15 November 2009

Daniel 12:1-3
Psalm 16
Hebrews 10:11-25
Mark 13:1-8

Let’s be very, very clear from the outset: I have nothing against accountants. My uncle is an accountant and I love him dearly. I hire an accountant to help me file my taxes, and I think she is particularly wonderful. And I daresay, were it not for the skills of ethical accountants, our culture would be awash in even more chaos than it already is. Good accountants definitely have their place. (So do bad accountants, but we won’t go into that.)

Now, with that in mind, we’ll look in on Jesus and the disciples. A couple days prior to today’s story, Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey, accompanied by lots and lots of singing and dancing and royal jubilation. Since that morning, however, for Jesus its been pretty much an unrelenting series of conflicts between him and the religious establishment. And as for the disciples – well, they’ve been quite predictably obtuse. So it should be no surprise to anyone that when Jesus and the boys emerge from the Temple – after Jesus has just pointed out how corrupt the whole institution is – one of the disciples reveals his edifice complex – that is, he’s wildly impressed with the size of the structure from which he’s just emerged. “Oh, look, Jesus,” he says, mouth gaping. “Wow . . . what big stones, and what a big building! Totally awesome, dude . . .”

At this, can’t you just see the Lord’s eyes roll heavenward? “Oy,” he says to himself, contemplating an apt comeback. “This is way too easy – it’s like shooting fish in a barrel.” And out loud now he answers, “So you really like this place, eh? Well, the day is coming when not one stone will be left here – everything will be thrown down.”

This really confuses the companions of Jesus. After all, the temple is where everything happens. Everything in Jerusalem and throughout Judea depends on the Temple. And it is big, really, really big. It would take some considerable force for the whole thing to disappear. When the whole bunch finally get to the Mount of Olives where they’re camping out that night, Peter, James, John, and Andrew, who all seem to have an insatiable need to keep things literal, concrete, and predictable go to Jesus wanting to know exactly when this destruction of the temple is going to happen. Jesus, still amazed at the human need for literalism, gives a less than literal answer, but instead describes – well, something that sort of sounds like the end of all time – or not – describes too something that sounds an awful lot like the destruction of Jerusalem – but in his typically enigmatic also calls all of this the birth pangs – the beginning of something new – and a something so new that it exists both inside and outside of time and place. All of it, something cataclysmic and heretofore inconceivable. What the disciples could not know was that in a few days, it would be revealed that God was going to go out of the accounting business all together – if, indeed, God had been an accountant ever . . .

And what a business the business of religious bookkeeping was!! You see, something had to pay for the biiiiiig building and its biiiig stones – and the religious leaders had it all figured out. Tell people that the only way their sins would or could ever be forgiven was for all those miserable sinners to pay the priests to make a sacrifice to God – you know, barbecue some meat for God and God would go to the Divine Ledger of who’d been naughty or nice and would make an entry indicating that the debt had been paid – until next time. And you can bet your bottom dollar – literally – that there would be a next time, and a time after that, and on and on and on. And you had to keep the people terrified so they’d be frequent customers – gotta buy a sacrifice, gotta buy a sacrifice – and only temple certified beef or chicken would do – at highly inflated prices – and of course the sacrificial chicken could only be bought with Temple money – for which a hefty exchange fee would be exacted – and of course the worse the sins, the bigger the bull – and the bill. Heck, all of Judea depended upon sins and sacrifices – depended upon a very, very exacting God who kept impeccable ledgers, a God who even encouraged building up good credit by buying some advance sacrifice points – just in case a person die in the act of sin and end up eternally in arrears.

But in a matter of days, the temple economy would begin to grind to a halt – God was about to clarify for once and for all that God was out of the accounting business – for good. Of course, that wasn’t going to be good for business in Jerusalem, and it would spell an end to the temple’s stranglehold on the people. Of course the religious authorities needed to nip this looming disaster in the bud, “We can not have a God who would just give away the store – all sins forgiven and for free.” Well, not free for God – there would be one last sacrifice – God would have to sacrifice God’s very own self – God would have to point to God’s self and say, “Look, I’m just not going to be the Mr. Cranky-Pants God you want me to be. Do your worst to me, but I’m not going to repay your violence with more violence. I’m going to repay your violence with love. How do you like that?!?! In fact, let’s not even talk about payment. Try my patience with everything you’ve got – but I will suffer and die rather than have to be some sort of cosmic sin accountant. I’m going out of the keeping-track-of-sins business altogether, and there will be no more attempts to pay me off with these idiotic sacrifices. A! New! Day! Is! About! To! Dawn!!!!!!”

Of course, this new day would not be welcome everywhere and by everyone. Without a cranky, petulant, peevish god forever needing to be placated, forever needing someone or something to suffer and die to placate the divine set of nerves; without an exacting accountant-god forever keeping a ledger of merits and demerits, of who's been naughty or nice – why, religion itself would go right out of business – and without religion, how could the powerful ever keep people in line? How would the powerful keep their power? Anyone proclaiming a gracious God of infinite mercy, anyone proclaiming a God who didn’t keep track of rights and wrongs, anyone proclaiming a God whose idea of judgment day is to declare everyone innocent, everyone righteous – and all of that free and without cost – well anyone talking like that would need to be gotten rid of!!

And whaddya know! The companions of Jesus, finally by the power of the Holy Spirit getting it, went proclaiming just that: God gone out of the accounting business. And they were handed over to councils and beaten in congregations and would have to stand before governors and kings. And be killed. And indeed, the proclamation of the God of Jesus, the God gone-out-of-the-accounting-business remains unpopular to this day. It’s tough to raise money without guilt and fear and a god who keeps a list of who’s been naughty or nice. But that’s the God we’re here to proclaim to one another and the world – and we will not neglect to meet together (as is the habit of some) but we come together to encourage one another over and over and over – and all the more so in these days when some withhold their offerings and leave the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America rather than let themselves be embraced by a God who with a great belly laugh shouts out: “I’ve gone out of the accounting business – and for good. I’m now into throwing parties. So come and eat! Come and drink! This feast is on me and everyone’s welcome!”