Of Holy Fools and Apocalypses

'As Jesus came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!” Then Jesus asked him, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”

When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?” Then Jesus began to say to them, “Beware that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birthpangs.”'

--Mark 13: 1-18

I wanna talk about the apocalypse. Seems fitting.  I don’t know what pops in your head when you hear it. Maybe the “end of days” stories in things like the fictitious Left Behind series, which has no basis is biblical scholarship? If you’re of a certain age, maybe you think of the X-Men villain named Apocalypse? Anyone? Maybe that's just me. The word itself, apocalypse, is a Greek word being ‘unveiling,’ or ‘revelation.’ It is, in fact, the Greek title of the last book of the Bible.

En Sabah Nur, better known as Apocalypse.

This week's reading from the Hebrew scriptures was from the Book of Daniel, a piece of apocalyptic literature that heavily influenced the writing of the Revelation to John. The same imagery is used in both texts, as Michael the archangel makes an appearance, and both promise a victory for God’s people over the forces of evil. Apocalyptic stories like Daniel or Revelation are not meant to be blueprints for the end of the world, despite what some folks may suggest, but instead they speak to the current climate, to the need for people to have the veil pulled away from their eyes to see what is really going on, and using symbolism and metaphor they try to make sense of current events and experiences by casting them in a larger, cosmic framework, and in this way give comfort to people who are currently suffering or being oppressed.

Our journey this year with the Gospel of Mark comes to an end this week, as Jesus channels his inner Daniel with his own apocalyptic imagery. Right after watching that widow dropped in her two pennies, right after Jesus pointed out what real abundance, real power looks like, one of the disciples points out the impressiveness of the buildings and how mighty the stones are in the Temple walls. You can almost see the “Facepalm Jesus” meme happen in real time here:

Surely Jesus is disappointed, once again, in the slowness of the disciples to learn, well, anything. He counters this acclamation by telling them that this building and all it represents will cease to be. That famine and disasters will occur, and others will claim to come in his name. Yet it will all be the beginnings of the birth pangs. Something is being revealed, Jesus is trying to get them to understand.

The audience for Mark’s Gospel would’ve understood Jesus’ imagery immediately. There had been the great famine in Palestine in the year 50, the earthquakes and volcanic eruptions that destroyed Laodicea and Pompeii in 61 and 62, and, of course, the destruction of the Temple itself by the Romans in the year 70, just before this Gospel started to be proclaimed. Their world  was changing, quickly, in ways that folks struggled to understand, and within the framework of the Gospel narrative itself, Jesus’ own journey is rapidly coming to its climax. 

He communicates all of this while standing on the Mount of Olives, the very place where the Messiah is meant to first appear – which, by the way, is why folks to this day pay top dollar to be buried on that mountainside, so that they can be the first to behold the Messiah’s coming. Just a few days earlier it was the place where Jesus had entered the city in humility on a donkey at the same time Pontius Pilate was coming in from the opposite end in the grand imperial procession of Rome. The turning point of human history is here – for the participants in this story, for the people who first heard it, and for us who have inherited it. Jesus and his teachings, Jesus and his earthly journey, are approaching convergence, and his way is moving steadily on toward fruition. It is, in a word, apocalyptic.

View from the Mount of Olives facing the Temple Mount. Notice the sarcophagi along the hillside.

What is being revealed in these final days of Mark’s Gospel is the promise of God’s victory over the powers and principalities of this world, though few will have the eyes to truly see it. They will only see a body on a cross, even when a group of women tell them about an empty tomb. The Gospel practically begs the audience to have eyes to see what is going on around them, what is truly real. It isn’t the grandeur of your buildings, the might of your empires, no. It is quiet humility, frailty, even poverty, that which is foolish in the eyes of people, but not God.

How many of you know the stories of the Holy Fools? They were a peculiar bunch of ascetics who acted intentionally foolish – some thought they were genuinely out of their minds – in order to irritate and shock people into paying attention and changing their own, truly foolish ways. They included folks like Basil, who shoplifted in order to feed and clothe those in need, going naked and weighing himself down with chains. There was also Simeon, who drug around a dead dog and threw nuts at people when he walked into church, then he'd crawled around the building on his butt, causing children to point and yell “There goes a crazy abba!” The Holy Fools themselves were apocalyptic, revealing the absurdities of their time, pulling people out of their everyday trances by means of absurdity. We got any Holy Fools in our congregations these days?

St. Simeon, the Holy Fool

Have we, like the disciple staring in awe at the magnificence of the Temple, become complacent and in need of some foolishness to draw the veil away from our eyes? This is, I believe, an apocalyptic moment, as so much new is being revealed and coming to light, in our parish, in our local communities, in our state, and especially in our country, as some people believe literally that the president-elect was chosen by Jesus and has come in his name. The events of the past fortnight have revealed truths that we may never have wanted to know, and yet now that we know them, what will we do with them? And with ourselves?

One of the best pieces of apocalyptic storytelling in the 21st century is the Wachowski siblings masterpiece, The Matrix. Spoiler alert for a movie series a quarter of a century old, but The Matrix paints the picture of a world where humanity is caught in a simulation of reality – known as the Matrix –  boring, mundane, and safe. But the true reality, the “real” world is one in which humans’ minds are being kept in this simulation while their bodies are used as batteries to power an empire of machines. Once you see what is real, it is almost impossible to go back into the safe simulation – though one character tries, taking a bite of virtual reality steak saying, “Ignorance is bliss.” In the end, though, all of humanity is not freed from the Matrix, but they are given the choice to leave of their own accord. They can remain in a virtual world, pretending that they are free, or they can venture out into a world that, though frightening and hard, is truly real. The choice is theirs.

Keanu Reeves in The Matrix Reloaded, the second entry in the original trilogy.

And the choice is ours. As it was for Jesus’ disciples. Now that the veil has been pulled away, now that things have been revealed for what they are, what will we do? There are Holy Fools all around us, calling us to forsake our false sense of security and be reckless witnesses for the very morals and ethics of Jesus himself.  What lies in front of us may not be a reality that we would choose willingly, but it has chosen us. What will we do going forward?  Some may choose to remain in their own version of the Matrix, blissfully unaware of the trials and tribulations around them – to borrow from the French-born American essayist Anais Nin, it was not the truth they wanted, but an illusion they could bear to live with. They have much in common with that disciple staring at the Temple walls. As I asked members of my congregation, I'll ask readers of this blog: is that who you are??  I seriously doubt it. Yes, to choose to see things as they are means to choose the cross, but it also means to choose the hope of an empty tomb. To have such hope may seem foolish, but it is also holy. We are in the midst of the birth pangs.   

It Is Enough...For Now

'The word of the LORD came to Elijah, saying, “Go now to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and live there; for I have commanded a widow there to feed you.” So he set out and went to Zarephath. When he came to the gate of the town, a widow was there gathering sticks; he called to her and said, “Bring me a little water in a vessel, so that I may drink.” As she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, “Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.” But she said, “As the LORD your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die.” Elijah said to her, “Do not be afraid; go and do as you have said; but first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterwards make something for yourself and your son. For thus says the LORD the God of Israel: The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the LORD sends rain on the earth.” She went and did as Elijah said, so that she as well as he and her household ate for many days. The jar of meal was not emptied, neither did the jug of oil fail, according to the word of the LORD that he spoke by Elijah.'

-- I Kings 17: 8-16

'As Jesus taught, he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”

He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”'

--Mark 12: 38-44

This past Sunday was only my third one serving the folks of the Church of the Advocate in Chapel Hill. The seats are set up monastic-style, facing each other, so for the first two weeks I chose to preach from the center aisle. Not only does it feel more natural, but the Advocate doesn't exactly have a pulpit, more like a lectern/ambo that is used for the readings and prayers. However, at least for one Sunday, that lectern/ambo served the purpose of a pulpit, which is the visible symbol of the authority given to a preacher to proclaim the Good News. Despite the tumultuous week that we had just experienced, that is what I intended to do for the people whom I have been called to serve. 

It's times like this when I’m glad that the burden does not fall on me to choose our Scriptures for the each Sunday. I might have resorted to something like Psalm 3, which says in its seventh verse:  

“Rise up, O Lord; set me free, O my God; surely you will strike all my enemies across the face; you will break the teeth of the wicked.”                                               

Because that’s where I’ve been since last Tuesday. I’ve wrestled with a lot of anger, and also fear – for myself and my spouse, for my queer siblings, for our immigrant neighbors, and for everyone who faces an uncertain and unclear future when the calendar turns to 2025. I’m not going to tell you that things are still ok because Jesus was Lord the day before the election and he’s still Lord now; that things are bad but God is still good. That’s called spiritual bypassing, and it’s a form of gaslighting and abuse. I’m not going to do that. Because for so many things are not ok, and that kind of rhetoric does very little to heal the hurting that folks are feeling or assuage the legitimate concerns that the most vulnerable among us face. I’m not compelled to lean into that right now. 

As I told my folks on Sunday, I don’t exactly feel like I have much to give right now. Maybe you don’t either. And that’s ok. We say it every week at the Advocate: bring what you’ve got into this space, bring it this Table, give it to God and see what happens. I’m gonna try to give what little bit I have and see what happens.

I’ve heard it said before, and you’ll hear me say many times, that there is a difference between fact and truth. Facts are things that are provable, while truth is something deeper, it’s about meaning and feeling. I studied for a summer in the Holy Land several years ago, and our guide regularly told us that if we had come there looking for facts we would leave disappointed, but if we came looking for truth we would find it. Facts, as we have seen recently, aren’t always enough. Our Scriptures, likewise, are not always factual, but they are filled with truth, with meaning, with life lessons told through myth, metaphor, hyperbole, song, prose, and poetry. It might be hard to believe that God factually did all those things in our Bible stories, but it matter that we hold to the truth God that can do them. And there is truth in our Scriptures this week that maybe, just maybe, can send us on our way with some modicum of hope.

That truth is conveyed by two widows, separated by roughly 900 years. The first is caught up in a time of drought and famine. Her household has succumbed, and all that remains is her and her son. There’s not much left, just enough meal and oil to bake one last cake for the two of them to share before they die. She’s met by Elijah, the so-called Man of God, who has the audacity to ask her to make a cake for him first. A bit presumptuous, if you ask me, but the widow has nothing to left to lose. She offers what little she does have, and dips into her jar of meal and jug of oil to make the Man of God’s cake…and then she makes one for herself…and another for her son….and another…and another….for days on end. The jug and jar did not fail. It was all she had, but it was enough. That’s the truth of this story, even if such a miracle is, perhaps, not factual.

An Eastern mosaic of the story of the widow's mite.

We find Jesus today, on the Tuesday before he died, in the temple teaching and preaching. Beware, he warns those gathered, of the scribes, of those who were the entrepreneurs of the religious establishment, a literate class in an illiterate society who, as Jesus puts it, devoured widow’s houses, usually by administering loan agreements and then foreclosing on widows’ property when they couldn't repay the loan.  It just so happens, there in their midst, is another poor widow, who gives two copper coins worth a penny into the general treasury. What an unlikely candidate to be teaching in the temple. Others are certainly considered more powerful, more important, more holy than she, yet it is her faithfulness, her willingness to bring all she’s got, no matter how insufficient it may appear, and in so doing, offer a lesson on the quality of real power, which doesn’t look like the pomposity of the scribes but the humility of this widow. Does it factually make sense that a woman would hand over, as our translation puts it, “everything she had, all she had to live on.” Not really – why would anyone do that? - yet the truth of her story remains, that real power comes not from the top-down or from an abundance of privilege, but from the bottom-up and from self-emptying when it would seem there’s nothing left. The mite of this widow not only blesses her but everyone who witnessed it.

A Greek word so often used in the New Testament is kenosis, which means to empty oneself. Paul uses this word to not only describe what Jesus does on the cross, but also what we are meant to do for one another.  Both of the widows in these stories embody kenosis, they empty themselves. They’ve got no idea what is going to happen, how God might show up – if at all. Yet here, at the end of their ropes, and because they do not fear to lose what little bit they still have left, they can offer it with the slimmest of hopes, that something – anything – might be possible.

What little bit you have right now is enough. As I said on Sunday, even if you feel empty, the fact that you are even here is enough. If all you have is a lament, or even a curse, it’s enough. For this place and this time, it’s enough. I wish that all we have experienced in these latter days had not happened in our time. But as Galdalf reminded Frodo, all we have to decide now is what to do with the time that is given us. I don't know about any of you, but what I intend to do, like those two widows in our stories this week, is give what little I have each day, with the slimmest of hopes that, to quote another prophetic voice from The Lord of the Rings, there is some good left in this world and it is worth fighting for! And I promise you that I will fight and I will preach – with words, when necessary – in the name of the Lord Jesus and all that he lived, died, and rose for, until I have emptied myself of all that I have to give. And it will be my greatest honor to do that by your side.

Samwise Gamgee: hobbit, hero, prophet.

It is important that we acknowledge the grief that is all around us and to honor that every person may be in a different stage of that grief – whether denial, sadness, anger, bargaining, or acceptance. As an aside, for any of you who are not experiencing grief right now, I say, "Thanks be to God!" But for those of us who are, it's important to name it. No doubt the two widows were also grieving for what was going on in their own times. Yet we also know that, to paraphrase Richard Rohr, those who do not transform their grief and pain will transmit it. Hurt people hurt people, after all. We're watching that play out in front of us. Perhaps not today, but some day, together, we will transform this grief and this pain and will steel ourselves to do what we are called to do as followers not of Caesar but of Jesus!

Our Psalm for this past Sunday was Psalm 146 which, in the second verse, says it pretty plainly: "Put not your trust in rulers, nor in any child of earth, for there is no help in them."Our trust is in, again to quote that Psalm, the One who gives justice to those who are oppressed, food to those who hunger, who sets the prisoners free, opens the eyes of the blind, lifts up those who are bowed down, who cares for the stranger, sustains the orphan and widow, and frustrates the wicked. That is our work and it always has been, and our work does not change. We keep showing up, we keep emptying ourselves, we keep filling one another with the Bread of heaven and Cup of salvation, we keep praying, and we keep letting what we say and do every Sunday inspire us to go out there and live it every single day. The meal and the oil did not fail. The widow’s mite blessed her and those around her immeasurably. Did God really, factually, do these things? Maybe, maybe not. But the truth is God can. And at least for right now, that is enough. 

For All the Saints

In the second act of Stephen Sondheim’s musical Into the Woods, the four remaining lead characters – the Baker, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, and Jack – come together to sing the show’s penultimate number called No One Is Alone. After the long, arduous journey they’ve been on, each one having experienced tremendous heartache, they try to understand the consequences of the things for which they have wished throughout the show, and they begin to decide to place community wishes over their own. The song itself serves a dual purpose: first, to show that each of the characters’ actions – and by extension our own – are not made in a bubble and that no one is guaranteed to be the protagonist of their own story. And second, the song demonstrates that even when life throws its greatest challenges at us, we do not have to face them alone, that there are still people who love us, believe in us, and are cheering for us.

Red Riding Hood and Cinderella sing their parts of 'No One is Alone' from the 2014 film adaptation of Into the Woods.

I would add, even when we cannot see them. For that is what the Feast of All Saints is about, the companions we have had along our journey through the woods of our own lives, those who showed us the way, who may have gone on to glory, but whose lessons, whose love, whose spirits live on and inspire us to keep going and remember, to borrow the last line of that song: things will come out right now/we can make it so/someone is on your side/no one is alone.

Most of y’all, I suspect, are familiar with the Paschal Triduum, which are the three sacred days of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. They are the holiest days in the Christian calendar, marking Jesus’ passing over from death to life. This springtime Triduum of life is mirrored by a Triduum of death in the fall of All Hallows Eve, All Saints Day, and All Souls Day, which happen on October 31, November 1, and November 2, respectively. They teach us that death is every bit as sacred as life – two sides of the same coin. All Hallows Eve was the day when Christians remembered that death doesn’t have the final say, and thus is not something to be feared, so they dressed up and mocked demons and devils to their faces. All Saints marked the celebration of the apostles and martyrs, confessors and doctors of the church, the big deal folks who have stained glass in their honor and stuff named for them. All Souls, then, was the day to remember everyone else, all the faithful departed. Over time, though, and because All Saints is one of the few major feast days we can move to the following Sunday, All Saints and All Souls got conflated and merged together, while All Hallows Eve became an almost entirely secular holiday that a lot of Christians, if you can believe it, even openly opposed. 

Which is where most of us found ourselves in our churches this pat weekend. All Saints Sunday is not just about remembering the big deal folks, but all those who we love but see no longer. Personally, this day always takes me back to little All Saints Episcopal Church in Norton, VA, a place where the directory is the front and back of one sheet of paper. This place baptized me – along with my mother and sister – they confirmed me, and ordained me – and later my dad. And while they didn’t have a staff or lot of programs, they have lived into their name. Saints that worshiped there included Joe and May Straughn, who sang in the choir, and were the kind of old couple that made you ask, "How are they together?!" but who were madly in love. Frances Herndon, the cantankerous yet faithful altar guild chair who insisted I preach her funeral even before I was ordained. The Rev. Fran McCoy, the finest priest I have ever known - who was so good that I didn't even know men could be priests! - and the one person most responsible for me being one today. And my mother, Susan Mitchell, who I still see in the crowd every place I preach. They are just some of the saints, the companions on the way, the ones who reminded me and many others that none of us is alone, even if now they do so on a far greater shore.

The Rev. Frances J. McCoy, Rector of All Saints Episcopal Church in Norton, VA

And that is what the saints truly are to us, our companions. That word is taken from the Latin com, meaning “together or with,” and pan, meaning “bread.” Our companions are literally the ones with whom we share bread. And just as your closest companions are the ones you invite to share bread at your dinner table, at the holy Table, Christ brings us together – he who himself is the bread of life, the bread of heaven, the bread that feeds and sustains us. We share this Bread with each other, yes, but when we come forward and reach out our hands we do not do it alone. None of us is alone. The heavenly banquet that we know our loved ones are sharing right now is nothing less than the Eucharist itself. In the great prayer of the Church we hear Jesus’ words to his apostles, echoed through eternity for all the saints, “Do this for the remembrance of me.”  Remember.  We do not partake in this holy meal to simply recall an event in history, no.  We re-member; that is, we become a member again, we reconnect with Christ and with all the saints who partake in this Communion. We reaffirm our place in the communion of saints by the Communion of Christ’s own body and blood.  With those words of his, the lid is blown off of time.  The past is brought into the present, and the eternal is now.  We are tied to all who have ever offered this prayer before us, bound together with all throughout history who have shared the bread and cup.  We are united through the future to the heavenly banquet, where the feasting never ends.  In the midst of that celebrating, while moving beyond time, we are joined by the saints of God right beside us.  Our fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, sons, daughters, grandparents, grandchildren, and dear friends.  They are here with us.  We named them on Sunday. And each time we come to the Table we share with them in what Saint Ignatius of Antioch called “the medicine of immortality.”

No one is alone. Salvation is not something we achieve on our own – contrary to popular opinion, we do not go out and “get saved” by ourselves. We pray, we break bread, we study, we grow, we fail, we fall, we repent, we forgive, and we keep moving closer and closer to salvation together. The lives of the saints remind us of that fact. They remind us that no one is alone.  

Sometimes I’m asked why we Episcopalians pray for the dead; after all, they’re fine now because they’re with God. There’s two reasons, really: 1) to remember that, as the prayer says, in death life is changed, not ended, and that those we love are still alive in the presence of God, and 2) because they are praying for us. On that side of the Kingdom is the Church Triumphant, those who have finished their earthly course and have found their triumph and bliss with Christ, and it is their ministry to pray for us here in the Church Militant – a term we use for us here on earth who are still in our struggles. We pray for them because that relationship is not over because it is rooted in love, which is the very nature of God – because if it ain’t about love, it ain’t about God, right? I am fond of reminding folks that love is the most powerful force in the whole universe, it cannot be destroyed by time or space. Love never dies. Love is what unites us, the living to the dead, and reminds us that we are not alone. This day is all about love.

The Church Militant and the Church Triumphant fresco by Andrea da Firenze, c.1365

For all the saints, who from their labors rest, who thee by faith before the world confessed, thy Name, O Jesus, be forever blest. And let the church forever say: Alleluia! And Amen.