Provoking and Being Provoked

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

“Tell us,” the disciples asked Jesus. “Tell us, when will this be? When will not one stone be left upon another, when will it be all torn down, how will we know when it is about to happen?”

It would be nice to know, wouldn’t it? To know how much longer we have to enjoy the large stones and the great buildings and the world that we have come to know, before it all comes to its inevitable end. So after Jesus and the disciples have left the temple, and now they’re sitting quietly on the Mount of Olives across the valley looking over at the Temple there to the west on Mount Zion, and they ask Jesus, When will it happen? What will be the sign, how will we know, that the end is near?

Of course, Jesus doesn’t answer their question. Jesus never answers questions like that, that’s not his style. In hindsight we know that the answer was, In about 40 years. About 40 years later, the Romans came and destroyed the second Temple, just as centuries before the Babylonians had destroyed the first one.

You may remember that, when the first Temple was destroyed, the Babylonian attack came in two phases. First the king and the top officials and priests were taken into captivity in Babylon, and then ten years later there was a second war, and that’s when the Temple fell and the Jerusalem was destroyed and the rest of the people taken into exile. One of those who went off to Babylon in the first group was the prophet Ezekiel, and during that ten years Ezekiel had a vision of the presence of God leaving the Temple. The vision is described in chapters 10 and 11 of the book of Ezekiel. It was believed that the very presence of God dwelled in the Holy of Holies within the Temple, behind the veil, and that this building was therefore the place where the presence of God could always be found.

But Ezekiel, already in exile in Babylon, in his vision saw the presence of God get up and leave the Temple. The presence of God will no longer be found in the Temple; God is leaving the Temple to its fate. And Ezekiel quickly got word to his friends back in Jerusalem: Elvis has left the building. I’ve seen the sign that the day when the Temple will be destroyed is close at hand. But, Ezekiel says, the presence of God may have left the Temple, but it has not disappeared.  In my vision, Ezekiel says, I saw the presence of God, accompanied by cherubim, stunning with spinning lights and indescribable glory – and I saw the presence of God leave the Temple, and stop at the east gate.

The presence of God, according to Ezekiel, left the temple, stopped at the gate, and spoke. The word of the Lord said to Ezekiel, Yes, this people has turned from me and followed idols and practiced their death-dealing ways, and they will receive what they have chosen. But I am not abandoning the people, I will be present to them in a new way. “I will remove their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh,” the Lord said to Ezekiel from the gate of the Temple. “Then they shall be my people, and I will be their God. As for those whose heart goes after wicked and unjust and deadly practices, their deeds will come upon their own heads.

And after Ezekiel heard these words of the Lord, Ezekiel saw the presence of the Lord ascending from the Temple and stopping on the mountain across the valley east of Jerusalem. The mountain across from the Temple to the east – the mountain that in the time of Jesus was called the Mount of Olives. And then Ezekiel woke up, and the vision was over.

When Jesus walks out of the Temple for the last time, speaks a few last words about how the injustice and oppression of the Temple authorities is about to come crashing down on their own heads, and heads off with his disciples to the Mount of Olives – well, anyone familiar with the vision of Ezekiel would have understood exactly what Jesus was doing. The Lord has left the building. The Lord has left the Temple – but the Lord has not left the people. On the contrary, the Lord will be present in the people in a new way. What will happen to the Temple now is of no importance; it will collapse on its own.

Which is why Jesus begins his answer to the disciples’ questions – When will this happen? When will the Temple fall? How will we know that the end is at hand? – Jesus begins by saying, Don’t get led astray over this. You’ll hear about wars and rumors of wars and earthquakes and famines and plagues – pay no attention to any of it, don’t let any of that distract you. In a world that has chosen the path that leads to destruction, such things are inevitable. But wars and earthquakes and pestilence are not where you are going to find the presence of God. They are if anything birth pangs – moments of pain that pass quickly as something far more wonderful prepares to emerge.

We read this gospel text, or one like it from Matthew or Luke, basically every year on a Sunday in the middle of November. After the clocks change and darkness comes so early now, and the leaves fall and the wind picks up and the weather turns colder, it always seems like a natural time to turn our thoughts to the winding down of our human stories, individually and collectively.

I don’t know about you, but this year especially I’m feeling even more than usual in an apocalyptic state of mind. After the last almost two years now, there are days when it feels like not one stone is left upon another. So many things that we took for granted before Covid are now uncertain – so many things that we once depended upon now seem unreliable. So many things that once seemed solid as rock have melted into the air.

And it’s hard not to hear about the wars and the rumors of wars, and to wonder if we’re not headed towards even more disruption and uncertainty and change to come. Whether it’s the future of democracy in the United States, whether it’s people fed up with dangerous and low-paying jobs looking for a fairer shake, whether it’s an economy that’s having trouble keeping up with the way life has changed, whether it’s stressed out people making scenes on airplanes or in shopping malls or even in churches, whether it’s the long-term effects of the isolation that we all have experienced for months and months, especially kids and people in vulnerable families – even as the Covid restrictions are slowly lifting, what bonds of trust with our neighbors have been broken and what will be the consequences of that for all of us?

And even in our personal lives – for many of us, even if we never had Covid, our health is not what it was two years ago, our families are not what they were two years ago, our jobs are not what they were two years ago. In August our country set a record for the largest number of people quitting their jobs in one month ever in recorded history. On Friday the statistics came out for September, and we broke the record again. There is a restlessness in the air – I know I feel it, maybe you do too. Where will it go? What is happening to us? Tell us, Jesus, when will these things happen, what is the sign that will tell us what’s happening?

The response of Jesus is:  All the changes you’re seeing and you’re hearing about and you’re feeling, all those things are real – but don’t let that distract you.  Wars and rumors of wars and things shaking to the foundations – these 

I have a sense – perhaps you feel it as well – that many things are changing in our society and in so many of our lives. are not the things God is doing – those are the signs of a world gone astray collapsing of its own weight. Maybe the triggers of that collapse will be Roman armies or coronaviruses or maybe something else, who knows? Look instead to what God is doing, where God is removing hearts of stone and replacing them with hearts of flesh, living, breathing, feeling hearts.

Look instead to what God is doing. Martin Luther once said that we tend to look for God in the places where we think it would be most fitting for God to dwell. Like grand temples. O what large stones and what large buildings! What more fitting place could there be for God to dwell in, than a big temporary pile of rocks? And when it falls, as it eventually will, our faith will be shaken. Instead, we should look for God where God has told us God wants to be found, which is not in the glory and majesty of a stone temple but on a cross, in the least of our neighbors, in broken bread and shared cup, in hearts turned from stone to flesh.

The letter to the Hebrews today sums it up well. The temple and its sacrifices were never intended to be permanent; and now Jesus has opened for us a new and living way into the holiness of God. Therefore, let us hold fast to our confession of faith without wavering, for the One who has promised is faithful.  And in the meantime, especially as you see the Day approaching, let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, but encouraging one another.  Our job is not to shake our heads about wars or rumors of wars, not to wag our fingers over the falling temples. Our job is to trust the One who has promised to be present among us through it all, because the One who has promised is faithful. And our job is to provoke one another – I love that image – to push and challenge one another to love and to do good works, to encourage one another to hold fast in faith and put our faith into action.  If ever there was a time that we all needed to be encouraged and prodded and provoked to live courageously with faith, it’s now. So let’s encourage and let’s provoke, and above all, let’s trust the One who is faithful.