No Stone Left Standing

Malachi 4:1-2a; Luke 21:5,6

These passages of scripture could be no more timely. A good many of us have lost all faith in our institutions. The Presidential Election took a turn no one really saw coming. The idea of President Trump alienates half the electorate. The other half may well have voted because they lost all faith in our institutions as beneficial. The rhetoric of this election was so distasteful and so divisive that many among us cannot reconcile themselves to the outcome. Some fear the repercussions as extremists see his election as confirmation of their viewpoint—both the extremes for him and against him. Resident aliens—the sojourner in our midst the Leviticus refers to—wonder what will become of them. None of us alive have witnessed a reaction to an election like this one. Some fear the very fabric of our national institutions is torn beyond repair. Some believe we see the day Jesus foretold when stone is cast from stone, and no two bricks remain together.

Turning to scripture, we find that the narrative God holds little or no faith in any human institution. Rather, the faithful are directed to see the impermanence of all things human, from our individual lives (all flesh is grass), to monarchies (do not put your trust in princes), to the very Temple itself (You admire these beautiful stones? Truly, I tell you not one stone shall remain). Everything we build, from movements to monuments, is as ephemeral as we are, declares our Bible. 

So, we should not be surprised when a human entity stops being what we thought it always would be. Even a cherished institution proves itself momentary. Obviously, this truth is good and bad—it is bad when something we love proves fatally frail; it is good when something we loathe proves its inner finitude. 

The first hope, then, is in such a weird affirmation—nothing lasts forever. This moment will pass. Think about where you are right now, no matter which side is yours for the moment. For those terrified by developments, hold onto this truth—another day is coming. For those celebrating this turn of events, note that it is passing; consider that another day, one opposed to your wants, is coming—it always does. So, for all of us, this truth is hopeful because it reminds all of us that no position is absolute—at some point we are going to need one another deeply to temper our viewpoints to welcome another. It keeps us from placing more trust than we should in something that does not deserve such trust. Nothing about being human is eternal. We cannot establish anything in place forever. This is hopeful because it should lead us to humility, which is a great starting place for finding God.

Which takes us to the second hope. These texts point us to where we need to look. God IS eternal, the great I AM. God is, was, and will be. There is no expiration date. There is no last day for God. That means that all that is God is also eternal—i.e., love is eternal—not just any love, but the love that is God, the love John speaks of throughout all of his Gospel and letters, the love woven into 1 Corinthians 13, and the love Christ commands us to practice. 

That love was found embodied in Christ. It is the self-emptying, self-sacrificial love that redeems all creation from sin and death.

Start with acknowledging the only eternal—God. This step is utterly simple—pray. At a recent conference, one speaker—a pastor leading a congregation in real flux in a world of real flux—offered us “the Jericho Practice”—just as the Israelites circled Jericho seven times in prayer before its fall, so we should circle the challenges of this day before us with prayer. We need—no, must—connect with God. For some of us, that may well mean changing our entire approach to prayer. If our prayer is mostly us talking—a continual line of requests, questions, praises, etc.—we doing all the talking—change to a stance of listening. Listen for God. Open heart, mind, and spirit to attune to God. Give God room to enter. God speaks in a still, small voice, the Bible says, so to hear it, we have to be quiet. We already know we do not have the answers, so give God space to bring God’s own responses to us within the world. God’s answers flow directly from God’s eternity, therefore, they can be trusted. They will hold fast. They will always  be true. 

And all of those answers are expressions of God’s everlasting love. John wrote, No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God lives in us and God’s love is perfected in us. God leads us into a continual practice of love. It is a practice that is adjustable, matching each of us and our abilities, our imagination, and our personalities. God is infinite—so, too, are the ways to practice love that is of and from God, with one caveat—they will be found in the manner in which Christ met the world.

Which leads us to a way of moving beyond this present moment—meet our world as Christ met his—in self-emptying, self-sacrificial love.

Begin by noting that the deepest chasms between us are human constructs. Just like the Temple the disciples saw as eternal, it wasn’t. So, too, are our divisions, huge and profound as they are.

Something profound links together both sides of the reaction to this week’s election—we all want change, exhausted by the sense we aren’t getting anywhere. Think about it—the primary engine to both Trump supporters and Bernie Sanders supporters was essentially the same—only someone completely outside the process and institution can mend the process and institution. 

So, even as one side drowns out the other at the moment, listen closely. There is more that offers a way of unity than division. But it will take abandoning our human answers to realize and actualize that unity. Jesus brought together people no one in his time could have imagined being together—Romans and Israelis (divided by conquest and oppression), Samaritans and Judeans (divided by religion and bigotry), tax collectors and Zealots (divided by the assumption that one was a sellout and one was a righteous arm of liberation), men and women (divided by the same prejudices we see today), and sinners and saints (rather obvious, no?). He did so by emptying himself of all that human mores told him to believe, instead, trusting God’s truth that every human being is a unique act of God’s creative imagination. He did so by becoming completely centered on listening to others and emptying himself for their needs, abandoning his own wants for their fullness, trusting that compassion would take care of all who are compassionate. Jesus did so to teach us how to do so. That is how we find reconciliation in a moment as rancorous and seemingly irreconcilable as now. 

Jesus’ point as he corrected the vision of those admiring the Temple was to focus on the only eternal—God. He did so to save us. No elected politician can save us. No human entity can redeem us. No human power can fully protect us. Those things are only in God. The only way to receive them is to lose oneself in God. Let the losing begin here and now. Then lose yourself for someone else, offering nothing but the love that is God for them.

That is our only lasting and eternal hope.