Mark 13:1-8
Rev. Betsy Scheuerman
Unitarian Universalist Church, Meadville, PA
Scripture: Mark 13:1-8
As Jesus came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, "Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!"
Then Jesus asked him, "Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down."
When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, "Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?"
Then Jesus began to say to them, "Beware that no one leads you astray.
Many will come in my name and say, 'I am he!' and they will lead many astray. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. 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 birthpangs.”
Focusing Quotation:
"Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down."
Meditation:
It was a gloriously beautiful morning: the bright cloudless sky really the color of a “sky blue” crayon; the warmth of the sun’s rays compensating for with that tart crispness in the air that lets you know fall is on its way. I was in my third year and final year of seminary, and had just begun my stint as a student minister at a local congregation.
After attending a breakfast meeting about a program aimed at interventions that would break the cycle of violence and abuse in families, I was driving home. I had the radio on. Then, a news bulletin: “A plane has hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center.“
I pictured a tiny toy plane, bumping into the tower the way a bird or bumblebee bumps into a windowpane. It seemed a scene from a cartoon. For some reason I thought of the movie King Kong, as though what was being described was merely a special effect.
I learned otherwise, of course. My husband worked in Battery Park; I tried to calculate what time he would have emerged from the PATH train…or had he taken the ferry? For five hours I did not know whether he was alive.
I missed my seminary class on the synoptic gospels. The topic on the course syllabus that day? Chapter 24 in Matthew, Chapter 21 in Luke, Chapter 13 in Mark. "Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down."
Always before, I had skipped over those apocalyptic verses foretelling destruction. They were—and are—inconvenient to my liberal, progressive view of the world. They seemed unreal, somehow antiquated. I associated these passages with the benighted, lunatic fringe of Christianity.
And there I was, not studying but living the text, watching the horror unfold, as these great buildings collapsed. Over and over and over again, the scene was replayed on my TV: all will be thrown down. I could not help but compare the WTC to the Temple of Jerusalem, and the tower of Babel. Our modern day equivalent, it was built to inspire awe, dedicated to the God of Commerce—marred by hubris and greed. A false prophet, through followers he led astray—towards evil rather than good—brought down the Towers, and most of the people in them.
My husband had managed to scramble onto one of the last ferries out of New York City. When I picked him up at the train station, I could see a fine layer of ash sprinkled on his suit; flecks on his face, his hands.
Neither one of us liked to think too much about what the components of that ash might be.
The ghost of the World Trade Center lingers: a hole in the ground, a felt absence in the New York City skyline, an unhealed wound to the national psyche.
How absurdly privileged I had been, thinking of the apocalypse as irrelevant to my life. It is a story that tragically repeats, affecting far too many on this Earth.
What sustains us when we understand too well the vulnerability of what we thought invulnerable? The fragility of our world?
I find comfort in the wisdom of that early follower of Jesus, Paul: Love never fails. Prophecies will cease, tongues will fall silent, knowledge will pass away… In the end, there are three things that last: faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love.
Prayer:
O God of Grace, help me to ground my life in what endures: faith, hope, and love. Heal me with the warmth of your Love. Grant me compassion for all those struggling to live through catastrophic times. Guide me so that I may live this day well. Amen
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