For Sunday, November 15, 2015 – Mark 13:1-8
We get the idea that maturity means laying down childish illusions and accepting hard realities. “Grow up!” we say, meaning stop fantasizing about having an easy life and resign yourself to the life that is. Jesus, too, wants us to grow up—to become mature children of God—but his way is different from ours. He does not want us to hang our heads and trudge along under the weight of our condition, or to rail and fight against it. No, for Jesus, to grow up is to become more like children, not less. It is to find the ‘fun’ in the dysfunctional. It is to let our limitations reveal unlimited potential.
If we grow up in the way Jesus is hoping, we start to recognize how weak and foolish is the world’s idea of power and how truly empowering is the world’s idea of weakness. What has substance in the common view turns out to be nothing more than substantial illusion, and what is deemed worthless has amazing value.
This teaching happens right after they leave the temple following their encounter with the “powerfully weak” widow. As though they didn’t learn a thing, they remark how awesome the big stones and buildings of the temple are. The fact that Jesus still tries to teach them anything at all could be considered one of the miracles, but God bless him, he tries. Stop putting your hope in the substance of what you see right in front of you, he says. These stones are like a child’s blocks. I can knock them down and put them back up with ease. You have other eyes that will serve you better in the days to come; learn to see with these inner eyes if you want to recognize what is really real.
Religious structures crumble, some teachers and healers lead people astray, all kinds of alarms announce chaos and war—not to worry. These are not the endpoints of your journey, just signs along the way. Breakdown is the natural outcome when your fantasies about worldly power begin to die and the inner eye begins to open. If you find yourself overwhelmed by all that is breaking down, you are not misunderstanding. You are at last growing up.
