Proper 28, Year B (BCP) Sermon

[Daniel 12:1-13]
[Mark 13:14-23]

FAITHFUL LIVING IN THE SHADOW OF THE END-TIMES

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. AMEN.

Okay, confession time:

Earlier this week, when I sat down to begin thinking about this sermon, and when I saw the readings appointed for this Sunday’s service, something popped out of my mouth that sounded like “Oh, fudge”. Oh no, I thought to myself: Apocalypse. And not just any Apocalyptic literature, but the really confusing bits that comes at the end of the Book of Daniel. I mean, this is really dizzying, almost hallucinogenic stuff. It includes the only really clear promise of a resurrection in all the Hebrew scriptures, speaks of anguish such as there has never yet been in all creation, lists numbers of days that don’t add up—even with linen-clad angels standing in rivers issuing cryptic responses like “A Time, Two times, and half a time.” What in the world is going on here? I am almost relieved when I get to the part where Daniel confesses: “I heard, but I could not understand.” Oh, good, I think. So it’s not just me.

Both the Daniel reading and today’s Gospel reading—which is part of what’s called the “Little Apocalypse” of the Gospel of Mark—talk about fearsome, world-shaking events. Apocalyptic literature warns of violent, catalclysmic overthrow, turmoil, suffering. The angel Michael warns Daniel of a “time of anguish, such as has never occurred since nations first came into existence.” Jesus similarly states, “In those days there will be suffering, such as has not been from the beginning of the creation that God created until now.”

Apocalpses are “crisis literature.” Apocalypses speak to communities who are already in turmoil, during times of oppression or persecution. One such crisis was the oppression of the Seleucid king Antioches IVth, who set up the a statue of himself in the Jerusalem Temple; this is probably the “abomination that desolates” mentioned in Daniel. Out of this historical situation of crisis, the book of Daniel, and the Apocalpytic Book of Enoch both emerged. Another crisis which inspired the writing of several Apocalypses was the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 A.D. Similarly, the early Christians experienced persecution and oppression by the larger Judean culture which did not accept their Master’s teachings. It is in the context of this sense of crisis that Jesus’ words made sense. The “desolating sacrilege” he speaks of might refer to repeated Roman attempts to set up the imperial standard—which included the statue of an eagle—in the Temple, where such images were forbidden. These attempts had met with popular riots in protest. Or, the “desolating sacrilege” might allude to Emperor Caligula’s edict that a statue of himself be set up in the Temple—an order that luckily was never carried out.

There are several ways that apocalyptic literature speaks hopefully to these communities in crisis. For one thing, they express a dissatisfaction with the current order, and suggest that this order is temporary and subject to complete overthrow by God. “They allow their readers to see their own situations from the perspectives of the supernatural world and from the vantage point of life after death. This chance of perspective allows a different consciousness to emerge, thereby changing experience itself” (Fred Murphy, NIB VII, 7). So, to people in turmoil, this sort of discourse serves as a reminder that God is in charge, and offers the hope that the current intolerable situation will be overturned by God’s unimaginably powerful hand.

But Apocalypse does something else, too—especially for those of us who are not swept up in the tides of dramatic social crisis—it confuses. Apocalypses, with their strange images and paradoxical warnings, unnerves, confuses, makes us feel disoriented. Apocalypse turns the world on its head, and so it is no surprise that we find ourselves a little dizzy in the process!

This is heady stuff, a strange, potent brew of dreamlike vision and ambiguous warning. This is scripture not to drink on an empty stomach. This is scripture that you don’t operate heavy machinery for at least one hour after reading.

So, I think it’s only natural that we try to “figure it out.” I think there is an almost natural human impulse to react to this sort of literature by trying to “solve” it, to “decode” it, to figure out what each dreamlike symbol stands for. Perhaps if we can get a handle on it, it won’t seem to strange and threatening. The history of the interpretation of Apocalyptic texts is filled with attempts to find one-to-one correspondences between the ambiguous symbols of the text and real historical events, and filled with attempts to project a timetable onto history based on Apocalyptic warnings. I am put in mind of one American Christian sect whose leader, in the 19th century, led his followers up to a hill to await the coming of the Lord, because he has precisely calculated the date of the Second Coming! When the expected end-times did not materialize, he checked his figures, and pushed the date back one year! What is amazing, though, is that this impulse to “figure out,” to somehow tame Apocalyptic writings, is evident in those very writings itself!

Think about it: After Jesus warns his disciples that the Temple will be torn down, just a few paragraphs before today’s reading, the disciples ask him: “Tell us, when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are all about to be fulfilled?” Daniel, too, asks the angel Michael, “How long shall it be until the end of these wonders?” These readings are full of the themes of understanding, of knowing what it all “means.” But Apocalypse resists neat and clear interpretation, resists being nailed down. Jesus already told the crowds that he would give no sign to his own age. Similarly, the angel ambiguously answers Daniel’s “How long” question with: “it will be for a time, two times, and half a time.” When Daniel gets frustrated with this and demands bluntly, “What will be the outcome of these things?” he is rebuffed even more frankly, “Get going, Daniel, for these words are to remain secret until the time of the end.”

Perhaps Jesus’ and the angels’ reticence over giving too much detail is that our desire to “decode” Apocalyptic does more harm than good. “Despite the carefully developed warnings about false prophesy in Mark, sectarian groups continue to preach that the end of the world is near. Survivalist sects stockpile arms, food, and other supplies so that members of the sect will be able to fight off the displaced humans created in the end-time turmoil.” (Eugene Boring, NIB VIII, p. 690) I think also of the hysterical predictions of catastrophe and supply hoarding that accompanied the dawning of this millennium--- y’all remember, don’t you, how the Y2K bug was going to spell the end of the world? Or I think of how some fundamentalists aren’t bothered by wars in the Middle East, because conflict in the Holy Land must supposedly precede the Second Coming. Or how some Christians are not concerned with taking care of the environment, because the world is to end soon. You see how this kind of thinking is dangerous?

When hard times and turmoils come, instead of digging ourselves into trenches to ride out the storm, we should be looking for how we can be Christ’s hands in the world. In the end, that’s what Apocalypse should be strengthening us to do, anyway: to meet adversity boldly and with faith, and combat suffering and persecution today with the conviction that the current brokenness of the world will be overthrown.

May God strengthen us to do just that. AMEN.