Apocalypse: Disturb Us O God

 Daniel 12: 1-3 and Mark 13: 1-8

When I see my God-son there is always an expectation that I will play with him. Often our time includes a reading of a book, or two, or three.  Sometimes he has a whole pile of books from the library.  I love to see what he has chosen from the shelves and which ones he asks me to read with him.

Do you remember the stories you liked to hear in your early years? 

There are so many good tales: quests, fairy tales, happily ever-afters, and lots of superheroes.

There are fantastical Bible stories of an: ark-builder, sea-parter, wall-tumblers, giant-slayer, lion-tamer, strong-man, chariot-rider, whale-survivor, fire-walkers, raisers of the dead.

These stories are bigger picture stories. Stories that delve into emotions, morals, and long term consequences. Even though a story may be about a person, their ethics and actions have repercussions on the whole community. 

 

Our scripture readings this morning are apocalyptic texts, one from Daniel and one from Mark. The stories although effecting individuals are not about an individual; these are bigger picture stories.  Bigger picture stories are those that are epic, full of drama, tribulation, with moments of courage, hope, and consuming large tracks of time. The stories are ones where individual and community ethics and actions effect the whole community.

Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic stories of our time are a genre of science fiction – many have been written on nuclear holocaust and life on the other side of nuclear fall out; stories of the climate crisis destroying life and those who survive to tell the tale; other stories include apocalypse due to worldwide disease/plague; zombie, or alien invasion; or an AI takeover of humankind.

Such stories are an articulation of wrestling with our existence, as an individual and as humankind. Questions arise about human purpose and the ‘why’ of life. Times of great upheaval and chaos, disasters and circumstances beyond our control, can cause an existential crisis. And it is the reaction to the existential crisis that determines what the future will be.

Philosophers suggest there are two ways of reacting: either society moves toward a more just and egalitarian future, or it descends into conflict, sectarianism and nationalism.  Setiva, an MIT philosophy professor, who teaches a course on the ethics of climate change, describes the choice coming from a sense of how we feel about our own existence as a species, concluding that: “The answer depends very much on whether we respond to crisis like this with grace and compassion and justice, or not.”

Interesting that Setiva uses the word GRACE.  Do we respond to crisis with grace?

 

In a recent article, “COVID-19 and the Apocalypse: Religion and Secular Perspectives,”  Simon Dein, writes:

Pandemics indicate the fragility of life and the world, chaos, engenders paralyzing anxiety that the world is dissolving, a sense of detachment and raises significant issues of meaning resulting in existential crisis.

 

Pandemic and post-pandemic apocalypse; the apocalypse of climate change –

How do we feel about our own existence as a species?

Do we respond with grace … compassion … justice … or not?

 

The apocalyptic texts of Daniel and Mark are full of urgency with commanding language addressed to the individual warning of actions and choices to be made; difficult ethical decisions on matters that will determine life or death, for the individual and for the whole community.

 

This past week F.W. deKlerk died. He was South Africa’s last head of government from the era of white-minority rule. He received a Noble Peace Prize for his work to end apartheid and introduce universal suffrage. Of note he released Nelson Mandela and other anti-apartheid activists. He publicly apologized for apartheid’s harmful effects.

 

The end of the Wikipedia article on de Klerk says: “Glad and Blanton stated that de Klerk, along with Mandela, ‘accomplished the rare feat of bringing about systemic revolution through peaceful means.’ His brother noted that de Klerk’s role in South African history was ‘to dismantle more than three centuries of white supremacy’, and that in doing so his was ‘not a role of white surrender, but a role of white conversion to a new role’ in society.”

I share this story because it reflects responding to what should have been an existential crisis from the beginning, with a change of heart and ethic, to respond to the crisis with grace … compassion … justice.  I share this story because it was 300 years of oppression by minority-rule, institutionalized racial segregation and classification, and discrimination. Apocalypse is a time of trial and tribulation, full of calamity, wars, rumours of wars … when in-the-midst-of-it there is the question “will it ever end?” And will there be life?

 

During apartheid, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, was a passionate South African anti-apartheid activist. One who took many risks to respond to the crisis of his time and he did so with urgency, an urgency of grace.

Every other week since the beginning of Sept. we have been praying a prayer,

Disturb Us O God,

 attributed to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, adapted from an original prayer by Sir Francis Drake. It’s a prayer that prays well in an apocalyptic time, when facing existential questions, when trying to choose grace … compassion … justice.  It is a prayer that has us look at the long-story, the epic tale, holding hope for generations, to struggle for --- not ourselves: but, rather, change - fulfilment of promises - freedom – redemption – wholeness- life, 300 years from now.

Are your ethics and actions -your existence- consciously living and working for redemption that might not prosper until 300 years down the road?

 

The  words of the prayer, admit that too often we selfishly live in our own story without thought of the future and the whole community. We have been praying:

When our dreams have come true because we sailed to close to the shore …

When we have lost our thirst for the water of life

when, having fallen in love with time, we have ceased to dream of eternity

and in our effort to build a new earth, we have allowed our vision of Heaven to grow dim…

This response is anything but grace.

 

I pray that hearing apocalyptic text, living through pandemic, hearing stories of change 300 years in the making – gives you hope to carry you through, to aid you in choosing GRACE as your response to crisis, and to live your story not for yourself, but for the freedom of the earth and its creatures 300 years in the future.

And in praying this prayer may GRACE arise in our ethics and actions – grace that materializes as advocacy, forgiveness, mercy, compassion, reconciliation, restorative justice, healing, peace –

And so, living GRACE, our existence is about

daring more boldly, to venture into wider seas, where storms show God’s mastery,

where losing sight of land,

we shall find the stars.

 

In the name of God who pushes back the horizons of our hopes and invites the brave to follow.  Amen.