the two or three centuries before Christ. The Book of Daniel is a good example. Writers like Daniel were protesting worldly rulers claiming divine rights. During Daniel’s time, the Greek ruler Antiochus Epiphanes persecuted the Jews and desecrated the temple. Daniel fought back by writing about tall statutes with clay feet, about the battle of good and evil in heaven, about portents in the sky and great tumult on earth.

It was too dangerous to write about the current situation outright. Apocalyptic developed an imaginary language to encourage the faithful to hang in there, to remain faithful, to know that God was ultimately in charge.

In the year 70 AD, Mark’s churches face a similar challenge: The heathen Romans had destroyed the temple and were making life hard on the local population with taxes and occupying forces and the like. The Christians are scared and demoralized and uncertain about the future. Mark needs to address the situation.

He does so by recording Jesus’ apocalyptic language: wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes, destruction, famines will come upon the earth. And really, when has there ever been a time when there weren’t wars or earthquakes or famines somewhere in the world? They are happening now, as we speak.

Yes, they do happen, and they will happen, Jesus says, but don’t give them any religious value. Don’t think they are God’s judgment or punishment. They just happen.

But hang in there, Jesus says, because after such calamity comes new life. By the grace of God, there will be new birth. With God’s help and creative power, new life will arise after devastation, just like Jesus Christ arose after death to new life.

So don’t give up. Don’t place your trust in buildings, for they will fail you. Place your trust instead in God, who will help you through the trials and bring you to new life.

What helps us hang in there? This is where I am going to switch attention over to the reading from the Letter to the Hebrews. It also is a call to perseverance.

Our section begins with the author reminding the faithful that they don’t have to worry about God’s wrath any more. Jesus died for our sins. We are reconciled with God once and for all. In baptism we became God’s children, and God promised to love us and save us. When trials come our way, we can “hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful.”

Devastation and disorientation will come. Buildings will not save us. The only thing that will never be destroyed, that will endure in all eternity, is God, and God has promised to be faithful to us and see us through. God’s faithfulness is the only sure thing.

And then Hebrews lists three things that help us grow and strengthen that faith in God: provoke each other to good deeds, meet together for worship and Bible study, and encourage one another. This describes the life of the church. As the people of God, we gather, we provoke one another to faithful service, we worship and read scripture and share faith stories, and we encourage each other on our faith journey. When times are hard or confusing, the assembly of God’s people is where God’s faithfulness is made real to us.

All our scripture readings today encourage us to respond to calamity and challenges by trusting in God’s mercy and faithfulness, and by living out that trust among the people of God.

That is a good message for us to hear today. For we live in challenging times, just like the people addressed by the gospel according to Mark and the Letter to the Hebrews.

The people of God faithfully doing the work of God, is how calamities are overcome, nations are heled, and new life can begin.

It’s how we will come back after COVID. In fact, it’s how we are already beginning to come back after COVID.

During the pandemic, we worked very hard at keeping the ministries going that, according to the Letter to the Hebrews, keep us strong in our faith.

Provoke each other to good deeds: We continued most of our outreach programs, such as the Neighbors in Need Christmas gifts, the gifts for Springfield Hospital, the support of the local food pantries. We added being an outpost for COVID testing and vaccines, participating in a clothes give-away, and delighting the neighborhood with trunk-or-treat.

Meet together for worship and Bible study: God bless zoom! It enabled us to meet for Bible study, team meetings, and even our annual congregational meeting. We worshiped together in all kinds of ways: on-line, in the parking lot, distanced in the sanctuary. Even though COVID demanded separation, we found a way to be together.

Encourage one another: Our prayer team, our Caring Touch visitor team, and our card writing team went into overdrive, making sure people knew we remembered them and cred about them. Caring Callers were in touch with every member of our faith family.

In the midst of a world-wide pandemic, we did exactly what God in the scriptures calls the faithful to do in times of calamity: keep up the faith by gathering, worshiping, encouraging, and serving.

And now, just as Jesus promised, I see signs of new life. For last two Sundays, we welcomed more than 100 people in worship, the most since COVID began. We welcomed 10 new people into membership. We celebrated an amazing ordination service. We started a new adult education program called “Small Bites” and encourage your daily discipleship with regular challenges.

There is a new energy among us. New ideas are springing up. New life is coming into this congregation.

We learned that church is not about the building. Our building is beautiful; but we learned anew that Jesus is right: It’s not about the building. It’s about God’s faithfulness. It’s about the people of God trusting God’s presence and God’s love and God’s power to bring us through times of trial and into times of renewal and joy and hope. Amen.