Reading: Mark 13: 1-8 This week saw the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, a wall that reminded us of the Cold War and the fear we all had that we may perish under a nuclear attack. I remember so clearly going through Check Point Charlie, and seeing No Man`s Land, being surrounded by soldiers with guns and feeling very threatened, even though I could leave. While many in the media were proclaiming the fall of the wall a victory for peace and democracy, and in many ways it was, it is in stark contrast with the bloody and prolonged wars currently going on. Not only in Afghanistan and Iraq, but also in Darfur, many other parts of Africa, and the continued conflict in the Middle East where another wall is being raised.

Somehow we never learn.

Yet as Ched Myers suggests, how the church responds in wartime is crucial to the very future of faith. And to determine our response we have to look no further than the gospels and to Jesus, where the message of non violence is clear.

The moment of war was well known to the gospel writers. All three synoptic stories of Jesus were composed within a generation of the greatest war for them, the Roman Jewish war of 66-70 CE, which ended in the destruction of Jerusalem and the razing of the second temple. It doesn`t take much to imagine the pressure that was on Mark`s community in reoccupied Galilee. As is always the case when war comes, there can be no neutrality, and Mark knew that only one voice could compete with the compelling calls to join in, and that was the living word of Jesus.

Mark presents the voice of Jesus in chapter 13, by using the powerful resistance symbols found in apocalyptic literature. This literature, while talking about end times, uses myth and images to show the true character of war, and was popular during times of severe persecution and oppression. What we have heard today are the opening stanzas of the chapter.

Ched Myers sees Jesus taking a seat facing the temple as a dramatic act, symbolizing his utter repudiation of the temple state, the entire social order of Judaism, and its exploitation of the poor. We hear words so timely they could be speaking to us, `Beware that no one leads you astray`. This is the beginning of a discourse on the perils of war, that it is not the end of suffering but the beginning, and that resisting it will result in persecution. No wonder Jesus warned in verse 13, which we didn`t read, `You will be despised by all sides because of my name`.

What a radical message. But isn`t this what these passages are meant to do? Jesus was radical and his message is supposed to unsettle us, challenge us. Following Jesus means saying no to lots of things that our society deems as expected, and this includes violence and war, even a so called war on terror. The question is, are we up to it? Can we help to create another `fall of the Berlin wall`? Only time will tell.