The Second Sunday before Advent

No Stone Left Upon Another

The Rev’d Devin McLachlan

The Second Sunday before Advent, 17 November 2024

Mark 13.1–8, “The Destruction of the Temple Foretold”

St Bene’t’s Church, Cambridge

As he 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.’

Oooof.

It is a heck of a Gospel to be facing as a preacher, twelve days after the US elections, ten days after the release of the Makin Report, detailing the many ways the church failed the victims of John Smyth’s abuse, both here in England and in Africa, four days after Archbishop Welby announced his resignation. One of those weeks when the Gospel text echoes off canyon walls:  Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down. [1]

But we are called to preach nothing except Jesus Christ and him crucified [2], so let me tell you a little about houses.

I spent several summers working on building crews — I carried hod and dug ditches, built stone walls and shingled roofs. And towards the end of the summer of ’92, when I was eighteen, about six months after my father died of cancer, I worked demolition. It wasn’t a fancy demo job. No exciting explosions, no special tools. But we had to gut a house before a rebuild. Luckily for my boss, he had a grieving 18 year old kid on his crew and a heavy sledgehammer.

It was cathartic at first, taking that sledgehammer to tiled bathroom walls. But it quickly became distressing. I’d grown up thinking of houses as strong, stable, immovable things. Safe as, well, safe as houses. Five kilograms of high carbon steel at the end of a long handle says otherwise. And there, amid broken tiles and drywall, I started to wonder about the houses that I’d grown up in. The places I had called home, turned out to be flimsy constructions of two by four studs and plaster, ready to fall apart.

Walls.

Houses.

Fathers.

The wind passes over it, and it is gone,

    and its place knows it no more.[3]

When Mark wrote his Gospel, the destruction of the Temple would have been seared in the memory of many in his community. Jewish Christians would have told their Gentile brethren about the beauty of the Temple walls and stones; the noise of the portico, and the deep silence emanating from the sanctum sanctorum. And then the day of Tisha B’Av came, when in the year 70 Roman soldiers looted the temple and burned it — and all of Jerusalem — to the ground.

Walls.

Houses.

Families.

The wind passes over it, and it is gone,

    and its place knows it no more.

What is devastating in this week’s news about the Church of England is not the resignation of an Archbishop, nor the uncertainty that upheaval will cast on the work of the church, nor the ongoing struggles over Living in Love and Faith, nor the appointment of a Bishop of Ely. Temple stones, all of it. Beautiful, impressive, even divinely ordered…but while the disciples like rubes shout out “Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!”, Jesus seems unimpressed.

[our] days are like grass, they flourish like a flower of the field…

the wind passes over it, and it is gone,

and its place knows it no more.

What is devastating is the harm that was done to children and young people who were seeking God. What is devastating is the harm done to the vulnerable, the trusting, the ones in need of shelter and solace and safety. What is devastating is the failure of leaders who were led astray by abusers and predators acting in Jesus’ name. 

If someone takes a sledgehammer to the walls of the Temple, Jesus doesn’t seem to mind; it all can be thrown down. But whatever we do to those little ones, to the least of these… that’s when Jesus begins speaking of millstones.

And yet, knowing all this, walking in the city he knew would soon crucify him, Jesus expressed sorrow, he expressed anger and scorn, but he did not despair.

As for mortals, their days are like grass, 

they flourish like a flower of the field…

the wind passes over it, and it is gone,

and its place knows it no more.

But the steadfast love of theLordis from everlasting to everlasting.

But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting. Hold on to that, holdfast in these days of wars and rumours of wars, earthquake and famine, nation rising against nation.

For the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting.

That is our lodestar and our holdfast. Not walls of stone, not princes nor presidents, but the steadfast love of the Lord.

It is that steadfast love that lets us  hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, as the Epistle tells us,  encouraging one another[4]

It is that steadfast love of the Lord that, on this Safeguarding Sunday, gives us the strength to do as Scripture instructs: Speak out on behalf of the voiceless, and for the rights of all who are vulnerable[5]

It is the steadfast love of the Lord that lets us look to these thousand-year-old walls, not with vain pride, but that these stones might shelter us in our weakness and our need. That these stones are where we come to remember our charge to listen to and protect the young and the vulnerable, and within these walls find the strength we receive when we are nourished at this altar, the grace we receive when we are forgiven, the hope we receive when we pray.

[1] Mark 13.2

[2] 1 Corinthians 2.2

[3] Psalm 103

[4] Hebrews 10.23-25

[5] Proverbs