light at dark tunnels' end

 

SERMON PREACHED AT St MARY’S, NORTH OAMARU

and St Alban’s, Kurow

THIRTY-THIRD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (November 13^th) 2022

 

 

 

 READINGS:

 

Isaiah 65:17-25

For psalm: Isaiah 12

2 Thessalonians 3: 6-13

Luke 21: 5-19

 

 

 

If you’ve been even loosely noticing the way in which Luke has constructed his version of the Jesus-story you will be well aware by now that much of the story revolves around a very intentional journey towards Jerusalem. While our Muslim friends have an equivalent in, for example the Hajj and its destination in Mecca, both as Christian people and as kiwis we have little of equivalence. Neither in term of national identity nor in the relationship between faith and place our religion do we have equivalent. Perhaps as we grow in our recognition of cross-cultural stories the centrality of Waitangi will develop a similar resonance – and for some the even more demanding pilgrimage to Anzac Cove, Anzac Koyu, has similar dimensions. But on the whole, yeah, nah. And for those of us of faith the location of God within in us has gazumped any particularly deep sense of a spirit of place, though we do I think mourn in our Anglican tradition if our places of worship are desecrated or deconsecrated.

But for Luke’s audience and indeed for Jesus the importance of Jerusalem was immeasurable. Jesus has reached the holy city a couple of passages back, we have seen him weep over the city; in Matthew’s gospel account particularly we will hear Jesus make warning about the “desolating sacrilege” first referred to in Daniel and much loved by the crystal-ball gazing scripture-twisters who fill the stages and hog the microphones of sensationalist churches. For us it is important to remember that when Jesus spoke the Second Jewish Temple was still intact, a wonder and a central element of both faith and national identity. By the time Luke recorded his words pretty much all that remained was destruction, the rubble of past glory and past hope. The safest of safe spaces, the happiest of happy-spaces was gone. I can think of few equivalents.

Yet, Luke notes, Jesus speaks words of hope in the midst of immeasurable darkness. Again there are few comparisons in our story. For indigenous peoples, including Māori, I think there is a realization that what social historians tend to call “contact” was, however inevitable, a watershed, a cataclysm that wrought irreversible change to the world of their ancestors, their tupuna. For the newer nations such as New Zealand in all its bi- and multi-cultural history there is so far no such moment. There have though been wars of horror and natural calamities, and of course for all of us there have been personal calamities, after which life could never be the same again. And in the midst of these Luke reminds us that Jesus spoke – and still speaks we might add – a contradictory word of hope. Stand tall, he says. Like the prophets before him he dares to speak of a different narrative: be not afraid. I am with you, says God, even to the ends of ages.

Not easy, of course, to believe. And part of Jesus’ command to stand tall is the command to continue to be active. We are not called to despair, for example, in the dance of global warming and possible global extinction (including our own extinction) but to be active in attempts to midwife a better future. Christians who snidely await the destruction of the earth in the expectation that they will be slickly whisked away to a better place are not standing in the footsteps of Jesus. We are called to be active and hope-filled to the last, and to be aided in that by the presence of God with us. And sometimes we will stumble. And the invisible Spirit will prod and nudge, if we let her, and the journey to our own New Jerusalem will go on. God meets us in our anxiety, and leads us on.

It's not magic. We need to do our part. To cling to the hopes that are made known to us in scripture. Indeed, as our bishop reminds us over and again, to pray, to read the bible, to be – using my own words – as Christ to those around us. We are called – with the help of God – to exercise intentional, spirit-filled love, justice and compassion. And we almost certainly will not see the real impact of our moments and our days, my well see, perhaps should see the closure of the temples of our faith and happy spaces of our lives, but that, says Jesus, that recorded Luke, is not the end of God’s great story.