Mark 13:1-8

It had been so long since I logged into the admin page of Dancing with the Word, I was afraid I would have to reset a password to have access to this space once more!

Some of you know that I retired from active parish ministry in the spring.  There were a number of reasons for this — some of which I may explore with you in the future.  In the meantime, I can tell you that these last months have been hard and healing, challenging and life giving.  All the things.  The space has allowed me time to spend time with family which full time ministry did not.  I’ve been able to read more, walk more, sleep more.  I have also had the chance to use my gifts in a more focused way.  I am coaching some pastors. I am designing some workshops and have been part of some consulting work.  I have preached a little and it is possible there will be more of that in the future.  The days are full, and yet I have more choices now in terms of how those days are spent and I am grateful. I have not decided yet if I am called to continue posting here, but I sat with Sunday’s Gospel for a while this morning and felt compelled to put some ‘thoughts on paper.’

For, alongside Sunday’s reading, with all of you, I have been taking in the news with varying degrees of grief and alarm and (to be honest, this was more true before last Tuesday) some occasional measure of hope.

And yet, this is also true. On the Friday before the 2024 election, before the outcomes were at all clear, I was on a plane heading home.  I was seated next to highly extroverted and entertaining strangers, so to be honest, I was a little grateful they had finally fallen asleep.

This is how it was:

I managed to ‘get myself still’ for a few minutes there.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath and I willed myself to listen.  To especially listen for what to do with the building anxiety within me.  And this is what I heard:

“Take the long view, Janet.”

Take the long view. For God is not done yet.

Indeed, it seems to me that is exactly what this Sunday’s Gospel invites us to do.

What we see all around us may be awful and it promises to get a whole lot worse.

We can be pretty certain that as is already so in the world, as they already are, people will suffer unjustly and terribly.  This is what happens when old structures come tumbling down. Or when those very structures were built on the backs of and at the expense of ones who God so loves.  As is always so, it seems.  Indeed, we cannot, we must not be blind to this, even if our own lives are relatively untouched.  Especially then.

But in this time, it also seems especially important to ‘take the long view.’  Not the sort of view that leads to callousness to those who suffer, but the sort that helps us still somehow to stand and act in hope.

Because that is the promise this Sunday.  This ending, these endings will lead to a new beginning. Surely, somehow this will be so. As it always has been.

So, in this meantime, how shall we not succumb to despair or hopelessness or unending grief?  Or how shall we not bow to the temptation to just turn our backs on all of it? How shall we hear and live into the promise embedded in Jesus’ words this week?

• Maybe we do so by standing near and taking in the witness of others who have seen all this up close in countless ways we perhaps have not? I know that I will likely worship this Sunday at New Hope Missionary Baptist Church here in town.  Those beloved ones have had their hopes and hearts crushed again and again and yet, still, they are standing.
• Perhaps we first tend to our own spirits, our own bodies? We try to eat well, stay hydrated, get in the occasional walk and breathe deeply some fresh air?  Today I did this again even on this gray day in Northern Illinois and I was heartened by flocks of birds singing in the trees, readying themselves to travel south together. And by the sight of a dog on his morning walk with his owner all decked out in his new sweater.  And by a neighbor who waved as she pulled into her driveway.  Small things, yes, but they lifted my spirits and reminded me of how we are connected to each other and to this earth on which we live and from which we are nourished.
• Maybe we look to our own back yards for examples of resilience.  Indeed, this morning I saw that the squirrels had turned my critter-proof feeder around once more so that they could feast from the comfort of the lilac bush, never once triggering it to close. (I have no idea how they do this.) Every morning, I turn it back around and every night, they turn it back around again. And so, the stubborn dance continues. And the squirrels are well fed.
• Indeed, perhaps we turn to one another and build or rebuild communities of hope where we are not afraid to acknowledge the pain in the world around us, but still cling to the hope which Jesus extends now — that this is all the beginning of something new. And we find ways to hold each other up.  And we find ways together to hold the world up. As we look for signs of life again.

Now, I know this likely may not ‘preach’ where you live and serve, but it is what I felt called to offer you now as you prepare to enter the pulpit again this weekend. And I recognize that some of you are not serving in the United States, but perhaps, surely though our contexts differ, the promise still resounds. Indeed, I want you to hear the truth that you are ‘seen,’ wherever you are…

And so, I wonder with you now.

• How do the words of Mark’s Gospel speak in your community, your neighborhood, your home, your heart?  Are you able to stand still in the hope that Jesus offers today? Why or why not?
• How might you build or nourish resilience for all that God still calls us to? Who are you called to stand with and for and who is there for you to lean on now?
• How are you called to ‘take the long view,’ while at the same time respond to what is before us now? How might you be reminded that God is not done yet?
• Indeed, how will you be reminded that God loves this world, those you are called to love, and that God also loves you so very much?

As I offer this now, my prayer is that the promise Jesus speaks today — that we stand on the edge of a new beginning — at ‘the beginning of the birth pangs’ — holds sway in your heart, for all that is and for all that is to come.