I’ve always wanted to go to the Sistine Chapel. I would love to view the long room with vaulted ceilings soaring high above the craned necks of eager visitors. It is one of those places that pilgrims and travelers put high on their destination list when visiting Rome. One of my friends, Pastor Alyssa Aldape, of First Baptist Church of Washington DC, once said when visiting, “Despite the crowds, there’s still a sort of hushed reverence as the beautiful artwork on the ceiling stretches high overhead, depicting one man’s talented interpretation of scripture… On the wall directly opposite where you enter is a depiction of the last judgment. And above you, that divine hand stretches out toward the waiting finger of the human hand that has become immortalized as the symbol of creation. The story of scripture from beginning to end is laid out in delicate brush strokes and has been admired for centuries.” She said it seemed as if the very atmosphere in the room was charged with a peaceful and hallowed presence, even as tourists prattled and chattered.
Yet, in that holy silence, Rev. Aldape said she heard a voice cut across the sacred space. Someone said loudly, “Well, one of these days this is all going to be rubble and ruins! Look, I think the paint is already peeling in that corner!” Wow. Truly a scandalous thing to say. I’m sure it stunned the people within earshot. Who would be that disrespectful? Was it disrespect or a healthy dose of realism? I wonder if this person saw beyond the beauty and knew that no matter how beautiful or holy a place is, it won’t last forever.
In our Bible passage today, Jesus had to deliver some terrible news to his disciples, news about a place that was beautiful and holy. But he didn’t deliver it in the good news/bad news formula we’re accustomed to. No, Jesus told them the bad news first, that everything they knew would change and crumble and fall. Yet, after that admission he told them the good news – that God had already planned to help them persevere and endure the painful and chaotic parts of life, and that they would be able, with the help of God, stand firm and ultimately win the day.
You see, Jesus and his disciples were standing in the courts surrounding the Temple and his disciples gawked and gaped at the beauty and grandeur of the place. And, just like the Sistine Chapel, their captivation was warranted. “The Temple courts sat on 36 acres of land. The giant stones that made up the Temple were dazzling, blinding white marble, and over some of the stones was gold plating that reflected the sunlight. From a distance, the whole complex must have looked like a glowing jewel. Up close, it probably seemed like the most impressive building in the Roman Empire.”
And Jesus had the miserable task of bursting his disciples’ bubbles and revealing to them that this magnificent center of Jewish faith and life and hope was destined for destruction and doomed to ruins. And it wasn’t simply like getting the news that the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris was engulfed in flames. The Temple in Jerusalem was the center of Jewish faith and it was what made God seem real on the earth. And not only would the symbol and home of God be destroyed, but the disciples would also be persecuted and feel the pangs of violence all because they were following Christ. Life was beginning to come apart at the seams and a voice was calling out from the edge of the room, “Well, one of these days this is all going to be rubble and ruins! Look, I think the paint is already peeling in that corner!”
And like Jesus said in verse 6, “As for what you see here. . .,” we find that it is easy to put our faith and hope in the things we can touch and see, the things that are beautiful and impress us, our possessions and symbols of security. Yet, those things are not firm and permanent. No, they are shaky and temporary. And it’s so difficult to feel like we can succeed at life when everything is falling apart. I know exactly how the disciples felt, to be blindsided by this bad news from Jesus. Where is your word of encouragement Jesus? Where is the hope?
That’s why I like the New International Version of this particular text. You see, we read the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible for our scripture readings on Sunday mornings. And we do so because we value the rich and deep translation of inclusive language and scholarly thoughtfulness. But I wanted to see what another translation did with the last verse: “By your endurance you will gain your souls.” The New International Version translates it in a way that brings wind to my spirit and gives me energy to move forward. The NIV says, “Stand firm and win life!”
Stand firm and win life. Doesn’t that sound like the slogan for a self-help guru or an entrepreneur trying to sell you something? Stand firm and win life! In the shaky seas of life, like when Jesus was on the boat with his disciples and the big storm thrashed them about, Jesus stood up, stood firm, and commanded the sea to be still. Peace came to the waters and the disciples had won life. And today, Jesus had just talked about the impermanence of the grand Temple and how it would be reduced to rubble. The Temple would fall and it would not stand firm. An old way of doing religion, an old way of life, and old way of looking at God was about to come to an end and new way was going to grow from the remains.
And doesn’t it feel like that sometimes? Doesn’t it feel like the beautiful life, the curated existence that we’ve created is so unstable? That it might come crashing down at any moment? The splendid temples we have erected in our lives beg for Jesus to prophesy against them and bring them more in line with the love and will of God. You see, it was a comment on the splendor of the Temple that moved Jesus to prophesy.
Scottish scholar and professor, Dr. William Barclay says, “In the Temple, the pillars of the porches and of the cloisters were columns of white marble, forty feet high, each made of one single block of stone. Of the ornaments, the most famous was the great vine made of solid gold, each of whose clusters was as tall as a [person]. The finest description of the Temple as it stood in the time of Jesus is in Josephus, The Jewish Wars, Book 5, Section 5. At one point he writes, ‘The outward face of the Temple in its front wanted nothing that was likely to surprise either men’s minds or their eyes, for it was covered all over with plates of gold of great weight, and, at the first rising of the sun, reflected back a very fiery splendor, and made those who forced themselves to look upon it to turn their eyes away, just as they would have done at the sun’s own rays. But the Temple appeared to strangers, when they were at a distance, like a mountain covered with snow, for, as to those parts of it that were not gilt, they were exceedingly white.’
For the people of God, their gilded and golden, white and resilient Temple could never be turned to dust. The religiously devout thought their gilded lives could not be tarnished, their marble identities were strong enough to withstand anything. But Jesus said that the people of God would have to lose everything. They would have to lose their worshiping space, their way of life, maybe even their lives. Persecution and destruction would come. But in the midst of the persecution and destruction they would need to stand firm, stand strong. For if they made it through the destruction of Jerusalem then they would win life, and find that their newer and stronger bodies, their newer and stronger faith, that they, themselves were the new dwelling places of God in the world. Jesus was calling them and is calling us as a community of God to stand firm and win life.
But I’m sure that the disciples thought the world was out to get them and that this was a judgment upon them and on society. Often, we feel like the bad decisions we make or the lifestyles that we lead cause nothing but pain and punishment to be piled upon us. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. Gilberto Ruiz, Assistant Professor of Theology at St. Anselm College says, “A close reading of Luke 21:5-19 shows that using this passage as a springboard for proclaiming God’s judgment on society would miss the point. Rather, the passage warns us about becoming too fixated on temporary human institutions, perhaps with the implication that we should attend to the poor in our communities instead, and it exhorts us to be firm in our trust in God when calamity and persecution strike. Despite its language and imagery of destruction, Luke 21:5-19 is ultimately a passage grounded in hope – in the hope that God remains present in the world and in one’s life even when things have gotten so bad that it feels like the world is closing in on us.”
And when the world is closing in around us we can stand firm because God is with us. Sure, it feels as if our structures and our systems might be crumbling. And maybe that’s not a bad thing. Maybe we need some of our temples and some of our sacred cows to crumble down. We tend to think that the destruction in our lives will ruin us and leave us in shambles. Many of us might feel in shambles now. Yet Jesus said endurance is important. Endurance is what we need and what we crave. Endurance teaches us that standing firm in the midst of change is all we can do when everything in life feels temporary, even our big and important temples. Our health is fragile, our jobs are tenuous, our homes and churches could fall. Nothing is permanent. Nothing.
A colleague of mine in Atlanta, Father Samuel Candler of St. Philips Episcopal Church, talks about how the world changes and our experiences and our structures are never enough to keep us close to God. Father Candler said, “A friend of mine once put it well. He asked, ‘Do you know what prevents you from experiencing God the most? The biggest obstacle in the way of your experiencing God is whatever your last experience of God was.’ Your last experience, whatever it was, was so wonderful and refreshing and renewing, that you inevitably believe that every future experience will have to be exactly like that. And it won't be.”
Father Candler continued, “New heavens and a new earth don’t seem so great when we admire the large stones of the huge temples we build around us. And all of us have some sort of temple that we admire. It might be a literal church. It might be those forts and dams of sand that I fashioned as a child. It might be that special place we escape to for refuge and respite. But that temple might also be our own job or company or family, that we have built up to be proud of.”
I saw something interesting in my research for this sermon. Dr. David Lose wrote a piece about worship as liturgy. And as we all know liturgy is defined as “the work of the people.” We all participate in our communal worship in church and in our work of revealing the love of Christ in the world. But Dr. Lose also began to translate liturgy a little bit differently, changing one word. What if it is not so much the “work of the people,” but the “work for the people.” In a sense, more literally, it is a “public work,” that is, something carried out to serve the public and the common good. I kind of like that. And I think we do that well, here at Royal Lane. I think our worship and our singing and our readings are things that help us serve our communities, as literal public works projects.
“There is a TED Talk by artist, designer, and urban planner, Candy Chang, who regularly creates art intended to be a public work. In one such project, and deeply affected by the death of a dear friend, she transformed a dilapidated house in her neighborhood into a public chalk board where she invited people to respond to the question, “Before I die I want to …”. The answers were poignant, honest, funny, and insightful.” Dr. Lose, after mentioning this public works TED Talk on his blog, had one reader ask, “What would it be like to have exterior church walls with such lines as ‘I need someone to pray for ______________’ and chalk for people to be able to write their prayers?” And loving that question, Dr. Lose, later, had a student who wrote and told him that they’d done something just like that at her congregation … “and that it had been a huge success both in the congregation and surrounding neighborhood.”[1]
So, knowing that Jesus is with us no matter what and knowing that if we stand firm and endure, and that we will have lives that will be full of the graciousness of God, what might our public works project for our community be? If we had a big chalkboard right out there on Royal Lane on which people were to write their prayer requests with the promise that our church would lift those needs in prayer and also make it the work of our faith community, what would happen? How would we win life and help the city be a place where no one is left behind, or kept separated, or lost in the hurt, debt, and debris of the world?
And so, Jesus’ words for us are to stand firm. Stand firm in the promises of God’s mercy and grace. Stand firm in the knowledge that we will get words and wisdom when things get too tough. Stand firm with Jesus who will always be with us, comforting us among the rubble. Stand firm knowing that this church, your life, our lives together are more than the big and grand structures of plaster and brick. We are more than the white steeple on the corner. We are public works projects, where our lives are on display. Are you standing firm in your trials? Are you coming around each other, loving each other? Our lives are chalkboards where we are open to sketch the needs of the world into our hearts and project the words and wisdom of our God. It is through this that we find our true stability in order to stand firm and win life.
[1] David Lose. A Public Works Project. From the Working Preacher website, 2013.