There are two TV shows that come out of
the BBC and are regularly trotted out on the ABC just before the evening news
that I really enjoy watching. One is The
Time Team and the other is Restoration Home or Restoration
Man both very similar to each other in working with old buildings and
restoring them.
These came to my mind as I was reading what
we have from the Gospel today in its comment about the huge stones with which
the Temple in Jerusalem had been built with – it is estimated that some blocks
weighed in excess of 50 tonnes.
But when the Time Team excavates an old
Roman ruin what we generally see are walls of rocks seemingly just sitting on
each other – no mortar is left holding them together, nor is there often any
plaster covering over the rocks. They
just look like rocks.
NOTHING IS
Like all the prophets before him, Jesus
was an astute reader of the social and political times he was living in, and I
think his words in v.6 give us a glimpse of it.
He knew that if things continued on as they had been in Israel under the
Romans, for much longer, there would be such a reaction from Rome that would
result in the Temple being destroyed utterly.
The interesting thing for me about this
temple is that it was not Solomon’s Temple.
That had been destroyed two centuries before. King Herod the Great, appointed by the Romans
as a vassal King in Judaea rebuilt the temple, as only such a king would, with
every possible embellishment necessary to impress his Roman masters. It was grand and it seemed permanent – but
even it would not last.
Inevitably the same thing will happen
to this temple, this church building. Some
of you have spent many years worshipping in this place and treasure it deeply. Some
of the things within the building and in its gardens make it a very sacred
space for you.
We have spent much energy and money on
making sure its structure remains sound and beautiful. Little by little we try
to beautify it. We hope that it will serve our community for generations to
come.
Yet.....yet.... the day will surely
come when it will become a pile of rubble. This house of prayer will cease to be, and who
knows what will take its place.
Nothing we build or maintain has a
claim on permanence. We gravely mislead
ourselves if we think it does.
WE ARE PILGRIMS WHO LIVE IN TENTS
It is a wonderful thing for us to be
reminded that God’s earliest relationship with his people was when they were
wandering Arameans living in tents, and that even the Tabernacle was conceived
of as a tent.
This is a bit like a parable of how
things should be for us as Christians. The
prime task of a Christian is not to build something permanent but to be
faithful in following Christ and glorifying God in our generation. Faithfulness is what is required; never some
vainglorious attempt to perpetuate our structures into future generations.
And we create structures in much more
than just bricks and mortar. We also
create organisations (even Church denominations) that we think are permanent
and should be preserved as if they are our legacy for the next generation.
Most of us do want to leave something
more permanent than buildings. We would like our influence to continue. We
would like to think that we have contributed in a small way to progress that
will go on and develop. But maybe it won’t.
Our influence has no
more claim to permanence than our buildings. There is nothing necessarily accumulative
about a good influence in society. Each
generation must again face the issues of good and evil, faith or cynicism. Even
if by some remarkable mission to the world, every person was converted to the
love of God, the next generation would have to face it all again.
Our task is not to build monuments of
any kind but to be faithful to Christ in our time and in our situation.
HOW WILL WE KNOW THINGS ARE ENDING?
In reply to the people’s request for
some idea of what it will be like when these things happen, Jesus sets out a
pretty realistic world view. Jesus warns
about the troubles that will come:
Nation will rise
against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes,
famines and pestilences in various places and fearful events and great signs
from heaven.
Luke 21: 10-11
Some people might have expected Jesus
to describe a world that was getting increasing better because people of faith
had lived in it, but he doesn't. He
describes a world in which persecution and suffering will be the order of the
day for those who follow him. It’s a world in which both natural and man-made
disasters inflict terrible suffering on God’s people.
In effect he is telling us: Bad things
will go on happening. But don’t be
misled. Don’t be impatient. Don’t become despairing if your efforts do not
appear to achieve much. God will travel
with you through this if you are faithful.
That is what he is calling us to –
being faithful. No more is asked of us than that, nor anything less. This
is about a loving God who suffers with the world to redeem it from its folly
and sin. Next week we pause for a moment
to reflect on the suffering of Jesus through which he is vindicated by God and
becomes Lord of our lives – through suffering God comes to us.
SUMMARY
Two things then are warned against on
this penultimate Sunday of the Church year.
1. Thinking we
know that the end is near – so many people have fallen into this trap, haven’t
they? But Jesus specifically warns against it.
2. Thinking that
it is our task to lay down some tangible and permanent structure that will
perpetuate the faith for future generations – if we are but faithful in our
relationship with God the next generation will be taken care of.
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