This too shall pass
Reflection from 14 November 2021
MARK 13
As Jesus was leaving the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!”2 “Do you see all these great buildings?” replied Jesus. “Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”3 As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, 4 “tell us, when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are all about to be fulfilled?” 5 Jesus said to them: “Watch out that no one deceives you. 6 Many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and will deceive many. 7 When you hear of wars and rumours of wars, do not be alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. 8 Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places, and famines. These are the beginning of birth pains.
PERCY SHELLEY'S "OZYMANDIAS"
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, king of kings;
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."
The poem is the result of an informal competition where Shelley and his poet friends took as inspiration a phrase from Diodorus Siculus.Greek historian Diodorus Siculus wrote Bibliotheca historica, which summarises world history in 40 books. He lived first century BCE Sicily. In the books describing the history of Egypt, Diodorus portrays an Egyptian statue with the inscription: "King of Kings Ozymandias am I. If any want to know how great I am and where I lie, let him outdo me in my work." Ozymandias is the Greek word for King Rameses II. In Shelley's poem Diodorus becomes "a traveller from an antique land”.
Shelley’s poem Ozymandias is a modern summary of today’s text; that the greatest men, the greatest kingdoms, the greatest empires fade into oblivion. Nothing is permanent. Shall we have a play and see if Ozymandias is indeed a modern interpretation of a Biblical apocalyptic text in Mark 13?
I met a traveller from an antique land as Jesus was leaving the temple. One of his disciples said to him: “Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone stand in the desert.”
“Look, Teacher! What massive stones!” Near them, on the sand, half sunk, a shattered visage lies. “What magnificent buildings!”
“Whose frown, and wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command do you see?” All these great buildings” replied Jesus, “tell that its sculptor well those passions read. Not one stone here will be left on another, which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things.”
3 As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, the hand that mocked them and the heart that fed: Peter, James, John. And Andrew asked him privately: “tell us, when will these things happen? And on the pedestal these words appear, and what will be the sign that they are all about to be fulfilled?”
“My name is Ozymandias.”
Jesus said to them: “Watch out that no one deceives you, king of kings; many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and will deceive many. Look on my works. When you hear of wars and rumours of wars ye Mighty, and despair! Do not be alarmed. Nothing beside remains. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Round the decay of that colossal wreck, nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. Boundless and bare, there will be earthquakes in various places, and famines, the lone and level sands stretch far away. These are the beginning of birth pains.
APOCALYPTIC
Mark 13 is apocalyptic literature. Apocalyptic texts are a preacher’s worst nightmare because it is hard to explain and distorted in a quagmire of Hollywood horrors, b grade novels and fundamentalist interpretation. Apocalyptic means uncovering or revealing or making clear. The question is, what does Mark’s Jesus wantto make clear for us? What is Jesus uncovering for us? What is unveiled for you in this text? What do you see as if for the first time? The thing to remember about apocalyptic writing is that it is about the here and now – there is no future date to add to your google calendar. Jesus moves us out of our comfort zones and confronts us with reality by ripping the cataracts out of eyes. Using apocalyptic language of destruction there are aspects of reality that Jesus wants to make clear for us. What Jesus wants to remind us of is that nothing is permanent. Nothing lasts forever. Only God is infinite. In a moment everything can change. Like the disciples who were awed at stable eternity of the Temple, one of the great wonders of the ancient world, we too might be awed by the beauty, eternity, and stability of our temple churches, such as St Paul’s, Washington National Cathedral, the Vatican, Notre-Dame… Democracy, a capitalist-socialist economy, the use of coal as energy, private property, our memorials to war … Jesus says it will all be turned to rubble. Our empires will tumble. Institutions will crumble. That which we think will last forever is as fragile as a soap bubble. You think civilisation is making progress? Jesus says every single civilisation “will be thrown down”. Just ask England, Greece, Rome, Carthage, Persia. You think our research and technology will make the world a safer place? Jesus says, “that will be reduced to mere rubble?” Just ask the inventors of asbestos, cfc, and plastic. You think our creeds and faith will last infinitely? Jesus says that is man-made and not one stone of it will be left. Just ask the church in Ephesus, founded in 1 CE but destroyed in 262 CE by the Goths. To all the things we take for granted and assume will always be there, Jesus says they are coming to an end. Or in Shelley’s words to Ozymandias, “Nothing beside remains. Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away." In short, Jesus says, nothing around us is built to last.
Many of us here are already aware that life is fragile and cataclysmic destruction in some way awaits us all. We can rightly block our ears and shout back at Jesus: “I know the reality of earthquakes and famine and that life erupts and is left in rubble.” Parents do not expect to bury their children. Yet the unexpected death of a much-loved child makes you feel like the walls of what you thought were your life tumble down, stone after stone, leaving you shattered. People expect their health to flourish but an unexpected illness comes like an earthquake that unsettles even the most stable of relationships. People expect to come home from a hard day of work and relax at home. Yet homes are destroyed by flood and fire leaving your sense of safety and belonging destroyed like the temple. People invest in growing their faith but learn the hard way that when something is gained something is also lost. Deeper faith, deeper prayer, growth in God does not come as cheerful progress but rather like walls coming down as what you believed in is ripped away by new experiences. Our inability to let go will cause misery.
ETERNAL CHANGELESSNESS?
I love the poetry and effortless breeze of good liturgy. Thanks to my regular attendance at a high church cathedral, many of the ancient collect’s included in Cranmer’s prayerbook have been chanted into my permanent memory. The evening collect is a good example:
Be present, O merciful God, and protect us through the silent hours of this night,
so that we who are wearied
by the changes and chances of this fleeting world,
may rest upon your eternal changelessness.
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Beautiful words, yet my experience of Jesus is closer to that of Mark’s in chapter 13. Jesus doesn’t answer my restlessness with rest but stirs it up further with more unrest. Wearied by the changes of this fleeting world, Jesus’s answer to prayer is not with changelessness, but even more change. Jesus comes as a divine disrupter, not eternal changelessness. As Jesus once threw over the tables in the temple, he overthrows the neatness of our ordered lives and ushers in a holy chaos. Having Jesus in our life is downright inconvenient.
IN THE END IS THE BEGINNING
From our perspective the precariousness of life, the fragility of our institutions, the frangibility of relationships and all we rely on may seem like death. Yet with Jesus these can be the birth pangs of new life. When our world is totally torn apart, and it feels like the end, a new world is made available by God and the pain of death becomes the labour of a new world. In every ending is a new beginning. Jesus invites us to accept with detachment the impermanence of life. Some say accepting that nothing lasts forever gives us the urgency to embrace the present as the precious gift that it is. For others accepting with detachment the impermanence of life inspires patient endurance in any non-violent struggle against oppression. Both perspectives our summed up in Edward FitzGerald’s fable “Solomon’s Seal"
Solomon decided to humble Benaiah. He said to him, “Benaiah, there is a certain ring that I want you to bring to me. I wish to wear it for Sukkot which gives you six months to find it.”
“If it exists anywhere on earth, your majesty,” replied Benaiah,
“I will find it and bring it to you, but what makes the ring so special?”
“It has magic powers,” answered the king. “If a happy man looks at it, he becomes sad, and if a sad man looks at it, he becomes happy.” Solomon knew that no such ring existed in the world, but he wished to give his minister a little taste of humility.
Benaiah had no idea where he could find the ring. On the night before Sukkot, he decided to take a walk in one of the poorest quarters of Jerusalem. He passed by a merchant who had begun to set out the day’s wares on a shabby carpet. “Have you by any chance heard of a magic ring that makes the happy wearer forget his joy and the broken-hearted wearer forget his sorrows?” asked Benaiah.
He watched the grandfather take a plain gold ring from his carpet and engrave something on it. When Benaiah read the words on the ring, his face broke out in a wide smile. That night the entire city welcomed in the holiday of Sukkot with great festivity.
“Well, my friend,” said Solomon, “have you found what I sent you after?” To everyone’s surprise, Benaiah held up a small gold ring and declared, “Here it is, your majesty!” As soon as Solomon read the inscription, the smile vanished from his face. The jeweller had written three Hebrew letters on the gold band: gimel, zayin, yud, which began the words “Gam zeh ya’avor” — “This too shall pass.”
