Not an answer but an attitude
16 November 2015 | Proper 28 | Mark 13:1-8
Richmond Hill, Richmond, Virginia
The Rev. B. P. Campbell
My niece is married to a Salvadoran. We were together this weekend, and we were together experiencing the shock and outrage of the shootings and bombings in Paris. But I could tell that the experience was far different for him than it was for me. My nephew said that at least that many people are killed in El Salvador every week. And no one here knows. There had been bombs and awful casualties in Beirut, he said. And people did not seem to notice. Why was it so noteworthy – so distressing to all of us — that now it had happened in Paris?
My nephew is a refugee from Salvador. His family got him out of the country because his life was in danger from the gangs that terrorize there. His cousin, a young woman, was kidnapped six months ago and has not been heard from. She is one of thousands. He lives with this knowledge, with these prayers, with this outrage every day.
My daughter Susanna spent three years in Burundi a decade ago, and has been back as a consultant for foreign aid programs almost annually. Annie and I were with her yesterday in Washington – she was there on a brief trip from Switzerland to meet with the International Relations faculty at American University. We talked yesterday about what has been happening in Burundi the last six months. The current president has turned his back on democracy; his military seems to be murdering members of the opposition and threatening a renewal of inter-ethnic conflict.
When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, Jesus told his disciples, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. For ethnic group will rise against ethnic group, and nation against nation;… This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.
The passage in Mark’s Gospel which we read today seems like it was taken from todays newspapers and broadcasts. Why, we ask, does God not prevent this. Jesus does not answer. But he does give us a way of proceeding. It’s not an answer; …it’s an attitude.
- God does not control.
- These are the birth pangs.
- The Son of Man is coming.
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God does not control.
There really isn’t anything that seems much harder for Christians to say: God does not control. You know about this. How can he be God if he doesn’t control? And if he could control but chooses not to, how cruel is that?
I’m not able to argue about the logic of this: I am personally committed to the person whom Jesus says is his Father, and I am also aware that in the greatest and deepest way he is in control – but I am also clear that he is not causing the murders of Salvador, the bombing of Beirut, the violence in Burundi, or the mass shootings in Paris.
It is absolutely clear that God – at least the good God who would not give his son a scorpion if he asked him for an egg – that God is not controlling the events we speak about.
The only thing I can say that makes any sense of this is that Creation is a divine surrender of divine authority. That is, God’s decision to have a world of people, a world outside himself, is a decision not to control that world. Otherwise, there would be nothing independent of him. Just as a father or mother cannot control a daughter or son and allow them to grow up, so the God of the universe does not control the world.
But if God is not in control, what then?
One option – and the one chosen tacitly by many people – is that God is irrelevant. Why bother to speak of him if he cannot or does not control what is going on. Notice, I did not say that God was not powerful – only that he does not control. All I know is that he is like Jesus in his deep concern and active love, and in the fact that he does not control events like a screenwriter or puppeteer.
If God is not in control, another option is that he is deeply sympathetic to human beings. And that, of course, we believe to be true. No sparrow is lost without the heavenly Father knowing and sharing the trauma. This image is true, but does indeed leave it all up to human beings by themselves.
And then there is a third possibility – an area of discovery: Somewhere in between control and sympathy is a vast area of activities and actions. If God does not control, if he does not do everything, does he still do some things? Does he operate through his Holy Spirit? What does he do? When? How?
God does not control. But, Jesus says, what is going on in this confusion is the beginning of birth.
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These horrible events are the beginning of birth pangs.
Birth-pangs is a phrase you don’t hear every day. But the experience to which it refers is universal.
The same image Jesus uses here – the image of labor pains — appears elsewhere in the New Testament in Paul’s letter to the Romans. Paul says,
I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now;… (Romans 8:18-22)
These horrible events are the beginning of labor pains. It’s not an answer, but it’s an attitude.
I think there are several important points which this attitude reveals:
1) Just as a new life, a birth, follows labor pains, so also there is the possibility of new life after wars and rumors of wars, ethnic and international conflict. The world has seen this over and over again, even as it has also seen continued and recurring conflict. Talking about this kind of thing is really hard. I’m reminded of what the great economist John Maynard Keynes said in exasperation when economists kept saying to him that things would work out “in the long run.” “Yes,” Keynes said, “but in the long run we’re all dead.” Nonetheless, Jesus tells us to be on the lookout for new life even in the midst of death and destruction. It’s not an answer; it’s an attitude.
2) Second, Jesus is telling the truth about the hiddenness of the world’s death and evil. You can’t do anything about it unless it manifests itself, and sometimes things really have to go far before they are manifested fully. What kind of unhealed realities are being manifested today in Paris, Beirut, and Salvador? Does the burial of our own Slave Market here in Richmond give any indication of just how effectively evil can be hidden for centuries? Have we yet addressed the full and continued consequences of that evil? What’s ahead of us if we don’t? Keeping things hidden is a strategy for preventing resolution and healing. Disruption and violence are birth-pangs when they are the gateway to justice and reconciliation. It’s not an answer; it’s an attitude.
3) Finally, the threat and reality of death and destruction are the crucible out of which genuine faith, community, healing, and eternal life are born. Tough as this is, it is the ultimate gift we receive. That’s not the reason for evil and destruction. But it is a wonderful result, one too horrible and wonderful to hope for. It’s not an answer; but it is an attitude.
God does not control. These horrible events are the beginning of the birth-pangs.
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The Son of Man is coming.
Jesus studied the Son of Man in Jewish apocalyptic literature. He quotes the references to him in the Book of Daniel. (Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14) He seems to be far more interested in this character than in the Messiah, which is the title that his disciples keep throwing at him. One of the most beautiful references to this Heavenly Man is in the Book of Acts, at the stoning of Stephen. When Stephen is dying, Luke relates, he looks up and sees the Son of Man, as it were, taking him in to the Father. (Acts 7:54-56)
Stephen was stoned. People in Salvador are killed and kidnapped. People in Burundi are murdered. People in Beirut are bombed. People in Paris are machine-gunned. These very labor pains were just beginning, Jesus said, over 1900 years ago.
People were being murdered before that. Ethnic groups were in conflict before that; so were nations. But nobody suggested these events should be regarded as labor pains for the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven.
That’s the option we have. We can regard them as labor pains for the birth of the Kingdom of Heaven. There’s nothing like the faith that is necessary, Jesus makes clear, for a person facing death. It’s a pretty bald situation. You have no power. You have no knowledge. You are not in charge. God is all there is. Yes or no is all you have. At the end of this entire apocalyptic passage in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus just flat out says that you can put your faith in the heavenly Son of Man. That’s the invitation.
What’s the point here? Can we only find God when there are explosions and violent death around us? Those would be labor pains – but Jesus invites us to appropriate the labor pains now – to seek justice now, to put our faith in God now, to live now as if sudden death were around the corner, to let those horrible events and our horrible fears be the birth-pangs of faith and eternal life for us.
Death will come to each of us. But in the meantime, the spirit of God is in the labor pains. The whole creation has been waiting for this day! We do not have to be afraid, for God is with us. Nothing can take us away from his love, and we can be a part of his building of a kingdom which has no end. AMEN.
The Rev. B. P. Campbell
