Do Not Be Alarmed

It was 1912. The prosperous congregation of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Gallipolis, made up mostly of the families of businessmen, physicians, and other professionals, worshipped in the red brick building that had been consecrated in 1859 by then Bishop Charles P. McIlvaine. Electric lights now illuminated the well-appointed interior of the church. A vested choir led the congregation in singing the familiar hymns. The Rev. Charles Elliott Mackenzie preached and presided at Sunday worship. Although the town of Gallipolis had weathered the social and economic challenges of the years following the Civil War, and the Rev. Mr. Elliott had already had more than twenty predecessors, in 1912 most of the adult members of St. Peter’s likely thought that the world was at a comfortable and stable plateau.

Many in the larger world shared that sense of stability. In the U.S. and Europe, children left school at thirteen to take up work in stores, factories, and mines. Wealthy and aristocratic families lived comfortably on richly furnished estates. Kings and queens, the Kaiser and the tsar, reigned serenely from their centuries-old palaces. The U.S. and European countries, especially the United Kingdom, grew rich from colonies in South America, Africa and Asia. American and European Protestants sent out evangelists who took up Jesus’ Great Commission and strove to bring the Gospel to the benighted heathen. Many believed that the world had at last reach a comfortable and stable place of peace.

That peace was shattered on July 28, 1914, when Austria-Hungary invaded Serbia, Germany invaded Belgium, Luxembourg and France, and Russia attacked Germany. Britain soon joined the war on the side of France. The U.S. joined the conflict in 1917 on the side of Britain and France. The War to End all Wars finally ground to a halt on November 11, 1918, leaving over nine million combatants dead. Unfortunately, the 1918 Armistice was a fragile and short-lived peace. With the rise of fascism, war broke out again among European nations in 1939. The U.S. again went to war following the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. European fascists were defeated, and the war came to a fiery end in Japan with the fall of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August, 1945. However, the Allied victory did not usher in a new period of peace and stability. While the U.S. fought a Cold War, colonial nations fought for independence. Wars were waged again in Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Armed conflicts broke out in Chechnya, the former Yugoslavia, Iran, Lebanon, Egypt, Israel, and Syria. The Soviet Union broke apart in 1989.

Meanwhile, the U.S., Europe, and other parts of the world experienced major social changes. Women were granted the right to vote, African Americans achieved major civil rights victories, shifting tides of immigration created previously unimaginably diverse communities, and people learned how to communicate electronically. Americans and Europeans became more open to different expressions of sexuality. Mainline churches ordained women but ceased to be centers of social life. The Episcopal Church finally untied itself from sixteenth century English and learned that God could still hear our prayers in contemporary language. And now many observers believe that the church is undergoing yet another Reformation, from which it will emerge with yet new ways of organization, expression, and worship.

What a century it has been! Could the worshippers in these pews in 1912 imagine what awaited their world? How do we survive in a time of such great change? If we were Buddhists, the answer to that question would be easy. A central tenet of Buddhist teaching is that everything is in flux, and that there are no times or places of stability and peace. The answer is not quite so simple for us Christians. Do our Scriptures give us some clues? Not surprisingly, all the communities who heard the readings that you just heard were experiencing huge changes in the world around them. The book of Daniel, the source of our first lesson, was written in the second century BC, when Greek rulers were attempting to destroy Jewish communities. Our lesson comes at the end of a three-chapter sequence in which God, speaking through Daniel, assures the Jews that, even though they may be in anguish, the great angel Michael, will surely deliver them. Our psalmist reiterates that theme by reminding his hearers to trust in God’s protection.

And what of the hearers of Mark’s Gospel? That Gospel was written during or slightly after the destruction of Jerusalem that took place between 66 and 70 CE. For them, it was as if 9/11 were stretched over four years. The center of the system of sacrifices and their religious universe, that great temple that had been rebuilt after the Exile, the temple that Herod the Great had enlarged, the temple where Jesus had walked and prayed, was no more! The whole city was devastated and most of its inhabitants scattered to the four winds! Worst of all, Mark’s community was facing discrimination and trials. Who more than they needed to hear of God’s eventual liberation of the world? And even the hearers of the Letter to the Hebrews needed to hear again that they had already been rescued by Christ. They were a discouraged and disheartened congregation desperately needing a new vision and a new hope.

As we look back on the last century, and as we look around us at our lives now, many of us feel as if we are living in a time of cataclysmic change, especially in the church. So what do these lessons say to us about living in such a time? To begin with, they tell us that we are to be neither complacent nor afraid. Daniel reminds his hearers that only some of those who sleep will be raised, and that some will be condemned. On the other hand, those who are wise will “shine like the brightness of the sky.” Our psalm distinguishes between those who are godly and those who are not. Even so, the psalmist takes refuge in God and rejoices in God’s protection. The gospel reading warns us both to beware of false prophets, those who would lead God’s people astray, and to trust in God’s deliverance and “not be alarmed.” The letter to the Hebrews reminds us to trust Christ’s saving work above all and know that we can approach God with faith because Christ’s victory has removed the separation between humanity and God.

More important, our readings encourage us to live in two time frames at once. We are to live in the now, confident and faithful regardless of how messy and dangerous the world around us appears. But we are also to look ahead into the future, God’s future, we are to catch a glimpse every now and then of creation liberated and renewed, of the joy to come. “Your people shall be delivered,” Daniel tells his hearers. “You will show me the path of life,” the psalmist confidently prays. “The end is yet to come,” we hear Jesus telling the disciples, “this is but the beginning of birth pangs.” We are to hold fast to that vision, we are to have confidence in the coming of God’s future, the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews reminds us. Christ’s work is finished, but we are still awaiting the full realization of Christ’s victory.

Finally, and perhaps most important, we are to encourage one another. Like Daniel’s people, we are to cultivate wisdom so that we may help others to trust in God’s future. Like the hearers of the Letter to the Hebrews, we are strengthen our ties as a praying community, we are to love one another, and, most important, we are to actively partner with God to bring God’s future nearer. In Christ, we are reminded that, together, as a community of disciples, we have all that we need to do what God has called us to do.

Here at St. Peter’s one thing is crystal clear: we cannot live as if it is still 1912. So much has happened to our world and to the church since then. The church has changed, and will continue to change. We cannot sit back and refuse to acknowledge those changes. Nor can we indulge in the luxury of fear or despair at what we see. God is at work! As we seek to do God’s will in Gallipolis, we can trust that God is leading us, just as God led this community a century ago. Most important, we can do everything in our power to strengthen this community and to build each other up. We are a unique community, called into being by God and surviving by God’s will. Believe it! “In an age when communities of all kinds are crumbling and individualism is the prevailing ideology, only the church ‘can offer a community that was here before any of us were born, that will be here after all of us die and that binds us to one another because it binds us to Christ.’”1 Trust that God is bringing in God’s future. Today join hands with your brothers and sisters in Christ and rise up to do God’s holy will.

1. Robert Bellah, quoted by Jerry L. Van Marter, “Church is Best Equipped to Rebuild Communities,” PCUSA NEWS #4041, 2/112/97, quoted by David E. Leininger, Lectionary Tales for the Pulpit (Lima, OH: CSS Publishing, 2008), 277.