Sermon Ideas For Mark 13:14-23 Part 2

Once I went hiking with the Sierra Club in some of the back country of Pakistan. The Suni and the Shiite Muslim porters in one particular area had a habit of sitting in a circle about us and staring at us whenever we ate. I sensed that we, who flew out of the West to spend some time among them seeing their country, must have seemed very strange to them. And they seemed very strange to us.

When I had left home, I put a book in my duffle by Mircea Eliade entitled, Cosmos and History.¹ I had read it years before in seminary and had long intended to read it again. Now was my opportunity. The basic theme of the book is that non-western religions and cultures have a circular view of history. The goal of their rituals, days of celebration, etc. is to get one back to the original state of things, to a state of being where there is innocence and purity. Judaism and, in time, Christianity reversed this. Acting on faith (Abraham, for example "moved out" to an unknown land that God would show him), the goal of these religions is to lead one forward. The goal is not to get back to original innocence, to Eden as it were, but to move ahead to the Messianic banquet at the end of history. History, therefore, is meaningful and has a purpose. Thus, history becomes linear rather than circular. It goes somewhere, and God who is God of creation also is in charge of the direction of history and of that "somewhere." God is not just God of an "eternal now" to which circular history perpetually returns. The book says, however, that in popular Christianity often people are not aware of this, and they pursue the Eastern belief of eternally returning to origins.

I had been reading Cosmos and History in the evenings and on our days off from hiking. One day, as I sat eating and looking at our Moslem porters looking at us I began to reflect on our differences in the light of this book. I thought that probably Islam also has a linear view of history, in at least its central, core beliefs, but that as a culture it probably functions on a belief that history and time are circular. I thought that this difference is probably the reason that the Western world has developed such an advanced technology. We have wanted to move forward into the new. Among the fruits of this assumption and the technology it produced was the incredible fact that I was able to fly to Pakistan, be with the Muslim porters for a while, and fly back home in a 747. The porters would continue in their circular orientation to life, with the advantages and disadvantages that that offered.

I reflected that this difference has its pros and cons for both cultures. We who had "moved ahead" in history, taken charge of our environment and developed an all but unimaginable technology that had made this encounter of cultures possible, often felt existentially adrift in our world and lacking of a deep sense of meaning. Our porters, however, who could so easily dwell in the "now" and seemed to have an immediate sense of Allah's presence (at least none of us prayed five times a day as a matter of course) probably had little struggle to find meaning in their lives. Yet, their lack of living into the future and the technology it enabled had left them with a poor diet, poor health care, a life of drudgery and a very limited knowledge and view of the world.

Now, as I read these verses from the Gospel according to St. Mark, I see but another sign of this distinction between East and West. The verses come from a "Little Apocalypse" which foretells events of the end time before the coming of "son of man" to bring in the new order. Without getting lost in the details of the "signs" and of the time of this happening, what this essentially says to me is that God who is in charge of creation (and the world of the circular, "eternal now" experience of time which goes with it--our porters' world) is also ultimately in charge of history and the ultimate destination of this often terrifying historical process (the often frightening world we in the West are so aware of). I believe Mark places this "little Apocalypse" just at the point in the gospel story when Jesus is about to enter into Jerusalem where the crucifixion and resurrection take place, very deliberately to underscore that this Jesus is the revelation and agent of the God who is in charge of both place (Jerusalem, the world) and of time (this event, history, eternity).

Mark wrote his account of the Good News to a persecuted church, to people who were frightened and in great need of support. As I write this, I am very aware that we are living among tumultuous events, such as those in the Middle East and in the Soviet Union, that affect the whole world and each of us individually. I do not know how they will finally turn out. I, too, can find some comfort in hearing that God who is in charge of place (creation) also will have the last word as it relates to the historical process (time).

As I reflect back on the porters sitting in a circle and staring at us as we ate our meals, it occurs to me that perhaps our differences can be a gift to each other. Perhaps we need to learn from them to return to creation, to the "eternal now," and they need to learn from us to live in faith into the future. Perhaps we are brothers and sisters in that we all fall into the temptation of choosing one orientation over the other. Perhaps we both need to live in the tension of living somehow simultaneously, under our common God who is the creator of both the "here and now" and the "there and then." Perhaps in living this way, in this tension, we, the East and the West, can become even more God's children and learn to dance together in the divine creativity.

Dennett C. Slemp Richmond, Virginia

1. Mircea Eliade, Cosmos and History (New York, NY: Harper Torchbooks, Harper & Brothers, 1959).