Planting Seeds

Mark 13:5-13

March 26, 2023 • Mount Pleasant UMC

This past Tuesday was a really long day. I told some folks that any day that starts in the dentist chair can only get better, but it was a day packed with meetings, appointments, working on this sermon, a Zoom meeting, and ending with Pie with the Pastors. It was a long day, but it did get better after the dentist! Yes, I know—it actually was the same length as the day before. There are only 24 hours in each and every day, but there are days that feel longer than others. And some weeks feel longer than others. So I think Jesus got to the end of Tuesday during Holy Week and at least thought to himself, “What a long day!” Maybe you kind of feel that, too, as we’re now on our third (and final) Sunday of looking at the events of Tuesday of Holy Week. So far on this day, Jesus has spoken some hard truth to the religious leaders, has answered a question that was really a trap in disguise, and now he is headed out of town for the evening when his disciples ask him a question. And not just any question. They ask him about the end of the world.

During this season of Lent, we’ve been talking about what it means to “Fight Like Jesus,” and specifically what kind of “fighting” Jesus was doing during that final week he spent in Jerusalem. I’ve been contending that Jesus spent that week trying to call people back to himself, to give them shalom, the peace and the life God intended them to have from the very beginning. As I’ve reminded you, that was his prayer as he entered Jerusalem on what we call Palm Sunday, that Jerusalem would know what made for peace (cf. Luke 19:42). And all week, he’s showing them and telling them exactly that, even when the discussion turns to thoughts of the end.

So this whole conversation starts as Jesus and the disciples leave the city and head to the Mount of Olives toward Bethany, where they are staying this week. Now, it’s possible—I’d say probable—that all of the conflict Jesus has been involved in on this Tuesday had sort of upset the disciples. They’re used to people being excited about Jesus, not so against him, so they decide to focus now on what they think will be something more positive. They direct Jesus’ attention to the Temple—the magnificent, beautiful Temple. This was the second Temple—actually, I’d call it Temple 2.5. The original Temple, built by Solomon, had been destroyed and then a smaller, less impressive building had taken its place. When he became king, Herod greatly expanded the Temple complex and made it a centerpiece of Jerusalem. In Jesus’ day, construction was still going on. Even by today’s standards, the Temple was an engineering marvel. Josephus, the first century Jewish historian, said the largest stones measured seventy-seven feet long, nine feet high and ten feet wide (cf. Porterfield, Fight Like Jesus, pg. 86). To give you some idea, that’s from the “x” on the stage to the back door—that’s about 77 feet. Some of the stones weighed 100 tons or more; by contrast, the heaviest stone in the Great Pyramids weighed a mere two-and-a-half tons (cf. Card, Mark: The Gospel of Passion, pg. 158). I’ve seen some of these stones. The Western Wall, of course, is the most well-known part of the Temple complex that is still standing, though those massive stones weren’t part of the Temple itself. They are part of the retaining wall for the platform upon which the Temple was built. And some of those stones are underground today, still holding up that platform. Massive stones! So I understand how the disciples, every time they came to Jerusalem, were impressed by the construction all over again. Trying to get Jesus’ mind off all the conflict, then, they point to the stones as they are leaving the city. “Look, Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!” (13:1).

The disciples have an “edifice complex.” Two thousand years later, we still do. We are fascinated by our buildings and often defined by them. “From the ancient Ziggurats of the Mayan people to the massive Egyptian pyramids to the great Taj Mahal in India to the Colosseum and Pantheon in Rome to the Acropolis in Athens, the human race has defined itself by its building projects” (Walt, The Gospel of the Holy Spirit, pg. 226). Still today, we’re defined by our buildings. When the terrorists wanted to attack our country, they intentionally hit some of our most iconic and symbolic buildings—the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Many people think the fourth plane was headed toward the White House until it was taken down in Pennsylvania. We define ourselves in many ways by our buildings. That’s what the disciples were doing on that Tuesday when they pointed Jesus toward Israel’s most notable building, the edifice that defined them as a people. “Look, Jesus, at the Temple! Isn’t it great?” And Jesus, his mind still on the conflicts he has engaged in, instead of affirming their admiration of the buildings and the stones, shares a prediction: “Do you see all these great buildings? Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down” (13:2). And then he walks on toward the Mount of Olives.

Undoubtedly, the next few minutes are quiet as they pass through the Kidron Valley and begin walking up the side of the Mount of Olives. Today, that hillside is covered by a massive cemetery, but then it would have had groves of olive trees. Jesus, maybe needing a bit of a rest, sits down under one of those trees and that’s when four of his closest disciples—Peter, James, John, and Andrew—come to ask him a question. Two questions, actually. Question one: “When will these things happen?” meaning, of course, the whole “giant stones being thrown down” thing. And question two: “What will be the sign that they are all about to be fulfilled?” (13:4). They are asking because they are (understandably) troubled. The Temple being destroyed sounds pretty much like the end of the world. The Temple was the center of their world. They couldn’t imagine it being destroyed (even though it had been once before). So they ask, and Jesus begins to talk about two different events. One would happen in 70 AD; the other has yet to take place still today.

First Jesus tells about an event that is on the horizon, an event they could run away from. He even suggests they do that: “Let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains” (13:14). And in fact Christians did do that when they began to sense that Jerusalem’s destruction was near; they fled to the city of Pella in modern Jordan (about 535 miles from Jerusalem) just a short time before Rome attacked the city (Card 160). They knew it was coming because Jesus had given them four signs to look for. First, people claiming to be the messiah, or people claiming to be Jesus (13:5-6, 21-22). Don’t be deceived, he says. Second, wars and rumors of wars (13:7-8). “Such things must happen,” he says, and we know it’s true. That’s pretty much a description of all of human history, right? In our days, when we hear of a new war beginning, there are always preachers and self-proclaimed prophets who say, “This is it!” But Jesus says wars are just “the beginning of birth pains” (13:8). They’re going to happen all the time. It’s not the end. Third sign: earthquakes and famines (13:8). Again, we still get people trying to determine if this earthquake or that famine is a “sign of the end,” but Jesus isn’t at this point predicting the end. He’s still telling them about the destruction of Jerusalem, and in fact leading up to that time there were five major earthquakes from 46-63 AD, and there were three major famines from 44-52. The year 65 (five years before Jerusalem’s destruction) was the worst year for famines and earthquakes in the whole history of Rome (Card 159). Again, earthquakes and famines, like the wars: just the beginning of birth pains. They will be part of our history. Then, the fourth sign: persecution of the disciples (13:9-13). And this happened constantly, up to and even past the destruction of Jerusalem. Church history tells us all of the disciples except John were killed because of their faith. Suffice it to say: everything Jesus predicted in this passage came to pass by 70 AD, but at this moment, as these disciples sit on the side of the Mount of Olives with the magnificent, seemingly indestructible Temple in front of them, they couldn’t imagine a post-Temple world (cf. Walt 231).

The thing that was to tip them off about running away, Jesus says, was “the abomination that causes desolation” in verse 14 (which you will read as a part of the Scripture readings this week). Jesus borrows this image from the book of Daniel in the Old Testament, and there are a lot of opinions out there as to what he means. Originally, Daniel was referring to an event that happened in 167 BC, when the Roman emperor, Antiochus IV, placed a statue of the god Zeus on the Temple’s altar and then slaughtered a pig (which is unclean to the Jews to begin with) on the altar, sprinkling its blood throughout the Temple. Jesus uses that same image to warn his followers when “the end” of the Temple was near. There are, again, varying opinions as to what event Jesus was referring to, and in the war with Rome there were a number of horrible events it could have been, but perhaps the best guess is something that happened during Passover in 70. Two rival factions of Jews were fighting against each other (because apparently just fighting against Rome wasn’t enough), and one smuggled in soldiers during the religious festivities. During the worship, these soldiers began to massacre their opponents, and innocent blood was shed in the Temple. The end of the Temple was at hand, and those who remembered what Jesus said knew it was time to flee because this, at least, was something you could run away from (cf. Porterfield 92-93; Card 159-160). But the end was not yet.

There is a marked change in Jesus’ tone and language at verse 24. He begins to talk in apocalyptic imagery. “Apocalyptic” is a specialized kind of language, using symbols and code to talk about things that only the “insiders” will get. The Jews used such language a lot to talk about Rome without talking about Rome—because some of the things they were saying could have gotten them in trouble. So you use symbols and when someone comes along and says, “You said bad things about Rome,” they could say, “No, I didn’t mention Rome at all.” So Jesus begins here to talk about something bigger than the destruction of the Temple, something you can’t run away from because the end will come upon the whole world. But, despite the efforts of authors and interpreters for the last couple of centuries to say otherwise, he gives us frustratingly few details. Here is what he says for sure. One, he will come one day in “power and glory” and those who are his will be with him (13:26-27). He says that no one knows when it will happen, and here’s the amazing part: not even he knows. Only the Father knows (13:32). Now, how is it that one person of the Trinity knows something the other persons don’t? I don’t know; I don’t understand that. I just know that’s how it is because that’s what Jesus said. Not even he knows when the final end will come. So here’s my question: why do we waste so much time trying to figure it out? Why are there so many books and preachers and podcasts trying to determine something even Jesus doesn’t know? And while it’s become a popular pastime in the last two hundred years or so, it was something even those in the first century tried to tackle, primarily because of what Jesus says here. He says, “Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened” (13:30). And so some believed that by “generation,” Jesus meant the people living right then and there. That’s why Paul has to reassure some of the churches when people began dying before Jesus returned (cf. 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18). The word Jesus uses, though, doesn’t just refer to a “generation” like a group of people currently living. It can refer to an age or even the whole of human history. Here’s what I hear Jesus saying: humanity will not destroy itself before I return. That’s a good word; that’s a word of hope.

So back to the more urgent and immediate matter for the disciples. Without a doubt, they knew the story of what had happened at the Temple nearly 200 years before. Everyone knew the story. And they also knew how the Jewish leaders had responded. They had called for violence. They had called for their people to fight back. That’s our usual and all-too-human response: meet violence with violence. But what is notable in Jesus’ response is that he does not do that. Instead, he tells his followers to flee. Don’t fight back. Don’t engage in violence. Don’t participate in the rebellion. When the end of your world comes, when the Temple is threatened, Jesus says, flee. When faced with violence, respond with peace (cf. Porterfield 93-94).

But that’s not the only instruction Jesus gives on this Tuesday evening. This event is also reported in Matthew 24-25, where much more of Jesus’ teaching under the olive tree is recorded. There, Jesus instructs his followers to respond to violence by planting seeds of peace through small acts of kindness. In the famous parable of the Sheep and the Goats (which you will also read this week in the Scripture readings), Jesus says his followers engage in feeding the hungry, giving the thirsty something to drink, inviting in the stranger, clothing the naked, looking after the sick, and visiting the prisoner. These are the things that make for peace when the world seems to be coming apart (cf. Matthew 25:35-36; Porterfield 94). In other words, Jesus says we don’t change the world by engaging in world-shaking or world-changing events. We change the world through seemingly small yet significant acts of kindness, obedience and faithfulness.

In the days when I had a garden, I would take a day in the spring, gather the seeds I had, and put them in the ground. I would cover them up and do what was needed throughout the season to help those seeds grow: water them, fertilize them, pull the weeds around them, and so on. And because I had planted seeds in the spring, I would have fresh vegetables in the fall. That’s why I describe these acts as “planting seeds of peace.” What we put in the soil of our culture now will grow and produce a harvest of peace. It’s not hard, folks. Nothing Jesus expects his disciples to do in times of stress and conflict is hard. The hard part is overcoming our seemingly natural tendency to respond to violence with violence, to conflict with conflict. All those responses do is lead to more destruction, but the things Jesus calls us to can change the world, can be part of the prayer that the kingdom of God will come on earth as it is in heaven (cf. Matthew 6:10). Or, as one author put it, “beauty can change the world.”

One person who believes that is Vera Lytovchenko. Vera is Ukranian, and before the war with Russia she played for the Kharkiv City Opera orchestra and taught music lessons. “I'm an orchestra player,” she says, “I am a teacher in college…I play concerts, I play operas and ballets. I play Italian operas in the theater.” Now, Vera plays in a basement bomb shelter. She has become an “internet icon of resilience” as about a week into huddling with friends and family in a basement, Vera decided to perform small concerts for them. When asked why she played, she said, “I was trying to make them think about something and not about the war for some minutes while I’m playing.” I thought maybe you might like to hear a little of her playing. The picture is a little rough, as it was shot on a phone camera in a basement in wartime, but you’ll get the idea. Take a listen.

Vera plays her violin as a violence rains down outside because she believes beauty can change the world. And while Jesus didn’t mention violin playing, I think that’s the sort of small acts of peacemaking he had in mind. It’s not hard, folks. Is your neighbor hungry? We don’t need to develop a whole new ministry with an organizational chart and a CEO. We offer food to our neighbor. One way we do that is by donating every other month to 14th and Chestnut. Or we ring bells with the Salvation Army at Christmas to provide funds for those in need in our community. Or we provide a meal to a family down the street in need. During the early days of the pandemic, many of you helped take lunches from the schools to special needs families all throughout our community. Is your neighbor hungry? Feed them. Are they thirsty? Give them something to drink. Are they a stranger? Invite them in. And there ought to be no place that strangers are more welcome than this place. Our Leadership Council has been talking about a lot of things lately, but one of the main ones is whether we are as welcoming as we think we are. Do we see the stranger, or do we just talk to our friends on Sunday morning? Jesus says welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, take care of the sick, visit the prisoner (like our jail ministry teams do nearly every week). It’s not rocket science. It’s obedience, faithfulness, kindness. It’s peacemaking, and Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers” (Matthew 5:9). He also said, “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40).

Jesus tells his disciples to “keep watch” for his coming. “You do not know when the owner of the house will come back…If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping” (13:35-36). Let him find you continuing to do what you are called to do. There’s a famous story (which, like all such stories, may or may not be true) about St. Francis of Assisi, who was hoeing his garden when someone asked him what he would do if he knew he would die that day at sunset. Francis didn’t even have to think about it. “I would finish hoeing my garden,” he said. The same thing could be asked of us: what would you do if you knew the end was going to come at sunset today? Let us be those who keep making peace, fighting like Jesus, planting seeds of kindness, faithfulness and obedience, playing violin in a war zone. I’ll let St. Teresa of Calcutta have the final word today: “Small things done with great love will change the world.” Let’s pray.