Oak Chapel United Methodist Church

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The end is at hand in the thirteenth Chapter of Mark's Gospel. The bell is tolling for Jesus. All three synoptic Gospels change tone dramatically at this point. There is tension in the air. Jesus is anxious. His words are curt, his manner abrupt. No time for the usual courtesies, for patience, for parables. He bypasses all that. He says and does what he was sent here to say and do, because for Jesus in Jerusalem time is short -- a matter of days, maybe hours.

Love Endures Longer than Stone

He needs now, if he can, to dispel appearances and focus only on realities. In the Temple he sees a wealthy scribe putting his big-deal offering into the plate, and a poor widow, too, quietly offering her two cents, and he says (without being asked) that the scribe appears to be the richer of the two, but, in fact, she is. (It is a lesson better learned by years of experience. But there isn't time for that.) Outside, his country bumpkin disciples annoy him by marveling at the architecture of the Temple. They "ooo and ahh" at the massive stones. (In fact, they were quite right, The Temple in Jerusalem was an architectural wonder. The stones at the base of its wall -- today's Wailing Wall -- are 37 feet long, 18 feet tall and twelve feet thick! They had good reason to be awed!) But Jesus has no patience with them. He says (in words that are later twisted by his accusers to make him look like a terrorist) -- he says, "You think this building is so wonderful? I will tell you something for nothing: Not one stone will be left here upon another. All will be thrown down."

Later that day, on the Mount of Olives, he stands moodily, looking back across the Kidron Valley to Jerusalem, where the great Temple glitters like a jewel in the sun, and his first lieutenants (Peter, Andrew, James and John) come to him gently and ask, "What was that all about? The temple being destroyed and all? And, if it is to happen, for heaven's sake, when? What sign will there be? Will anything, or anyone, appear to warn us? And he takes them aside, very seriously, and warns them against putting too much faith in signs and appearances.

The Prophesy About the Temple is Fulfilled

(For the sake of history, I must point out that the Temple was soon destroyed, and Jerusalem itself put to ruin. This conversation among Jesus and his chief disciples took place, probably, in the year 33 A.D. In 70 A.D., just thirty-seven years later, Roman armies burned down the Temple, and then, at the explicit order of the emperor Titus, pulled it apart stone from stone. At that same time the Jews were driven out of the land God had given to their ancestors and were dispersed into colonies -- later ghettos -- all around the world. They do not return to their homeland for 1900 years, until our time.)

We don't think Mark knew about the actual destruction of the Temple when he wrote his Gospel. (It appears to have been written in the decade just before.) He was simply recording a prophecy of Jesus. But pretty soon all his readers would know the facts, and these words of Jesus (which he spoke outside the Temple) would take on enormous importance. Some of those readers, those early Christians, probably thought the destruction of the Temple signaled the beginning of the end. Some may have panicked But they would read on and see what Jesus had said on the Mount of Olives: "Let no one lead you astray." When someone says to you something like, "The Temple is in ruins." Or "when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, don't be alarmed. There will be earthquakes and famines, and fakers who come and claim to be me, returned in glory." Be careful. Don't be misled. Bad times are not necessarily end times. You can't go by appearances. Remember the scribe who appeared to be rich. See the temple that appears to be permanent. Events will occur which will appear to herald the coming of the kingdom. Don't be taken in." And the disciples would remember these words when times got tough.

We Live by the Word of God

When I was growing up, spiritual things in general were debunked. In the mid twentieth century, we were the children of Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx, whether we wanted to be or not. Moreover we had inherited an utter hopelessness and a bitter cynicism born of two world wars. Religion was superstition. What mattered was only what we could touch, see and measure. Spiritual things (the world we couldn't see), these were relics of the past. The sooner we were rid of such notions the better. The challenge for Christians, in those days, was to raise up the spiritual, to say, "Man does not live by bread alone, but also by the Word of God." And we were happy with any victory that elevated the spiritual side of life.

But today, at the end of the century, the pendulum has swung. Life without God, it has apparently been discovered, is not worth living, (Duh!), and there seems to be a pent up spiritual hunger in the land. Everywhere there are references to the spiritual and the supernatural. Touched by an Angel ranks among the ten top prime time shows on T.V. Who would have imagined such a thing? The X-Files, which proclaims, "The truth is out there!" wins all the awards. Star wars captures our imaginations by proclaiming a mysterious "Force" -- from which all good derives. Hollywood gives us John Travolta playing an angel (one who drinks beer), and Whitney Houston playing a preacher's wife. Wal Mart, Barnes and Noble and Borders all have expanded the "religion and spirituality" sections of their bookstores. (Because sales of religious publications topped $1 Billion last year, and marketers notice trends like that.) Sales of religious music came to more than half a billion.

There are now 9,000 web sites on the internet devoted to psychic and spiritual phenomenon -- including one for people who worship Elvis. (It's called -- get this -- The First Presleyterian Church of Elvis the Divine.) There are 28,000 Catholic web sites, 11, 800 Methodist web sites. (Of which Oak Chapel is one. Did you know we have a home page on the internet? We do.) Anyway, there's a lot of religion out there, and a lot of stuff that looks like religion. And that's the problem Jesus was addressing on the Mount of Olives.

Beware of False Prophets

In march of this year thirty-nine members of a group calling itself (of all things) "Heaven's Gate" committed suicide together -- not for lack of spirituality but for spirituality gone haywire. There's was a weird combination of new age theology, belief in UFOs, science fiction from Star Treck, and the attaching of some divine purpose to the coming of a comet. We see that grizzly scene, and we suddenly become aware what Jesus meant when he warned those who would become the leaders of his church: Do not be too eager to believe every spiritual claim -- to believe that this war, or that earthquake, or this famine, or that comet, is the beginning of the end. Learn to separate appearances from realities in spiritual things. Learn to "discern" -- yes, that's the word the early Christians liked to use -- learn to discern truth from falsehood in the spirit. That would become very important in the early church, when claims and counter-claims were flying. Don't jump and run every time someone says, "Look, here!" or "Look, there!"

Put Strange Ideas to "The Bible Test"

Martin Luther, the founder of Protestantism, lived in a deeply spiritual time and place: medieval Europe. Every river had its demon, every bridge its troll. There were sorcery, and alchemy, and astrology, and all the rest. And the medieval Catholic church had embraced some of this rampant spirituality, until (Luther said) it was hard to know what one must believe and what one must reject to be a Christian. He proposed a simple rule, which (although it doesn't answer every question) has remained a bulwark of Protestantism ever since. "Look to the Bible," he said. "If it's not there, you don't need it for salvation, and it may even be harmful." Angels in the Bible don't drink beer, and are not like most of the "guardian" type angels we see portrayed on television. They are messengers from God. Astrology, sorcery, fortune telling -- these are clearly condemned in the Bible, so they come off the table. A very good place to begin our discerning: put whatever it is to the Bible test.

Another test (perhaps it is the same test) is what I call the Jesus test. Does whatever it is fit in with what we know about the life and teachings of Jesus? Recently someone told me about a get-rich-quick scheme based on prayer and spiritual discipline. I didn't have to listen any further. Jesus would not have used (did not use) spiritual powers to make himself rich. Same with the "feel good" spirituality all around us -- finding self-fulfillment and personal satisfaction through God. It doesn't sound like Jesus to me. If it doesn't involve some suffering, some sacrifice, some interest in the welfare of others -- if it is basically self-serving -- it is probably one of those false signs, those appearances, Jesus warned us about.

We live today in a spiritual house of mirrors. The best guidance I can give is to take our faith very seriously, to study it, to know what it does and doesn't teach -- that is, what saves and what leads to hell. The world no longer comes with an empty cup, making the issue "religion or no religion." Now the world comes with a cup full -- full of false gods, superstitions, modern day sorceries -- making the issue "which religion?" It takes a discerning eye. Only true faith (that is, faith based on something that is true) -- only true faith can save. Believing in fairy godmothers, as good as it may make us feel, gets us nowhere. Because there are no fairy godmothers. Our challenge is not to be led astray. We have a plain and simple faith -- it says God loves us without condition, and therefore we love others without condition. If we stay focused on that, even in the midst of this spiritual monsoon, we will be like the house build upon rock that does not fall.