Living what we say

Passage for reflection: 1 Thessolonians 5: 1 - 11

The Times had a brilliant cartoon in it the other day of the Oval Office in the White House on January 20 next year, with the new President Biden walking in after his inauguration to find chaos and mess everywhere for him to clear up! 

After any election we always get some big words that things are going to be different and better. So The President elect on Saturday quoted from Isaiah chapter 40 in the words of a hymn he finds a strength: 

“And he will raise you up on eagle's wings, bear you on the breath of dawn,make you to shine like the sun,and hold you in the palm of his hand.”

He then called on everyone in America to keep the faith - and more than that - to spread the faith. 

The Vice President elect, the first woman to be in that office had this to say: “we, the people, have the power to build a better future.”

There are moments in the story of humanity where people remind us of deep possibilities within us to build a better world, not one day, but right now. On nights where for example we see a change in a world leader or a difficult time is suddenly over we become enthused again that anything could happen. The state we are in today need not be how it will always be. 

I worry a lot that the Church of all shapes has lost those sudden surges of enthusiasm and vision. We’ve become stuck and our time is taken up with conversations about how much money we need to keep going, when I firmly believe God hasn’t finished with us yet and God is desperate for us to listen to his bigger picture and a call on us to think bigger, to dream dreams and to see visions again. One of my chapels had a new person turn up the Sunday before we locked down again. You never know what might happen to you if you don’t give up. 

A prayer attributed to Oscar Romero helps us to refocus when we can only think about today.

A Future Not Our Own 

It helps now and then to step back and take a long view.
The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession
brings perfection, no pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No programme accomplishes the Church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives include everything.

This is what we are about. We plant the seeds that one day will grow. We water the seeds already planted knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects
far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of
liberation in realizing this.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning,
a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's
grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the
difference between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.

Keep the faith, and share the faith and leave the rest to God! But have days when you get caught up in divine possibility again! 

The readings for this coming Sunday and next as we come to the end of the liturgical year remind us of that bigger vision and the need to speak about it and believe it. Paul wrote two letters to the church at Thessalonica. In 1 Thessolonians chapter 5 we get a summary of how we should be if we really believe something great is round the corner spiritually. 

We are to keep alert and watch for the signs. What are they? A new dawn in America, a new lady coming to chapel, a nice conversation with friends who suddenly get in touch, a spirit which believes we can rather than we can’t. We are not to be sleepy, distracted from the things that matter. Stay awake! I love that story of the rather long winded boring preacher who spotted an elderly lady had dropped off during his sermon. So he stopped mid flow and said to a lady in the pew “would you mind waking up that lady sitting next to you?” to which she replied “you wake her up, you put her to sleep!”

We are not to be drunk! Not merely consuming too much alcohol (not that good Methodists would) but being insensitive towards God. We are not to rely on any government or military power for peace and security. We have seen how governments and leaders can quickly fall. We are to have good ethics. 

Why? Because we hold on to what we say we believe. When we pray in the Lord’s Prayer “your Kingdom come” we should mean that and be ready for that. The Bible in the readings we are invited to consider this week and next urge us to be ready and expectant. It isn’t just about raising money to keep the church door open.

So I end this reflection with a helpful commentary I found:

“Paul looks back at what has gone before in the story of redemption – ‘We believe that Jesus died and rose again’ – and looks forward to what is to come – ‘and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him’. One day Jesus will be personally present, Lord of the nations, king and judge, in a transformed and recreated earth and heaven, the culmination of God’s purposes for his people and his world. Meanwhile, although God himself will bring about the new creation, we do all we can to be ‘signposts’ pointing to the restoration that Jesus began on the cross and will one day complete.”

 

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have a big vision. Perhaps President Trump has one too to run again in 2024 if his legal protests about electoral fraud fail. 

For us, we need to be reminded that things with God never stand still. Are we prepared to believe what we say, and can we catch up with what God is doing? 

Lord God, give us vision.

Jesus Christ, remind us of your reign.

Holy Spirit, keep us expectant and excited. Save us from empty words. Help us to work today for a better and fairer world. Beginning where we are.

Your Kingdom come, your will be done. Amen.