Labor

 Mark 13: 1-8

The Destruction of the Temple Foretold

13 As he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!” 2 Then Jesus asked him, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”

3 When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, 4 “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?” 5 Then Jesus began to say to them, “Beware that no one leads you astray. 6 Many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’[a] and they will lead many astray.7 When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. 8 For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.

Sermon: Labor

Friends, this felt like a week where I really needed to start us off with something funny. So here’s one of my favorite bits of religious humor: how many Christians does it take to change a lightbulb?

For our charismatic friends, the answer is just one. All the hands are already in the air, so one of ‘em can just switch out the bulb.

For our Pentecostal friends, it’s 10: 1 to change the bulb, and 9 to pray against the spirit of darkness.

For our Presbyterian friends, no one changes light bulbs, because the lights go on and off at predestined times.

For our Baptist friends, you need three: one to change the bulb, one to bring a casserole, and one to bring the fried chicken.

For our Episco-pals, 3: one to call an electrician, one to make the drinks, and one to complain about how much better the old one was. 

For our Catholic friends, no one’s gonna change that bulb because they’re good with just candles, thanks.

For our Lutheran friends, no one will change that bulb, because they don’t believe in change.

And I saved us for last because y’all, we’re the worst. First the bulb goes out. Then one of us has to look up and actually notice. Then whoever feels like complaining—we take turns—brings it to the attention of the Trustees. Then they need to run it by the finance committee because we gotta make a budget line item for that light bulb, and then church council has to approve. Then it needs to pass a vote at our annual charge conference. So close to a year has passed now. I pray a blessing over the bulb, we change it, and we celebrate with a potluck. The last person out of the church notices another bulb burned out.

Nothing persists in our churches but Jesus’ love, and the work we gotta do to make it show. And there’s always more labor ahead of us.

This is the last Sunday in “ordinary time” for the year, the last one where you see me up here in a green stole. That’s for those of you who have ever noticed what color I’m wearing. For the rest of us: only 38 more shopping days until Christmas! After today we’re diving into Thanksgiving, and the holiday season.

For today, we get another one of these readings church folks don’t always like very much. Sheesh, why does Pastor Natalie keep picking those? It’s the work of genius or crazy, you get to decide.

Jesus’ disciples admire the beautiful architecture all around them as they leave the Temple in Jerusalem. That’s Temple with a capital T. The big place, the place where God lives! Jesus is predicting the future, but, unfortunately, Jesus never pulls this skill out of his pocket when the news is “hey, tomorrow you’re gonna wake up to a Ferrari in your driveway with a bow on it.” Only when the news is something like “this sacred building, the one you depend on to be here because you have no idea where to look for God if it goes away…is going away. And then you’re going to war.”

A few of the disciples try to get a little more information out of Jesus. “Hey, since you can predict the future, can you at least tell us what day this will happen so we can plan for it?”

“Oh sorry, the Magic 8 Ball in my head says ‘outlook uncertain.’”

Instead, Jesus assures them of the things that are always coming, no matter what era we live in: there will be wars, and destruction, and fear. And people who throw you way off course by playing spiritual DJ at a party and playing the tracks we like to hear…that aren’t even in the Bible.

You know these songs, “Christianity’s Greatest Hits”:

“But we’ve never done it that way before!”

“Hate the sin, love the sinner.”

“God helps those who help themselves!”

And the greatest offender:

“We just want to keep the doors open.”

More on that last one in a minute.

There will be natural disasters, and climate change, and the worst humanity can do, and we may get so busy squabbling over the burnt out lightbulbs and our in-fighting about which flavor of Christian is the best one at the spiritual ice cream parlor that we might not notice.

That somewhere, a pregnant person is staring down at a puddle of amniotic fluid and thinking “oh gosh…it’s time.”

I adore these moments when the men that authored scripture let their hearts prevail over peer pressure and gave us a glimpse at the sacred feminine: God as a woman in labor, giving birth to the new thing.

While we stare up at the burnt out lightbulbs and the cobwebs on our yellowing ceilings, there’s something new, tender, and exciting if we’d look forward instead. This time of year we’re looking at our pledge cards, and deciding what we can give to this congregation’s operating budget.

Please do. It’s the labor of this moment.

But before you get so hung up on the beauty of this building that you make the mistake the disciples did, the mistake of thinking we need to preserve this pile of bricks at all costs, we must “keep the doors open”, because God must live here, and only here, stop. Look. Listen.

Somewhere, someone is in labor with something all new. And God is breathing life into that new thing.

Some of you know I had a busy weekend. A whirlwind, really. On Friday morning, Daniel and I flew out to Boston for a conference about racial amity, that I took part in for some continuing education. And then we flew back last night. In case I haven’t pointed y’all in this direction enough lately: when you don’t know where God is birthing that new thing, look to our children. They’ll always show you where to find new, exciting things. This was Daniel’s first time on an airplane, and he found the whole process FASCINATING. So much that I took one for the team and sat in a middle seat so he could look out the window, at God’s sky, in awe and wonder.

Daniel was the only child at this conference. There were about a hundred people there, of many races and religious traditions. One man shared the stories of his parents, Jews who fled Europe when Hitler sought to kill them. One older African American woman talked about being bussed to a school in a white neighborhood, because the district put the burden on her to be the first to integrate it. Many shared their work with art, music, and dance. We talked about the subversive history of hip hop music, and we watched break dancers. We then had a Caribbean dance party. Flags were tossed out to dance with, and Daniel gleefully twirled as the Dominican Republic. It was different, joyous, energetic, FUN, and an amazing experience of hearing perspectives I often don’t. 

Oh, did I mention Ben and Jerry’s was one of the sponsors and they were passing out free ice cream sundaes?

Above all else, we affirmed that humans made up the construct of race for the purposes of oppression. We’re a many hued spectrum of beautiful skin, and we’re one. And after the fun was over, the labor picked up again. We needed to go back out there and teach everyone who never has how much fun it is to dance to someone else’s music, and to twirl around holding another country’s flag. We need to deconstruct the elaborate castles of racism, stone by stone, to set free the folx we’ve kept shackled, literally and figuratively, in the dungeons.

Here’s the bad news: all of this is temporary. We’ll keep our doors open for a time, and then one day we’ll bulldoze this whole building to use the land under it for something else. None of this is permanent, and none of it is ours.

But the good news, that Jesus urges us to look to, is that if nothing is permanent, then that means the bad things will end, too. Our present labor pain will be soothed. And the pain our ancestors inflicted on others, for those who have skin that looks like mine, the pain we had no choice but to inherit, will be knocked down, broken apart, thrown stone by stone…and then transformed, resurrected, and made new.

And if the institutions we built ourselves are hurting people, then there’s no time like the present to pick up the sledgehammers and start breaking stuff.

What would a post-racist Church look like? An inclusive, loving, non-harming institution?

It would look like my favorite moment from this conference: two of our keynote speakers on stage, 20 feet away from me, talking about the social sin of racism, how we got here, and how we move past it. And Daniel, standing right in front of me, listening intently and soaking in that wisdom like a sponge. He was his loud, busy, neurobeautiful self, and he was loved and welcomed not in spite of those qualities, but for them.

I promise, we’re capable of the labor that will birth something just like that here. Consider this the first contraction.

Amen.