When is the world going to end? If you remember, many people thought the world might end on December 21, 2012, the day that the Mayan calendar “ran out.” It didn’t happen. More recently, many people thought the world might end when the Cubs won the World Series. That had to be an end of the world kind of event. Finally, a whole other group of people were convinced that the world was ending late Tuesday night into early Wednesday morning when Donald Trump secured enough electoral votes to become the next president of this country. Surely the world as we know it is coming to an end.
Jesus would say simply: “Yes.” The world as we know it, as we live it, is surely coming to an end. Jesus points to the temple, the pride and joy of every Jewish person, their place of refuge in the storm and the one constant in their relationship with God. Jesus says: “The days are coming when all of this will be torn down.” And we hear the disciples being almost unable to comprehend that such a thing could be possible, much less seeing how they could go on after its destruction. “How could we ever be okay without the temple?” How could we ever be okay without that bedrock of our faith life?
But the truth is, we always build temples. We always construct a framework, a set of meanings, an understanding around which our world makes sense, and in which we can grow and thrive and contribute. “The days are coming, when they all must be torn down.” That is not a comforting message.
But Jesus is not done. “Even when you are betrayed and persecuted, handed over by brothers and sisters; even when all the carefully constructed temples you built crumble and tumble to the ground, TRUST – ‘not a hair on your head will be destroyed.’” Jesus can say that because he knows the heart of God. He knows that God is with us in the adventure of life. Through the struggles and difficulties, through the experience of “not one stone left on another stone”, God will walk with you and bring you life from death. There is a new life on the other end…a new good that emerges and comes to be. Joseph Campbell, writer and American Mythologist says it this way: “We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us…
That is the end of the world that Jesus invites us to – a radical trust in the unfolding of God’s plan, even when it looks nothing like our own plan. He concludes with the simple line: “By your perseverance you will secure your lives.” That is how you live when the world seems as though it is ending.
So, how do we persevere, regardless of who you voted for president this past Tuesday? A word that is starting to emerge, now that the first round of usual vitriol on the internet has passed is this: “Listen.” Listen to the cries and fears and dreams and hopes that are being voiced with such passion. For there is much there that needs to be understood and embraced.
In the final talk of my retreat this past week, the retreat master shared the story of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus – and rephrased the question that Jesus asked the two distraught disciples walking away from Jerusalem. When the disciples ask Jesus: “Are you the only inhabitant of Jerusalem who does not know what happened there these days? The gospels record Jesus’ response as: “What things?” Fr. Collins phrased it this way. By asking “What things” – Isn’t Jesus asking: “Tell me how you see the world?” Tell me how you understand everything that is going on. How do you view these events?