Birthpangs and Building Blocks
1 Samuel 2:1-10; Mark 13:1-8
November 15, 2009
This sermon begins twice. I didn’t plan it that way, but there you go. The best laid plans ….
Indeed, that is what this is all about it seems to me: the best laid plans. So whether your concerns this morning are deeply personal or broadly social, whether they are global or of heart and home, there is a word from God for you in these texts about laying plans, building blocks and turning things upside down.
When I was in Atlanta earlier this month staying at my sister’s house, I took note of the floor in one of the hallways. It’s a short stretch of tongue-in-groove flooring that I helped her salvage about eight or nine years ago from the rear portion of the house that I helped deconstruct – roof to foundation – in preparation for building an addition. Not one stone was left on another – of course, the house was frame and there were no stones to begin with.
In any case, we saved enough of the flooring to cover the short hallway, and I recall great satisfaction in laying that eight to ten feet of floor with the only bit of the back part of the house that did not wind up in a dumpster.
Second beginning: I was moved last week by pictures of President Obama walking in the rain through the graves of Arlington on Veterans Day – the weight of two wars of which he was not the architect bearing down upon him. And I could not help wondering if he is capable, in this moment, of imagining a future otherwise than the one that seems implied and inevitable given the building blocks we have collectively gathered and put in place over the past decade.
Pondering all of this, I came across these words from Annie Dillard:
You hammer against the walls of your house. You tap the walls, lightly, everywhere ... you know what to listen for. Some of the walls are bearing walls; they have to stay, or everything will fall down. Other walls can go with impunity; you can hear the difference. Unfortunately, it is often a bearing wall that has to go. ... Knock it out. Duck. Courage utterly opposes the bold hope that this is such fine stuff that the work needs it, or the world.
Sometimes, Jesus knew, you have to tear things down to make way for something to rise up. You have to clear and break ground in order to plant. Or, in terms that Jesus certainly understood, you cannot get to resurrection without crucifixion – you cannot get to Easter without experiencing Good Friday.
Indeed, we live in a Saturday kind of world – suspended between the gathering dark of Good Friday – the wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes, famines – in the midst of all that longing for the new hope of Easter.
So here we are, the middle of November, 2009. We have real wars, so we don’t need rumors, though we’ve got those, too. There was an earthquake in Indonesia on Monday, one in California on Tuesday and another in Greece on Wednesday. Famine continues to plague Somalia and Sudan.
We live in just such a world; and, truth be told, this is nothing new under the sun. Humankind has always lived in just such a world.
Where, in the midst of all this, do we turn for hope and its signs? Upon what do we rebuild in the midst of ruins? How is something new to be born out of all of this despair?
The disciples look at the mighty edifice of the Temple, and stand in awe of its beauty, power and sheer magnitude. Could they imagine a world without it? Could they imagine it crumbling to the ground such that not a stone would be left on stone? And could they possibly imagine something rising up in its place out of the barren earth?
If you are like me, you find it difficult to imagine a future that does not include the structures and institutions, the relationships and people who make up your present.
But each of our lives is full of the losses of just such foundations, and of the living into futures otherwise.
Faith does not promise protection from the passage of time and turning of the world.
On the other hand, faith invites us to trust foundation stones on which to build and it points us toward most unexpected sources for such stones.
Consider Hannah. To begin with, a woman in a patriarchal society is perhaps the last place one would look for a rock on which to build a future otherwise. Moreover, Hannah is barren – and thus doubly marginalized by her culture. She is destitute and despairing, bereft of hope, no vision for any future at all, much less one in which she might be recognized, honored and respected.
Likewise, the people of Israel are in disarray and despair. The time of the judges has passed. That foundation has crumbled. The hope of the nation? No one offers any.
Where should they look for hope? Where is the powerful leader who will ride in on the white horse to save them? Where is the mighty army that will prevail against their enemies? Where are the wealthy patrons who will secure the future?
Hannah? She is mourning her barren state and praying so loudly for restoration that the religious authorities accuse her of being drunk and making a spectacle of herself.
“What are you doing here, at the temple of all places – at the gates of power – making a fool of yourself asking for something you know is not going to happen?”
Hannah? The way to a future otherwise for the people of Israel is going to come through Hannah?
Who on earth is she?
Cast your imagination forward a few weeks – or centuries. The way to a future otherwise for the people of the world is going to come through … Mary?
Who on earth is she?
Who on earth are they? These women in a culture that completely circumscribes women’s lives to the powerless margins – why on earth would God choose them to bear into the world a future otherwise? Who are they, that they should be looked upon with favor and chosen to turn the world upside down?
Who, indeed.
I do not have nearly enough or good enough imagination to come up with such a plan. Fact is, I was ready to toss out those flooring pieces when my sister said, “we could use these on that hallway.”
If nothing else, faith is an act of imagination – seeing a future at once built upon the shattered stones of the past and present moment while at the same time seeing a future radically different from the present moment.
Listen to Hannah’s song:
“The bows of the mighty are broken, but the feeble gird on strength. Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread, but those who were hungry are fat with spoil. The barren has borne seven, but she who has many children is forlorn.
“God raises up the poor from the dust; God lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor. For the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and on them God has set the world.”
We all tend to believe that we, ourselves, have set up the pillars of the earth. We built the great edifices that mark our cities’ skylines. We built the great highways that connect them. We built the great institutions that sustain the cities. We built the schools, the banks, the churches.
The problem is, as much as we may have had to do with those construction projects, we also built the systems that enshrine injustice and inequality. We built the institutions that provide continuity for those systems. We built the armies that protect the vested, moneyed and powerful interests and reinscribe them with blood and treasure.
And thus, we are blind to any future otherwise.
Our own imaginations are captive to systems and structures of injustice and inequality and violence. This is true on scales both large and small and we recapitulate such systems and structures with each passing generation.
We do live in a Saturday world. Our own brokenness, played out in the intimate details of our daily living and on the grand stage of history, confines our history to such cycles and constrains our imagination such that we cannot imagine anything beyond the great temples and beautiful building blocks upon which they are constructed.
But Hannah knew otherwise. Mary knew otherwise. God knows otherwise.
Jesus – the stone that the builders rejected because they could not imagine constructing a future otherwise – Jesus embodies that hope and that promise. Jesus is the gift to a yearning world – the building block upon which to begin constructing the future of God’s imagination.
Oh to be sure, all of the news continues. The wars, the earthquakes, the famines. Our own lives are marked by suffering.
But the past does not have to be prologue. This temporary affliction does not have to be a sickness unto death, but can be, instead, birthpangs in the nativity of the kingdom of God.
For you see, where our imaginations fail – where we see nothing but dust and rubble – God not only sees a future otherwise, but provides us with a way into it through the example set in the living of Jesus.
We know the way: it is a way of healing and wholeness, of hospitality without limit, of bread and cup, of repentance and forgiveness, of justice and nonviolence, a way, in the end, of love.
We are called together precisely to be people of that way. May it be so. Amen.
1 Samuel 2:1-10
Hannah prayed and said,
“My heart exults in the LORD; my strength is exalted in my God. My mouth derides my enemies, because I rejoice in my victory.
“There is no Holy One like the LORD, no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God. Talk no more so very proudly, let not arrogance come from your mouth; for the LORD is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed. The bows of the mighty are broken, but the feeble gird on strength. Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread, but those who were hungry are fat with spoil. The barren has borne seven, but she who has many children is forlorn.
“The LORD kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up. The LORD makes poor and makes rich; he brings low, he also exalts. He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor. For the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and on them he has set the world.
“He will guard the feet of his faithful ones, but the wicked shall be cut off in darkness; for not by might does one prevail. The LORD! His adversaries shall be shattered; the Most High will thunder in heaven. The LORD will judge the ends of the earth; he will give strength to his king, and exalt the power of his anointed.”
________________________________________
Mark 13:1-8
As he 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.”
November 15, 2009
This sermon begins twice. I didn’t plan it that way, but there you go. The best laid plans ….
Indeed, that is what this is all about it seems to me: the best laid plans. So whether your concerns this morning are deeply personal or broadly social, whether they are global or of heart and home, there is a word from God for you in these texts about laying plans, building blocks and turning things upside down.
When I was in Atlanta earlier this month staying at my sister’s house, I took note of the floor in one of the hallways. It’s a short stretch of tongue-in-groove flooring that I helped her salvage about eight or nine years ago from the rear portion of the house that I helped deconstruct – roof to foundation – in preparation for building an addition. Not one stone was left on another – of course, the house was frame and there were no stones to begin with.
In any case, we saved enough of the flooring to cover the short hallway, and I recall great satisfaction in laying that eight to ten feet of floor with the only bit of the back part of the house that did not wind up in a dumpster.
Second beginning: I was moved last week by pictures of President Obama walking in the rain through the graves of Arlington on Veterans Day – the weight of two wars of which he was not the architect bearing down upon him. And I could not help wondering if he is capable, in this moment, of imagining a future otherwise than the one that seems implied and inevitable given the building blocks we have collectively gathered and put in place over the past decade.
Pondering all of this, I came across these words from Annie Dillard:
You hammer against the walls of your house. You tap the walls, lightly, everywhere ... you know what to listen for. Some of the walls are bearing walls; they have to stay, or everything will fall down. Other walls can go with impunity; you can hear the difference. Unfortunately, it is often a bearing wall that has to go. ... Knock it out. Duck. Courage utterly opposes the bold hope that this is such fine stuff that the work needs it, or the world.
Sometimes, Jesus knew, you have to tear things down to make way for something to rise up. You have to clear and break ground in order to plant. Or, in terms that Jesus certainly understood, you cannot get to resurrection without crucifixion – you cannot get to Easter without experiencing Good Friday.
Indeed, we live in a Saturday kind of world – suspended between the gathering dark of Good Friday – the wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes, famines – in the midst of all that longing for the new hope of Easter.
So here we are, the middle of November, 2009. We have real wars, so we don’t need rumors, though we’ve got those, too. There was an earthquake in Indonesia on Monday, one in California on Tuesday and another in Greece on Wednesday. Famine continues to plague Somalia and Sudan.
We live in just such a world; and, truth be told, this is nothing new under the sun. Humankind has always lived in just such a world.
Where, in the midst of all this, do we turn for hope and its signs? Upon what do we rebuild in the midst of ruins? How is something new to be born out of all of this despair?
The disciples look at the mighty edifice of the Temple, and stand in awe of its beauty, power and sheer magnitude. Could they imagine a world without it? Could they imagine it crumbling to the ground such that not a stone would be left on stone? And could they possibly imagine something rising up in its place out of the barren earth?
If you are like me, you find it difficult to imagine a future that does not include the structures and institutions, the relationships and people who make up your present.
But each of our lives is full of the losses of just such foundations, and of the living into futures otherwise.
Faith does not promise protection from the passage of time and turning of the world.
On the other hand, faith invites us to trust foundation stones on which to build and it points us toward most unexpected sources for such stones.
Consider Hannah. To begin with, a woman in a patriarchal society is perhaps the last place one would look for a rock on which to build a future otherwise. Moreover, Hannah is barren – and thus doubly marginalized by her culture. She is destitute and despairing, bereft of hope, no vision for any future at all, much less one in which she might be recognized, honored and respected.
Likewise, the people of Israel are in disarray and despair. The time of the judges has passed. That foundation has crumbled. The hope of the nation? No one offers any.
Where should they look for hope? Where is the powerful leader who will ride in on the white horse to save them? Where is the mighty army that will prevail against their enemies? Where are the wealthy patrons who will secure the future?
Hannah? She is mourning her barren state and praying so loudly for restoration that the religious authorities accuse her of being drunk and making a spectacle of herself.
“What are you doing here, at the temple of all places – at the gates of power – making a fool of yourself asking for something you know is not going to happen?”
Hannah? The way to a future otherwise for the people of Israel is going to come through Hannah?
Who on earth is she?
Cast your imagination forward a few weeks – or centuries. The way to a future otherwise for the people of the world is going to come through … Mary?
Who on earth is she?
Who on earth are they? These women in a culture that completely circumscribes women’s lives to the powerless margins – why on earth would God choose them to bear into the world a future otherwise? Who are they, that they should be looked upon with favor and chosen to turn the world upside down?
Who, indeed.
I do not have nearly enough or good enough imagination to come up with such a plan. Fact is, I was ready to toss out those flooring pieces when my sister said, “we could use these on that hallway.”
If nothing else, faith is an act of imagination – seeing a future at once built upon the shattered stones of the past and present moment while at the same time seeing a future radically different from the present moment.
Listen to Hannah’s song:
“The bows of the mighty are broken, but the feeble gird on strength. Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread, but those who were hungry are fat with spoil. The barren has borne seven, but she who has many children is forlorn.
“God raises up the poor from the dust; God lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor. For the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and on them God has set the world.”
We all tend to believe that we, ourselves, have set up the pillars of the earth. We built the great edifices that mark our cities’ skylines. We built the great highways that connect them. We built the great institutions that sustain the cities. We built the schools, the banks, the churches.
The problem is, as much as we may have had to do with those construction projects, we also built the systems that enshrine injustice and inequality. We built the institutions that provide continuity for those systems. We built the armies that protect the vested, moneyed and powerful interests and reinscribe them with blood and treasure.
And thus, we are blind to any future otherwise.
Our own imaginations are captive to systems and structures of injustice and inequality and violence. This is true on scales both large and small and we recapitulate such systems and structures with each passing generation.
We do live in a Saturday world. Our own brokenness, played out in the intimate details of our daily living and on the grand stage of history, confines our history to such cycles and constrains our imagination such that we cannot imagine anything beyond the great temples and beautiful building blocks upon which they are constructed.
But Hannah knew otherwise. Mary knew otherwise. God knows otherwise.
Jesus – the stone that the builders rejected because they could not imagine constructing a future otherwise – Jesus embodies that hope and that promise. Jesus is the gift to a yearning world – the building block upon which to begin constructing the future of God’s imagination.
Oh to be sure, all of the news continues. The wars, the earthquakes, the famines. Our own lives are marked by suffering.
But the past does not have to be prologue. This temporary affliction does not have to be a sickness unto death, but can be, instead, birthpangs in the nativity of the kingdom of God.
For you see, where our imaginations fail – where we see nothing but dust and rubble – God not only sees a future otherwise, but provides us with a way into it through the example set in the living of Jesus.
We know the way: it is a way of healing and wholeness, of hospitality without limit, of bread and cup, of repentance and forgiveness, of justice and nonviolence, a way, in the end, of love.
We are called together precisely to be people of that way. May it be so. Amen.
1 Samuel 2:1-10
Hannah prayed and said,
“My heart exults in the LORD; my strength is exalted in my God. My mouth derides my enemies, because I rejoice in my victory.
“There is no Holy One like the LORD, no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God. Talk no more so very proudly, let not arrogance come from your mouth; for the LORD is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed. The bows of the mighty are broken, but the feeble gird on strength. Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread, but those who were hungry are fat with spoil. The barren has borne seven, but she who has many children is forlorn.
“The LORD kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up. The LORD makes poor and makes rich; he brings low, he also exalts. He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor. For the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and on them he has set the world.
“He will guard the feet of his faithful ones, but the wicked shall be cut off in darkness; for not by might does one prevail. The LORD! His adversaries shall be shattered; the Most High will thunder in heaven. The LORD will judge the ends of the earth; he will give strength to his king, and exalt the power of his anointed.”
________________________________________
Mark 13:1-8
As he 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.”
posted by David Ensign at
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