Malachi 4:1-2a • Psalm 98 • 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13 • Luke 21:5-19
When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, [Jesus] said,"As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down." They asked him, "Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?" And he said, "Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, 'I am he!' and, 'The time is near!' Do not go after them. "When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end will not follow immediately." Then he said to them, "Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven. But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name. This will give you an opportunity to testify. So make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance; for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict. You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. You will be hated by all because of my name. But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your souls."
When I was a young kid one of my favorite things was to sit down on an empty floor with a pile of Lincoln Logs, or Legos or Construx—if anyone can remember those! I loved finding new and creative ways to build up as elaborate or as big a tower as I had enough pieces for. And after about an hour or two, I would have this magnificent home, or car, or building that I was so proud of. And I would run down to my parents and say, “Do you want to see my great building!” And of course there was a lot of admiration and nice comments by my mom or dad. Sometimes, by my sister.
And I wanted my creation to last forever, to stand there untouched as a testament to how creative I had been in my abilities. But then, inevitably, someone would walk through the room in the dark and clumsily walk over it and it would come crashing down. Or it became time to vacuum and my mom told me I had to take it apart so she could clean. Or I would knock just one piece out of place that sent the whole thing to the floor. And whenever that happened, my day was ruined! Not one stone was left upon another. All was thrown down. Nothing I could do about it. It was always such a struggle that what had seemed so permanent, so fixed…so brilliant, if I would have said so myself…would never be the same again.In many ways, this is similar to the series of events that shape our expectations about our own experience of God.All of us, no matter how young or old we are, can build up an image of what we hold most dear about God that we will not let go of, an image that we do not want touched, an image that we do not want thrown down. That “temple” where we go to worship God could be a particular church structure, or a place in nature where we feel more close to God than anywhere else. Or perhaps a memory of a supportive relationship at a particularly difficult moment from our lives—a memory that paints a picture of who God is for us. And these images, more often than not, are what we believe every future experience of God in our lives will be like! As crazy as it sounds, we do this! But can just one or two images or experiences of God sustain our faith for a lifetime? Like those towers of Lincoln logs, they can’t, and if they haven’t come down yet, one day...they will.
These “towers” and temples we’ve built seem to suit us just fine. Until they come crashing down, that is. “As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down” Jesus says (Luke 21:6) Often times, we find out the hard way that Jesus’ words are true. We lose something—a job, a loved one, our health. Something changes that alters our world so much, that the “temples” that helped us worship a God of faithfulness cannot speak to us any longer.
This is Jesus’ warning to us and to the disciples. As he walks about the streets of Jerusalem, knowing the threat he poses to the religious establishment, he notices those who lavish heaps of adoring praise the enormous Temple—the place where it was believed God resided, a place that surely was an image of God’s presence. Jesus foretells the gazers that one day these enormous walls will crumble. “Don’t admire it too long,” he says. “When they fall, I know it will feel like the end.” But, Jesus promises, even when the Temple falls, even when what seems like the most dependable place for us to find God no longer exists, even when it seems as though the world is crashing down around us, even when what used to connect us to God no longer connects us…it is not the end. God is at work. God is still at work, building up residence in a new place that can speak to us of new life—a place that lies beyond death, beyond wars and insurrections, beyond earthquakes, famines and plagues. (Lk 21:9-11) Because Jesus promises that even when God leaves the building—and when there is no building left for God to be in—God will not abandon this world. Even as our towers may crumble, we will not perish. Jesus will not even let the hairs on our head die. (v. 18)
Jesus’ promise, it turns out, do not just rest on words. He backs it up. He does not only say that we will not perish, that no stone will block us from fulfilling that promise. Several days later after his foretelling about the Temple, as he himself lay thrown down in the tomb, Jesus rises on the third day, pushes away another stone, toppling forever the tower of death, and unleashing God’s saving love for us. And because of him even death cannot stop the creative power of God from beginning again. Not even a dead end could keep God from building Jesus back up.
God builds Jesus back up to become the living Temple for us. In his ministry, Jesus preached and taught in the temple, yet he did not stay there—he was fluid, he moved, he traveled around the Galilean countryside. His ministry goes out and meets us where we are, so he can build us up into a people where he dwells—not as lifeless, crushed stones, but as God’s living, breathing and moving presence in the world.
The temple, the dwelling of Christ’s presence is a project God is on a mission to complete. We don’t know when that will be, but as those Christ is building up as God’s dwelling place, we share in that building when we laugh with one another, cry with one another, serve one another, love one another.
But it is not all up to us—we are not the Messiahs, we are just the building blocks of a living, breathing body. Archbishop Oscar Romero, a Roman Catholic priest who was assassinated in 1980 for standing up against a violently totalitarian government in El Salvador, clarifies our vocation in this grand building project of God to gather the living body of Christ in this way:
“We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work. Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No [one] statement says all that could be said. No [one] prayer fully expresses our faith…. No [one] pastoral visit brings wholeness. No [one] program accomplishes the Church's mission. No [one] set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about: we plant seeds that one day will grow…We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for God's grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.”
We are God’s building projects, where the Master Builder, Jesus, comes to reveal God’s presence to us, especially when our towers crumble, when all is thrown down...and it will happen. Even the Lincoln Logs will fall! And when they do, Jesus promises it is not the end. He finds a new way to reconstruct in us the living love of God, so we may join in his enterprise that is building up his living body on Earth. Amen.
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