Springwood Presbyterian Church: Whitsett, NC

Out of the Rubble God’s Alternatives Emerge

November 14, 2010

Genie Martin

Luke 21:1-6                                                                           

Watching the reports of all the people visit the new Tanger Outlets in Mebane last weekend reminds me of the opening of the huge Great Lakes Crossing- a shopping center erected in Auburn Hills, Michigan about this time of year twelve years ago.

13,000 people had gathered by 10:00 a.m. as the doors opened. Some had traveled two hundred miles, taken the day off work, pulled their kids out of school.  By closing time that day, more than 54,000 people had visited Great Lakes Crossing. The new mall had cost $200 million, and was expected to draw 17 million visitors a year. It boasted 140 stores and 7000 parking spaces, not counting the 2500 more parking spaces for employees.

Needless to say opening day was a big deal.  Door prizes, marching bands, Miss Michigan, raffle tickets, free samples galor! People thronged to the mini amusement park and theme restaurant, the virtual reality and video arcade.  All in all, Great Lakes Crossing represents, not simply a way for some people to spend money and others to make it, but more specifically what the Detroit Free Press termed, in a remarkable understatement, “the ever-growing consumer need to be entertained while shopping.”

Many in the vast crowd that opening day were very taken up with the whole thing. As resident of St. Clair Shores shouted, “This is history!” as she bodily shoved somebody else out of the way in order to get through the mall entrance first.[1]

A pair of sisters in their late sixties waited outside for two hours in temperatures below freezing.  Another woman, visiting from Ontario, Canada reported that she was sleepless the whole night before, and that this is what she had been waiting for ---a big mall. [2]

Places like Great Lakes Crossing, the Mall of America in Minneapolis, Minnesota and perhaps our own Tanger Outlets can be presented as sacred sites in our society.  Certainly their proportions are impressive, monumental, designed to welcome the visitor.  They can be seen as one vast temple of consumerism and entertainment under the direction of a large and efficient hierarchy.

Think about it- the response of the opening day crowds had elements similar to religious devotion: pilgrimage from distant points, eager longing, the willingness to undergo hardship for some great good, losing oneself in a mystery that offers significance and salvation. In the days of Jesus the Jerusalem temple was where a religion became an economy. 

Jesus, while visiting the temple, foretold its destruction. He looked up and saw rich people putting their gifts into the treasury; he also saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. Her sacrificial giving was more than the easily given gift from the wealthy. And furthermore, that solid, secure structure- the Temple- and the ideology it represented would not last forever.  All would be swept away within a generation- Jesus said.

At this point in the narrative, (Luke 21:1-6)  Jesus is just days away form dying on the cross and, as a result, his focus has shifted to preparing the disciples for the world they would be living in after he’d gone. Jesus, staring at a gruesome cross, thought not of himself but of those who’d be taking up their cross and following him. The disciples had taken a moment to marvel at the temple, which Herod was rebuilding.

Historians such as Josephus tell us it was indeed impressive, made of massive stones and decorated with gifts from foreign countries, with doors and gates of the finest craftsmanship.

The Temple- in the day of Jesus- was huge. When you stand at the Western Wall you can see just how massive it is.  It rises about 75 feet above you.  Some of the stones weigh up to one hundred tons each. What you don’t realize is that, while you’re able to county twenty-four rows of stones, there are another nineteen beneath the ground.  And, where you see about a hundred feet of wall from side to side, the whole wall runs about fifteen hundred feet.

But that’s not the half of it! This is just one of the retaining walls that encircled the base on which the Temple was built.  The Temple itself towered another 16 stories on top of the mount above.

It was hug.  And not only huge, but ornate. The ancient structure was covered with gold plates such that, when the sun came up, “it radiated so fiery a flash that persons straining to look at it were compelled to avert their eyes, as from the solar rays. The Temple appeared to strangers, when they were at a distance, like a mountain covered with snow.” [3] 

Imagine standing in front of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, or the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City, or the great Taj Mahal in India- that’s comparable to the size and scope of the Temple in Jesus’ day.

Yet Jesus said, “As for these things that you see, the day will come when not one stone will be left upon another, all will be thrown down.” [4]

Of course, he was right.  The Romans destroyed the Temple in 70 AD and leveled the city of Jerusalem.  When they marched away, all that was left was a pile of rubble. The effect was both devastating and demoralizing.  The Jewish people were focused to scatter to the four winds.  They would be without a homeland for the next nineteen hundred years – 1947, to be exact – when the United Nations partitioned a small sliver of land in the Middle East to create the nation of Israel. Yet, they survived.  If anything, they grew stronger and more resilient.  Out of the rubble of tragedy new life springs forth, more abundant than ever.

As a young adult, after college, I spent a year as a Volunteer in Mission serving a Presbyterian Church and community center.  I was invited out to see the church and meet the people in July.  When I returned to my job at a camp in Texas I learned that the sanctuary has completely burned to the ground. I started work at the end of August- only to find a depressed, discouraged congregation who decided to go ahead and host me but not very eager to thrive as they sought to survive.

Within a month or two I saw them rally together- holding worship in the Fellowship Hall, focusing on the needs of others while they mourned the loss of their beautiful place to worship.  By the end of the year I was with them plans were underway to utilize the insurance money to rebuild- maybe even a better, more beautiful place to worship.  Out of the rubble of tragedy new life springs forth, more abundant than ever.

This past Presbytery meeting, in October, was held at St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church in Greensboro.  Several years back THEIR sanctuary burned to the ground.  They traced it back to a short in the electrical system that kept the piano from drying out.  In their memorial room there’s a photograph of their Advent wreath –melted completely, wax from the four advent candles, the greens burned to a crisp- all except the center Christ candle- standing erect- not melted- but whole.

When Christ is right there in the center of our life as a community of faith- all around us can become rubble, but listening to Jesus kept our neighboring church alive and well.

Out of the rubble of tragedy new life springs forth, more abundant than ever.

As nameless people admired the beauty of the temple Jesus saw and named what was going on in the temple. He foretold that the greatness of this icon of their society has allowed its purpose (to worship God) to be distorted- and it would come tumbling down.  Their values, and ours, needed to change, said Jesus.

I don’t think Jesus meant for us to stay clear of such atrocities. Not necessarily. In the world of chaos there are opportunities for us to witness our Christian values.  And so the challenge is upon us. Jesus helps us keep our eyes open and our head on straight- even if it appears that the world around us is falling apart.

Perhaps in the midst of the many choices we have today the better choice is the way this church leads the community in the Christian way. By providing opportunities of giving through The Christmas Fair Market- a place is set-aside to give alternatively at Christmas and help the least of these.

Instead of praising the ‘temples’ that build up around the cash registers and drag the credit card users into overwhelming debt all for what- more clothing than we can ever wear… more ‘stuff’ to gather in our homes?

I think it is the sacrificial giving to the causes of Christ that the widow models in our story today that can guide us in a life of meaning and devotion. 

What’s about to happen right here in our fellowship hall is one of the things that brought me to this church.  I came to the first fair you had and was amazed at the commitment that had gone in to providing items that were traded fairly- to be purchased and the funds funnel back to those in developing countries who made them.

I had the opportunity to get to know one of the women who receives fair pay for the beautiful handicrafts she makes.  She talked to me about the Christian love that is put into action when her pieces brought real money which enabled her to feed and clothe and educate her children.

We say we believe that coffee farmers should be paid fairly- but when we put our money where our mouths are- when we buy and give and drink JUST coffee, instead of what we might get a better deal on- but that has further margainalized those Jesus called ‘the least of these’- then we are being true to our calling as Christians.

As temples of consumerism threaten to govern our world- and it seems that all around us tumbles and toils, crumbles and falls, may we have the faith to listen to Jesus, remain faithful, and  pray for God’s grace and strength  to endure.  AMEN