In Case of Apocalypse…
Mark 13:1-37
November 15, 2009
If you’ll pardon the rather uncomely nature of it, the question posed is this: What would you do in case of a zombie attack? If the living dead, with their arms outstretched and skin grotesquely peeling off their bodies, stuttered and stammered toward you, how would you survive? The movie Zombieland, released this summer, seeks to answer those very questions with rules like these:
Rule 1: Cardio—In order to survive an apocalyptic zombie army, one must be in good shape. Zombies though very slow-moving, are extremely persistent. The very first people to succumb to a zombie death are the ones who are out of shape and can’t flee quickly.
Rule 2: Double-tap—Zombies, you see, are already dead, so killing them them with one shot is nearly impossible. At least two efforts to kill them are necessary—the double-tap—if you want to ensure that the the living dead are really, really dead.
Rule 3: Beware of bathrooms—When one is at their most vulnerable, zombies are most likely to strike. Enough said.
Rule 18: Limber up—Nothing makes an easier meal for a zombie than someone who has not properly stretched before running away. A pulled muscle, a twisted ankle, a strained tendon is just the opening a zombie needs to fulfill his most earnest wish—eating you!
Rule 31: Check the back seat—Chances are during a zombie invasion you will have to check some of your morals at the door and use the vehicles of other people at times. Since the owners of most abandoned cars have become zombies anyway, it’s not really stealing, is it? Anyway, always check the back seat, again, because zombies know when you are most vulnerable.
While there are numerous other rules helpful in zombie attacks, I think these few are sufficient for today. And why you may ask, have I been wasting these few minutes of your weekly hour of community spiritual time discussing zombies? Because in a way, zombies, or at least the idea behind them is particularly relevant for our passage from Mark today.
Zombie literature, movies and culture have been on the rise the past few years—just ask any members of our youth group how prominent zombies, vampires, and other mythological creatures have become lately.
And frequently these types of supernatural beings and happenings are not based purely on fantasy but have some relevance to the real world. Often they are tied to the apocalyptic—to world destruction, to the inbreaking of chaos, to the loss of social order and to the entrance of fear, pessimism, and insecurity.
In an interview on a cable news show a few years back Eli Roth, who directs vicious, torturous horror movies, was asked why the popularity of horror movies had seemed to skyrocket in the few years previous. Interestingly, he said that the horror genre of movies and films tend to reflect changes going on in society. During the years of turmoil of the late sixties and early seventies, some of the most memorable horror movies were made. Roth asserts that during times of trouble, many people, whether they innately realize it or not, want a place of safety, where they can scream at the troubles of their life and world, and know that after the movie ends, everything will be okay.
While I doubt many of us sitting here today patiently wait for the next zombie or horror movie to be released, I do wonder if any of you, like me, have noticed the apocalyptic infiltrating other parts of our culture. A movie released this past Friday, 2012, details the apocalyptic destruction of the earth, with volcanoes, earthquakes and the entire state of California slipping into the Pacific Ocean. A movie due to come out in a couple of weeks is called The Road and is based on a novel by writer Cormac McCarthy. It tells the story of a man and his son who have to make their way across a future America of desolation, destruction and anarchy. A recent novel by British author Jim Crace, called The Pesthouse, tells a similarly frightening story. Other recent movies like I Am Legend and Children of Men relate similar stories.
Whether it is alien invasion, plagues, world wars, astrological impacts, or simply the way news is presented in the world today with every disaster amplified beyond necessity there seems to be a tension in our culture about the insecurity of our way of life. Whether this is justified or not, it is there.
And the same questions permeate all these apocalyptic situations: How do we humans react in world gone awry? Where is our stability found in an unstable society?
These questions are in no way unique to us here in 2009. When the world goes haywire, when a seemingly endless array of troubles repeatedly strike us, when death is an everyday reality, when suffering grows disproportionately to comfort, what are we to do?
These are the same questions that bred a whole series of apocalyptic literature in the Old and New Testaments. The Book of Daniel is filled with apocalyptic images, just as the Book of Revelation is. And in the Gospel of Matthew, after Jesus death, listen to what happens (Matthew 27:50-52):
50Then Jesus cried again with a loud voice and breathed his last. 51At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, and the rocks were split. 52The tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. 53After his resurrection they came out of the tombs and entered the holy city and appeared to many.
Could it be? Zombies in the gospel of Matthew! That’s certainly what a direct reading suggests, though the people who are raised from the dead are potrayed as people on the side of Jesus, not ones trying to eat the disciples.
But we are in the Book of Mark and it is to that we should now turn. The passage we read to today is frequently named the “Little Apocalypse“ by scholars. Mark only has 16 original chapters and one of those 16, ours for today, is dedicated to an apocalyptic message.
Chapter 13 of Mark is a set of instructions for the disciples and early Christian believers telling them how to know when the end of the old world is at hand the birth of the new kingdom is about to begin. The disciples are instructed to pay no attention to wars and rumors or war, to not be frightened by earthquakes and famine, to maintain calm when the Temple of Jerusalem, the beating heart of the Israelite faith, is destroyed. There are merely the birthpangs of a soon-to-be greater creation.
And even worse still, if the disciples are to follow the way of Jesus, they are to experience persecution themselves. They wil be handed over to the ruling councils, they will be beaten in synagogues, they will be tried before kings and governers. They will face oppression and death and be handed over even by their own family members and loved ones. They will be hated by all.
This is perhaps the bleakest passage in the New Testament and maybe that is the reason we only focus on bits of it at a time and fail to read it in its entirety. But when times are hard in our own lives and in the lives of the people of this world we need passages like these to inform us how to live, what to do, how to practice our faith and reform the apocalyptic world for the better.
Furthermore, we also need to understand why Mark would write such difficult passages. It is theologian Ched Myers‘ belief, and one that I find persuasive, that Mark is advising early Christians and Jesus followers of what to do in the midst of turmoil between Jerusalem and Rome.
From 66 to 70 AD (CE), the Roman Empire and the Jewish people were engaged in warfare. The Jews living in Palestine were sick and tired of a massive empire ruling their lives and disrupting their people and their traditions. Rome certainly wanted to maintain its regional hegemony, exacting taxes and tribute from its subordinates to enrich its own coffers.
It is in this context of violence and warfare that Myers believes the Gospel of Mark was written; and in anytime of war people are almost always forced to take sides. “Patriotism“ becomes paramount and if one has not announced whose side they‘re own, they are assume to be enemies.
There were echoes of this type of thinking during my time in
Belfast, Northern Ireland. As a youth worker in a Protestant community I was repeatedly asked if I was the side of Protestants or Catholics (though frequently disparaging terms were inserted for the proper names of groups). Being neutral, being in favor of a resolute and fair peace was seen as impossible. When both sides of a battle feel they have been trampled upon, the middle way of peace is especially hard to elevate as a third option.
And it is just this third option that Myers suggests Jesus is instructing his community to take. The reason being this: If the Romans win the war, they will simply continue to persecute and oppress the indigenous population. But if the Temple-State of Jerusalem wins, they will simply continue in the system of oppression that had been the norm for centuries.
For those who were at Wednesday Night Connection this past week, you will remember that the Temple of the Israelites and its leaders had for hundreds of years been bedfellows with the great empires that ruled over them; first with the Persians, then with Ptolemies, then the Seleucids, and finally the Romans. During this time it was the common people who were trod upon, the peasants who paid huge taxes and tributes, while the leaders of the Temple establishment stood in the way of positive change for the poor.
So after 400 years of rule by this system based upon inequality, Jesus, instructs his disciples that it is time for a change. Both Rome and the Temple hierarchy were exploiting the peasant population and both needed to be removed. For Jesus and for Mark the question was not which side to be on, but how to create a new side and a new Kingdom of God that would rule with justice, fairness and righteousness.
The followers of Jesus shouldn’t fight for Rome. The followers of Jesus shouldn’t fight with the Israelite resistance to Rome. Instead it is up to them to be the harbingers of a new way of being. Once the dust settles between Judea and Rome they are to be the creators of a new world order, reigning with goodness instead of evil, choosing peace over war and cooperation over opposition.
The end time for Mark and Jesus is not the end of the history of the world when earthquakes rumble, the dead awaken, and the “good people” are all magically whisked away from violence and death. The end time represents the end of a system of turmoil, the limitation of evil and the emergence of good. It is, in a sense, the recreation of the systems of the world as God first intended them to be: good.
And this is the task for us in our own world today, because we have apocalypses that bring us turmoil as well. Individually we may lose a job, or a loved one may die, or all that we have worked for throughout our life may fall to pieces. And corporately we have apocalypses too—the suffering of the poor, the inequalities of our societies, the abuse of power and the death of righteousness.
In a world brimming with apocalyptic realities, with the fear of a scary present and an uncertain future, we are the ones who are called to live with “revolutionary patience” and unbridled hope. Because the true power of the apocalypse is not found in destruction and death; it is found in resurrection. It is found in new, more beautiful creations. It is found in the hope for a better world and in the rebirth a more nourishing society.
And it is our job, with the help of God and humans, to persevere, to rise above the more baser of our instincts in difficult times, in order to create new life, to pray for a better earth, to hope for a promising future, to rebuild the destroyed Temple of God, not in bricks and mortar but in love, justice and righteousness. Amen.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5nOl1oeP4Q&feature=PlayList&p=C43AF92E76982B0E&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=7. Referenced on November 8, 2009.
