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Sermon at The Church of
the Holy Apostles, New York City,
November 19, 2006, The Twenty-Fourth Sunday of Pentecost:
Year B
The Reverend Peter R. Carey
Daniel 12: 1 - 13
Psalm 16
Hebrews 10: 31 - 39
Mark 13: 14 - 23
“Pray that it not be in winter.”
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the
Holy Spirit. Amen.
Today’s Gospel is about the end of the world.
This particular passage from Mark’s Gospel, with its
grim scenario, is so dramatic, so violent, and so filled with
vivid and terrifying imagery that every time I’ve asked various
people about it (and I’ve been doing that for the past couple of
weeks) everyone has reacted strongly to it.
One of the questions I’ve been asking people as part of
my unscientific survey is whether they believe that the world is
literally about to come to an end; whether or not they think we
are in the so-called “last days.”
Everyone I’ve asked has said no; they don’t believe
that.
This should not come as a shock. We are not a
congregation of fundamentalists here at Holy Apostles, nor do I
have many fundamentalist friends. So I guess we can safely consign
the idea that history is about to come to an end to that group of
ideas that we (and in fact most Christians) have now
rejected--even though the concept may have been widely held in the
early church or even taken for granted in the Bible.
In a previous sermon I recommended that you go to the
Holy Apostles website and re-read the wonderful sermon that Fr.
Steve Chinlund preached from this pulpit on May 12. It contains a
kind of list of ideas that are clearly contained in the Bible but
that the church--our church at least--has left behind. The list
includes slavery, the status of women, the lending of money at
interest, observing the sabbath, war making as a religious act,
intollerance as a good thing, and to some extent at least,
same-gender affection. And now we can--and I think we should--add
to that list the idea of the imminent end of the world.
Once we have done that, however, we are still left with
a problem.
The problem can be framed, if you like, in terms of
today’s collect, which is one of the most famous collects from the
Book of Common Prayer. It was written by Archbishop Cranmer
himself and virtually every Anglican knows at least a phrase from
it by heart: “Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be
written for our learning: Grant to us so to hear them, read, mark,
learn, and inwardly digest them [that’s the phrase we all know],
that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of
everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus
Christ.”
Did you catch Cranmer’s use of the word “all”? “Blessed
Lord, who caused ALL holy Scriptures to be written for our
learning.” Not SOME holy Scripture to be written for our learning,
but ALL.
All Scripture has something to teach us, so even if we
don’t believe that the world will soon come to an end, we still
need to ask what today’s reading from St. Mark’s Gospel has to
teach us. That, it seems to me, should be our question this
morning.
To answer that quesion, let me return to my survey.
While my respondents all agreed that the world was not literally
about to come to a screeching halt, they all felt that today’s
Gospel reading still spoke to them, that it still reminded them of
various things and events and emotions.
One friend said that the text reminded her of Katrina.
Another said it sounded like Hiroshima. Still another suggested
Darfur or Iraq. A world gone mad, cataclysmic events that seem to
be beyond our control.
The text speaks of a time of terrible fear. Corrupt
leadership in the community. The environment exploited and
despoiled. Religious institutions filled with quacks and false
prophets and false pastors. The air smelling of catastrophe.
Innocent people, including nursing mothers and pregnant women
driven from their homes. A sense of powerlessness lying all
around.
Such a world is not hard to recognize. It is the world
we live in and not just the world beyond ourselves, but also our
world, our personal lives.
There are times like that for all of us. Moments when
we feel utterly powerless and deeply afraid. Afraid for the
future, afraid for ourselves, afraid for our children, afraid for
our church.
A single mother with two children has just lost her
job. A man has just been told he has inoperable liver cancer. A
neighbor has just learned that her son was arrested for dealing
drugs. A man has lost his partner of 20 years to AIDS. An eviction
notice from the court has just arrived. After thirty years on the
job, a friend has been told her services are no longer needed. For
such people the world -- their world -- seems like it’s about to
end. They feel powerless and they are afraid.
There are times when all of us feel powerless and
afraid.
So today’s Gospel is far from being a bit of irrelevant
apocalyptic. It still speaks to us. It speaks of a world we
recognize and of emotions we feel.
And it still offers us hope.
Hope! Where is the hope in this terrifying text and
where is the hope in our catastrophic world and where is the hope
in our moments of fear and powerlessness?
It is there. It is there in the simple word “pray”.
“Pray” Jesus says, “pray that it may not be in winter.” Pray that
God “might cut short those days.”
In Jesus’ admonition to pray there lies the promise of
help when there is no other help. The promise of relief. Of loving
concern.
Our Lord is telling us to pray to a good God who has
promised to wipe away every tear. To pray to a loving God who
cares about us and who knows each one of us by name. To pray to a
God who has saved and redeemed us by the blood of his own Son. To
pray to a God who keeps us alive by feeding us. To pray to a God
whose Spirit enfolds us in her loving and maternal arms.
The Dutch theologian and writer Henri Nouwen writes of
the profound relationship between powerlessness and prayer. He
said, “Prayer is the power of the powerless. In fact powerlessness
is a condition of true prayer. To pray deeply is to pray from
where you don’t have control, and yet you continue to trust,
becasue you know that you are a beloved child of God’s household.”
“Pray that it may not be in winter.” Pray that God will
help you. Pray that God will make your way easier. Pray that God
will come to your aid. Pray that God will save and heal our broken
and suffering world. Your and my suffering and broken world.
How? How can we pray? How can we pray in the midst of
our powerlessness and fear?
I know of two ways: liturgical prayer, common prayer,
prayers prayed together, prayer when we make the prayers of the
church our own personal prayers.
And here we are so lucky, aren’t we? For when we pray
from the Book of Common Prayer we are the inheritors of some of
the most uplifting and beautiful liturgical prayers that were ever
written or ever spoken by the christian people.
And when we feel afraid and powerless, we know that we
can always find the right words to ask for help in the prayers of
the church. All we need to do is to make them our own.
But there is also personal prayer. I like to pray when
I wake up in the middle of the night, which I find I do more and
more as I grow older. I like to make a visit to the Dominican
Church of St. Catherine of Sienna on East 68th St. right next door
to Sloan Kettering Hospital each time I visit my leukemia doctor.
I like to say the Jesus Prayer when I am afraid: “Lord, Jesus
Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
We are all afraid sometimes. We all feel powerless. We
all sometimes feel that our world is coming to an end. We all need
to pray. To pray that our time of trial will be cut short.
So this morning let us do just that. Let us pray in the
words of the Prayer Book -- words that are used for those who are
afraid and in need of healing. Words for us.
Let us pray.
“O God of mercy and of all comfort, our only help in
time of need: We humbly beseech you to behold, visit, and help us.
Look upon us with the eyes of your mercy; comfort us with a sense
of your goodness; give us patience under our affliction and in
your good time make whole again all that is broken in us and in
our world. All this we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.”
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