Taking the Bible seriously - not literally

Genesis 49.2, 8–10 and Matthew 1.1–17

It has long been a practice of mine to preach, consistently, from the lectionary.  Other ministers, quite justifiably, tend to choose readings which they believe are most relevant to the needs of the congregation they serve, at that moment in time.  But sometimes, just sometimes, the result can be a fairly limited diet of Scripture. 

The lectionary, on the other hand, is deliberately created to give us a broad overview of the principle Scriptures – making sure that we’ve heard, over two and three-year cycles (weekdays or Sundays), all the main stories, and the main theological principles.

But I have to confess that when I first opened the lectionary to today’s reading, my heart sank!  What on earth can one say about a long list of names of the ancestors of Jesus.  And how on earth can I read them out, without tripping over my tongue?!  But, as you’ve just heard, I decided to stay true to my self-discipline of just preaching from the lectionary! 

If you have a really good memory, and if you’ve been listening to my daily readings from Luke’s Gospel, then you may have noticed something quite intriguing about the genealogy I’ve just read from Matthew.  It’s this – Matthew and Luke’s genealogies are quite, quite different.  Right from the question of the name of Joseph’s father.  It was either Jacob (according to Matthew), or Heli, according to Luke.  And from there, traced back through time, both genealogies are remarkably dis-similar.

This is a conundrum which has puzzled many bible scholars over the centuries – especially those who start from the premise of believing that the bible is the ‘inerrant’ or ‘infallible’ word of God’.  It’s a bit of a problem for those who claim that the Bible is a reliable historical (and indeed scientific) document.  Various theories have been advanced over the years, including the idea that Luke’s genealogy is actually Mary’s (despite the fact that it plainly starts with Joseph and his father).  Another idea is that Matthew’s gives us a list of royal ancestors (to prove Jesus’ descent from King David), whereas Luke gives us an actual list of biological ancestors.  But none of these explanations really cut the mustard – and there is no reliable evidence for any of these theories.

So for me, these lists of names, right there near the beginning of two of the Gospels point me to a bigger truth.  And it’s this:  never make the mistake of thinking of the Bible as infallible, or inerrant.  It simply isn’t – there are far too many internal inconsistencies, contradictory statements, and varying accounts of the same events.    If this were a Bible Study, instead of a sermon, we could have great fun now going through the Bible and examining some of those inconsistencies for ourselves.  Have you ever noticed, for example, that the second chapter of Genesis lists the order in which God created things…and that it’s a completely different order to the first chapter of Genesis?  But, tempted as I am to prove my point….this is not the place, and we don’t have the time.

Instead, let me quote from one of my favourite theological thinkers, John Dominic Crossan, who said this:  “My point….is not that those ancient people told literal stories and we are now smart enough to take them symbolically, but that they told them symbolically and we are now dumb enough to take them literally”.  Crossan is referring to ancient texts as symbolic.  He understands, and teaches us, that ancient people were far less concerned than modern people with actual history.  They told stories – sometimes based on real events, and sometimes just pure fiction - in order to inspire, to teach, to warn and to encourage.  Another modern theologian, Rob Bell, teaches that it is not important whether something happened.  What’s important is that it HAPPENS – today, to us, to me.  The stories of Scripture help us to examine and understand OUR lives.  These stories transform US.

So, if you are one of the many people who struggle with the question of whether the Bible is true in any meaningful, historical respect, let me encourage you.  If you are someone who wonders whether the Virgin Birth really matters, or what the precise meaning of Jesus’ death on the cross really was, or whether Jesus really is ‘coming again’ despite 2000 years of apparent unwillingness…let me stand with you.  Let me invite you to move, with me, BEYOND the questions of historical accuracy, and into the much deeper questions of what these stories have to teach us, about how to live today in the light of the Gospel.  Let me encourage you to take the bible seriously not literally.

As we move inexorably towards Christmas, once more, ask yourself what your life would look life if truly lived in the light of the Gospel stories.  What might a life look like if it was framed entirely in notions of living simply, generously, outwardly, selflessly?  What kind of difference in the world could such a life make?  What would life be like if the whole of our society recognised the poverty of the stable, the desperation of the flight into Egypt, the abuse of power of Herod, the generosity of strangers, and the proclamation of peace by the Angels.  I actually don’t care very much which aspects of this story are literally true.  I only care that these stories, if we will let them sink deep into our hearts, have the power to reshape a dying world.

Amen.

Divine vengeance...

 Isaiah 61.1–4,8–11 and John 1.6–8,19–28

John the Baptiser has had quite a bit of attention over the last week.  In last Sunday’s sermon, I explored how he had a subtly different understanding of who the Messiah was meant to be, and how he should act.  Then on Thursday, I explored the sceptical side of his nature, and I suggested that scepticism is a generally healthy thing for all thinking people – and especially religious thinking people.   Just now, we lit our third Advent candle, and reminded ourselves of John’s pivotal role as a witness to the truth – as a burning and shining light for Christ.

Despite all this focus on John, we must never forget that his primary role was to be the announcer of Christ.  As he himself said (in John 3.30) “I must decrease, so that he may increase”.  John recognised in today’s Gospel that he himself was not even worthy to untie the sandals of the Messiah.  As John the Gospel-writer stressed, John the Baptiser was not, himself, the Light…but rather, he came to testify to the Light. 

It was Jesus – the Light of the World - that John pointed us to.  And it was Jesus who, a short while after his baptism by John, who would claim for himself the opening lines of Isaiah 61, when he stood up to read in the synagogue of his hometown of Nazareth (see Luke 4:16-30).  Here, again, are the words he both quoted, and then made his own:

 “The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour…”

Having read those words, according to Luke’s account, Jesus put down the scroll and said to the congregation ‘Today, these words have been fulfilled in your midst’.  Jesus deliberately, and purposefully, declared his mission to be one of bringing good news, binding up, healing, and proclaiming liberty.  He proclaimed that this was the year of the Lord’s favour.

Which is all very beautiful.  But I’m interested in what Jesus doesn’t say.  I find it fascinating that Jesus stopped quoting Isaiah at just that point.  He didn’t read the next line, which says ‘…and the day of vengeance of the Lord’.  Jesus stops at the news that this is the year of God’s favour.  

There is a stream of consciousness which flows through the Bible, and especially through the Old Testament.  It’s a theme of judgement and divine vengeance, constantly invoked by prophets and seers throughout the ages, no doubt in an attempt to scare humanity into behaving itself.  The very oldest stories of the Bible paint a picture of a kind of Divine ‘bogey-man’ who needs to enact some kind of punishment on humanity…  

For the sins of Adam and Eve, they are cast out of the Garden.  For the sins of all humanity, God apparently sends a flood to wipe out the earth.  Pharaoh and his riders are cast into the sea for having stood in the way of the Divine will.  Sodom and Gomorrah are destroyed, because the people failed to offer hospitality to God’s angels.  Time and time again, the Bible’s writers reach for stories of divine vengeance.  

But Jesus refuses to align himself with that kind of thinking, and with those kinds of stories.  He doesn’t, for a moment, deny the power of human sin, or its ability to destroy.  But neither does he retreat into metaphors of divine vengeance as the solution.  Instead, Jesus talks of God’s love for the world.  Just two chapters later than this morning’s Gospel, Jesus says those words which we repeat at every Thursday Eucharist: “God so loved the world, that he sent his only son, so that everyone who believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life”.  The God whom Jesus unfolds for us is that God who does not seek the destruction of his children.  This is not the angry, vengeful God of former understanding.  This is the God of love, of healing, of binding up, and of setting free.  This is God the parent….God the loving Father.

And that, ultimately, is the good news that we are called to announce, this coming Christmas and then every day of the year.  When we announce ‘peace on Earth, and God’s goodwill to all people on whom his favour rests’, we speak of a transforming, overwhelming Love, a love which proclaims good news to the poor, which binds up the broken, and releases the captives.

I’m frankly tired of the religious voices who claim that every disaster which befalls us is some kind of divine punishment.  AIDS was never a punishment from God, and nor is COVID 19.  They were both self-inflicted wounds by an unwise humanity, who released otherwise harmless animal viruses into the human population.  The devastation of earthquakes and even tsunamis are not divine vengeance – but the self-inflicted wounds of an unwise humanity, who build cheap houses and beach resorts in known earthquake zones.  God does not wage war, and he never requires suicide bombers.  God does not desire vengeance or retribution…these things are not the will of God.  

God, rather, offers wisdom and love.  Through Jesus, he offers us life – abundant life, filled with wisdom, healing, sharing, and liberty.  It’s Life which goes on for ever.  All we have to do is look to the Light, and live in the Light, of the wisdom and truth of Jesus Christ.  

Just as John the Baptiser discovered that he must also do.  Amen.

John the Baptiser - Prophet and Sceptic

This is certainly the week for thinking about John the Baptiser – he’s the focus of readings all through this week.  Today, I’d like to home in on one particular facet of John’s character – a facet which speaks directly to us today…and it’s this:  John was a sceptic.  After being thrown into prison, by King Herod, John sent a message to Jesus asking ‘Are you the Messiah?  Or are we to expect another?’.  This is the same John who didn’t become one of Jesus’ own disciples.  He carried on ploughing his own furrow…doing things his own way: angrily calling people to repentance with dire warnings, while Jesus tried the tack of Love.  So, John was sceptical about Jesus.  

Scepticism is all around us, isn’t it?  We are – perhaps justifiably - sceptical about the Government’s promises that Britain will boom after Brexit.  Many have become extremely sceptical about politics at all, not least since politicians seem to be willing to deal with ‘alternative truth’ (as Donald Trump’s press secretary once memorably suggested).  We are sceptical even about the great national organs of balance and truth that we’ve trusted for generations, like the BBC or the great newspapers of our nation.  

It’s perhaps even more disconcerting that, in our time, we’ve become sceptical of the claims of science.  ‘Anti-vaxxers’ have been a growing voice in national discourse for a while – ever since some rather spurious claims (in my view) were made, linking the MMR vaccine to cases of childhood autism.

Scepticism doesn’t just pervade our national life though.  It also pervades our thinking about God.  Just like John the Baptiser, we wonder whether Jesus’ claims to be God’s Son, indeed God himself, can really be true.  And, if we are not careful, our scepticism can drive us to throw aside everything we believe, and on which we have based our lives.

But scepticism is not, in itself, a bad thing.  Scepticism is part of a process of growth.  It’s part of ‘putting away childish things’ (as St Paul so memorably said – see 1 Cor.13).  For a sceptical mind is ultimately a questioning mind.  It’s the kind of mind which asks ‘where does this information come from?  Is it trustworthy?’  Philosophers and theologians have a long name for this kind of enquiring thought – they call it ‘epistemology’ – which essentially asks the question ‘how do we know what we think we know?’.

Sceptical thought should lead us to deeper thought, and to greater understanding.  When John asked, via messengers, whether Jesus was the Messiah, Jesus said this to the messengers:  "Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard; how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached". (Lk 7.22).  

Notice how Jesus doesn’t get angry at John for his sceptical, doubting question.  Instead, he answers the question with a powerful illustration.  And invites John to arrive at a new understanding.  

Sadly we don’t know what the results of Jesus’ answer to John’s question were….not least because the poor fellow literally lost his head a short time later.  But we can see that expressions of doubt, and scepticism, were not rejected by Jesus.  Instead, he confronted the sceptic head-on, and gave him new facts to consider.  And this is how the healthy work of scepticism should work for all religious people.  We should never be afraid of doubt, because doubt is part of the process of digging for truth.  Scepticism, used wisely, is the shovel we use to unearth the gold nuggets of real truth.  

Of course, like any human characteristic, it’s possible to take scepticism too far.  At the far end of religious scepticism, for example, we find the ultra-atheists, like every preacher’s ‘boogie-man’, Richard Dawkins.  I genuinely feel sorry for Dawkins.  He is someone who has become SO sceptical of religions, and of religious thought, that he is no longer able to be objective in his sceptical enquiry.  For him, scepticism is no longer a shovel with which to dig for truth, but a bulldozer to cover over any view which is not his own.

When I was a child, I thought like a child.  But now I am a man, I have put away childish things.  But even now, I still can only see through a glass darkly…and therefore I need to embrace the grown-up, adult-brained task of being sceptical about my faith, and about my own political and world views.  That’s the adult thing to do.

As the Christmas story unfolds around us again, perhaps you might find yourself sceptical about any number of things.  Does it matter whether Jesus was born of a virgin?  What is an angel, anyway?  Why on earth would the civil authorities tell people to go back to the town of their birth to be counted in a census?  These (and many more) are all good questions to ask.  

And if you honestly seek answers to honest sceptical questions, I promise you that those answers will lead you into a much more profound, much more meaningful understanding of the truth.  You too can unearth – with your sceptical shovel - new understandings of the depth of the story about when God came to town.  A little town. Called Bethlehem.  Amen.

Just not getting it...John the Baptiser

A sermon for Advent 2

Readings: Isaiah 40.1-11 and Mark 1.1-8

Today – and indeed next week too, the Lectionary invites us to consider the place and role of John the Baptiser.  We call him that, these days, because the word ‘Baptist’ has become linked to a particular theological viewpoint.  Today’s ‘Baptists’ believe that adult baptism is the only legitimate baptism and that just about every other mainstream church is wrong in baptising children who can’t confess their own faith.  That is a fascinating argument…of course.  But there isn’t time to go into it now.

So let’s focus down on John the Baptiser – the man.  Mark launches straight into his story by reminding us of Isaiah’s prophecy (which we’ve also heard, this morning).  It’s a prophecy of a messenger who will be sent ahead of the Messiah.  Mark is absolutely convinced that John is that messenger – so he goes on: “John the Baptiser appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins”.

John is the last of the Old Testament prophets. He follows the tradition of living apart from civilisation, and of calling people to repent of their evil ways.  Picture the scene:  Imagine a rather dirty fellow, with mad scruffy hair, dressed in camel-skins, and covered in bee-stings (from raiding wild bee hives).  He’s probably got blobs of honey stuck to his shirt, and he’s munching on a locust...and declaring at the top of his voice “Repent! For the kingdom of heaven has come near”.

I wonder what our reaction would be if we met someone like that in the streets of Havant – or even here inside the church. I think we’d try to get him some serious mental health support!  

But there was something about John that attracted people to him. There was something about his message which, according to both Mark and Matthew’s Gospels, attracted people out into the desert from “Jerusalem, all of Judea, and all of the region along the River Jordan” (Mt 3:5)

According to Matthew’s rather expanded account of Mark’s passage, John was not a man to mince his words either. He taunted the religious leaders of the day with phrases like “You viper’s brood” (Mt 3:7).  He warned them against the complacency of their religion: saying “Just because you are Abraham’s children, don’t go thinking that gives you an automatic right to heaven” (Mt 7:8 - paraphrased)

There are, in fact, a number of puzzling questions about John. First there is the fact that he didn’t join up with Jesus. Why didn’t he set aside his baptising, and become a follower of the Lord? And then there’s the fact that when he was in prison he sent word to Jesus to ask him if he really was the Messiah.

I think that John had a different vision of what the Messiah would be like.  John’s Messiah would be full of swift judgment against the evil people of the day.  See what he says about Jesus in Matthew’s gospel, chapter 3:  “...he will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire”. (Mt 3: 12).  

John’s expectations of the Messiah are rooted in the language and concepts of the Old Testament.  But, uncomfortably, Jesus simply doesn’t match up to John’s expectations of what the Messiah would be like... should be like.  And he was Jesus’ cousin!  

I wonder how many of us sometimes do that?  How often do we simply assume that God will be as we expect him to be…rather than how God actually is?  How often do we assume that God must surely agree with our beliefs?  How many Conservative-voters assume God is a Tory?  How many socialists are just certain that God would surely have voted for Jeremy Corbyn?   How many racists or homophobes automatically assume that God agrees with them? How many religious extremists – on every side, assume that God condones their violent actions?  We all have a tendency to make God in our own image – rather than seeking the truth of God in whose image we are made.

John’s language is the language of criticism and warning.  “You’d better do what I say, or God Almighty is going to smite you!”   John’s kind of repentance is a rather mechanistic, transactional thing.  “Repent, and be baptised, and you will be forgiven of your sins – you’ll be saved from the wrath that is to come”.  John is offering a rather simple passport to heaven – rather like the indulgences that Martin Luther rightly condemned 1500 years later. 

Jesus’ language, on the other hand, is of forgiveness, acceptance, and love.  He speaks of journeys and the Way of faith.  John is the apocalyptic doom-sayer.  Jesus offers life, hope and an exciting journey.

Mind you, Jesus is not immune from the apocalyptic tradition.  Certainly he gives plenty of warnings, and he even appropriates John’s use of the phrase ‘viper’s brood’ – to describe the religious leaders of the day. (Mt 12.34).  But on balance, Jesus’ tone is rather different to John’s.  Instead of calling us to a desert of repentance, he invites us to commune with each other and with him around a meal.  He even includes Samaritans, Zealots, tax collectors and even his future betrayer into that community.  He even includes women – which in his time was an incredible thing to do.  

Jesus speaks the language of radical inclusion, whereas John speaks of unquenchable fire and winnowing forks.  Jesus invites all of us on a journey of faith, self-discovery, community-life and growth.  He calls it the Way, and the Kingdom.  

Jesus call us to turn away from making up our own ideas about how things should be.  He calls us instead to tune-in to God’s loving, merciful, ultimately positive view of the universe.  The baptism of Jesus marks the very start of an entire journey of faith.

That’s why, incidentally, I do believe in infant baptism.  For I think that it is never too early, in God’s inclusive Kingdom, to invite another person to journey with God.  Amen.

The wise man and the foolish man

Reading: Matthew 7.21, 24–27

‘Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord”, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only one who does the will of my Father in heaven.

‘Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its fall!’

_______________________________________________________________________

Today’s Gospel reading is one of those which always takes me back to Sunday School.  Do you remember the song?

“The wise man built his house upon the rock (repeated three times)

And the rain came tumbling down.

The rain came down and the floods came up (repeated three times)

And the house on the rock stood firm.”

Then the whole thing got repeated for the foolish man who built his house upon the sand, till ‘the house on the sand fell FLAT’ (at which point we would clap and laugh hysterically!)

The surface meaning of this parable is, of course, completely obvious.  Those who build their lives on the teachings of Jesus will have strong and stable lives.  But those who build on other foundations are doomed to live on shifting sands.

This principle has always been true for Christians.  Millions upon millions of us can attest that a life built on the teachings of Jesus is a life filled with purpose and meaning.  It’s a life of hope and love.  A life of service and fulfilment.  But what are the alternatives?

Doubtless, there have been many sermons over the centuries which have offered alternatives to the teachings of Jesus.  Perhaps the teachings other religious leaders have been held up as shifting sands – especially at times when the apparent advance of competing ideas was seen as a threat.  Perhaps lives of drunkenness and debauchery have been suggested, at times when abstinence was seen as a top priority for the Band of Truth or the Salvation Army.  Or perhaps it was lives lived in pursuit of wealth, the empty promise of gold or over-stuffed barns (as Jesus suggested)?

But I think that recent events in our World have offered us a whole new desert of shifting sand to contemplate.  As a society, we have built our entire house on some very perilous shifting sands.  In the last hundred years, this foundation of sand has become so ubiquitous, that we hardly give it a second thought.  It is so ingrained in our society, so much a normal part of our lives, that we almost never stop to examine it or question it.  What am I referring to?  

I’m talking about the sand of consumerism.  And I think the consequences of that sandy foundation are now becoming all too plain to see.  Our house is sinking fast.  The floods are rising….quite literally in the case of climate change caused by rampant consumerism.  It is consumerism which fed the mass transit systems of our lives, which in turn led to the rapid advance of a little local virus into a world-wide pandemic.  It is consumerism which pumps smoke into the air, and plastics into the water.  It is consumerism which causes armies to fight over literal deserts, in the hope of possessing the lakes of oil underneath them.  It is consumerism which feeds individualism, which in turn leads to Nationalism, and paranoid fears about outsiders.  And it is consumerism which provokes the backlash of angry extremism, and the ideologies which seek to return us to the stone age.  And it is the collapse of consumerism, under the weight of the pandemic it caused, which is putting so many people out of work right now.

Have you ever noticed that every world economy is measured not on levels of happiness, or by the way it takes care of its most fragile members, or the benefit it offers to the climate, or the benefit it offers to the intellectual and spiritual health of humankind?  Instead, the single most important factor in determining the health of an economy is said to be growth.  Which is frankly, nuts.  If the economy of every country grew by just 2.5% per year on average, then in 10 years time, the world would need to produce 25% more stuff than it does now.  25% more smoke in the air.  25% more plastic in the sea.   In 20 years time – the world would have to give up 50% more than it already does to feed and please the consumerist armies of humans swarming across its face.  It’s nuts.  It’s crazy.  It’s the self-defeating, civilisation-ending strategy of the mythical lemming.  Something has to change.  Something has to shift.  Or we’re quite simply not going to make it.  The house on the sand will fall FLAT!

Against this terrifying vision, Jesus offers us a solid, rocky, alternative.  His teachings are granite-hard foundations on which we could choose to build.  Jesus wasn’t an economist.  But the principles he espoused can be converted into economic theory, without very much effort at all.   Principles like – prioritising care for the poor and the sick.  Principles like sharing, giving, and spreading, instead of hoarding, taking and keeping.  Principles like ‘rendering unto Caesar’ could transform an economy in which the wealthiest people currently pay the very least tax for the common good.  Principles like teaching the priority of community, over individualism.  Principles like valuing rest and retreat, instead of 24-hour shopping and frantic holidays.  Imagine how different things would be right now, if we valued healthcare, education, medicine, scientific enquiry, spiritual growth and community service as much as we value restaurants, pubs, cappuccinos and department-store shopping.

CONsumerism – the clue is in the name.  It’s a CON.  It’s a con, perpetrated on the whole of our society by the con-men who currently pull the levers of power.  How can we change this?  How can any of us hope to turn around the Titanic of consumerism which is about to crash into the ice-berg of destiny, taking us all to the bottom with it?

The answer of course, lies with Jesus.  We do it one person at a time, just as he did.  One soul at a time.  We spread his word, person by person and we live his life.  And we encourage others to do the same.  Perhaps, if you agree with my hypothesis, you could share the video of this sermon, on Facebook?  Or pass on the copy in the Corona Chronicle to a neighbour?  (Or share this blog with a friend?)

Consumerism only took root in our society because one by one, we allowed it to.  The opposite is also true, and also a possibility.  Frankly, it’s the only hope we have.

So, if you agree with my hypothesis…what will YOU do about it.  What changes will you make today, to fashion some life-boats for the Titanic.  Will you, once more, fall prey to the marketing gurus who will have you buy billions of plastic toys for children this year?  Will you fall prey to the titans of industry who want you to decorate your home with their laser lights, and their plastic tree?  Will you succumb to the message that comfort and joy can only be found through an over-stocked larder, a Christmas edition of ‘Strictly…’ and a mountain of chocolate.  Will you build on sand again, this year?  

Or will you stand up for Jesus – and for his way of life?  The way of charity, simplicity, and love? Will you take time to draw apart from the madness, find some simplicity and some peace?  

Will you prioritise charity over chewing, giving over getting, and loving over living-it-up?

Amen.

Advent 1 - Tired of Waiting

When, I wonder, did we forget how to wait for something. None of us like waiting, for anything.  We want what we want, and we want it now!  And, if we are one of the 1% of the world who have enough money to buy pretty much anything we want, we tend to get it…now.  

A couple of years ago, Clare came back from visiting a friend’s house, extolling the virtues of the new Amazon 'Echo' device.  'It's fantastic', she said.  You can just ask it to play the radio, or for a summary of the news headlines, or what the weather will be!  I really fancy one for Christmas.'  Three days later, one arrived in our house!

The Season of Advent is the beginning of the Church’s New Year, and it is designed specifically to be a time of waiting.  For the rest of our society, the New Year starts with a bang and fireworks…with a sense that we’ve ‘arrived’ at something important.  That’s odd, when you think about it.  Why should the simple turn of the Calendar be something to be celebrated with dancing in the street and all night parties?  But the Church, deliberately, counter-culturally, starts its new year with two important words…’Coming’ (which is what ‘Advent’ means)…and ‘Wait’.

This year, with the challenges of COVID, none of us can wait for the whole messy business to be over.  We don’t want to wait.  Even the Government has felt pressured to relax sensible rules of social distancing over Christmas, because, they felt, society in general is simply incapable of waiting.  ‘Don’t ruin our Christmas!’ they have cried – even though many of them will go nowhere near a church, nor even ponder for a moment the meaning of the coming of Christ.  What would it matter if we delayed Christmas by a few months, until we’ve all been vaccinated?  But no, we don’t want to wait.  We must have what we want, and we want it NOW!

In Advent, we can’t help looking forward, because we see the way the world is now.  We yearn for God to put things right.  The writers of the Gospel’s shared in that sense of urgency.  Mark and Luke, for example, repeat a saying attributed to Jesus, which is (for me) one of the most intriguing lines of the New Testament: “Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place”.   Jesus is reported to have promised that his second coming was SO imminent, that the current generation would not pass away before that great event happened.

Well, that didn’t happen!  This is one of those examples of where we need to understand the context of the writers of Scripture.  Mark was writing at a time when Jesus had been gone for perhaps 30 years, and the early church was feeling the iron boot of Rome on its neck. Peter was probably in prison, along with Paul.  Rome was becoming increasingly hostile towards both Jews and the new cult of the Christians.  

It should not surprise us that Mark, in reporting Jesus’ words from three decades before, has rather let his imagination run away with him.  He didn’t want to wait for God’s plan to be unfolded in God’s time.  Despite reporting that Jesus said ‘no-one will know the hour or the time of his coming’, Mark let his inner-optimist get the better of him…I suggest.

Or perhaps - Jesus is, in fact, already come, stealthily, in clouds.  That by his Holy Spirit, he is already among us.  That he is even now, continually, gathering his elect – his followers – from the ends of the earth.  Gathering us into churches, love-factories, for the spreading of his message of Love.

And, while we wait for the completion of the Reign of God, there is a very real sense in which God is already among us, already coming – in fact already here.

Every time an army lays down its weapons, and seeks peace - Jesus comes.

Every time politicians and scientists combine their efforts in unprecedented action to produce a vaccine – Jesus comes.

Every time a family is raised up of fear by the organisation Stop Domestic Abuse, Jesus comes.

Every time a lonely person finds a friend in our morning church-opening, or forthcoming Christmas Market, Jesus comes.  

Every time one of our church members phones another church member just to chat – to make a connection - Jesus comes.

Every time a hungry family is fed by the Beacon or PO9 Foodbanks, Jesus comes.

Every time homeless people sleeping in our town are treated like the human beings they truly are, Jesus comes.

Every time that an alcoholic, a gambler, a drug user turns up to one of our Pallant Centre support groups, and says ‘NO!’ to their addiction, Jesus comes. 

Every time an item of clothing is recycled through our shop, rather than added to the pile of human refuse, the planet is loved, and Jesus comes.

Every time a young person develops their human potential through Dynamo Youth Theatre, or a person with learning difficulties grows in confidence through Creating Chaos, or a teenager with mental health challenges is helped by MIND - Jesus comes.

Every time that SSAFA helps the poverty-stricken family of an armed services veteran, Jesus comes.

You see - signs of the kingdom are all around us.  

Our task, like an alert house-owner, is to keep awake.  To see the signs of the kingdom with open eyes, and join in with the activity of God, wherever it is found. Amen.

Amen

The Whore of Babylon

(Reading:  Revelation 18 and Luke 21.20–28)

In case you didn’t know, we are in the dying days of the Church’s liturgical year.  The new year begins for us on Sunday, with the first Sunday of Advent.  In the midst of winter darkness, we seek shelter, warmth and light.  With our ancestors of faith, we await the promise of a coming Messiah, who will save us and lead us beyond the darkness.  

But in these dying days, the Lectionary does not let us rest in peaceful slumber.  After the glorious vision of Christ the King which we shared on Sunday, we now find ourselves confronted with apocalyptic visions.  In Revelation, today, we meet the ‘Great Whore of Babylon’, and witness the promise that her reign over the earth will one day end.  And then in the Gospel reading, we read Jesus’ dire predictions of the destruction of Jerusalem – which actually did take place, about 40 years later.  These visions are reminders to us that although Christ reigns today in heaven, ‘on the right hand of the Father’, his work of fully establishing God’s kingdom on earth is not yet done.  There is still much struggle ahead.

‘Babylon’ is a very particular biblical metaphor.  Based on the idea of the city which carried off Jewish leaders into Exile, 500 years or so before Jesus, the Babylon of the book of Revelation is generally thought to represent the city (and the political and economic structures) of Rome.  When John prophecies the overthrow of Babylon, he predicts the Fall of Rome.  Later scholars have suggested that Babylon represents any economic or religious structure which runs counter to the principles of the Gospel.  Throughout history, Babylon has been associated with Jerusalem itself, the Roman Catholic Church, and these days, even the cites of Washington DC, Brussels, Strasbourg and London! 

Too many religious leaders – especially among the Christian churches – have tried to read the book of Revelation as if it were a coded message to the 20th or 21st centuries.  “Look!” they will say, “the downfall of the whore of Babylon is a description of the American war against Iraq (which is modern-day Babylon)”.  Then, they will make a leap of prediction, and claim that this means Jesus is coming soon…any day now.  Unfortunately, the messy history of church claims about the imminent return of Jesus suggest that they are probably wrong.

But as with all biblical prophecy, we must be cautious of trying to fit our context into the context of the biblical writers.  We need to hear the hope, and the fear that they were expressing about their own time and their own world – and then consider what parallels there are for us today.  For there are indeed many parallels between our world and the world of the Bible.  

The kinds of signs which commonly accompany ‘end times’ prophecies are exactly the sort of things we see and hear around us today.  Wars and rumours of wars.  Famines and earthquakes.  And plagues.  No biblical writer ever heard of COVID-19….but after the ‘hell on earth’ of 2020, we know all about plagues!

War.  Famine.  Earthquakes and sickness.  These are the Big Four – the things which have the most potential to disrupt our comfortable existences.  These are the four major events that human beings feel most powerless about, on an individual level.  But it is our very impotence in the face of such existential threats which offer the chance for God to break through.  Confronted by the reality of war, many people will seek peace.  Confronted by the reality of famine and earthquakes, many people will respond with charity.  Confronted by a plague, even politicians may come together in common purpose, and find the resources to help scientists find a vaccine.

You see, this is what God does.  He enters into the darkest corners of human existence, and by his presence he redeems us.  His spirit whispers ‘Make peace’ to the Generals who could unleash hell.  His spirit whispers ‘share your wealth’ to the rich nations, when famine or natural disaster strikes the poor.  His spirit whispers ‘come together, co-operate’ when pandemic plagues threaten the world.     

The most graphic example of Jesus turning darkness to light is perhaps the work of the Cross, transformed into Resurrection.  But that’s just the most graphic example.  For this work – of turning darkness into light, despair into hope, sickness into healing, war into peace…this is the work of Jesus, every day.  In this sense, Christ the King is truly on his throne – proclaiming through the Spirit of Truth the Laws of the Kingdom to all his subjects.  “Seek peace, give love, co-operate together and bind up the broken”.

So as we move towards the time of anticipation which Advent affords, let each of us ask ourselves whether we have truly heard and answered the call of the King of Kings.  Let each of us commit ourselves anew – let us be ‘stirred up’ (in the words of this week’s collect) to ‘seek peace, give love, co-operate together and bind up the broken’.  Amen.