"Keep Your Eye On The Ball!"

Mark 13:1-8

On opening day of my last Little League season, when I was just twelve years old, I came up to bat in the first inning and somehow managed to hit a foul ball that traveled right back up the bat and whapped me directly in the right eye. I crumbled in a heap at home plate, momentarily unconscious. It was a mishap that landed me in the hospital for four or five days, and left me with a shiner like you wouldn't believe.

Needless to say, I never again really appreciated the urging of my baseball batting coaches to "keep your eye on the ball!" I felt I had done enough of that already!

But as I grew older, I came to realize that the phrase "keep your eye on the ball" has other applications as well. Sometimes, when life is full of mayhem and confusion, when our foundations are being shaken and we are filled with fear, its a life-saving thing to keep focused on what's important and what's constant and what's true. An important part of living victoriously as a Christian in an uncertain world is to "keep your eye on the ball."

Jesus is offering this sage advice to his followers in today's text from Mark 13. They are in Jerusalem and the disciples are fascinated by the tall, modern buildings of the big city. As Galilean fishermen who have spent most of their time with Jesus going in and out of small, local synagogues, they are most especially dazzled by the Temple. It is magnificent! Larger and more ornate than Tellico Village Community Church, St. Peter's Basilica and the Crystal Cathedral combined, the Temple in Jerusalem takes their breath away!

"WOW! the disciples collectively sigh.

And that's when Jesus surprises them. "The day is coming when this Temple will be rubble," Jesus says. "Not one stone will be left standing upon another."

The disciples say nothing at this point. They know what Jesus is talking about. He's been hinting at it for several weeks now. Somehow, this walk they've walked with the Lord, the teachings they've heard, the miracles they've witnessed, the call they've responded to, and most especially Jesus impending death and resurrection, have something to do with the end. The parousia. The second coming. Judgment Day.

Later, sitting with Jesus on the Mount of Olives, overlooking the city, the disciples gulp a little bit and in hushed tones ask the Lord, "When will it happen? What signs should we look for?"

And Jesus lists some signs of the end. False Christs will come. There will be wars and rumors of war. Nation will rise up against nation. There will be earthquakes and great natural disasters. There will be famines. And that's just the beginning.

The thirteenth chapter of Mark's Gospel is referred to by some scholars as "the little apocalypse". It reminds us that our faith is not simply about "me and Jesus", not simply about "helping me live a better life", not simply about "personal piety or personal spiritual growth." Our faith is about the redemption of the world. It has eternal ramifications that transcend both time and space. It is about God bringing his people and his creation home. It is about a coming Day of the Lord when the blind will see, the lame will leap, the hungry will be filled, and there will be justice for those who live under oppression. It is about the coming of the Kingdom of God.

But we in the church have tended to make two mistakes when dealing with this apocalyptic aspect of our faith.

First, we sometimes become obsessed with it.

Linus and Charlie Brown are having a discussion. Linus has a book of nursery rhymes and says to Charlie, "The way I see it, 'The cow jumped over the moon' indicates an impending rise in farm prices. And the part about the dish running away with the spoon must refer to the consumer price index...Do you agree with me Charlie Brown?"

Charlie Brown shrugs and says, "Oh, I can't say. I don't pretend to be a student of prophetic literature."

But there are many who are students of prophetic literature. And there is an abundant supply of material out there written by authors who claim to know even more about it than Jesus himself! It was Reinhold Niebuhr who once observed that there are "some who claim to know the temperature of hell and the furniture of heaven." Niebuhr suggested we should beware of such people.

The second mistake we in the church make in dealing with this subject is to ignore it, or be embarrassed by it, or to dismiss it as so much ancient mythology. And because we don't take it seriously, we don't study the deeper theological truths that lie at the heart of the words and images.

There's another Peanuts cartoon that has Linus, Charlie Brown and Lucy talking. Its been raining and Lucy is worried. She's studied the Flood in Sunday School and fears that its about to happen again. Linus says, "No, God set the rainbow in the sky to remind us this will never happen again."

Lucy says, "Whew! That sure takes a load off my mind!"

And Charlie Brown replies, "Sound theology will do that!"

What I want to do today is to invite both those of us who are fascinated by this topic, and those of us who frankly don't know what to do with it, to listen to Jesus' "sound theology." One of the ways I would characterize that is with the challenge to keep your eye on the ball.

For what Jesus teaches in all his discussions about the parousia are three things: we should be watchful; we should be faithful; and we should draw near to God.

Now, if we are to be watchful Christians, I think we need to be able to see that the apocalyptic ball is not just hurled by Biblical preachers. Life itself is full of apocalyptic worry. For instance, you've heard about the fact that the year two thousand is a potential doomsday for our computerized society. There are concerns that banking records, Social Security records, and all sorts of critical data will be lost (or at least messed up) because of this little flaw in computer operating systems. Its reported that the government as well as the private sector are spending billions of dollars trying to come up with a fix so that disaster can be averted. Life itself serves up apocalyptic curveballs all the time!

Why, how thankful I am that we concluded our very successful Stewardship drive this year just one day before the big stock market drop! Isn't it true that those of us who depend upon investments rely upon reading the signs and knowing when to buy and when to sell. Why I bet you never even considered that Alan Greenspan is really nothing more than a Hal Lindsey or a Nostradamus in bankers clothes!

And what about your cholesterol level? Why, I bet you even know what the number is! And when many of us go grocery shopping, we look carefully at the labels and read the signs that will tell us how to avoid disaster!

Life is full of the apocalyptic!

And even more importantly, aren't there times in your life, and my life, when our foundations are completely shaken? When the doctor gives us frightening news, when our children tell us they're going through a divorce, when we're caught in the throes of depression and cannot find a way out, when we're sitting in a hospital waiting room...waiting? Why, there are moments when whole societies face things like a holocaust, or a civil war, or a terrible famine.

So Jesus teaches us to keep our eye on the ball when we face tumultuous times like these. And that means knowing that God loves us, and that God knows what we are going through, and that God will be with us all the way, even as the world seems to quake around us.

Be watchful!

Secondly, be faithful.

When I first became a Christian, I very quickly became fascinated by apocalyptic things. I read just about every book written on the subject. I attended conferences and seminars. The signs of the times were all I wanted to talk about and I spent a good part of every day trying to analyze the newspaper in relation to Biblical prophecy.

And it took some time for God to help me grow up a bit and see that what I was doing was converting the idea of Christian discipleship into something it never was intended to be. Jesus did not teach about the parousia so we would spend our lives studying it, reading about it, and focusing on it. Rather, Jesus taught us about the coming Kingdom so we would be inspired by its hope to work diligently!

Keeping your eye on the ball is a reminder that, even when the signs are upon us and life seems to unravel around us, we are Christians and we are called to live that way!

One of the things that amazes me about ministries like Habitat For Humanity, the Knox Area Rescue Ministry, domestic violence work and other helping organizations is how many of their volunteers are themselves poor, abused, and needy. People whose lives have been shaken to the core. Sometimes we fall into a trap of letting the apocalyptic moments of life get us down to the point where we stop living our faith. We become nasty to others. We become filled with self-pity. Sometimes, we put down our responsibilities and feel justified in doing so!

And yet, responding to life's challenges that way is self-destructive.

One of the healthiest things you can do for yourself when the foundations are shaken and life becomes painful and confused is to remained focused on living as a Christian. Feed the hungry, help the poor, love your enemies, pray for others, do what's RIGHT, share your faith in Christ with others!

Keep your eye on the ball!' Be watchful. Be faithful.

And finally, draw near to God.

One of the companion readings for today's lection is from Hebrews 10. From verse 11 on, we are reminded that Christ offered himself as a sacrifice for us, and that through him, we are reconciled to God. The writer to the Hebrews reminds us as well that we are loved people, forgiven people, God's own people! And then, in verse 19 and forward, he joyously declares:

When your temples begin to fall, and when the skies get dark, and storms sweep across your life, draw near to God with confidence!

One of the lasting impressions I have of my friend Richard who valiantly lived as a Christian man through a ten year battle with brain cancer is of his almost daily visits to a nearby Catholic shrine where he sat under a massive statue of Jesus, looking up. There, Richard poured out his heart to "The Big Guy", as he liked to call God. And after daily drawing near to a God he knew loved him, was with him, and would give him strength to face the day, Richard went home and lived out his faith as a husband, a father, a friend, and a citizen.

He told me once that that daily drawing near to God was the source of his ability to face those personally apocalyptic days with triumph!

I think Richard, even facing the greatest challenge of his life, kept his eye on the ball!

And so Jesus calls to us at the beginning of this new week. Life is very fragile. Walls tumble down. Sacred temples crumble. Disaster strikes. Our very foundations are shaken.

What are we to do?

Be watchful! Be faithful! Draw near to God with confidence!

God's got the whole world in his hands!

Keep your eye on the ball!