Proper 28B

It’s football season at the Hawley house.  I love football season, but probably not for the reason you’re thinking.   Yes, I like watching football.  But even more, I like what football season represents.   I love Saturday and Sunday afternoons, with the fire going, a little knitting in my lap, maybe a mid-afternoon popcorn snack, a pot of soup on the stove, and my husband and I sitting together.  I love football season because of what it stands for, for the inherent family time and coziness of it all.   For me, football afternoons are an icon, or symbol of all that’s good about autumn.    I imagine that the disciples do the same thing with the temple – it’s a thing that represents something else.  In today’s Gospel, the disciples are walking out of the temple, talking to Jesus about how great it is.  It’s big, and strong and mighty.  We worship here, we give honor here, the Law is here.  The temple represents all that is powerful, righteous, mighty.  It is the icon of hope.  And they proudly show this hope, this power and might to Jesus.  Instead of supporting their vision or offering encouragement, Jesus dashes their hopes, saying the Temple will be destroyed and these big massive stones will be reduced to rubble.  Is Jesus trying to tell them to not have hope? Not take refuge collectively in their temple?   Or just predicting massive earthquakes and turmoil that are going to take place.   

Hearing about the temple in ruins, I am reminded of the town of Cusco, in Peru.  Cusco is in the heart of the former Incan empire.  There’s a fortress there overlooking the city, that’s over 1000 years old, a former Inca stronghold. Huge boulders  polished and cut to fit together perfectly with no mortar.  Hundreds of Incans would all pull these massive rocks up to the high point of the city.  Some of the rocks are estimated to weigh 256,000 pounds.  They’d use small river rocks to carve the rocks to fit perfectly.  The stones are so closely fit together that a single piece of paper cannot be slipped between them.   This fortress is an amazing thing that looks as eternal as the Grand Canyon.  When the Incas were conquered by the white man, the Spaniards did not need this fortress, and they started taking this amazing wall apart, to use the rock for other buildings in the City.  Much of still the fortress still stands, and it still looks permanent, like it’s always been there.   

I’m sure the Incas believed their fortress would always stand, and that they’d be standing behind their it forever.  They put their trust in the bricks and mortar, or in their case, just really big rocks.  They were conquered, and now, their mighty stones are more like rubble. 

I can imagine that the disciples had a similar sense of comfort, and pride and security, in the Temple which served as their spiritual fortress and their icon of hope.  The disciples note the size of the big stones.  Aren’t they grand?  The Temple, to the disciples represented all things holy, all things spiritual, all things powerful.  How could Jesus believe that this perfect center, this holy ground would be destroyed?  And what’s all that talk about wars and famines, and false leaders?

At the time today’s Gospel was written, things were in flux, they were chaotic.  There were occupying and armed forces controlling places where people had previously lived without their help.  There  were wars, famines, power struggles, political strife.  Like the times of the disciples, we live in times that are chaotic.  The fighting is escalating in Palestine, and children of Abraham, Jews and Muslims alike are locked in deadly armed conflict.  In Afghanistan, our American brothers and sisters serve as the foreign armed forces for our Afghani brothers and sisters who live there.  In this country, people go hungry, droughts have created near famine-like conditions, hurricane Sandy has devastated the East Coast, and the South still has not recovered from Katrina.   In many ways, we are in the same chaotic unnerving times.  

And chaos, back then and now, gives rise to apocalyptic outlooks and perspectives.  People seek an end to the trouble, an end to the uncertainty.  They pray that the bad guys will get their righteous punishment, and they take stock in what makes them safe.  Or at least in what they think will make them safe. 

We, like the disciples take comfort in things we know to be solid.  And by “we”, I mean you and I, our society, our government, our parish, our tradition, our families.  It’s a universal natural reaction to hold on tightly to what is known, and what seems certain. 

In the case of the Incans, that certitude turned out to be false.  That’s not because the fortress was weak.  Their position of comfort and relative security was directly the result of their position of power.  They were the mighty Incans.  But the Incans lost that power, when forces with bigger guns, more men, new strategies came to town.  And when the Incans lost power, their mighty fortress was toppled.   They were defined by the position of power they’d gained and maintained and their fortress was an icon of that power.  The disciples basically did the same thing.  Their icon was the Temple, and Jesus was telling them that at some point, their position of relative security and power would be stripped, and their iconic Temple would be rubble.

So far, this doesn’t sound like good news.  If only there were a way to retain or guarantee that worldly power.  That would be good news.   But the good news really comes when we realize that worldly power is fleeting and arbitrary. 

Acknowledge that, and behave as if it’s true and you win.  Worldly Power will change hands.  On any day, we may wake up victors, and go to bed as conquered.   We may wake up one morning as BCS contenders, and go to bed with our hopes dashed. 

Power is fleeting and arbitrary.  The victor, as defined by that worldly definition of power, is equally arbitrary.    Because we know that, we can change it.  It’s when we begin to change how we define power, and who the victor is, that’s when we win.  Every single time.

After smashing their vision of the power of their Temple, Jesus warns the disciples that many will come to lead them astray.   And they lead us astray still by playing to our deep-seated, unquenchable desire for attaining and retaining worldly power, of being the victor  Why is that astray?  Because we cannot truly act in love, loving God and our neighbor, if we put our faith first in worldly power.  When all our focus and attention and actions and beliefs are on worldly power, all our focus and attention and actions and beliefs are on worldly power. We may win, and obtain or retain power, but again, it’s fleeting. To remain as the king of the mountain, we’ll either always be fighting to retain it, or at some point, we’ll lose it. And our temples will be reduced to rubble.  We know that.  And yet, we all strive to stay on top.

Most everyone has seen a track race.  The goal is to get a medal, be the fastest person on the field, and you enter the race to win.  During last summer’s Olympics, Oscar Pistorius from  South Africa ran the 400 meter.  He was a double amputee and he brought his own rules to the world’s stage.  While he didn’t win the race by the world’s standard, he absolutely won.  He finished the race.  Because he started the race with a different goal, he didn’t lose because he didn’t get a medal.  He won, because he raced.  It’s all about how we engage, how we play.  And the good news is that we do get to set those rules.  We get to decide that we aren’t going to strive for worldly power and we aren’t going to be led astray by people who encourage us to take one power trip or another. 

What might that other-than-worldly power look like?  Here we are, a few weeks before the start of Advent, of our new Christian year.  With his entrance into this world, his teachings throughout his life, and his death, resurrection and ascension, Jesus offers another set of rules, another definition of power.   Follow the man we claim as the ultimate victor.  The man who was born homeless, to an unwed mother, imprisoned, tortured and killed.  He clearly didn’t use the world’s definition of worldly power, or of the victor.   And yet ultimately he won.  He turned the world right-side up.   

If we put our faith in buildings, in institutions, in worldly power we’ll lose.   If we follow people calling us to those things, they may call us to war, to do horrible things to retain that worldly power.  But.  We are the victors when we follow Christ, the homeless and tortured man who helps us see another way of being, another way to define the victor. 

In the old testament story we hear about Hannah.  Hannah’s song gives us a vision of that other way of being.  She said that there is no rock like God.  The bows of the mighty are broken, the hungry are made fat. God lifts the needy to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor.  This is a different vision of power, and of the victor.  This is a vision that leaves room for all,  that encourages love of all.    

The icons of worldly power will crumble.  They always have, and they always will.   We have an eternal win when we redefine power, and follow our victor, the God who came to us as a homeless infant.     The God who loved all, and in the end, wins all.