Lectionary for Nov. 17, 2024
26th Sunday after Pentecost
1 Samuel 1:4-20; 1 Samuel 2:1-10;
Hebrews 10:11-14, 19-25; Mark 13:1-8
A couple decades ago, my good friend, Brian Williams, and I climbed Jebel Musa, frequently called Mount Sinai. But we did it completely wrong. We climbed at night and camped at the top in a thin tent that provided no warmth during a thundersnow. In those days we lived in the Sahara, so we lacked warm clothes. We thought we were going to die. Then, early in the morning while it was still dark, we heard the tune of familiar hymns in a language unintelligible to us. I thought we were hallucinating! But our ears didn’t lie. Hundreds of Korean tourists were climbing the mountain to witness the sunrise from the peak. Entering the tent had been one kind of ordeal for us, but coming out of it and summiting the mountain with our Korean siblings in Christ was something else entirely.
In this week’s lectionary readings, Jesus enters and exits a holy space, with very different experiences of going in and coming out.
The author of Hebrews continues her description of how Jesus paves the way for us into God’s presence in the heavenly Holy of Holies. Jesus doesn’t need to continually enact purification or sin-removal (not the same thing!) rites for himself or other humans. He entered God’s presence once and for all and sat down at the right hand of God (10:12). His work there, however, is not over. Instead of offering sacrifices, the High Priest enters God’s presence in triumph and sits down to permanently rest from sacrificial work and to continually intercede for the whole house of God.
In a mirror image of how Jesus entered the heavenly temple/tabernacle space, he walked out of the earthly temple during holy week (Mark 13:1). His disciples had been admiring the huge blocks and splendid buildings. Indeed, Herod the Great had embarked on an incredible remodel of the entire temple compound. People sometimes refer to Judea as a backwater of the Roman Empire, but it was anything but! Here was the largest religious building in all the Roman Empire by a long shot! Priceless caravan cargo passed through the buffer states between the Roman and Parthian empires and flowed through Judea. Jews were an important minority all around the Roman Empire, and Jerusalem was their spiritual capital. And it looked like a capital city—designed to impress and overwhelm.
We follow Jesus going into holy spaces so that we can be formed and shaped to come out and do God’s will.
But Jesus had had enough of gawking at buildings. Instead, he left and walked up the Mount of Olives. I studied two different times at the Hebrew University on the Mount Scopus campus and volunteered a couple times at Augusta Victoria Hospital. I’ve walked out the Lion’s Gate, past Gethsemane, and up the hill more times than I can count. I used to sit at the top of the hill, probably not too far away from where Jesus sat, and listened to the ambulances come to the hospital. In Jesus’ day, and in our days, it seems like cataclysm is always just around the corner. Jesus warned his disciples about what was to come.
And Jesus gave a particular and peculiar warning to those who knew him best—don’t follow people who claim to be me. He had a point. The disciples didn’t recognize the risen Jesus immediately. Surely, they could recognize as fakes the people who weren’t Jesus, right?
Well, can we?
How often are we only too eager to follow people who promise us and our side—whatever our side is—success, power, an end to suffering, honor, a seat at the cool kids’ table, acceptance, wealth, sustainability or the realization of our vision of the church? Jesus doesn’t promise any of that. Most of his disciples were murdered by the state or lynch mobs—and most of their disciples were murdered. They were mocked and scorned, until eventually enough Christians colluded with power to no longer be a moral threat to immoral empires. Lutheran Christians well know that sometimes you just have to stand where you stand, even when emperors and powerful Christians say that you are wrong.
Jesus went into the temple. But he also walked out when his disciples began to be too impressed with the material culture of the empire masquerading as holy buildings. Jesus’ work to help bring people into the heavenly temple of God’s presence was done outside of the city gates. I love a church building, don’t get me wrong. But we follow Jesus going into holy spaces so that we can be formed and shaped to come out and do God’s will.
