Even then there is God
Ordinary Sunday 33: 18th November, 2007
Fr John Davis, Vicar of St Peter's, Eastern Hill
Today's gospel is a whole catalogue of woes, individual, cultural, national. It starts with the beauty of a fine and great building that one day will be as nothing — not one stone upon another. It looks at the international order and declares that it will not last. It speaks of overwhelming natural disasters; it speaks of individual betrayal and personal tragedy. It foretells persecution when Christians will be put to death for their faith. Yet it finishes with the resounding assertion that not a hair of our heads will perish and that our endurance will gain us our souls. Perseverance and hopeful faithfulness no matter what. God is bigger than any of these things, which on the face of it would have seemed to be about as big as you could get. The context of God is bigger certainly than whatever world or political order happens to be holding sway where we are living. God is bigger than the mistakes we might make personally or as church. God is bigger than death. The Christmas gospel can be summed up in three words: God with us. This gospel for the second last Sunday of this church year is really saying the same thing. It is a clear encouragement for those who are feeling dragged down by the accumulation of all that is wrong with their world — be it the mid first century or the early 21st century. In either case there is much to be uncertain about. Both generations find themselves — as does every generation — waiting and wanting for things to become clearer and better.
The collects offered as the particular prayer for today pick up these themes:
Almighty God, whose sovereign purpose none can make void:
Give us faith to be steadfast amid the tumults of this world,
Knowing that your kingdom shall come
And your will be done,
To your eternal glory.
Or the alternative, which prays:
Stir up within us a longing for your kingdom,
Keep our hearts steady in times of trial,
And grant us patient endurance until the Sun of justice dawns.
The Scripture readings take it as a given that we are in an 'in between time' — between, if you like, the first coming of Christ and the second coming, when everything may well come to a quite remarkable conclusion. They did not know when that might be. Much of the New Testament would seem to assume that it would be soon — St Paul's teaching on marriage in 1 Cor 7 for instance. We know that from time to time fringe groups still believe they have been able to second-guess time and place. Tragic mass suicides, wars or quiet gatherings on mountaintops awaiting the rapture have been the result of that. Jesus said to his disciples that the end is not so soon; no matter what you see all around you and no matter how convincing some of these apparent prophets would seem to be. Refuse to join them, he says. Get on with your lives and be faithful.
The Old Testament lesson announces the theme that is to be taken up in the gospel — out of destruction and great trial is going to come salvation. Charles Wesley used this idea from Malachi 4:2 in words we have sung a thousand times. For him the sun of the new day dawning over that burnt and trampled stubble becomes the Christ Child of Bethlehem:
Risen with healing in his wings
Light and life to all he brings
Hail the Sun of Righteousness
Hail the Heaven born Prince of Peace!
So the theme of the end of the Church year is blended in with one of the themes of the new.
The epistle is not really an early treatise on industrial relations or labour laws — 'if you don't work you don't eat' could well have been directed against some in that community who really did think that the second coming was so close that nothing else mattered. You would not be putting in the seed for next year's crops if you were convinced that it would never come to harvest. Perhaps some of those Thessalonians considered that with the day of the Lord at hand they were either in heaven already or in any case did not have to work any more. Tempting but wrong. That is not likely to be what is going on today in any case. The idleness or indifference to be contended with today is entirely different to the dangers of people not pulling their weight in a subsistence economy. But there remain dangers that go to the heart of humanity in community.
So we return to the gospel, which is basically saying that the end of a world or even the end of our world, is not actually the end of the world. That is not an easy message to hear. Any of us with a reasonable grasp of history will be able immediately to identify such times or situations in the past; when the legions left for home from Roman Britain, when some major revolution occurred, the arrival of the Black Death, the rising of the sea levels by 200 metres very quickly or whatever. The more substantial challenge is when it is actually our own world that is cracking and crumbling, when it is our own most cherished and supporting structures and relationships that are threatened or indeed that just are not there any more. Even then, Luke is saying to these early Christians who are about to face just such horrors, even then there is God.
I cannot help but feel that is to gospels such as this that our brothers and sisters in Christ say in the Sudan or Iraq or Burma right now will have to be turning. Because there will be nothing else left to hang onto. This is a grim reality and fact of life for so many. Complacent and or even grateful comfortable stability has not very largely been the norm for most people. Insofar as it has been for us, we give thanks. That it is not always so, we acknowledge.
Stand firm in the faith no matter what. Look beyond buildings or institutional structures; do not be tied to patterns of power or influence that may not last. Take this longer, bigger, harder view of things and just hang in there. You will, the Lord promises, gain your souls.
The Lord be with you.
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