reverendally

Advent 2 (Isaiah 11.1-10 & Matt 3.1-12)

Today’s readings treat us to some wonderfully resonant words about what, or rather who, is to come.

It is likely that Isaiah spoke, or wrote his words over seven hundred years before the birth of Christ, while John the Baptist spoke his in the months immediate lead-up to Jesus’ own ministry; Isaiah speaks of hope, reconciliation and renewal, John’s words emphasize repentance and judgement, but these are just two sides of the same coin. The ‘Day of the Lord’ that many of the prophets promise inspires both hope and fear; the promise of judgement brings both hope of justice and restoration, and fear of condemnation. As a friend of mine once put it, The Wrath of God is what the Love of God looks like from Sin’s point of view. Thus, John stands as the last in the long and honourable (though rarely honoured) line of prophets who, each in their own way, ‘prepared the way of the Lord and made his paths straight’.

As Christians, we hear their words and we think of the person of Jesus as the promised Messiah, the shoot from the stock of Jesse (as we can read in the gospel genealogies), the one whose sandals John was unworthy to carry. We see in Jesus’ life and ministry, his death and resurrection, and his promised second coming, the fulfillment of the prophets’ dreams, the culmination of everything they hoped for and promised. During Advemt we re-live that ancient hope, fulfilled for us in the Christ-child, and we re-kindle our present and future hope, for the renewal of the earth the the purging away of all that is broken and polluted and destructive in God’s world.

But for me it always comes down to this: what is our own place in the hope that we cherish, what is our own role in creating the future that we long for? I have preached many times about the need not only to long for the kingdom of God, but also to work for the kingdom of God. And it appears that John the Baptist agrees: ‘bear fruits worthy of repentance’, he tells the Pharisees. In other words, when you place your hope for renewal in God, do not forget your own part in making that hope come alive; for repentance to have any integrity, and indeed any lasting effect, it must be lived out in a life that is transformed and renewed, and John doubts whether the Pharisees are ready for this level of engagement with what he is offering.

It would have been easy, too, for the first hearers of Isaiah’s words to sit back and say, ‘One day God will send such a person, a Messiah, who will be all these things – full of wisdom and understanding and full of the Spirit of God – and our job is simply sit here and wait for that day’. But Isaiah, and all the prophets with him, were at pains to point out that the justice that the Messiah would bring, and the peace, are also the work of every single one of God people. The prophets are constantly pointing out the inequalities that pervade even the chosen people, urging both the leaders and the people themselves to act with justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with God. Undoubtedly, the living out of the covenant in the Old Testament and the building of the Kingdom of God in the New Testament, are two sides of the same coin as well.

Working hard to establish the values of God’s Kingdom on earth, as well as praying for that end, does not in any way undermine the centrality of God’s free grace; rather it is about allowing that grace to work through us to bring about God’s purposes in this broken world.

This week we have been celebrating the life of a man whose who life’s meaning could be expressed in the words of Isaiah. Nelson Mandela has been acknowledged as a man upon whom the Spirit of God rested, a man full of wisdom and understanding, a man who did not judge by appearance, but who strove his entire life for justice, for equity, and who, ultimately witnessed the reality of the miracle that he had prayed and worked for: a South Africa in which equality was possible, and in which the lion could lie down with the lamb. A man who, like John the Baptist, preached repentance, but who, even more remarkably, preached forgiveness.

He was also a man who embodied the wideness of God’s mercy for humanity. John talks of bringing forth children of Abraham from the very stones underfoot, and Isaiah speaks of a radical peace between diverse and conflicting creatures. The sheer scope and generosity of God’s desire for the earth’s renewal is astounding, and we have heard again this week of the many ways in which Mandela’s legacy has had a profound impact not only on South Africa but on the whole world.

Nelson Mandela strove to be what Isaiah promised. And if we find ourselves uncomfortable with anything that looks like a comparison between Jesus Christ and an ordinary human being, then we can remind ourselves both that Jesus came to earth as an ordinary human being at least partly to show us what true humanity looks like when it is lived out as God intended; and also that we, as the body of Christ, are called (both individually and communally) to be Christ-like, to continue the work of Jesus in the world. If Isaiah describes our Messiah, then he also describes us, and every community that models itself on Jesus.

Thank God for those who show us that hope is not just an idea for the future, but a present possibility, something worth working for. Thank God for those whose lives mirror that of Christ: risking everything, giving everything, forgiving, bearing, enduring so much. Thank God for the million and one small opportunities (and perhaps some big ones) that we have in our own lives to be all that Isaiah promised, and all that John asked for as fruits of our repentance. Thank God that he still uses ordinary people to do extraordinary things in his name. And as we pray for the coming of the Kingdom – God’s kingdom of justice and joy – let us also pray that we may be the means by which that Kingdom comes and play our part in drawing heaven and earth that bit closer this Advent and Christmas and beyond.

The thing about Advent is….

church resources, random thoughts, sermons

The thing about Advent is…

…that the readings tend to make it feel rather more about the second coming of Jesus than the first coming; there is more apocalypse than incarnation. Great! At least all the judgement and warnings are a useful antidote to the Christmas Cheer that seems to begin as soon as Remembrance is over. But how many of us are sufficiently self-controlled and self-motivated that we can do without any kind of oversight and accountability? Many of us need the promise of reward or the threat of punishment if we are give of our best, and I know that I’m among those who have signed off from twitter for a couple of hours in order to get something important done, by telling all my twitter followers to check up on me and ask me when I come back online whether I actually finished what I was supposed to have done. The Holman Hunt painting of Jesus, standing at the door and knocking, can feel like both a promise and a threat, and the caption that many have added (as I have) may be more of a realistic statement about our own inability to motivate ourselves than we’d like to think. The question, ‘if Jesus were to come again right now, would he be delighted with how I am spending my time and energy and gifts?’ will always be an interesting and challenging one. What we do during Advent, and Christmas that matter, although it may be different from usual, must still keep the integrity of who we are and not be at odds with what we do the rest of the time.

The thing about Advent is…

…that we still live in a state of longing and yearning; the old access card adverts encouraged us to ‘take the waiting out of wanting’ and countless sermons since have encouraged us to put it back again. But the truth is that the world is very, very aware of the fact that we are waiting, and yearning and wanting in so very many ways. Those who sit in darkness long for light, those who are hungry long to be fed, many who are struggling financially long for the security of paid employment. And those who are in debt long for a day – which must seem as if it will never come – when their debts will be cleared, when all payments have been made, when they finally own the things they’ve bought. There is a lot of waiting and a lot of wanting, and a lot of yearning around. And that’s even before you factor in the years of faithful prayer for peace, for justice, for our common humanity and accountability to one another to win in the eternal battle with greed, self-centredness, and fear. We are living in a world that longs for things to be renewed, healed, and transformed, and no amount of credit and quick fixes replace the hard work of striving, praying, urging, speaking out, and doing the work of renewal that God desires for us.

The thing about Advent is…

…that at the start of the church’s year we look back as well as forward. We remember with thanksgiving, with repentance, with awe and respect, with questions and doubt and with diligence on all the time before the incarnation: the prophets, the kings and queens, and the patriarchs and matriarchs all have their own place within the huge, overarching story of salvation, and our own place in that story is but a tiny moment: our own stories are part-written, part-unknown, just as the world’s story is part-written, part-unknown. We can look at the stories of the past and see in them – even the awful bits and the ugly bits – the patient purposes of God unfolding. We may look at our own lives and see no such pattern, yet we must continue to grasp the truth that we are part of God’s plan for the salvation of the world just as are any of the people we celebrate and revere from our faith’s heritage.

The thing about Advent is…

…that it only makes sense as a season of preparation for something more. Advent is always under threat from an early Christmas, but it is also under threat from a Christmas that has become less than it should be. The momentous prophetic words that we’ll hear over the next few weeks only make sense if we celebrate Christmas in a way that honours their hope for the breadth and depth and height and scope of God’s love in Christ – and that’s whether we’re anticipating the annual celebration of his incarnation or the promise of his final coming among us to renew the earth at the end of all things.

Christmas poem

church resources, poems

I’ve posted this before, but just in case anyone’s planning carol services and needs a poem they’ve not used a million times before, here is one:

Prophetic visions since the world began
(so long before salvation’s human birth)
would speak of God’s tremendous loving plan
for heav’n to touch the long-estrangèd earth.
Those ancient words at last began to be
in flesh and skin and bone and blood unfurled
In maiden womb and half-made family –
so heaven stooped to touch a fallen world.
Amongst the stable beasts behind the inn,
the baby’s eyes saw first a loving mother;
and even though their world was full of sin,
yet heav’n touched earth for each in one another.
Tonight we cry for peace, goodwill to men,
and for God’s heaven to touch his earth again.

Christ the King

Other cool stuff

What makes a good king? A people who are oppressed, occupied by a foreign power, or exiled far from home would seek a king who was strong, capable of battling it out through military prowess. A king who would win. A king who would defeat anyone who stood in his way, and raise his own people up to the status they deserve. The people of God in the Old Testament and of Jesus’ own day wanted such a king – their history had been one of oppression and occupation, of suffering, and exile, subjugated by one foreign power after another. If it wasn’t the Egyptians, it was Assyrians, if it wasn’t the Assyrians it was the Philistines, if it wasn’t the Philistines it was the Babylonians, then the Persians then the Greeks, then the Romans…. What was the point in believing your God was mighty if he let you get beaten up all the time? And how are you supposed to defend a God who seems to spend most of his time failing to defend his own chosen people?

Jesus came as Messiah among a people who had had enough. They had hope, still, that God’s Messiah would finally come, and vindicate his people, that the harsh rule of the Romans would come to an end at last and the chosen people could once again inherit the promise that God made to Abraham, and renewed to his descendants. Jesus came as Messiah, and his miracles hinted at God’s immense power. But it became clearer and clearer that he was not the sort of Messiah that would raise an army and do away with the Romans; in fact, at his own trial he refused to defend himself, and chose instead to live out Isaiah’s prophecy of the suffering servant – embracing the suffering of God’s people rather than ending it.

It is no accident that the hilt end of a sword, when turned upside down, resembles a cross. On the cross, Jesus turned upside down all the hopes that had been placed in the Messiah, rejecting the might of the sword, and embracing the suffering of the cross. Even Jesus’ friends found this to be unthinkable, unbearable – Peter denied that any suffering should befall his Lord, while Judas, in all probability colluded with the religious authorities in order that Jesus’ hand might be forced, and he would finally show his true power. Could Judas have ever imagined that Jesus would let his betrayal go so far as death? ‘Save yourself and us,’ the criminal cries, and still Jesus refuses to take cheap and easy fixes, remaining on the cross and sharing with the other criminal a glimpse of a greater victory in the eternal ‘today’ of paradise.

So is it wrong to look to Jesus for salvation in this present age? When we see injustice, and peoples oppressed, is it wrong to urge God to come among us and act on behalf of the downtrodden, the poor, the prisoner? Are we still looking for the wrong kind of salvation?

The answer is both yes and no.

It is ‘yes’, because we can look on Jesus on the cross and see that the salvation he offers is ultimate, it is about eternity, and is not limited to some earthly kind of victory – the sort that Pontius Pilate would have recognised and respected. For us, too, there is a dimension to salvation that is eternal, and we recognise that Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world. We may place much of our hope, as we watch the news and wonder at the suffering of the world, in the promise of an ultimate redemption, a new heaven and a new earth.

But it is ‘no’, because the here and now also matters. Creation matters. Each and every one (and everything) that God made matters, and where there is injustice and oppression in this world, then this is contrary to God’s will. We pray that God’s kingdom will come, and his will be done on earth as it is in heaven, and that means not only at the end of time but now as well. This world matters, and Jesus’ death and resurrection didn’t just give us hope that when this life is all over things will be better in heaven; rather, in his life and in his death he showed us a way of being fully ‘nailed to the world’ – sowing seeds of the kingdom so that we are not only ready for heaven as individuals when we die, but so that we also make the world more heaven-ready in the process.

The Kingdom of heaven has come near – and it gets nearer all the time when we live as if we belong in it – the values of the kingdom of justice, peace, mercy, love, and the rest are not just for heaven, they are for here and now. And Christ the King isn’t some heavenly Jesus on a throne wearing a golden crown, for Jesus was most clearly revealed as the king as he died on the cross with a crown of thorns on his head – in his death and resurrection, heaven and earth were brought closer than they had ever been, and when we do Christ’s work of standing alongside those who are suffering, heaven and earth meet there again.

sermons

A homily for 3 before Advent on Luke 20.27-38

The notion of heaven as a place where we are reunited with our loved ones is a powerfully hopeful one. And this may well be an aspect of the life of heaven. I hope so. But it’s not all that heaven is.

The religious experts of Jesus’s day had a habit of making everything too small, too exact, too limiting. Here, they want to undermine the abundant love of heaven and limit it merely to what human beings are able to give and receive in this life. Now, earthly love is a wonderful thing: it can change the world, it can transform individuals, it can make the impossible feel possible. In fact, the human experience of love is one of the most persuasive arguments for the reality of heaven: our hearts tell us that real love transcends death so logically there must be somewhere for that love to go.

And that’s only earthly love. But the love that exists in heaven, free from the polluting effects of jealousy, self-centredness, laziness, and more? That love is beyond my imagining. It certainly can’t be reduced to an argument about the extent to which marriage is still valid after we die. The very fact that the life of heaven will be free of conflict and division, hurt and regret, means that it must be a very different kind of life from that we experience now.

It’s always going to be tempting to define heaven in terms of earth because earth is pretty much all we have to go on – it is our only real frame of reference. But heaven is so much more. As my young son put it when he was five: “Heaven isn’t up in space, it’s all around us but differently real… God is outside time and space, so he could even look at everything backwards if he wanted to.”

So while my heart tells me that I can look forward to a heaven in which I am reunited with those of my loved ones who have died, my head tells me that this cannot be all it’s about. If it were only about me and my loved ones, then heaven would have been reduced to a sort of private preservation and perpetuation of my earthly existence, but without all the bad bits, and my looking forward to it would in fact be looking backwards. Can this really be all it is?

The fact that this reading falls on Remembrance Sunday brings the biggest challenge to this ‘reduced’ and ‘private’ heaven. For today our hearts tell us that heaven must be about reconciliation, genuine peace, the healing of old conflicts. It cannot be a merely private matter. And because heaven is communal and not private, it follows that we will be reunited not only with our loved ones but also with those we found it extraordinarily hard to love in this life. Those against whom we fought in battles real or metaphorical. Those against whom we competed, those who characterised some of the hardest times in our lives. Because we don’t get to choose which of our enemies makes it into heaven, we have to have a vision of heaven that allows for a much deeper unity than the reuniting of those who managed to love each other even on earth.

But that again is good evidence for the inextricable link between heaven and love. Heaven must be that place where love is perfected, or else the unlikely unity of past enemies could never be part of it.

This time of year in the church, what we call the ‘Kingdom season’, we reflect on the relationship between heaven and earth. And on this very day we remember those whose entry into the life hereafter came through a complex mix of duty and conflict, cruelty and desperation, peacemaking and destruction. We remember the circumstances in which their lives ended. And we try and hold together the hope for a heaven in which there simply is no place for conflict, with the reality of an earth that has been at war, somewhere or other, pretty much continuously for centuries.

So by all means let us look forward to being reunited with our loved ones. But let us even more look forward to being united with those for whom earthly unity proved elusive or downright impossible. For with the Love of God, all things are possible.

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