The Powers in the Heavens Will Be Shaken
by Chris Heath  

Mark 13.25

When one reads these words of cataclysm I begin to wonder if they  
were spoken in vain.   Jesus tells us quite categorically: 'this  
generation will not pass away until all these things will take  
place'.   Was he wrong?   If he was right what relevance do the words  
have today, here and now, if the things to which Jesus referred have  
been and gone?

Time and again, in various guises, the church looks to the past as  
some sort of 'golden age'.   Here in Australia we look to the 1950's  
when Sunday Schools and Youth Groups were flourishing.   But now we  
seem to have fallen into a big hole.   Those parishioners who were  
part of that time, look back with fondness and look at the present  
with criticism.   Things are not like they were in MY day!   Some  
spiritualities look to the 'faith once delivered to the saints' as  
the unalterable norm from which we deviate at our eternal peril.    
Others look to a resurgence of evangelical Christianity where the  
unconverted are challenged with the claims of Christ.

But Jesus words are about the powers in the heavens that will be  
shaken, and if there is any power in the heavens it is surely the  
church.   There is no protection in the church from the divine  
shaking.   Just because things were doesn't mean that is how they  
always should be.

I vividly remember when I went on a Yoga retreat some few years ago  
now.  I met a fellow Yoga practitioner.   When he found out that I  
was a priest at a particular parish, he commented, words to the  
effect: 'Oh, that's where I went to church and Sunday school; that  
Sunday school teacher, she taught me what hell was like!'   The  
particular Sunday
School teacher was still worshipping there, many years later, running  
the parish from the background and thinking how she had made that  
parish into what it was.   Of course, everyone else was to blame for  
the decline!  And recalling this, I realized that the parish and I  
were there to entertain her.   There are some powers that resist the  
Lord's shaking to the end!

In the literary context perhaps Mark thought of these words of Jesus  
as referring to the coming destruction of the Temple and the setting  
up of the desolating sacrilege there.   Here certainly were some  
powers in the heavens being shaken, if ever there was one.   And  
Jesus message is that this shaking was in the plan of God.   But if  
this is all it refers to, then it has no message for us, except  
perhaps that God got his own back on those naughty Jews for having  
Jesus killed.   Again this puts us in a 'safe' place – well presumably!

Following these words we go to the plot to have Jesus killed, and  
here is another power in the heavens being shaken.   It is not  
insignificant that Jesus was killed before the Temple was razed in  
70CE.   First and foremost Jesus was speaking about himself.  He was  
going to be stripped of his power.

As I listened to the celebrant at worship recently, he recited the  
words I have so often said myself: 'Renew us by your Holy Spirit,  
unite us in the body of your Son, and bring us with all your people  
into the joy of your eternal kingdom ..'   These are lovely words,  
but I suspect that we see them as referring to us coming to receive  
the Holy Communion with other like-minded individuals.   Perhaps the  
real 'body of your Son' is actually the body of the whole of  
humanity, and all people are 'your people' (not just Anglicans) and  
the diminished communion we regard as **normal** witnesses that we  
haven't got the message.  Our diminished communion needs to be  
shaken.   And there is little point in praying to God to do this.    
The evidence is all around us, in scripture, in the world.   What  
more can God do?   In the end it is up to us to get on with it, to  
accept being shaken, or to bunker down and think that everyone else  
is to blame for the decline.

While I have been enjoying a couple of weeks break, I have been  
looking again at the Psalter – the hymnbook of the ancient and modern  
people of God.   I have often thought how much they reflect a 'them'  
and 'us' theology.   So I did a brief analysis and I was distressed  
to realize that in the 150 only 8 have no hint that God should kill  
the wicked (28.7%), deliver me from my enemy (25.3%), deliver us from  
the nations enemy (21.3), or generally reward and favour the chosen  
(19.3).   .   This is not especially a New  
Testament thing for the book of Job certainly focuses on the problem  
that evil befalls the chosen and the righteous, and the book of Jonah  
that God cares for those other than the elect.   But Jesus says that:  
"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbour and  
hate your enemy.'   But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for  
those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father  
in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and  
sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.   For if you love  
those who love you, what reward do you have?   Do not even the tax  
collectors do the same?   And if you greet only your brothers and  
sisters, what more are you doing than others?   Do not even the  
Gentiles do the same?   Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly  
Father is perfect."  (Matthew 5.43-48)   One of the things is that in  
my tradition, during each service we read a portion of the psalms.    
No other book of the Bible, even individual gospels, gets this sort  
of emphasis.   Clergy saying the morning and evening office used to  
read through the Psalter every month; now it is every two months, but  
this is still a very heavy diet on a single book so concentrating on  
a 'them' and 'us' theology which the efforts of Jesus to demolish led  
to his death.
If we are to be disciples of the powerless one, then we don't do this  
by trying to maintain a position of power and influence over  
others.   Each and every time we assume a position of power,  
superiority, elitism, segregation over others, marginalizing,  
alienating, isolating others in ghettos, practicing  
denominationalism, these will be torn down.   There is no safe place  
apart from other people.   Or put the other way around, the only safe  
place is being in communion with all other people.

In the parallel passage to our gospel reading in Matthew and Luke,  
Jesus describes the coming of the Son of Man like a thief: "But  
understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of  
the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would  
not have let his house be broken into." Matthew 24.43 and: "But know  
this: if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was  
coming, he would not have let his house be broken into.  You also  
must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected  
hour."  (Luke 12.39,40).   This is also reflected next week in the  
epistle reading from 2 Peter (3.10).   The thief comes to take away  
**power** and supposed privilege.   This is made clear in Matthew  
24.49, 50:   "If that wicked slave says to himself, 'My master is  
delayed,' and he begins to beat his fellow slaves, and eats and  
drinks with drunkards, the master of that slave will come on a day  
when he does not expect him and at an hour that he does not know."

As we come towards Christmass, we come to God in the Christ-child,  
the ultimately powerless and helpless one.   This is again another  
example of the powers of heaven being shaken.   The coming of the  
powerless one will be largely irrelevant while we try to maintain any  
position of power, superiority, elitism, segregation over others,  
marginalizing, alienating, isolating others in ghettos, practicing  
denominationalism.   It will be a quaint story from the past and  
Christianity remain harmless entertainment for children and their  
grandparents, having no vital message for the world that it has  
deliberately and largely abandoned.

(Comments to Chris at frsparky@bigpond.net.au.)