Building Up the Ruined Cities
Rev. Mark Schaefer
A sermon in The Other Six Days series
Kay Spiritual Life Center
September 12, 2010
Isaiah 61:1-4; Mark 13:1-8
Is. 61:1 The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; 2 to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; 3 to provide for those who mourn in Zion — to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit. They will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, to display his glory. 4 They shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.
Mark 13:1 As he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!” 2 Then Jesus asked him, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”
Mark 13:3 When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, 4 “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?” 5 Then Jesus began to say to them, “Beware that no one leads you astray. 6 Many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray. 7 When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. 8 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.
I. BEGINNING
It’s hard to believe but the first decade of the Twenty-first Century is drawing to a close. It’s been something of a tumultuous decade and has seen its fair share of devastation. We’ve seen wars and political upheaval. We’ve seen terrorism and sectarian violence. We’ve seen protracted religious and ethnic conflict. It’s been quite a decade for human destructiveness.
This weekend being the ninth anniversary of the September 11th attacks, we have had much opportunity to reflect on the violence and devastation we are capable of inflicting upon one another. That is an old story. One we wrestle with, one we lament, one we seek to understand. One we seek to end by working that much harder for peace and security so that the occasions of memorializing the dead from violence will become ever fewer.
And in this decade we’ve also witnessed devastation from a different quarter. We have seen natural disasters of a scale that we had not encountered before.
In 2003, an earthquake in Iran killed 26,000 people. In that same year, a heat wave in Europe killed 25,000 to 30,000 people. This summer, 15,000 people have died in Russia as a result of a heat wave.
In 2005 we witnessed the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, the fifth deadliest hurricane in U.S. history and the most destructive in terms of property damage—totaling over $ 81 Billion.[1] In that same year, an earthquake in Kashmir killed 75,000 people. In 2008 in Sichuan, China an earthquake killed over 68,000 people with 18,000 missing. In 2004, we witnessed the devastation of the Indian Ocean Tsunami, which killed over 230,210 people. This year, we saw the devastation of the Haitian earthquake, which killed over 220,000 people.[2] In fact, those last two natural disasters rank as the 9th and 10th deadliest natural disasters of all time.[3] Most recently, we have seen the destruction wrought by the flooding in Pakistan. It has been a devastating decade.
And then there is the devastation we witness in the aftermath. The ruined cities. The economies in shambles. The unemployment, hunger, loss of vital services. Shortages of water. The disaster continues in new and frightening ways long after the last waves have subsided, the last drop has fallen, the last rumble in the earth has been felt.
II. WHY?
And so, it is understandable that when we encounter a devastating natural disaster, we search for meaning. We long to know the why of it all. In some ways, we become more accustomed to the relentless march of human on human violence. We understand that wars will take place and that people will make grabs for power. And so whether we understand the motives or write people off as “crazies”, we seem to be more accepting of the disasters that we create.
It’s the ones that nature creates that throw us for the biggest loop.
The world cannot have motivations the way we do, and so we look to deeper meaning behind disasters. Now, of course, the answers to the mystery cover the gamut of opinion.
When I was an exchange student in the Soviet Union, there was a massive earthquake in Armenia in which tens of thousands died. I was in a room with three fellow students, one girl and two guys, and we were talking about this event. In that conversation were voiced some of the more common feelings about disasters like this.
A. Atheism
The young woman began to say that she just didn’t see how there could possibly be a God if things were allowed to happen like this. Why would any God allow suffering on such a massive scale. Any sufficiently powerful God would not just stand by and allow this to happen, therefore, there is no God.
B. Sin
It was at this point that one of the guys chimed in. He, and my roommate, the other guy in the room, were Russian Orthodox Christians and so I was interested to hear how he would respond. He said that you needed to understand that things like this happened because there’s sin in the world. Natural disasters are just part of the brokenness of the world.
It was at this point I began to wonder if I was the only one who’d ever heard of tectonic plates.
That being said, there is a long established school of thought that natural disasters are a kind of “natural sin”—a brokenness in the created order itself caused by human sinfulness. As a theological idea, it’s not a terrible conception, it suggests that the whole world is longing for redemption. But as an answer to someone who wonders why tragedies like this happen—and who is aware that earthquakes have been taking place long before we arrived here—such an appeal to sin is unsatisfying.
C. The Plan
But of course, that explanation is miles better than some of the ones you hear. You often hear about some knucklehead religious leader who espouses the opinion that the Haitian Earthquake was caused by a pact that Haitians made with the devil two centuries ago, or that Hurricane Katrina was caused by the U.S. abortion rate, or that the Tsunami was caused by the fact that not enough people in Indonesia were taking their Muslim faith seriously enough. Basically, this is the school of thought that expands upon the general sin idea and ties it to specific sins.
It is also rooted in the idea that God is basically just like Thor, hurling lightning bolts against those who displease him. Pretty large and not carefully aimed lightning bolts, by the way, since I am sure there were a great many faithful people who were killed by these natural disasters. They can’t all have been unrecalcitrant sinners. This is the idea that life is one huge obstacle course. Roadblocks that God sets up in our midst to test us, punishments that God doles out if we fail. If that is actually how the universe works, I wish that God had just bought himself a copy of The Sims and spared us the suffering.
D. Fatalism
And there are those who look at tragedy and see it as one of the signs of the End. They see such events in the light of the reading we read from Mark 13 earlier (and others like it) and see the troubles of the world as the death throes or birth pangs of the world, soon to be ended. In the face of the end of the world, the only response to such devastation is just to wait it out. It’ll all be over soon. The reason things like this happen is to point to the coming of the Kingdom of God.
III. WHAT?
So, then, what are we to make of disasters? Why do such terrible things happen? Why doesn’t God stop them? Or does God intend them for some mysterious purpose?
I’ll tell you my answer: I don’t know. And I don’t care. Because the why is the wrong question. The question is not, why did this happen? The question is: what are we going to do in response?
And from the very beginning, Christians have sought to respond to the needs of the afflicted. Christians have a long and involved history in responding to the needs of disaster victims. On a list of 34 disaster relief organizations provided by the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA), more than twenty were Christian organizations, including Brethren Disaster Ministries, Baptist World Aid, Catholic Charities, Church World Service, Episcopal Relief and Development, Lutheran Disaster Response, Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, the Red Cross, and our own United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) http://new.gbgm-umc.org/umcor/.
In fact, it is these responders who are often first on the ground whenever there is a disaster. UMCOR was already in Haiti doing relief work when the earthquake struck. As a result, a leaders of UMCOR and of the Board of Global Ministry were killed in the earthquake this year.
Christians of all kinds have been the ones to go into the midst of the devastation and help the people there to rebuild.
So, when we ask the question—what are we supposed to do?—we see that so many people of faith have been responding for a very long time.
IV. THE DEEPER WHY
So if we are to ask “why”—it is to ask the reason for such strong Christian engagement. Because it’s more than simply being nice. It goes to more than simply feeling it’s “the right thing to do.” We respond to disasters, because we believe that by doing so, we testify to the God who will bring healing to the whole world.
The passage that we heard read earlier from Isaiah speaks to this understanding. In it the prophet says that:
The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners
With those very words, Jesus began his own ministry. Identifying himself as the one who bears God’s message of hope and restoration. A message that continues:
2 to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; 3 to provide for those who mourn in Zion — to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit. They will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, to display his glory. 4 They shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.
“They shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations, they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.”
Written at a time after the Babylonians had destroyed Jerusalem and sent the people into exile, this passage envisions a restored and glorious future, in which the devastations of the past, the ruined cities will be repaired. A new and final hope for the restoration of all things.
And so, we do not respond to disaster because it is the right thing to do. We do not do it because it will make us feel better. We respond in the face of disaster to give voice to the hope of restoration in the face of desolation. That where the world sees devastation, we see renewal. Where there is destruction, we see planting. Where there is death, we see resurrection. And we testify to our hope in that restoration, renewal, and resurrection by going into those places that suffer the most, offering a helping hand, and standing in solidarity with the afflicted.
V. END
Our world is full of danger and challenge. The system that provides life also provides peril. The heat of the earth brings with it earthquakes. The life giving nature of the water cycle brings with it hurricanes and flooding. The renewing power of the air brings with it tornadoes and strong wind.
We may never understand why it is that some should suffer. Why the forces of nature are at times arrayed against us. But we can understand what it is we’re supposed to do in response. We can understand our obligations to alleviate suffering.
And we can understand that as we do so, we do not simply demonstrate our love of neighbor, but we testify to the God whom we love, the God who stands with us in our sufferings, and the God who will renew all things, who will repair ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.
[1] http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pdf/TCR-AL122005_Katrina.pdf
[2] http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eqinthenews/2010/us2010rja6/#summary
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_natural_disasters
