Mark 13:1-8

Click here to view the full sermon video, titled "Stone on Stone."

Well good morning it is good to be with you I bring you greetings from St Andrew Presbyterian Church from the Koenig-Reinke household for those of you don't know I am Eric Koenig-Reinke I am the transitional pastor at St Andrew Presbyterian Church I also happen to know your associate pastor who I'm married to which also makes me the dad of Lucy which may be more relevant to some of you. 

I've met some of you but it is good to be with you to worship and to preach this morning as we switch pulpits and Essie and Lucy are off at St Andrew this morning can we get to know one another just a little bit better, because usually on a Sunday morning, I am busy…  

So we decided to swap pulpits for the morning, as a chance and opportunity for me to meet you all, for St. Andrew to meet Essie, and so I figure I will give you a little introduction to myself. I grew up in Cleveland Heights which is right outside of Cleveland, in Ohio. I graduated undergraduate from Bowling Green State University, go Falcons, with a double major in geography and sociology, I did a young adult volunteer year in Austin Texas working with an organization called Front steps whose goal and mission is to end homelessness in the city of Austin. I helped out on the development office which predominantly meant that I wrote thank you notes for people who had donated and scheduled volunteers and sorted through the random stuff that people dropped off thinking someone else could use. After my YAV year, I attended Union Presbyterian Seminary where I did in fact meet Essie, we fell in love, got married, and through a variety of calls and jobs we found ourselves in Michigan Maryland last Delaware and now here in New Mexico and I'll only speak for myself. You can ask Essie, but I love it here. 

I know that I mentioned that we got married but I did not necessarily tell you how we got engaged, I am no master of surprise Essie knew exactly what was going to happen and we ultimately got engaged at one of our favorite date spots which is the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts also just called the vmfa---it's located not too far off from Monument Avenue.

Now I had visited Monument Avenue when I was growing up with my grandparents in Virginia, so I grew up knowing this major street in Richmond, that is full of monuments that tower over intersections… Predominantly these monuments, were statues of Confederate generals… Robert E Lee, Stonewall Jackson, even Jefferson Davis not a general but president of the Confederacy were among those impressive statues...a reminder of a tough and rough history and a hard portion and era in the history of the United States... 

In light of the the killing of George Floyd and the black lives matter protest movement which brought vandalism to many of those statues and an increased consciousness and talking about what are these statues symbolizing in white supremacy and the history of slavery and what are they trying to say… the statues have been removed, at least the confederate statues, and now one of my personal heroes, African American tennis star and humanitarian Arthur Ashe does still remain.  

And now in front of the vmfa is the statue by Kehinde Wiley multi-media artist and it's titled “Rumors of War” carved into the limestone base…And this 17 foot bronze figure is someone with clearly African-American features and hairstyle, with ripped jeans at the knees, and Nike high-tops, and dreadlocks tied in a bun on the top of his head, while riding on a horse much like the bronze horses that those Confederate generals were riding, just a few blocks away. 

Rumors of War...It is not a particularly comforting image… and it is a phrase that strikes this image into the passage from Mark we read today.  Also as a general rule we would rather not be at War; Jesus says blessed are the peacemakers we pray for places that are in active conflict in Ukraine and Gaza and Lebanon and Israel and Sudan and all of the places where violence threatens civilians and honestly we're violence threatens the lives of people because we believe in the blessedness of humanity of other. There's a profound interchange in the show MASH where Hawkeye, one of the doctors in the midst of the South Korean War, looks up at the chaplain as he's stitching up a civilian: 

Hawkeye : War isn't Hell. War is war, and Hell is Hell. And of the two, war is a lot worse. 
Father Mulcahy : How do you figure, Hawkeye? 
Hawkeye : Easy, Father. Tell me, who goes to Hell? 
Father Mulcahy : Sinners, I believe. 
Hawkeye : Exactly. There are no innocent bystanders in Hell. War is chock full of them - little kids, cripples, old ladies. In fact, except for some of the brass, almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander. 

I’ll leave Matthew to elaborate on the reformed understanding of the afterlife, the nature of sin, and of hell… your welcome for that.  Yet Hawkeye's point here illustrates the fact that war is something that we would probably best avoid it's something that we would not wish on anyone, be they rumors of war, be the war within, or be that what feels like a war within our own communities and families, between nations, and among nations.

Yet when we look to the gospel text, "7 When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; Do not be alarmed… this must take place, but the end is still to come. 8 For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs." 

Some biblical scholars out there might have you believe that Jesus is telling us this must take place with the ultimate and the apocalypse, the Telos the ultimate battle between good and evil, the rapture, that will end all things and these wars are necessitated to help bring that into being… But I'm not so sure about that especially because there is an American pastor who predicted that the world would end in 2021 after that same pastor predicted Jesus would come back in 1988 -  

Or the group that said 2006 or 1987 or 1982 or 1967 or 1863 or 1844 or 1736 or 1700... Martin Luther even said 1600. Someone else said 1033 or 500 or 400 or 365... 

There is an entire Wikipedia page that lists out all the times we have predicted that the apocalypse will come… maybe we all just slept through it. Scholar Sung Soo Hong wrote of this passage: 

“The message is clear. Or perhaps it is not. There have been numerous wild interpretations of Mark 13 in history, and too many people have been misled by them. And so many readers have done what Jesus told them not to do: trying to find the exact time of the end. Jesus said he did not know it (13:32), which would mean that there is no way we can figure it out.” 

When the disciples asked, when will this happen, Jesus does not answer that question directly but rather gives some practical advice. I do buy the argument in The Gospel According to Mark was written and put into its final form around the time of the Jewish Roman War 66 to 70 of which someone claimed that would be the end of the world,  or at least Simon bar Giora claimed that this was the messianic coming, to usher in the end of the world… and for someone who is under imperial rule, and at war with a superpower of the day, it may truly feel like the end of the world. Some biblical Scholars claim that this prediction that not a stone will be left on Stone in front of the Temple is a clear indication that this Mark was written after the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem in the year 70…  and that this passage is an attempt to explain something that would be unthinkable and tragic… 

I believe that this disturbing imagery that we find here in The Gospel According to Mark that we find on Jesus's lips, stones being thrown down and turned over, buildings coming down, wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes, famines, disasters both natural and manmade is just the truth. An accurate description of what life is like, or at least what life can be like for so many of us. And it doesn’t really explain why… at least not in a way that would satisfy a two-year-old in their, “Why” phase. Rather it names it as a truth… The truth is that life contains hardship, that bad things are going to happen. We are told not to worry, we are told that Bad things will happen but that is not the ending it is a beginning… when the stones fall down and stone on stone no longer creates a beautiful building, a glorious temple, or a church.  

Perhaps we can repurpose those stones to put one stone on another and build towards a future once again. When there are rumors of war, Jesus urges us to not worry, and more importantly, to not be led astray. Jesus didn't speak about hurricanes, though my Facebook feed is filled with many friends in North Carolina, after having worked at Montreat one of the summers I was in seminary, and seeing pictures of stones that need to be rebuilt, and of a retaining lake that is being redug, and rebuilt, following massive flooding…  

And we know of wars… You can all to easily find pictures of buildings bombed out… of rubble of stones that have fallen making stone upon stones that have not been left… of schools, house, hospitals, and even houses of worship 

There is, violence, and disaster, and chaos… destruction. Though as Samuel Cruz, biblical scholar wrote: 

“In the midst of this apparent chaos and destruction, Jesus brings words of hope: “This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.” It is easy to forget that the narrative does not end with gloom and doom.” 

It would be so easy to hear about hardship to look about the world and decide you know this is just the end pack it up, to get despondent or give in to despair in a way that says that the violence and destruction that the chaos has the final word, but chaos doesn't have the final word. This is just the beginning of the birth pangs, do not worry when you hear this…something greater is coming, as the beginning of birth pangs… so don’t worry. Admittedly that is easier said than done. This passage here in Mark is often referred to as one of the little apocalypses, and in the midst of it, there is hope. 

Amanda Brobst-Renaud states: “Whenever we hear reports of disaster, Mark 13 reminds us to not be led astray by messianic claimants that cannot save us; rather, we look for Jesus.” 

Throughout all of the gospels, we find this Jesus guy. Who we as Christians, claim and name as Lord and savior, this Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ in whom we trust: An itinerant preacher, who ate with women, fisherman, and tax collectors, who welcomed little children in his midst, as he redefined greatness, and disassembled the social norms of the day, and , taking apart proverbial stones that separated and drove people apart; and laid proverbial stones to build up a new community; built around the cornerstone that was once rejected… A teacher, who had questionable parentage, and a following of close knit disciples, that upset religious and political authorities, while under the thumb of the Roman empire, who would ultimately execute him… 

A little apocalypse puts in context Jesus’ own execution, and it is a hard thing, death feels like the final thing… the public and brutal killing of your teacher would feel like the end for the disciples. And yet, and yet, even in the face of the crucifixion of Jesus, we get the Easter morning, which as a colleague and mentor of mine noted, is the best good thing ever…In the face of death, life… out of chaos, hope… out of destruction and disaster, opportunity… in the face of war, we can work for peace… but only if we do not let ourselves get led astray…  

So with all of the good, the bad, the stones that fall, the stones that are built.  With wars and rumors of war…let us look for Jesus… who only asks that we follow humbly… loving God, and loving neighbor. 

Amen.