In the Gospel passage set for this Sunday, we have Jesus saying to
his disciples something about the end of this age. The end. Do you think about
endings? Do you when you get a book out of the library read the back page first
to see how it ends? We watch a drama, a film or a play and we want a good
ending. Some of us are hoping the Christmas Day last ever episode of Downton
Abbey ends well for everyone – that Lady Edith might find happiness and not
just Lady Mary. At the cinema we wait for the end. I
went to see Brooklyn on Monday, a lovely film about a young woman in Ireland in
the 1950’s leaving home for the first time and going to America, finding love,
coming back to Ireland after a death, forgetting love, finding another love,
then remembering the first love and working out where her heart lies. The end
is so sweet – I sat blubbering at it.
Pastorally, people are concerned about how things will end.
Changes in circumstances make us worry about how things will work out – sudden
unemployment, health challenges, retirement, bereavement, suddenly being alone.
We even do it in churches – people ask me “how it is going to
end?” We have a church in our Circuit, Hollington, merging with another, Park
Road, at the moment, some are impatient, whereas others want to tread
carefully. We have another, St Helens coming out of their building next year
and wanting to stay in their community, but finding a way to do that hard to
work out. We don’t know how either situation will end and we have to trust and
pray and seek direction. Sometimes I
write my sermons and how to end them is the biggest challenge. Endings have to
satisfy. Other times we don’t want something to end or we don’t want to talk
about something ending. Ministers will tell you that the last day of an
appointment is very hard. And there are painful endings some of which we have
listed.
The reading from Mark chapter 13 is part of the Bible which
we call apocalyptic. About the end. Jehovah’s Witnesses will get you about the
end. Christianity has beliefs about the end but we rarely share them. Christian
faith believes there will be an end – the end of the present age, the return of
Christ and a new age inaugurated. We
believe that those who trust in Christ receive now. here, a foretaste of the
new life in which they will share in Christ's triumph over death and rise,
transformed like him, to perfect life in the presence of God. And that that
perfect life will come. The end of this story and the beginning of a new one.
Jesus stands with his disciples outside the awesome Temple which the disciples
marvel and Jesus says you know, one day this will be gone, there will be
destruction…
And Jesus talks about rumours – rumours of war.
And we reflect on events in our world. An attack on Paris by the Islamic State
group, what they called “carefully chosen targets” – innocent slaughter.
President Hollande called it “an act of war” and President Obama called it “an
attack on all humanity.” And my mother said yesterday “dreadful people – why
can’t they all live in peace?” Many people will be frightened now how it is all
going to end.
Wars and
rumours of war.
Jesus at first look at his words isn’t very comforting.
Nation will rise against nation, kingdom against kingdom, there will be
earthquakes in various places, and
famines but then he says something else.
Singing the Faith has an excellent website which suggests hymns you might pick reflecting on the
passages you are using in your service. I was intrigued they suggested It came
upon a midnight clear for this Sunday. I can see why – man at war with man hears not
the love song that they bring – o hush your noise ye men of strife, and hear
the angels sing. Rumours of war, yes, but maybe rumours of something different,
rumours of angels, the birth pangs of a new age. The new age is coming says
Jesus, but it might be hard for a bit. Believe, stay firm, hold on, be the
church. You will be rewarded in the end. Only light drives out dark. Only love drives
out dark. In that we trust even when we have no answers even when we do not
know what to do – for God is God.
Rumours of angels? Perhaps when situations like Paris and
other huge stuff happens we need to up our game putting into practice what it
is we say we believe. If we believe a new world is coming, we will be more
ready to get involved in redeeming the pain of this one and as this age ends,
we herald something else coming. Perhaps we have had experience of going through
extreme pain in order to have something greater after the pain. Child birth a
pain filled labour is a example. A simpler life after illness when we have
realised bad habits led us to be ill, too much drinking or an appalling diet. A
bad experience in life which helps us see the good is really good. If every day
was sunny we wouldn’t appreciate the sun, would we? We need the hard to rejoice
in the good perhaps. When we hear of
killings, threats, fears and rumours of more we continue with renewed determination
to work and pray for the coming of God's Kingdom of justice and peace in all
the world. We give the world God’s love and a rumour that God will do more. I
believe, I think in a spirituality of crisis.
When we are needed to be there, we are there. Food banks are
an example but even in the midst of huge international uncertainty the
Christian story, the Christian end is there. One church leader wrote yesterday
about Paris: “Such assaults are an attack on us all and on the values we
cherish. In our divided world the task of peace-making has never been more
important.”
We cannot solve the world’s problems this morning but we can
start a different rumour where we are, how we live in community, how we speak
to one another, how we are seen in the town, create a rumour of angels, the
heralding of a new age. I have spent ages this week hearing stories of people
having outbursts in church meetings and causing upset. That sort of thing is
destructive and negative. We need to live differently, form distinctive
communities of love and respect. Then place our trust in God’s love and God’s
future which will come.
How will it end? What is the rumour? Rumours of wars or
rumours of angels. Graham
Kendrick wrote a musical called Rumours of Angels:
Rumours of angels visions of light new star appearing piercing
the night. Town full of strangers sleeps in the gloom God comes among us there
is no room
Rumours of angels songs in the night deep in the danger unquenchable
light World full of strangers sleeps in the gloom God comes among us there is
no room
And the years of our sorrow have rolled on and on and the
wars of our pride never cease. We have ravaged the earth with our envy and
greed tell me when will we welcome his peace?
We pray for
our world. We trust. We cry out. None of us know how it will end
and when we are just called to keep going, boldly, confidently and confronting
the wrong when we need to.
I rather like what one of our members wrote to a minister St
Helen’s want to invite next year: “our
church building is going to be retired on 18th September 2016. It will have served for a full 150 years
which is probably about a hundred more than it should have done. But that’s
another story. The Methodist people of
Ore had two places of worship before this one, so moving on from this building
will be the end of chapter 3. Chapter 4
is still to be written, but we are looking forward with the expectation of the church
community to continue to serve in the Ore Village area.”
Jesus
said the words Mark 13: 1 - 8 has recorded outside the Temple. The
Temple was the focal point for worship for Israel.
Yet
existence as God’s people did not depend on the Temple; as they had learned in
a previous era, so long as they gathered to pray and hear the stories of God’s
mighty saving acts recounted in the Torah, so long as they allowed themselves
to hear and heed the words of their prophets, so long as they continued to love
God and neighbour and even their captors, they could continue even in dire
circumstances to serve as agents of and witnesses to God’s faithful, redemptive
work in the world.
Things may well be difficult and confusing for us reflecting on Paris and also similar things in Lebanon and Baghdad recently. Things may be changing, there are rumours and birth pangs… but you
know what - - maybe until the end we are
simply to hold on and God will be faithful…
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