Ideas for a sermon on the Gospel for 18th November

Mark 13:1-8 (NRSV)

The Destruction of the Temple Foretold

13As he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!’ ²Then Jesus asked him, ‘Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.’

3 When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, ⁴‘Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?’ ⁵Then Jesus began to say to them, ‘Beware that no one leads you astray. ⁶Many will come in my name and say, “I am he!” and they will lead many astray. ⁷When you hear of wars and rumours of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. ⁸For 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.

The disciples were just like us – easily taken in by impressive sights – not least wonderful architecture. By all accounts, Herod’s Temple was a marvel of architecture and wealth and it had been a feature of great significance for hundreds of years. Jesus prophecies its destruction: Some scholars suggest that this might not have been a prophecy of the physical destruction of the Temple; it could have been Jesus talking about the importance, not of the impressive physical, but the more important Spiritual Temple. We will never know for certain.

This is a well-used passage when referring to the end of time and is controversial because it often becomes part of the package of those who become obsessed with it. In this first reflection, I offer an illustration from that excellent website www.esermons.com :

Gregory L. Fisher in Leadership magazine tells of teaching a class at the West African Bible College. One day the class was discussing the Second Coming of Christ. A student asked Fisher a question that took him by surprise. The question was this: “What will he say when he shouts?”

The student said, “Reverend, 1 Thessalonians 4:16 says that Christ will descend from heaven with a loud command. I would like to know what that command will be.”

Fisher wanted to leave the question unanswered, to tell the student that they must not go past what Scripture has revealed, but his mind wandered to an encounter he had earlier in the day with a refugee from the Liberian civil war. The man, a high school principal, told him how he was apprehended by a two‑man death squad. After several hours of terror, as the men described how they would torture and kill him, he narrowly escaped. After hiding in the bush for two days, he was able to find his family and escape to a neighboring country. The escape cost him dearly: two of his children lost their lives. The stark cruelty unleashed on an unsuspecting, undeserving population had touched Fisher deeply. He also saw flashbacks of the beggars that he passed each morning on his way to the office. Every day he saw how poverty destroys dignity, robs people of the best of what it means to be human, and sometimes substitutes the worst of what it means to be an animal. Fisher says even now he is haunted by the vacant eyes of people who have lost all hope.

“Reverend, you have not given me an answer,” the student demanded. “What will [Christ] say?”

The question hadn’t gone away. “Enough,” Fisher said in answer to the question. “He will shout, Enough! when he returns.”

A look of surprise opened the face of the student. “What do you mean, enough?”

And Fisher said firmly, “Enough suffering. Enough starvation. Enough terror. Enough death. Enough indignity. Enough lives trapped in hopelessness. Enough sickness and disease. Enough time. ENOUGH!” (Gregory L. Fisher, Leadership “Second Coming,” 1991. Adapted by King Duncan)

This puts it into – in my mind – its proper perspective.

J C Ryle writes: “Chapters like this ought to be deeply interesting to every true Christian … The rise and fall of worldly empires are events of comparatively small importance in the sight of God … are nothing in His eyes by the side of the mystical body of Christ …”

It was good and interesting to read this because I have to confess that passages like this are not my favourite and this is one of the reasons why the discipline of following the Lectionary is so good for me. I need to preach on this passage on Sunday – and I have not been looking forward to it. So what is Ryle’s contribution that makes it – in his opinion – such an important passage.

The disciples’ admiration for the splendour of the Temple gets an unexpected response from Jesus who ‘… expresses no commendation of the design or workmanship of the gorgeous structure before him …’ Ryles exposition continues.

The true glory of any place of worship has nothing to do with its physical presence and splendour; but in the faith and godliness of its members. It is interesting to note that, even though Jesus, the Jew, knew that the Temple contained the Holy of Holies, the golden candlestick and the altar of burnt offering – all central to Jewish worship at the time, Jesus could find no pleasure in looking at what was obviously a magnificent building! The same holds true for Christians and churches today: what matters is that God’s Word (written and living) and His Spirit are honoured – that is all.

Yet today, Christians are fixated on buildings. Ministries are diluted because people refuse to close churches and chapels that have long since been not viable and millions are spent on the restoration of impressive piles, when people are starving and going in need.

We are naturally inclined to judge things by their outward appearance. Ryle continues:

We are too apt to suppose that where there is a stately ecclesiastical building and a magnificent ceremonial, - carved stone and painted glass, - fine music and impressively dressed ministers, there must be some real religion. And yet there may be no religion at all. It may be all form and show, and appeal to the senses. There may be nothing to satisfy the conscience, nothing to cure the heart.

What matters is that Christ be preached and the Word of God is expounded. The ministers might be ignorant of the Gospel and the worshippers may be dead in their trespasses and sins. Sadly this is true in many places.

I can identify completely with what Ryle is suggesting here: “ … the meanest room where Christ is preached at this day, is more honourable in his eyes than the cathedral of St Peter’s at Rome …’ if the Word is not faithfully preached and the lives of those present are not living letters to be read of all.

It goes without saying that the opposite is also not true. As Ryle adds:

There is no true religion in having a dirty, mean shabby, and disorderly place of worship … But let it be a settled principle in our religion, however beautiful we make our churches, to regard pure doctrine and holy practice as their principle ornaments. … It has no glory if God is not there.

I have mentioned this before, but one of the most beautiful places of worship I have ever attended was the ‘Motherwell Cathedral’ made of throw away, rusted wrought iron, in a squatter camp outside Port Elizabeth in South Africa. It’s Cross and furnishings were fashioned from material from the rubbish dump – but it was spotlessly clean and lovingly maintained. God was there, more than the Cathedral I left behind. In Ryle’s words, sound doctrine and holy practice – Godly lives – ‘… the humblest cottage where the Gospel is preached, is lovely and beautiful …’

Jesus was intimately expanding on his prophecy of the end times to his inner circle, this time including Andrew. Jesus was aware that, before the end of time there would be heresy. And it was early in the history of the Church that heresy arose. Barclay makes the following comment suggesting that heresy arises from three main causes:

Heresy arises from constructing doctrine to suit oneself: Humans have a great ability for wishful thinking. Many people today do this – they claim, for instance - that there is no God because they do not wish there to be a God because it suits their lifestyle. They made outrageous claims that science has proven that there is no God, where the scientific community is saying that there probably is! If the Big Bang is true as the origin of everything, then the choice is either it happened by chance or someone or something started it off. “Chance” – philosophically speaking – requires more faith than God – even if at a minimum as deist God. Even Professor Richard Dawkins – the great anti-theist of our time (he is much more than an atheist) – admitted on Channel 4 to Mark Dowd, the producer of that fantastic documentary, Tsunami – where was God ? – that a deist God is probable. But people want to do as they please – and God makes this uncomfortable for them. One of the great heresies of our day is secularism – and it has been found wanting. Possessions, status, position, wealth and all the other trappings of a Godless society have been shown to be empty and meaningless. Our ethics seems to be dominated by the 11^th Commandment – “Thou shalt not be found out!” The whole idea of been accountable – even if no one else knows or finds out – is uncomfortable; the idea of judgement – is a harness on what ”I” want. Barclay comments: “Can it be that the doctrine of hell and the Second Coming have both dropped out of much religious thought because they are both uncomfortable doctrines.

So, this leads to the second cause of heresy, the establishing of a religion that suits people, a religion that will be popular and attractive. To do this, it needs to be watered down. As Barclay writes: “The sting, the condemnation, the humiliation, the moral demand, have to be taken out of it.” Barclay concludes most aptly: “It is not our job to alter Christianity to suit people, but to alter people to suit Christianity.” Some of the Churches in the world have courses that are very popular, but offer quick fix solutions to some of the great moral dilemmas of our time. There are those that simply quote bible passage after bible passage as the answer – and they are full to overflowing boasting thousands upon thousands of members. It is these that people like Dawkins can tear apart – in fact, even my Year 9 class at the grammar school would not be satisfied. We should never be impressed by numbers alone, though we should all rejoice at true revival, but as Jesus was constantly doing with his first disciples, we must make clear the cost of discipleship.

Heresy comes from not being part of a Christian fellowship: When people act in isolation, they are in danger of getting it wrong. Our churches have always stated that our sources of authority are the Bible, reason and tradition (which is the Church of England position) but the Methodists include experience as well. What the Bible says to us today can never be the sole preserve of a person working alone. From the earliest times the Council, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit (experience) came to a like mind of what God was saying – is saying to His people.

Heresy also comes from trying to be completely intelligible: Yes, we are under a duty to try to understand our faith, but it is also true that we are mere finite, contingent beings and the God we seek to know and understand is infinite and we will never fully be able to understand Him and His ways. This means that any expression of our faith that is ‘… neatly stated in a series of propositions and neatly proved in a series of logical steps like a geometrical theorem is an impossibility and a contradiction in terms … As G K Chesterton said, “It is only the fool who tries to get the heavens inside his head, and not unnaturally his head bursts. The wise person is content to get his head inside the heavens. “’ Barclay concludes that “Even at out most intellectual we must remember that there is always – and will always be place for the ultimate mystery before which we can only worship, wonder and adore.” Tertullian put it this way: “I believe, because it is impossible.”

Why is it that people claim that the existence of suffering, war, natural disasters – and all the other realities of human existence – make them challenge God’s existence. From the earliest time, Jesus has told us that this is going to be the case.