Sermon delivered Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012 (25th Sunday after Pentecost, Year B, Proper 28), at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Franklin, TN (1 Samuel 1:4-20, 1 Samuel 2:1-10, Hebrews 10:11-25, Mark 13:1-8)
The season of Advent is still two weeks away, but the Advent themes of expectant watching and waiting for the coming of Christ – both the remembrance of Christ’s birth in Bethlehem and the anticipation of his Second Coming – have already begun to seep into our liturgy. Have you noticed?
In last week’s collect, we prayed that we might purify ourselves as Christ is pure so that we may be made like him “when he comes again with power and great glory.” Our passage from Ruth (Ruth 4:13-17) told of the birth of Obed, the father of Jesse, the father of David – the lineage through which Jesus would come. (Think of how many Christmas songs refer to Jesse and David!) The passage from Hebrews last week concluded with a pronouncement that Jesus would “appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him” (Hebrews 9:28). As we continue reading in Hebrews today, we hear about the importance of encouraging one another as we see “the Day” – that is, the final judgment, the end times – approaching (Hebrews 10:25).
And today we also hear a story about the birth of a long-expected child: not Jesus just yet, but the prophet Samuel. Samuel is not crucial to the lineage of Jesus like Obed from last week’s reading, but his mother Hannah’s song of praise at his birth bears a striking similarity to the Virgin Mary’s famous song of praise, the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55), that she sings after the Angel Gabriel tells her she will bear the Christ child. Both women sing of their soul rejoicing in God and exult in God’s power to bring down the proud and raise up the lowly, to turn the world’s social structures upside down and to bring hope and life from unexpected places.
And then in the Gospel passage for today, we’re back to that Second Coming, apocalyptic, end times kind of stuff. Jesus foresees the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem and tells the disciples that much conflict and calamity will precede the end times and the renewal of creation. He tells them not to see social and physical upheaval as a sign that the end is near; though there will be wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes and famines, these things are “but the beginning of the birth pangs” (Mark 13:8).
Jesus’s use of birthing imagery is interesting, especially given the focus on birth in the Hebrew Bible passage for today, and the focus on birth that will come with the seasons of Advent and Christmas. Both Hannah and Mary rejoice in the birth of long-awaited sons, but Jesus’s words in Mark remind us of the fear and pain that often accompany birth. Before the joy of welcoming a new person into the world comes the pain of labor, the sweat and tears and blood, the worry about the health and safety of the child, the inner doubts about whether or not we will be capable caretakers of this utterly vulnerable life about to be entrusted to our care. The transition of this broken and sinful world into the promised world to come will be like this, Jesus tells us. The birthing of a new creation will bring the waves of pain and fear that women in labor experience in bringing new life into this world. Just as the birthing process is unpredictable – even with the marvels of modern medicine! – as to when it will begin and how long it will take, so is the birthing of the new creation. Just as the onset of contractions does not necessarily mean that the baby will arrive within minutes, so the pains of the conflict and suffering of this world do not mean that the end is here. Jesus’s use of the metaphor of “birth pangs” conveys the idea that wars, earthquakes, and other disasters will come in waves, like labor pains, each one seemingly unbearable while we are in the midst of it, and leading us to believe that surely things are almost over, but not necessarily immediately bringing forth the new life that we are so eagerly awaiting.
Like the birth of a new child, the coming of the new creation promised by God is something that we may both long for yet fear.
And although childbirth is our dominant metaphor this week, there are many other things in the human experience that we may find ourselves both longing for and fearing at the same time. This week, I asked several friends what they longed for yet feared, and got a variety of responses. One friend said the thing she longed for yet feared was “freedom. For everyone.” A friend in Nebraska who is a hunter said he longed for yet feared “a really big whitetail buck.” Several single friends said they longed for yet feared intimacy, a soulmate, a loving relationship. A friend with three children shared that she longed for yet feared having a fourth child. Other responses included longing for yet fearing a call from God, and longing to be with departed loved ones and friends but fearing death itself.
Looking at the themes that emerged in this survey, I wonder if the root of this archetypal fear of the very thing we desire is a fear of vulnerability, of loss of control. We know that in order to experience love, or to allow for the full flourishing of human life, or to let God into our lives to guide us, we must let go of our need to control outcomes and our desire to protect ourselves from pain and surrender to the power of something bigger than ourselves. And yet, we fear things that are bigger than we are, things that have the power to destroy us. So we hold on all the tighter to those “security blankets” and defense mechanisms that ironically, are actually keeping us from reaching or achieving the things we say we so long for.
Yes, we want that new heaven and new earth where there is no longer any mourning or pain or grief, where God himself will be our companion and comfort, where Christ will be king rather than the powers of this world. But between us and that beatific vision, according to the tradition we’ve been taught, lies the apocalypse, armageddon, the end of the world. Wars, earthquakes, and famines are just the beginning of it, Jesus says. That doesn’t sound like something we want! We want the reign of God on earth, we want peace and an end to humanity’s restless warring and relief from the natural disasters that devastate communities, but we fear the conflict and upheaval that Jesus tells us will inevitably precede it. We long for the new life, but we fear the birthing process.
But the word of hope for us in regard to all the things we long for yet fear, is that Jesus tells us not to be alarmed! Some of Jesus’s most common words in the Scriptures are words of comfort to his followers: “Do not be alarmed. Do not let your hearts be troubled. Do not fear.” Jesus promises to be with us, even to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20). Trusting in that promise offers us the possibility of a life freed from the shackles of fear, in which we can experience the love, joy and peace that we so long for. When we encounter conflict or pain, instead of being paralyzed by fear and reacting as if it were the “end of the world” – literally or metaphorically – we can move through the fear and respond in love to whatever is struggling to be born. Rather than turning away from the disasters of our age with a detached fatalism, shrugging our shoulders and saying, “What can you do? Jesus told us that ‘these things must take place,’” we can step in like a calm, collected midwife, seeking to ease the pains of the birth of the new creation by helping with disaster relief, feeding the hungry, and advocating for peace. We can let go of our fear if we trust in God’s promises, opening ourselves to potential pain and conflict because we have full confidence that our ultimate longing will be fulfilled in the embrace of Christ.
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