Coming on the clouds

Look - he is coming on the clouds and every eye will see him…

On Wednesday this week, I did collective worship at Roecliffe School on excitement and anticipation. I asked the children what they were waiting for. A little girl said “my competition.” I got some other answers then asked another little girl near the first one and she said “my competition!” I then got some other answers then another little girl near the other two wanted to answer. She also said she was waiting for “my competition!” Apparently there’s a dancing competition this weekend. I later asked what is hard to wait for. It was “my competition.”

On Thursday this week I had a meeting with others at Boroughbridge with a builder about getting our grotty toilets sorted. He can start on 6 January. We are excited and waiting in anticipation to use a loo that flushes without almost breaking the handle off.

Yesterday I went down to St Albans in Hertfordshire for a reunion of my school year group 1978 to 1985 and a tour of the school. We’ve been in touch over the last year in a whats app group but we wondered how yesterday would end up meeting people we hadn’t seen for 40 years.

Then there’s an everlasting Christmas. Children waiting with excitement and anticipation. Christmas in the world has already begun and Father Christmas came to Ripon on 16 November when the lights were switched on. We never went to see Father Christmas in November, did we? Mind you, I never went to see Father Christmas. You weren’t getting me sitting on a strangers knee in a cupboard on my own thank you very much.

Is excitement and anticipation the heart of our Christian faith? How does it all end? Today as I said is the last Sunday of our liturgical year. Next Sunday is frighteningly Advent Sunday. Today we are invited to rejoice in the eternal reign of Christ the King ruling over all things in glory. And we anticipate his return. When we say the creed we say of him: “we believe he will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and his Kingdom will have no end.” That’s exciting isn’t it? Do we wait expectantly as a church for him? Do we even believe he’s coming back?

Daniel hints at it. His vision centres around the Ancient One passing an ‘everlasting dominion' to ‘one like a human being coming from the clouds of heaven.' Within a Christian thought-world it is easy to reach quickly for an understanding of this vision through the lens of Jesus: that this is a vision depicting ‘Christ the king' ruling in heavenly glory: certainly centuries of art have taken that mantle and aspects of the visual language of this passage are found in depictions of Christ, reigning in heavenly glory. Daniel's vision reminds us that God's kingdom, God's rule, is here to stay, it will not pass away and can never be destroyed. It speaks of the books being opened, the book of life where every believer's name is written and the book of judgment. This is about hope, it is about opportunity, it is about eternity.

If we take a moment to look beyond the striking images, we notice that at the heart of There is one who holds ultimate rulership and authority (dominion) – and that this one rules from heaven. That is, in the ultimate and eternal sense, God reigns – over and above whatever struggles and travails we could ever know. We need to keep looking up even when it’s tough. I love this prayer from pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber:

Dear God,

You remember that whole “who by worrying can add a single hour to their life” thing? I could use a reminder of that right now.

I’m just rehearsing dread and practicing fear right now. 

So when I start doom-casting about what might happen in days to come, remind me that this day has worries of its own.

Guide my hand to turn off the radio, my feet to walk away from my laptop, and my eyes to turn away from my phone, because none of that is healthy for me right now. 

With your grace, may we all recoil from hot takes as from a hot flame.

And then give me the strength to do the next right thing in this life I have been given, among these people you love, in this place you created.

I guess what I’m saying is, please help me not miss the good stuff because I’m worrying about the bad stuff.

And if it’s not too much of a bother, could you, in your infinite mercy, also help everyone be on their best behaviour this year at all our Thanksgiving tables? That’d be great, because more drama we do not need.

Amen.

Look – he is coming on the clouds and every eye will see him.

Today’s Gospel finds Pontius Pilate in a state of utter mystification. A seemingly harmless rabbi, Jesus of Nazareth, has been hauled before him as a crucial threat to the existence of the Roman Empire — a rival king — and to Pilate, this makes no sense whatsoever.

Ancient monarchs were very different from those in our own day: Modern queens and kings serve as hereditary symbols of national unity. The king is the country personified, he speaks for the nation and represents the nation, but his power is purely symbolic. This kind of kingship would have sounded ridiculously bizarre to a first-century Roman.

For the Romans, to be king really meant one thing: you have the power to force others to submit to your will. You command armies, wage wars. So, when Pilate asks Jesus if he is a king, Pilate is not asking if Jesus wields symbolic power or will someday inherit a kingship. Instead, Pilate is asking: Do you really have legions of troops at your command? Are you really planning to overthrow the power of Rome?

And Jesus understands the logic of Pilate’s question perfectly: He says, “My Kingdom is not of this world.”

On this Sunday we have a both and king. Jesus is our servant king, washing feet and stooping down to us, emptying himself of all but love. Jesus after doing that and going to a cross for us, reigns in glory and one day will return.

This has implications for the church I think. Are we a church who anticipates his return and looks for his coming again? On our school tour yesterday we ended up in the hall and I said excitedly “it’s still there, it’s still there!” The school motto hung at the front of the hall still “Rejoice in the Lord alway.”

We used to do our exams facing it, we used to be told off in assembly facing it. We saw it every time we went in the hall. Despite today being rubbish rejoice in the Lord, for he is bigger than fractions, trauma, wars, new American Presidents, unsolvable problems in our church and unexplained human suffering.    

What sort of king is Jesus?

Soren Kierkegaard told a story: Once upon a time, there lived a great king. The whole country was his and he held all the power. He could elevate any commoner to a life of wealth and ease or condemn whole cities to destruction with a snap of his fingers. It was the custom of the country that, once every few years, the king would travel through all the land, inspecting every city, town, and village.

It was a great and terrible day when his vast armada of coaches would roar through a village. All the houses would be newly painted, the village hung with garlands of flowers, and all the villagers, decked in their most beautiful garments, would kneel by the sides of the roads all day, awaiting his approach.

While traveling through one village, the king spied a peasant woman out the window of his coach. He bid his driver stop, and the king stood stock still, just staring. Despite her he knew that he had found his queen.

The king began to leave the coach to kneel down in the street before her and ask her to be his wife, but he suddenly realised that he was in a pickle; no matter how she felt about him, she was certain to say yes to his proposal – not because she loved him – but because he could satisfy her every material desire, or destroy her whole village with a word. The king realised that this woman could fear him or seek to gain from him, but that she could never love him, for love is not the product of a bribe or a threat, but is a gift that must be given freely. So, the king shut the carriage door and said, “Drive on!” with the new knowledge that no one would ever love him.

That night, the king had a “eureka” moment! Upon returning to the castle, he went up to his chamber, he took off his heavy golden crown, laid aside his finely made sword, removed his ermine robes, and put on the old potato sack of a beggar.

Taking neither money nor dagger, the king crept out of the castle by night to walk all the way back to the village. His plan was to arrive at the woman’s cottage door helpless, destitute, and hungry. He would beg for shelter, beg for a crust of bread, and eventually open his heart to her, for only in his weakness and poverty could she genuinely fall in love with him.

And so it is with Christ the King. His infinite power and might could make us fear him. Christ could force us to obey him, but the thing is… God doesn’t want our fear, God doesn’t want our obedience, God only wants our love. Therefore, God the Son sets aside his glory, he sets aside his infinity and eternity, he sets aside all that he is and all that he has, and he comes to us in humility, in poverty: as a helpless baby, as a kind rabbi, as a beaten and humiliated prisoner, so that we can truly fall in love with him. “This is,” said Kierkegaard, “the God as he stands upon the earth, like unto the humblest by the power of his omnipotent love.”

And until he returns we are to be the church of the king who came not to be served but to serve. That means different priorities. A Jesuit priest teaching in a seminary had a reputation for asking awkward questions. One day he asked his class of about 15 students, “When we pray the Lord’s Prayer, and we say,’“Let thy kingdom come’—what does that really mean?” Many of the students offered answers, and he said “no” to them all.

When no one in the class was able to answer it correctly, he said, “I will tell you what it means when we pray, ‘Let thy kingdom come.’” What we really mean is, ‘let my kingdom go.’ Let my kingdom go.”

We spend so much time building our own kingdom, pursuing power and status without recognising God’s call in our lives. We need to surrender our self-made kingdoms to be part of God’s kingdom, one rooted in love, justice, and community.

Once we understand that Jesus is King, we learn to “let our kingdoms go.” Let thy kingdom come means we let our kingdoms go and begin to build and belong to the kingdom that is of God. 

What can we do about being more excited about what’s ahead? By keeping on keeping on. Doing the Wednesday welcome, opening to share food with who need it, having  coffee on a Saturday, exploring God’s word in Advent with the parish church and by being far more positive about church and being church.

You might remember that Oscar Romero was gunned down by government backed militiamen whilst celebrating mass in his cathedral in El Salvador in 1980.

He was killed for criticising the government for its brutal suppression and arguing that the historically created inequalities in the country were part of the problem. He took no political line and supported no political party, but he did speak up for those who were most vulnerable and asserted the primacy of love.

He said: Let us not tire of preaching love; it is the force that will overcome the world. Let us not tire of preaching love. Though we see that waves of violence succeed in drowning the fire of Christian love, love must win out; it is the only thing that can.

That’s the Kingdom of God in a nutshell. That’s the reason we are the church.

Look, he is coming on the clouds and every eye shall see him. He will come in glory to judge the living and the dead and his Kingdom will have no end. That’s worth getting excited about and anticipating with hope isn’t it?

Returning to school nearly 40 years on…

For the last year or so there’s been a WhatsApp group reconnecting some of our school year group who started at school in 1978 and left in 1985. Yesterday some of us met up in St Albans and had a tour of the school, lunch together and some time in the pub. It was an amazing day.

We were met at the school by the current head who was very impressive. Townsend is a Church of England School and he’s clearly upped the spiritual side of the curriculum and daily routine. He began our reunion by leading us in a reflection time and he went on to share stuff which gave me a load of ideas when I’m helping schools with inspections! I took a lot of pictures of notice boards…

About 30 of us had a tour of the school which brought back some happy and some painful memories. Those of us in Winchester class found our old classroom we lived in for our fourth and fifth year. We went and sat where our desks would have been which was a bit of a moment. We remembered dear Mr Laurens who we drove to distraction. He failed to keep control of us and would often lose it. He’d then apologise and say he didn’t mean to shout at us, he only wanted us to pass our exams. We’d say “that’s alright sir” as though he was the one who’d done something wrong! We were always last into assembly as the room was in chaos with several of the class lobbing paper at him. Poor man! 

There were parts of the school I’d rather not have seen again like the PE masters office. I got slippered on day one for being last out of the changing rooms as someone had nicked my pants! At least the swimming pool is no more. The classrooms felt smaller and the field of blessed memory felt a lot bigger. The lecture theatre was as it was - the place we got class detention for being disgraceful more than anywhere!! 

I was glad to get a word with the Head and told him while school wasn’t always easy for me, the spiritual life there and the regular visits to the cathedral began a call to what I do now. We laughed when he spoke with us about a respect for all policy which he was sure was in place in our day. A cry went up from near me “not on your life, mate!” Some of us were pushed into the deep end of the swimming pool, some of us had our ears twisted getting maths sums wrong, some of us were called names for being different or failing exams, bits of school were very cruel in the late 1970s and 1980s but somehow yesterday all that was healed. It was an important day for many of us.

We ended our tour in the hall, the place of assemblies and exams and our beloved Miss Legerton Headteacher trying to hold it together over the noise! The school motto was still there at the front and it still has no s on the end of alway!!

Why was yesterday so special? Well it was quite amazing that after forty years apart we seemed to be a very happy and supportive and connected group. Some of us had travelled a long way to be there. There was a depth there and a feeling of finding friends who might now share the future with me. It was a privilege to be there, worth a four hour drive and landing in a Travelodge at 1.40am and having to spend last night up to 2am writing today’s services. I hope we will meet again soon - I think there’s a commitment to have another big reunion in two years time when we are sixty. 

The group camped after a nice fish and chip lunch to a St Albans City Centre pub called Saints and Sinners. I rather liked the signage!

Some of them may still be there!! I did have to keep telling people I work on a Sunday. So to remind them still partying or nursing hangovers this morning I sent a work picture from the vestry in Masham! Thank you fellow travellers yesterday. It was a day I’ll remember for a long time and I’m glad to be part of a group who may now be important. 

It was lovely to be told how glad people were I was there. It was also lovely to be told I haven’t changed a bit and it was fascinating to be told some knew I’d always end up in the Church. I was asked if I do block bookings for funerals!!!!!! 

And to end this - find me on this picture! Clue - my hair used to be a mop out of control!! 

A recommitment to Christian unity.?

Sixty years ago, in 1964, under the auspices of the British Council of Churches, a conference on faith and order was held in Nottingham and put out this statement:

“United in our urgent desire for one church renewed for mission, this Conference invites the member churches to covenant together to work and pray for the inauguration of union by a date agreed between them. We dare to hope that this date be not later then Easter Day 1980. We believe we should offer obedience to God in a commitment as decisive as this.”

Sixty years later, we meet as churches and fellow pilgrims in this city to celebrate while not union, a new commitment to work together in discipleship and in mission as one holy, catholic and apostolic Church, united in our commitment to Jesus and living out our calling to be churches who seek to serve our community. But why haven’t we sorted it? Why are we still not one? Let’s hear that light bulb joke:

How many church people does it take to change a light bulb?

Charismatics: Only one. Hand's already in the air.

Roman Catholics: None. They use candles.

Anglicans: Eight. One to call the electrician, and seven to say how much they liked the old one better.

Lutherans: None. Lutherans don't believe in change.

Methodists: 10-  One to change the bulb. Nine to attack the minister, because someone's grandmother gave that bulb to the church!!

 

I want to encourage us tonight by using four words, tapestry, sheep, coin, hands… stick with me!

First, consider a tapestry.  Beginning with one thread, one colour, one row followed successively by more threads of different colours and locations.

With every additional thread the pattern becomes more full, more vibrant, more depicting of what the grand weaver desired. The more threads added, the more beautiful it becomes until it is pronounced finished. From above it is the masterpiece of the creator, yet from the back it is quite another story.

Have you ever looked at the backside of a seemingly flawless tapestry? It is an absolute quagmire of loose threads, rogue knots and indistinguishable patterns resembling nothing of the other side.  Scripture refers to the Church as living stones, the human body, a royal priesthood, and the bride of Christ, but I think the tapestry is a particularly telling demonstration of the process of the people of God.

We are to be one including people of such diverse backgrounds and qualities, and Jesus is weaving us into a fantastic one-of-a-kind work that is beautiful.

“But wait!” you may say, “from where I’m standing the Church looks like a messed up train-wreck of individuals.” That’s what makes this metaphor so fitting. Most of us are looking at the tapestry from the backside, and the truth is, it is not all that beautiful. Threads, are all over the place, doing their own things, abruptly cut…and knots galore. But the key is that God is not finished yet, and more importantly, God looks at the tapestry from the other side.

We are to be a messy church together. We might not agree on everything but we agree on one thing - to proclaim Jesus as Lord and Saviour and to share him in worship and witness. Christian unity is a lot of threads coming together. We won’t always agree, we will worship differently, we may have different priorities, what some of us do others may feel uncomfortable with, but tonight there is a new commitment to work at it, respecting each other and learning from each other. So we thank God we are part of his tapestry, offering what we can and respecting each other.

Secondly consider sheep and a coin. What is it all of us are called to do? To seek and save the lost. You’d expect after inviting a Methodist preacher to preach he might mention Wesley - and I’m going to quote him twice! Here’s the first quote. He said “you have nothing to do but to save souls, so spend and be spent.”

The three parables that make up chapter fifteen of Luke’s Gospel all focus on the central theme of the lost getting found, and the joy that is shared in the finding. Many scholars believe they were told as a single unit from the beginning of the Christian era, passed along through the oral tradition that Luke used to compile his gospel account. Tonight’s gospel reading focuses on the first two of these parables. In order for the lost to be found, it had to belong to someone first. The lost sheep was not a wild sheep that the shepherd came upon and added to his flock.

That sheep had belonged to the shepherd from the beginning, and had strayed away. The coin that the woman lost had been part of her life savings. It belonged to her. When she found it, she rejoiced with her neighbours that something of her very own had been restored to her. When Jesus told these stories, he was describing things that had once been where they belonged, but had somehow gone missing.

Jesus is saying that sinners and tax collectors, the misfits of society, all belong to God, just as much as anyone, and God is eager to restore all of us to himself. Once we accept that we belong to God and choose to serve him, we can’t slam the door in other people’s faces. It’s our job to hold the door open for everyone, even those we might consider outcasts. Especially those we might consider to be outcasts. We are to rejoice with God whenever one of these outcasts ‘gets found’ because all are precious to God. And we are also to join with God in the work of finding lost ones, and pointing them toward Christ.

The parables were given to religious insiders – Pharisees and scribes. Whether or not we want to admit it, we fall into that category, too. We are the religious insiders in our society.

And if we read these parables closely, we may realise that the ones who need to repent are the ones hearing the story. A coin or a sheep cannot repent. Perhaps Jesus is asking us to repent, as members of the “already found” group of insiders. Perhaps Jesus is asking us to repent of our smugness, our complacency, our failure to include sinners and tax collectors as part of “us.” We commit ourselves tonight in many diverse ways to commend the Saviour, be it through a cathedral being open, projects like Renew Ripon at Holy Trinity, Methodist coffee mornings, conversation with a Salvation Army officer in the market square, free church worship, shared witness at festivals through the year. Why are we here? To share Jesus. Together. In different ways but together. And all are welcome. Woe betide our churches become insular little clubs where we vet those who want to engage with us. Or we avoid encounter with some who aren’t easy to talk to or help. The shepherd and the woman don’t rest until the lost sheep and the lost coin are found.

The church as a tapestry, the church as a seeker and offerer of salvation, and finally the church as friends. This is where hands come in. John Wesley described religious liberty as the “liberty to choose one’s own religion, to worship God according to one’s own conscience.” He insisted that every person living had a right to do this. Wesley’s essay, The Character of a Methodist, says this “from real Christians of whatsoever denomination they be, we earnestly desire not to be distinguished at all.  Dost thou love and serve God? It is enough. I give the right hand of fellowship.” In his sermon on the Catholic spirit he wrote “if your heart is right with my heart, give me your hand.”

Tonight we recommit ourselves to friendship and a journey together. We recommit ourselves to seeking the lost. We recommit ourselves to learn from each other, to celebrate each other’s unique part in the team, to not be strangers but friends supporting each other. We all have our strengths and we need to offer what we can. Let’s not dis those we don’t get how they do things, let’s be glad we are different and reach out our hands to each other.

And let’s not spend too much time focussing on what divides us but what binds us together.

Tapestry, sheep, coins, hands.

“Nothing offends God more than for the church to be in a disunited state, because it bears to the world a very bad testimony and example."  Tonight, we recommit ourselves to work together. Then tomorrow we face outwards to our city. When we do the work of Christ there will be rejoicing as we find people and offer them his grace and freedom. God has given us this chance to sort ourselves out, to be one United church with all our different bits.

Through us he will build his Kingdom, and his name will be glorified. Be encouraged tonight in our unity and our diversity, this recommitment, this internal reboot, then go and be his church. Amen.

Signs of the end?

Next Saturday I’m going back to the city I went to school in, St Albans in Hertfordshire for a reunion of some of my year group who were at school from 1978 to 1985. I’ve not seen most of them for nearly 40 years. We are having a tour of the school and we are meeting some of our former teachers but I hope there isn’t a tour of the swimming pool. I hated swimming. The PE teacher used to hold a pole over my head and he’d shout when I started to struggle in the depths – hold on if you’re in trouble. Just hold on.

This Sunday is the second to last Sunday of our liturgical year. As we approach the end of the Church year, our Gospel invites us to consider Jesus’ predictions and teaching about the end of the world. And how we might hold on in trouble.

I went into the craft and chat Saturday workshop when I arrived at Allhallowgate yesterday afternoon. I was told as there was spare fabric to join in making a Christmas pudding. I told them I’d make one if they’d write me a sermon on the apocalypse! I was turned down.

There are people who are just holding on at the moment. The world feels too much. That’s why we are switching on Christmas lights so early. We need light. They were switched on last night, 16 November in Ripon. A truck was blasting out Christmas music so much so for several hours I had One more sleep by Leona Lewis going round and round my head. Santa was there and reindeer. On November 16!

We hold on by not thinking about the hard stuff, the swimming pool, the wars, the politics but you know one of the craft group said you’d better throw Thump into it…

I think I’ve told you that I’ve traced through social media some cousins in different parts of the United States. One says in a message “it’s scary and he isn’t even in the White House yet.” Are there signs of the end? Throw in too destruction of the planet, a lack of respect for the different and isolationism, who knows? People have worked out when the world will end and have been wrong. I remember once preaching in a very conservative evangelical Anglican Church the day after an expected rapture. I began my sermon by joking “ well we are all still here then” and none of them laughed!

Let’s be very brave and look at our Bible passages because they are both about just hold on when you are in trouble or it’s all too much.

The book of Daniel is familiar to many for the stories of the faithful being thrown into the furnace, and of surviving the lion's den. We were told those stories as children.

The story of Daniel is set just after Babylon's first attack on Jerusalem. The Babylonians had taken the city, plundered the Temple, and were taking swathes of their population into exile. Amongst the prisoners were Daniela and his three friends, whose Babylonian names were Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. The book of Daniel can be split into two parts. The first part (chapters 1, 3, 6) is their story and how they kept hope alive while living in the land of their conquerors. The other chapters (2, 4, 5, 7) include visions and stories that instruct the reader in not rebelling against God, encouraging patience while waiting for God's rule to return. In chapter 11, the author writes about a vision of the future where kings will rise and fall, including the final ‘king of the north', who will invade Jerusalem and desecrate the Temple. But even he will finally fail and be defeated.

There are many debates about the identity of this king, with some arguing it is the Syrian King Antiochus who lived in the mid second century BC. Others think it is a description of the Roman Empire. No single historical figure or empire fits the description entirely.

In the reading today, there is a vision of the end times to come, the final resolution of God's world.

The fate of the righteous and the wicked is decided. St Michael the Archangel comes as a sign of divine intervention in the natural order, but there is a strong hint of predestination in this text with only some being saved, a theme that is attractive to the author.

In verses 2-3, the text suggests resurrection of the dead, the only time in the Hebrew bible where this is explicitly affirmed, though belief in it was more widespread than the texts might suggest. The dead here are revived so that justice might be done – both on those who sinned in life, and those who suffered even though they did no wrong.

The apocalyptic imagery is picked up by Jesus and is written about in parts of Mark's gospel and in Revelation, where John applied them to the Roman Emperor.

Hold on.

Then Mark 13.

Before we consider Jesus’ words, it is important to note the political backdrop against which many think Mark’s Gospel was written. Most scholars concur that Mark wrote his Gospel for Christians living in or near Rome about 30 to 40 years after the death of Jesus. This was a time of political turmoil in Rome. Some Christians experienced persecution by the Romans during the reign of the emperor Nero (about 64 A.D.). Jewish revolutionaries rebelled against the Romans, which led the Romans to destroy the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 A.D. In this time of political turmoil and persecution, many in Mark’s community might have wondered if the end times predicted by Jesus were in fact quite near.

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…

 

A 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. 

 

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.

The Temple was the focal point for worship for Israel. The First Temple, built by King Solomon, was destroyed by the Babylonians. Some seventy years later, Jews returning from the Babylonian exile rebuilt the Second Temple and 500 years later King Herod remodelled some of it, beginning around 19 BC and finishing in 63 AD.

This means that the work was still continuing in Jesus’ day but even partly done, it dominated the skyline as well as the religious practices of the Jews. To stand outside and look up would have been awe-inspiring.

Some of the structures were vast. One of the foundation-stones, measured in recent times, proved to be nearly twenty-four feet in length, by four feet in depth.

The disciples would not just have seen the physical structure but would have absorbed the cultural enormity of what the Temple meant for their people; what it said of their history; what is called from them in worship. This was the sacrificial centre of their faith. This was where they were expected to make pilgrimage. This was where, in the Holy of Holies, they were taught that God was most present.

Is it any wonder they gasped and said out loud: ‘Look, Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!’

What they didn’t know, of course, was that the Temple was destined for destruction. In the year 70 the Romans laid siege to the city and after five months destroyed both Jerusalem and the Second Temple, as it was known. 

 

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. 

 

Just hold on…

Let me end like this. When I’ve no words, I always go to Nadia Bolz-Weber, an amazingly honest pastor in the States. She shared this prayer this week.

 

Dear God,

There’s so much to fear right now that I’m sort of losing track of what to worry about most. So I’m gonna need some help focusing. Show me what is MINE to do. Then grant me the strength to do it, and the humility to rest knowing it is enough.

Help me remember that even if there is more to worry about in life right now, it does not mean that there is less to love in life right now.   So protect every inch of our joy, Lord. And if you could help me stop reading shit on the internet, that might really help too. Amen.

And note how the Gospel ends today:

We read with hope that the "wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever."

The texts suggest a kind of ‘power behind the madness' that will break through for those who maintain hope. Reading this we might find comfort in the story of redemption that underlies all space and time: God's promise and power over, through and despite human actions. There is a pattern here that comforts. Whether it is apocalyptic beasts, humans glorifying in their own power, or anyone who doesn't acknowledge God, God will one way or another bring about God's kingdom. So, the message is simple – keep the faith.

 Things may well be difficult and confusing. 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…