Blogging Towards Sunday November 15

Mark 13:1-8; 1 Samuel 2:1-10

Apocalyptic world destruction seems to make bank at the movie theatre.  Something in us is attracted to talking about the end of the world, fathoming what we would do with limited life, pulled towards the endorphin - producing fear of death.  The texts this week include the beginning of a long apocalyptic speech by Jesus.  We often react to such talk in one of two ways:

1) We condemn the world and withdraw, contenting ourselves with our own "salvation" and not fretting about the destruction of the rest of the world.  We reduce salvation to a spiritual liberation, rather than a holistic-all-life-encompassing commitment.

2) We take the moral high ground, judging and criticizing the world in which we live yet without engaging it beyond a rhetorical self-aggrandizing and self-justifying stance.

Jesus speaks in order to jar those that follow him into action, action that's centered on the salvation of the whole world: not just spiritual, but for the whole person: economically, socially, politically, materialistically.  We are looking for hope, a promise of liberation, something wider, deeper and more holistic than anything our politicians and governmental systems can provide us with today.  I think that's why movies like 2012 are so popular, that and also the sci-fi effects.

In these texts I hear the Spirit calling us to live now, for the world today, fighting in the footsteps of Jesus to co-create a world that resembles the vision spoken in Hannah's song in 1 Samuel 2 much more than that in 2012.  It's much more about having your feet on the ground, than taking the high moral ground, loving our neighbor than merely loving those in our clan, living out our faith with our money, work, rest and relationships than merely giving lip-service.  We, I, need to be motivated not by the fear of impending destruction but much more by the inspiration of discipleship.