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11.15.09

33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

IN SEARCH OF PERMANENCE

GENESIS 11:1-9; MARK 13:1-8

• Making A Name for Ourselves
• Memorial Stones
• Just outside these walls there is nearly fifty acres of monuments—memorial stones to days gone by
• On each of them is etched a name—the name of ones whose life were well lived, and the names of others whose life wasn’t lived so well
• Many of those people whose names are etched in stone lived a significant number of years, and many of them lived for only a very brief time
• These monuments are the grave markers or headstones for people who have lived their life in this world and passed from this life into the life to come
• Beneath each of those monuments lies all that is left of the person whose name is inscribed there
• For some of them, we know their stories because they have touched our life in some way, either through history or through family relationship or friendship
• The rest of them are just a name on a stone, whose story we may never know or whose story has already been forgotten
• Whether we know their story or not, their names, at least, will live on because each name is etched into a monument of stone erected in their memory
• Our Desire for Permanence
• Why is it that we erect such monuments of stone for those who have lived and died before us?
• Is it not because inside each of us there is a desire for permanence?
• Each of us, if we could choose, would choose to live forever, but we know we can’t because death is the great equalizer—it is the one certainty of life that comes to us all
• In place of living forever, we must settle for having our name etched in a monument of stone, with the hope that by others seeing our name, we will not really be gone, we will never be forgotten
• But, ultimately, those who know our story will also pass away, and our life will be reduced to nothing more than a name on a monument
• That’s about as much permanence we can create for ourselves
• Look at the way so many of us live, investing our time and energy in things that will not last, things that don’t really matter—careers and cars and homes and bank accounts
• Our recent history testifies to the fact that nothing in this world is permanent
• A terrorist attack reduced the twin towers of the World Trade Center to rubble
• War decimates the infrastructure of nations and destroys the lives of people
• A shaky housing market increases the level of homelessness and puts many more at risk of becoming homeless
• Recession reduces the number of jobs available and negatively influences our ability to earn a living
• The stock market roller coaster drains our life savings and steals the money we have so diligently set aside for retirement
• All the things we have counted on to always be there have suddenly disappeared, reminding us that nothing in this life is permanent
• In the end, everything will be reduced to rubble
• The words of our Scripture passages are uncomfortable for us to hear
• They remind us of the frailty of human life
• While we desire permanence, nothing in this world will last
• While we desire to live forever, our bodies will eventually be reduced to the dust of the earth from which we came
• In light of this reality, where do we find hope?
• The Permanence of God
• Trusting In Human Effort
• Our text from Genesis tells the story of the generations that developed from Noah after the Great Flood
• In the generations prior to the Great Flood, from Adam to Noah, humanity fell into a downward spiral of sinfulness and unfaithfulness
• In all those generations, only two names are given of people who “walked with God”—Enoch and Noah
• The rest of the generations became lost in the debauchery of the world that human sin created
• And human life became so bad that God saw no recourse than to destroy the world God created and start over
• Because Noah was a man of faith, a man who “walked with God,” God chose him and his family to be the seeds through which the world would be repopulated again
• It certainly must have been God’s hope that, by starting with a man of faith, the world would be repopulated with faithful people, with people who would desire to live according to the will of God
• Unfortunately, that didn’t happen
• The sin nature had become so ingrained in humanity that the generations that developed from Noah fell into the same downward spiral of sinfulness that was characteristic of the generations before Noah
• So we come to the story of the Tower of Babel
• On the plains of Shinar in Mesopotamia where they settled, these descendants of Noah decided to make a name for themselves
• By building a great city with a tower that reached to the heavens, they would create permanence for themselves
• It was yet another attempt by humanity to become like God and live forever
• If they could accomplish this feat, they would become self-sufficient, and by becoming self-sufficient, they would have no need for God
• When God saw what they were up to, God came down and foiled their plans by confusing their language and scattering the people across the earth
• They no longer had the power to create their own permanence
• The Destruction of the Temple
• In the Gospel story, the disciples are amazed at the magnificence of the temple
• Many of the stones used to build that temple were forty feet long, and it was richly adorned with the finest of gold and jewels
• This temple was built to last
• In response to the disciples’ remark, Jesus responds by saying that the day will come when one stone will not be left upon the other
• Certainly, Jesus must have been thinking about Solomon’s temple when he spoke these words
• Solomon’s temple was grander and more glorious than this one, and it, too, was built to last—but it didn’t
• Ultimately, it was reduced to rubble, and this present temple would ultimately come to the same fate
• In these words, Jesus was not simply predicting the destruction of this current temple that would come in AD 70
• He is reminding his disciples that nothing in this world is intended to be permanent
• Permanence cannot be found in this world; only in the world to come will anything be made permanent
• In talking about the temple, Jesus refers to more than just the building his disciples were admiring
• He used “temple”” to refer to his body, which would be torn down and rebuilt after three days
• And since our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit, Jesus reminds his disciples that they, too, will face death, that their bodies will not be permanent, but just because a building is destroyed or a body dies, that does not mean that life comes to an end
• The destruction that is to come is not the ending of life, it is the beginning of new life
• In Jesus’ next words, which begins his discourse on end times events, Jesus is not so concerned about the future as he is the present
• Wars and rumors of war, and the devastation caused by natural disasters are part of the normal course of life
• So these are not intended to be signs of the end, they are just a description of life as it is
• “Such things must happen,” Jesus says, “but the end is still to come.”
• The calamities that come as part of the normal course of life are nothing more than labor pains, and on the other side of these labor pains, new life will be born
• So our concern ought not to be with the future but with the present
• The future is in God’s hands
• All we have to deal with is what we have today
• The future will be whatever God desires it to be
• All we have to be concerned about is today
• What Is Truly Permanent?
• These passages raise for us the question “What is truly permanent?”
• The answer they give is “God”
• We can create no permanence for ourselves because we are not the Creator, we are the creature
• We are the product of the God who created us
• Our permanence is found only in trusting the God who gives us life
• It is God who gave us this life and God who has the power to create in us new life
• Although the very foundations of the earth will ultimately be shaken and all we have built for ourselves will come crumbling down, it is God alone that is eternal
• It is God alone who holds life in the palm of God’s hand, and it is God alone who can create new life in us when everything else we have trusted in has fallen apart
• Our permanence resides not in what we can build for ourselves, but in what God has to give us, what God wants to do with us and for us
• Our only hope of living forever is to trust in the mercy and grace of God
• Many of the people who are buried under the monuments outside our walls have already been forgotten
• Their stories are lost to the pages of history
• All that remains of their life is their name etched in stone
• While we may forget the stories of others’ lives, God never forgets
• God knows the story of each of us—what it was, what it is, and what it will be
• We may not be able to make a name for ourselves and be remembered throughout time, but God knows our name
• When everything in life crumbles—and it will—the only thing left is God