Mark
13:1-8
Daniel 12:1-3
Hebrews 10:11-25
We are coming up to the end of the
church year. This Sunday is the next to
last Sunday before we start at the beginning again in Advent. So the readings are about endings—the end of
the world, the end times, the end of empire.
So I thought I’d give you some quotes about endings to start us off.
The first I thought of was “All good
things must come to an end,” a proverb by Chaucer from 1374. The word “good” was actually added much
later.
“There is no real ending. It’s just the place
where you stop the story.” ―
“It is always important to know when something
has reached its end. Closing circles, shutting doors, finishing chapters, it
doesn't matter what we call it; what matters is to leave in the past those
moments in life that are over.” ― Brazilian novelist and lyricist his 2005
novelThe
Zahir,
“Ends are not bad things, they just mean that
something else is about to begin. And there are many things that don't really
end, anyway, they just begin again in a new way. Ends are not bad and many ends
aren't really an ending.” ―
“There’s a trick to the 'graceful exit.' It
begins with the vision to recognize when a job, a life stage, or a relationship
is over — and let it go. It means leaving what’s over without denying its validity
or its past importance to our lives. It involves a sense of future, a belief
that every exit line is an entry.” ― Pulitzer Prize winning American journalist and syndicated columnist speaker and commentator.
Endings,
transitions, a time to look back on what has happened up until now, an
opportunity to reflect on lessons learned, a chance to decide what to take
forward and what to leave behind.
Everyday we experience endings.
When we go to bed at night we experience the end of the day. Sometimes it is a relief to finally climb in
bed and close our eyes and sometimes we lay awake going over our thoughts that
just won’t end. I drop Sterling off at
school and that is an end to our morning.
I pick him up and it is the end of his school day. I sit down at the end of the day and
breathe. Sometimes I want to think about
what happened that day, sometimes I can’t stop thinking about it, and sometimes
I just want to veg out and let my worries get swept away as I ponder the
worries of my favorite movie or TV characters.
And sometimes I sit at my sewing machine and reflect. Every seam has its end and at that point you
backstitch over the last 4-5 stitches you’ve just completed to secure the seam,
to anchor it. At the end of the day, how
do we make a healthy transition, and backstitch over what we’ve just done to
secure it in place? And then we start a
new seam until the garment is sewn. How
do we anchor our memories, our learnings, the gifts of this moment so that we
can honor them and move forward in hope?
Sometimes
an ending is a bad thing. When we’ve had
it good, it is so hard to let it go. The
end of a family Birthday party when I haven’t had the chance to visit with each
person, I often feel a little bit sad.
Times when we’ve moved, I have felt sad.
These past few months with the deaths of 2 Betsy’s and Margaret and
Phyllis I’ve definitely felt sad. It
isn’t that they had bad endings, but that its so hard to say goodbye to people
who mean so much.
These
wildfires and floods are bad endings, whole towns wiped out by disasters. These mass shootings are devastating to whole
communities. Whenever a church burns
down or a Synagogue is defaced with slurs, so much pain is uncovered. And we shouldn’t deny our pain. We hurt for people. We believe in the brotherhood and sisterhood
of all people, of all creatures. The
endings hurt and we can honor that hurt by allowing ourselves to feel it. We may feel helpless or angry or sad or
weary. There are things we can do that
help us put our feelings into actions, because feelings are messages, telling
us what’s important, and if something important is happening, it makes sense
that we take action, that our actions match our values, our feelings.
What can we do when we are at a difficult
ending? For one thing, we can pray. We can center ourselves, take a breath or two
or three. We can stop and reflect on
what is most important and enduring, what we want to take away from the
experience. As it says in the book of
Hebrews, “hold fast to the confession of our hope”—to cling to what is hopeful,
that Jesus is our King of Kings, our ruler and maker who loves us. When we pray, we remember who we are, who
made us and for what, who gives us purpose, who guides us, who comforts
us. When we pray, we remember the story
we are part of, people struggling and oppressed, freed by God’s grace to become
a people who trust God and live in community and love.
What else can we do? As it says in Hebrews, “Provoke one another
to love and good deeds.” We can let God
work through us to build the Kingdom. We
can do unto others as we would have them do to us. We can use our time in service to
others. We can build something of
use. We can create something of
use. We can share our time, our money,
our skills. We can teach someone
something we know and they are interested in.
We can invest our time in someone who could use a friend. We can take our energy and emotion and allow
it to motivate us to do something that matters, that creates community, that is
loving, that brings hope to us and others.
Endings can also be good. When oppressive forces come to an end, that’s
good. In our reading for today from the
Hebrew Bible, the end of the world has something good to offer, there will be a
sorting that will clear things up. Those
who have led a righteous and good life will finally get the recognition and
reward they deserve. The rulers of this
world won’t control the future. The end
of their oppressive rule is good for everyone, even those rulers, though they
may not recognize it at the time.
The New Testament reading for today mentions an
end to the futile sacrifices made my priests, the end of sin, the end of
lawless deeds, the end of God’s enemies, the end of broken covenants. These are all things to celebrate and give
thanks for.
And the Gospel reading mentions the end of the
Temple rule, the end of these large buildings.
It seems sad that this beautiful architecture should come to an end, but
this temple was built to establish the place of religious power, so that humans
could claim it and say where God is and where God isn’t. This temple was a place of oppression for so
many, where they heard the bad news that they didn’t matter because they
couldn’t afford the sacrifice, or because they didn’t fit the “clean’
category. Since the temple was already
knocked down by the time Mark wrote his Gospel, he might as well say something
good about the fact that it was no more.
There was a new temple in its place, not made of stones that could be
knocked down, but in the person of Jesus Christ, and in the people of God as
his body, a loving, moving temple, available, going to the places it is needed
most.
The end can be scary. It can make people anxious as they try to
anticipate when and be prepared to survive.
There are all kinds of terrible things that can happen that are out of
our control. What use is it to be afraid
and anxious? We should pay attention
when people try to make us afraid, because people do try to take advantage of
people when they are scared and sell them cure-alls or give them
assurances. But Jesus is saying to keep
the faith. We can be led astray in fear to
put faith in our buildings, our religious practices, our sacrifices, our
possessions, or leaders who seem to have all the answers. But Jesus is saying, “Keep the faith in
God. Stay calm. Be the people of God who worship God alone
and who value the smallest and weakest and who support each other in community. Stay focus on what matters and live your life
with the love of God for one another.”
God has the bigger picture in mind. Our end is not God’s end. God has an ending planned in which everyone
will be valued, fed, and loved. God has
an ending in which all will be one. God
has an ending in mind in which all will be drawn together, no one will weep or
mourn, no one will be hungry or afraid.
The ending will be a new beginning of new life, abundant life.
So as we come to this end and all the others we
face, we must honor where we’ve come from and been through and take forward
whatever we’ve learned. We can have hope
in what is to come. Betsy Belles has
died, but from her possessions come these amazing banners, and we remember her
and share our thoughts about what she’s meant to us. This year comes to an end. We have known happiness and loss, growing
pains, and been challenged. Our building
is tired, our furnaces are getting old, but we don’t put our faith in what
doesn’t last. This whole place could
fall apart all around us and God would still be Lord of Heaven and Earth, we
would still have the forgiveness and love of God, we would still be God’s
people who God is working through to bring good news to those nearby and far
away.
It is the end of one thing, and the beginning
of another. To be continued…
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