On the edge of things
Ordinary Sunday 33: 19th November, 2006
Fr John Davis, Vicar of St Peter's, Eastern Hill
"Of that day or that hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the son, but only the Father." (Mk 13:32)
The second coming of the Lord. The first one we know about in Bethlehem. The second is anticipated or expected. Sometime. Several times even in the last few years, some earnest soul has made followers do all sorts of strange things in immediate anticipation. Sell your house; don't bother with next year's crops. It is all going to happen. Second guessing the end of things is not an exact science. You just end up making a fool of yourself. Yet how much more stupid would we be if we did not take into account that ultimately even if just in terms of our own lifespan there is God. And not only at the end, but already and now. Perhaps yes even here in this community of faith God is definitely to be found.
Some people really want to deal with the concrete and the literal. They will not be happy with the figurative or allegorical fudging of the scriptural understandings. A second coming? How and when? We are about to affirm together as we say the creed that
'We believe that Jesus will come again in glory, to judge the living and the dead, and that his kingdom will have no end'.
There is no doubt that time and again the lessons given to us for these last Sundays of the Church year before Advent record Jesus as teaching in this way to his followers. The language reminds us of parts of the Daniel stories and of the Book of Revelations. Even so, come Lord Jesus, is the prayer of the earliest disciples.
Our first reading today from Daniel itself spoke of a terrible time of unparalleled distress that would itself be the context for salvation for God's people and the resurrection of those who had gone before. The archangel Michael would be there as the great guardian and protector of hope through all those trials. According to the vision that is Daniel the prophet's, that would be the context of the second coming. So it is that whenever things start to get even more terrible than usual, people ask is this the time? Perhaps it is a searching for something that offers any hope where otherwise it is all too much.
"You will show me the path of life" declares today's psalm. Yes there is a way through all this. And the epistle reading from Hebrews makes it clear that for Christians that way through is to be found in relationship with Jesus the Christ, the one 'whose Advent sets his people free', as we are no doubt going to sing in two weeks time. It is in the Emanuel, the 'God with us', that we will find ultimate context and meaning, in what is otherwise quite beyond any comprehension.
So we are dealing with a number of things here. On a weekend when our TV news last night started out with scenes of quite unusual and disturbing violence in our own familiar streets, we are reminded that things will not be always peaceful. We know that and we further know that whatever happened in Melbourne this weekend was as nothing compared to what is happening every day, say in Baghdad. Even so, some of our people will not be here this morning because of fear of continuing civil disturbance. All this puts an edge on things.
That too is what the readings set for this time of the year try to do. They are trying to get us to see that we are all, always, really on the edge of things. All those reassuring aspects of a comfortable life – like good health, supportive and loving relationships, job security, adequate housing, predictable climate, civil order – any or all of these may or may not be lasting. It is possible to die at 32, as we have so sadly seen this week.
The message being stressed in our lessons today is that we face the potential taking away of the things that seem to give our living its shape, suddenly and unexpectedly. That is the human condition, however we would prefer to deny it. And yet that is not presented as a counsel of despair – far from it. A worldview that did not have a way of addressing that reality would be pretty shallow. A religious worldview that avoided this would be empty. Clearly Christianity does not shirk such difficulties. In the Church year there are two whole chunks of the year – from now until Christmas, and Lent leading up to Easter – when the readings set for the liturgy time and again force us to confront hard issues. Our central symbol is that of Jesus crucified, our main act of worship celebrates life arising out of death.
Christianity teaches that the example and person of Jesus is the key. The first baptismal question that we all have responded to is simple: do you turn to Christ? The "I turn to Christ" is said together, in the context of a community of faith, never alone. The community of faith itself will be reflective of the particular tradition it represents and these are many and varied. These days perhaps even more than in the past, people are very much prepared to search for a tradition that will feed them, that will support and nurture the faith that is already within them. This may well not be what we were born into.
Loving relationship with God in Jesus Christ in a worshipping and caring community. Perhaps that might do as a summary. That is what we are called to, even as everything we might have been so sure about seems to be shaking. It is our obligation to find the best way for us to live that out as a reality. That is where for us a place like St Peter's comes in.
A church in a tradition such as ours offers a place for Christians to work these things through in a particular way. So, people who value beauty and music and a sense of continuity through the generations will find our way of offering eucharistic worship and challenging encouraging teaching helpful. They will find the building itself to be of great help. They may well enjoy the company of the rest of us as we together grow in faith.
I am an Anglo Catholic by conviction and choice, not by birth. Though I must confess that when I found this tradition I took to it like a duck to water – it felt like coming home. Here was a way to God that worked for me. And our Anglican Catholic traditions themselves can have various emphases which themselves draw on strongly flowing streams.
Many of you would know that the 800-year-old Franciscan tradition for example has been of strong influence on me, right back to my struggling time 30 years ago trying to discern what vocation was all about. A call to what and how? Two weeks in Assisi back then were very formative. Yesterday, in the context of a celebration of one of the great early Franciscan saints: Elisabeth of Hungary, I was very happy to make my profession as a Third Order Franciscan, as part of our Anglican Society of St Francis. The initials tssf after a person's name indicates this commitment. The Third Order or Tertiaries was part of the original foundation of the Franciscan movement in the 13th century. It is a large group of people, clergy and lay, male and female, single or married, who in the world where they are try to live lives shaped by aims and objectives, ways of service and particular characteristics – humility, love and joy - that take inspiration from the example of St Francis of Assisi. None of this comes easily and the ideal is never achieved. But a shape like this to aspire to and to be happy in, is for me a help. I have taken over 30 years to do something I perhaps should have done then, so no one can accuse me of being impetuous. For me now this is a way of seeking an even clearer spiritual focus and being helped in clarifying my Christian priorities.
We are each called to reconsideration and re-evaluation of our way as followers of Jesus, in the manner that is appropriate for each one of us. This community of faith here at St Peter's is where together we are attempting to do this. Our lessons today have spoken of a certain degree of urgency. The second coming of the Lord for each one of us specifically after all is potentially only a breath away. We are especially so called to reconsider our spiritual priorities in these end of year and Advent Sundays, and indeed also at times of civil disturbance, when all those things that did seem so solid and sure, turn out not to be so. The key thing is this: we are called to do this in joy and in hope.
The Lord be with you.
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