Mark 13:1-8; Hebrews 10:11-14,19-25 “Meant for Mission” November 15, 2009
James Bay United Church Rev. Larry Scott
Somebody insightful is reported to have said, “Inside every short man is a tall man doubled over in pain.” We have no way of knowing how tall Jesus was but we assume that his importance to us does not depend on our knowing his physical size. In contrast, the spring issue (2003) of the Journal of Applied Psychology says that people who are "big" apparently have an advantage that they can exploit, if they want to. A study done at the University of Florida found that tall people earn considerably more money than short people over the course of their lives. The research attempted to account for the difference. Researchers concluded that tall people may feel more self-confident, which aids them in becoming more successful.
In addition, customers may gravitate toward tall people, assuming that they are leaders who will be more effective in meeting their needs. The connection between height and pay was especially strong in jobs in sales and management. But there was also a marked correlation in jobs in engineering, accounting, computer programming, and clerical work. The research revealed that height is more of a factor in pay than a person's gender is. [Research info from LectionAid, 04-04-2004.] If we are conditioned to measure the importance of people by their size, perhaps we apply a similar standard to churches and other religious buildings. In New York City, the cavernous Cathedral of St. John the Divine [ www.nyc.architecture.com/HAR/HAR002 ] has been under construction since 1892. It may take another hundred years to complete and it will be the largest cathedral (not using steel construction) in the world. We build such structures in part to inspire the kind of awe that we associate with a transcendent God. Strength, height and impressive grandeur are the projected message of such religious temples. Just such a motivation prompted the Israelites to build an immense Temple complex in Jerusalem. It was one of the architectural wonders of the ancient world, even by Roman standards. Romans would know that Jews had an important religion by the size of the Temple they had built to worship their God. Devout Jews too would be inspired when they came to Jerusalem and saw the great Temple.
Mark notes in today’s lesson: And as Jesus came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, "Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!" 2: And Jesus said to him, "Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another, that will not be thrown down." [Mark 13:1-2]. Jesus seems to attack the most visible symbol of what religious people are inspired by – their religious buildings. If Jesus was opposed to religious buildings per so, surely he would not have gone to the Temple in the first place. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus seems to go back and forth to Jerusalem many times in his life and he goes to the Temple to pray. In contrast, Mark has Jesus going to the Temple only once, at the end of his public ministry; he drives out the money changers as a dramatic statement against corruption that creeps into organized religion.
Surely the antagonism of the Temple authorities is one of the major reasons that Jesus is arrested and crucified as a blasphemer and a heretic. The High Priest Caiaphas would have been embarrassed by Jesus’ radical demonstration and by the inability of the Temple guards to quell the disturbance. Caiaphas had to appeal to Pilate’s Roman soldiers to restore order. If the High Priest could not keep order even in the Temple, then the Roman occupiers might reasonably conclude that he should be dismissed and replaced by direct Roman rule. If Jesus’ teaching about the kingdom of God and the simplified law of loving God and neighbour as one’s self were to catch on, then the whole elaborate sacrificial system of the Temple would be irrelevant. Caiaphas would be redundant, as would the whole priestly caste.
When Jesus declares that the great buildings of the Temple will not be left standing, he uses literal language to convey an underlying spiritual meaning – the Temple system of sacrificial worship needs to collapse in order to make way for true worship of God, in spirit and in truth. Mark is probably writing his gospel just after the Romans destroyed the Temple in response to a nationalist uprising in Jerusalem, in 70 A.D. Mark obviously interprets the Roman destruction of the Temple as a judgment from God for unfaithfulness – a prediction that he attributes to Jesus himself. Thereafter, the main version of Judaism that survived was the rabbinical Pharisee movement, which emphasized keeping of the Torah as opposed to Temple worship. Similarly the Jerusalem Church with its Jewish Christians, was no longer the centre of the new movement and Christian influence shifted to Paul’s final destination in Rome.
Jesus’ teaching about the collapse of Temple-based religion came true, both in the sense of the physical building being destroyed and in the demise of the system of sacrificial worship associated with the Temple. Christians tended to gloss over this prophetic edge in Jesus’ teachings and soon they were building great church structures rivaling the former Temple of Jerusalem. Even in the history of James Bay United Church, its early founders built our present structure as a Sunday School chapel, hoping that someday they would have enough money to build a great church. This monument to Methodism would have gone up on the land between our present sanctuary and Menzies Street but the congregation lost the land due to unpaid taxes in 1928. The loss may be seen as a judgment from on high or an accident of the market economy; the lot ended up being the location of a strip mall that now provides many useful services to the community.
Those who do not like to be challenged at a spiritual depth to respond to God, want a religious system of rituals and buildings so as to make people religiously comfortable in superficial ways. People much prefer to argue about religious customs, doctrines and buildings, than being held accountable spiritually to God. For similar reasons, it is much easier to raise money today for a magnificent pipe organ or stain glass windows or great edifices, than it is to raise money in the name of Christ to help the poor, treat those with drug addictions or house the homeless. In the 1960’s the Episcopal Bishop of New York halted construction on the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, saying that not another stone would be laid as long as there was a single person living in poverty in New York. The sentiment was noble. By the 1979, work had resumed on the cathedral and poverty still ruled large swaths of New York City. Jesus’ words are no less challenging today than they were in the days of the Jerusalem Temple.
If we resist the temptation to lock God up in architectural boxes called cathedrals and churches and synagogues, then maybe we are open to a God who goes out into the world. Our going out into the world to serve on behalf of God, is our mission. We do local mission through the Outreach Fund of our congregation and through our support of Our Place. When we do mission in the wider world, we do so through the Mission and Service Fund. Each year we accept a voluntary goal as a congregation, to support this work. Our goal this year is $5,000. and we have achieved about $3,500 so far.
Mission and Service does things like fund First Nations congregations in Canada, support outreach workers in the inner city, and subsidize small rural congregations. About one quarter of the Mission and Service Fund goes to overseas work, helping partner churches in Third World countries; those churches know the local conditions, as they distribute aid after natural disasters, fund schools or give seed money to women’s cooperative ventures. We are challenged and sustained by a Christ who invites us to see past our religious boxes into a kingdom not made by human hands, but served by human hands and hearts. When temples fall we have the opportunity to look beyond bricks and mortar for the God who transcends walls and calls us into mission in the wider world. We are the Body of Christ, which is both a blessing and a calling. Let us serve the One who invites us to come close to God, that we might enable ourselves and others to be fully the people God made us to be. Thanks be to God. Amen.