5 pm Homily 11.17.24 given by Laurel Tallent
The Greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven, by Yongsung Kim
“Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?” It is tempting to make our gospel message today about us. About 2024. Like Peter, James, John and Andrew, we are anxious to know when catastrophe will visit to destroy the institutions that are foundational to both our daily life and who we think we are.
It is reasonable to assume that this message is about the destruction of the second temple in 70 CE, a recent or imminent occurrence for the author of Mark and its first readers. It is reasonable to assume that this gospel message is about us - as there are wars and rumors of wars, and all of the other things Jesus lists as but the beginning of the birth pangs. But to focus only on the disciples' anxiety, to focus only on the destruction of the second temple, or recenter Jesus’ words on us and assume we are their true recipient, undercuts the good news in this passage: The world is always ending. The kingdom of god is always imminent.
Beware! Jesus warns. Not of the wars and rumors of wars, not of the famine and earthquakes. Beware that no one leads us away, towards themselves instead of Christ. Beware of people who appropriate his identity, saying “I am He”. As Mark tells the story, the disciples Jesus is speaking to haven’t come to understand his identity yet, the identity of Messiah that “I am He” might imply. So is this a warning only to the reader, who’s been informed of Jesus’ identity at the beginning of Mark? Is it a message to all the recipients, those sitting on the Mount of Olives, in these pews and every place and time in between, whether we understand or not?
Perhaps those who claim “I am He” will perform signs and wonders - markers that were demanded of Jesus as proof of his identity, demands that he grew to openly disdain. From Mark 8, just a few chapters before our reading: The Pharisees came and began to argue with him, asking him for a sign from heaven, to test him. And he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, “Why does this generation ask for a sign? Truly I tell you, no sign will be given to this generation.” Perhaps Jesus is warning us that the supply we demand will come: people with a remarkably similar message we can believe in, plus everything he doesn’t provide: wish fulfillment, definitive solutions, prophecy, confident predictions that affirm or soothe our anxieties about when and how destruction will come.
Jesus leaves no instructions to prevent the ever present end of the world, or bring it about more swiftly, or survive once it arrives. Jesus is not a solutions guy. Eternal God made flesh arrives on the scene and we, along with Peter, John, James and Andrew sit on a hillside watching the sunset and ask anxious questions. Hand-in-hand with our beloved, an endless life together stretching out before us, and we ask for a time table.
The world is always ending, so the kingdom of god is always imminent. We will always be at the cusp of “these things being accomplished”. There is no deadline, no moment of no return where our work ends. This is good news.
It is endless work, but not constant work. Like Adam expelled from Eden, released to toil in the earth for his life. Like my union rep, congratulating us on winning our union this fall, saying “You guys! You fought so well! This is the beginning of fighting this fight forever!”. Like God creating. We will rest, we will experience pleasure and be joyful.
The agricultural metaphors for the kingdom of God weren’t written for us, so our understanding is inherently limited. Who among us is a farm hand in Judea, and can understand the nuances these metaphors must contain? But I return to them because they describe the never ending, but always changeable nature of our labor. And they promise that we will eat and be fed as a part of the cycle. It reminds us that a purpose of our labors is to be fed and feed each other.
One I turn to often is Psalm 126 - “Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy. Those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them”
There isn’t a single harvest in our lives, is there? We weep with sorrow because our efforts for liberation seem hopeless. Every sowing feels insurmountable. It is tempting to turn to work that will feel more timely or provides the thrill of easy accomplishment, work that only looks like liberation. Work that will not feed us. But when we labor in the fields of the Lord, tilling through hardened hearts and our own bigotry, when we amend or burn what oppresses us and our neighbor, we WILL harvest, and rejoice and feast together, before we return to the field to sow another tenuous planting. The world is always ending, so the kingdom of god is always imminent.
The gospel today isn’t about you. But it is ALL about you. God’s gift of a son to Hannah is all about her joy and her security. God’s gift of a son to Hannah is so much more than Hannah’s joy and security. Even now, can we fully understand the meaning of Samuel’s birth on the cosmic scale? No. But we can look at our own children, nieces and nephews and grandchildren and connect with a sliver of the joy in Samuel’s birth, even without knowing what impact our little ones will have in this always-ending world.
This is How You Lose the Time War is an epistolary novel - we do love epistolary works here don’t we - that unfolds as a series of letters between two time-traveling agents named Red and Blue, who come from existentially opposed universes. They are at war, and leave their letters in surprising places throughout time and space, as their admiration of each others’ espionage turns to a star-crossed love story. In the end, the lovers are not saved by a resolution between their universes, a final act of war or a peace treaty. Neither universe wins, but our lovers might. In the final, not entirely resolved chapter Blue writes “There’s still a war out there, of course. But this is a strategy untested… suppose that we defected. Not to each others’ sides, but to each other? Shall we build a bridge between our worlds and hold it - a space in which to be neighbors, to keep dogs, to share tea. It’ll be a long slow game. They’ll hunt us fiercer than they ever hunted each other - but somehow I don’t think you’ll mind.
In our timeline, instead of committing our labor and thoughts to a definitive end of the world, and dwelling on when the kingdom of god will finally arrive, what if we create the space that holds both these things? It is always the end of the world. The kingdom of god is so, so close.
I wonder what part of this gospel reading feels like it’s for you. I wonder which illustration - the agricultural metaphors, or an eternal love story, bring you joy. I wonder what you will do with that joy.