Saturday 21 November 2020

God is with us now

The book of Ezekiel opens with a vision and a call fully reminiscent of the vision and call of Isaiah. Ezekiel was stunned off his feet, for in the confusion of storm fire and noise he had glimpsed something that looked like the glory of God coming towards him. Now there is a gap of more than a century between these two prophets yet the extraordinary thing is not this passage of time but the passage of place. Ezekiel, you see, is writing from the city of Nippur, south of Babylon and is among the exiles living along a tributary of the Euphrates. 

In the ancient world God is invariably associated with place - consider Solomon’s Temple with its outside courtyard for sacrifices, an inner vestibule or hallway leading finally to the holy of holies housing the Ark of the Covenant and there it is all built on the hill of mount Zion. God was there, up high, inaccessible. In Isaiah’s vision we remember that the lower hem only of God’s robe filled the whole Temple. People might almost unimaginably hope to partially approach him like Moses and the burning bush but this would be granted to very few, like the Devir to the priests alone and then only one day a year. 

Ezekiel and the exiles are far away, they have long since stopped blaming the Babylonians for their troub;les but are filled with the sense of their own sin,  their own distance from their God, their Temple destroyed as a punishment for all they had done wrong.  

So, Ezekiel seeing God coming towards them, there by the rivers of Babylon is completely outside and beyond all expectation. Separated from their Temple they are separated from their God yet he is coming to them. By chapter 34 of Ezekiel’s prophecies this has become very personal: “For thus says the Lord God I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered on a day of thick clouds and darkness.”

We think mostly of sheep in flocks, but I have rescued single solitary sheep, snipping the wool of one entangled in barbed wire, gathering a lamb with its surprisingly oily fleece, (which looks so fluffy from a distance) they do really get lost and need seeking out and I hear Ezekiel telling me that the Lord will gather all the sheep “gathering them from the countries” and bringing them back to their own land to be fed on rich teaching and to lie down peaceably and in safety. 

Make no doubt about it this is a big change - God is among us now, no longer far away in Jerusalem on mount Zion but here with all of us, looking down the ravines, up at the crags, in the marshes looking across the whole world. We no longer need a Temple or dare I say for all that I love them a church building. We can carry God with us wherever we are for God is mobile and God will never be far away again.

Amen


Saturday 14 November 2020

When the Lord comes?

Zephaniah 1:7, 12-end 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11

Today is the second Sunday before Advent but as last week was Remembrance Sunday this is the first look we take at the Advent theme. The question is “What do we think happens or will happen when the LORD comes?” 

Zephaniah as befits an Old Testament prophet is unambiguous :

“That will be a day of wrath, a day of distress and anguish, a day of ruin and devastation, a day of darkness and gloom a day of clouds and thick darkness. “

Now, right now mid lockdown this may be the last thing we want to hear; it contrasts greatly with our usual more excited approach to this time of year. Zephaniah was writing between 609 and 604 BC, he was a contemporary of Jeremiah so writing only a little  before the fall of Jerusalem and the exile. He foresees the coming of the Babylonians who will drag people from houses, streets, sewers and tombs where they have been hiding or as he puts it “at that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps.” Why though does Zephaniah write like this? He is it seems to me the sixth century BC equivalent of the graphic images which for a while at least appeared on cigarette packets, some of you may remember them the horrible pictures of diseased lungs :” REFORM,” says Zephaniah “or these bad things will happen to you.” 

Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians has five chapters and the final verse of each and every chapter ends with a reference to the second coming of Christ. For example, chapter one ends describing “Jesus who rescues us from the coming wrath.” and at the end of this chapter five which we have heard some of this morning it says” May God himself, the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely and may your spirit and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord, Jesus Christ.” 

And so here is the difference, there is still the unmistakable imagery of impending tribulations “When they say there is peace and security then sudden destruction will come upon them as labour pains come upon a pregnant woman and there will be no escape” and again just as in the Old Testament there is a warning of darkness to come. But this time the cigarette packet has two pictures, the inescapable diseased ling of sin, the warning is still there, but also a brighter clear picture of healed tissues brought about by Jesus Christ, who died for us that we might be clean. 

When Advent really comes we will give more emphasis to our waiting and this is what we are waiting for, not the day of darkness  but the day of light and so we wait not with the foreboding of the old prophets but with the anticipation of the new.


Amen.

 

Tuesday 10 November 2020

Remembrance Sunday 2020

Before 1914, there had been no world wars at all. Between 1815 and 1914 moreover no major power fought another one outside of its immediate region. (there were of course aggressive expeditions of imperial powers against weaker opponents especially in Africa India and Asia.) All this changed in the last century - during the two world wars Canadians fought in France, Americans all over Europe, Indians in the Middle East and Chinese in France and the naval battles were everywhere. One eminent historian called the period 1914 to 1945 the age of total war. But it was not simply a war of combattants, many millions were engaged and affected, civilians, doctors, nurses, cooks ambulance drivers the young the old : everyone.

"Have you forgotten yet?

For the worlds events have rumbled on since those gagged days 

Like traffic checked while at the crossing of city ways

And the haunted gap in your mind has filled with thoughts that flow

Like clouds in the lit heaven of life : and you’re a man reprieved to go

Taking your peaceful share of time with joy to spare." 


These lines are the start of a poem  by Siegfried Sassoon called the “Aftermath.” 

Just those two phrases “Have you forgotten yet?”, “for events have rumbled” on tell us why we are here, to remember, to give thanks for those who made it possible for us to “take our peaceful share of time.”

And today it seems that there is again a world war - against this time an unseen virus and once more many millions are engaged: doctors, nurses, cooks, ambulance drivers, the young the old. And again there are those of great courage who take risks for others. 

There was among all the news coverage a week ago a lady in an hospital recovering from a stay in intensive care who summed it up - she said that the doctors and nurses had treated her without cease, for days working to save her  life, she was still ill, still hoping to be well again and as she told her story she broke into tears of admiration, thanks and amazement. 

So as we wear our poppies this morning remembering those who gave so much for so long for so many let us also acknowledge those who continue to do this today in different ways and in different times but who do so for the same reason: 

“That we may take our peaceful share of time with joy to spare.”


Amen.