To begin with I want to spend a little time with the Collect. The collect for this Sunday is one of my favorite collects. If you want to know where to find the Collects (Sunday Collects and others), they are located between 159 and 210 in the prayer book for the Traditional Collects and between 211 and 261 for the Contemporary collects. The line that gets me is “Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them.” There is something about digestion. It’s so physical, and not only is it physical/ bodily, but let’s pause and think about what it actually means to digest something. To digest is to break something down into small pieces, take it into the body, and then use that as building blocks for health. So, let’s digest some scripture…break it down, and take it in to build up our health.
A few weeks ago, Erin and I were picking out music for these last few weeks before Advent (we do that, pick the hymns, deliberately), and we commented to each other that the scripture already feels like Advent. We then reminded ourselves, that in fact, Advent used to be 6 weeks in length, more like a little or less intense Lent, but also a penitential season. And when we look at these readings, particularly Daniel and the Gospel of Mark, they are apocalyptic in nature. (And in fact, this particular passage of Mark is called the Little Apocalypse of Mark.) An apocalypse, in case that has slipped your mind, is an event that causes a tremendous amount of destruction, perhaps with so much damage as to end the world. There are some Christians who believe that the complete destruction of the world will precede the establishment of a new world and heaven. However, apocalypse literally means revelation, from the Greek that something is uncovered; the Greek word literally meaning to pull the lid off something.
The Gospel of Mark, all the way through it has a bit of an edge, an apocalyptic edge. If the Gospel of John is the Love Gospel, and the Gospels of Matthew and Luke are about spreading the Word, about discipleship, then the Gospel of Mark all throughout has a “Beware” feel to it.
And the prophet Daniel’s apocalyptic vision certainly has an edge to it too. Now, Daniel didn’t see God’s judgment as some sort of eternal payback, but instead he saw God’s judgment as an expression of God’s mercy and love; that these are divine qualities we believe in, and not in moral retribution as a “law of the universe.” Instead, Daniel saw God’s judgment as an invitation to take stock of where we are, who we are, and adjust our own lives to the vision of God for humanity.
And the psalm today also calls us to account; the psalm depicts someone turning away from worshipping something or some deity other than God and turning toward God.
If there is an edge in these scriptures, then let the edge be to know that God is most important, to know your priorities, to have nothing separate you from that.
Our sermon in the book of Hebrews has continued now for several weeks how Jesus is the great high priest, and how the previous sacrificial systems are not necessary as Jesus has made the ultimate sacrifice, but now the sermon makes a rhetorical turn. Now the focus is instead on how are you going to live your life? What parameters are in place for you to live the kind of life in response to Jesus?
And so, in anticipation of Advent, with Daniel revealing a just God who calls us to live rightly because to do so is to live fully and the psalm shows us the way of a person who turns their path away from distractions that might occupy a heart and instead turns to God; Jesus also tells his disciples (and us) that we can be distracted by other people coming claiming to be him, by “shiny things” and passing distractions, that we can be wowed by buildings falling down and natural disasters, but rather than be stupefied, we must turn to God and live our lives to God and not for ourselves. If the edginess in Mark has something for us it is this: let it hone away what keeps us from living our true best life. Let our focus also be on how we are each going to live our lives. Have you heard of Marie Kondo-ing your home, clearing the clutter and focusing on what matters? So rather than asking if an object gives us joy, these scriptures ask us to Kondo our practices and preoccupations, to put our attention on God and what God calls us to as the one and only way to a flourishing life.
In responding to this apocalyptic call, I am reminded of how Johann Sebastian Bach used to sign all his compositions: SDG. SDG is an abbreviation for Soli Deo gloria which is a Latin term for Glory to God alone. What if our lives were lived Soli Deo gloria? What if we cleared our lives of everything that distracts us from God’s purpose and mission? This very possibility is what we are asked to digest from the Scripture today, and this possibility is none other than an invitation to LIFE, an invitation to a life worth living.
Sarah Colvin
Track 2
Daniel 12:1-3
Psalm 16
Hebrews 10:11-25
Mark 13:1-8