“But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.
"Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.
Image via WikipediaWhen was the last time you were surprised? I wonder whether there's something popping into your mind straight away or whether like me you've found that a tricky question to answer quickly. I've been trying to think of surprising things all morning, and it's funny but I find it much easier to remember the disappointing events than the positive and exciting surprises! For example the migraine that prompted my last blog post was a surprise in the sense that I had no prior warning, but I think I'd definitely call it a disappointment, not a surprise...
Interestingly enough, according to thefreedictionary.com surprise is from the french roots sur and prendre, which I think translate as 'on' and 'take', but prendre is from the latin 'prehendere' meaning 'seize', so the etymology seems to carry a more unpleasant weight than we use today - neither being 'seized on' nor 'apprehended' sound like fun do they?
Still, today I think we tend to use it in a more pleasant way by default. Surprise feels like it ought to be a positive word, so something like winning a prize in a competition you forget you have entered would fit nicely.
The passage from Matthew 24 at the top of this post will be preached from in Anglican churches all over the world this weekend. It's a passage where Jesus is talking about his second coming, but on the first Sunday in Advent we can't help but make its application a bit wider than that. In my sermon I'm going to suggest there are three things to think about:
- Do we believe in surprises anymore?
- Have we downgraded Christmas, and the Second Coming, to the realm of metaphor?
- Have we realised that Jesus is already here?
Do we still believe?
Iraq doesn't have a national football team, and until it does I'm stuck with England. England supporters, players and managers seem to have a great ability to believe great things are possible every time we go into a major tournament. I suppose for the players it can be justified as 'visualisation', 'self-belief' or some other sports psychology technique, but for everyone else it's just a mass delusion isn't it?
My theory is that none of us actually believe England are going to win things, but we pretend that we do just so that it still seems like there's purpose in it all. England's dream of success is the fairy tale required to justify the investment, but under the surface everyone knows it's not real. Even Paul the Octopus knew. So when the inevitable failure came we just got on with life, no-one was devastated or crushed by the news because we totally expected it.
I wonder whether we think like this about any kind of good surprise we might imagine. In Genesis 12 God tells Abram that a key part of his function is to be blessed, to just receive blessings that God chucks on him. There's no conditional clause, God just says this is what's meant to happen. I think most of us Christians still 'believe' that God still intends us (whether we're Christians or not) to be blessed, and that the universe is set up for our good, but I don't think we really truly expect to be surprised by undeserved blessings coming to us. I think we're far more likely to expect disappointment than goodness in life, and that's a bit of a shame really.
Have we downgraded?
Have we downgraded?
Continuing the football theme, perhaps part of the reason that many of us don't really expect a pleasant surprise from the England team is that we weren't actually around the last time it happened. 1966 and all that is a long time ago, and yes we've seen the grainy coverage and we've heard the stories trotted out every few years, but we haven't felt it for ourselves. The people who were there tell us about something outside of our experience, so it's hard to relate to. The people giving us promises for the future are ultimately unable to make those promises as they do not have the power to make reality conform to their desires. England managers can talk a lot, but they cannot miraculously transform the players on the pitch, except maybe by nobbling the opposition...
So it's not surprising that England fans have downgraded the dream into a fairy tale, and that Christians have downgraded Christmas, and the Second Coming, into a metaphor. 0 AD was a very long time ago, and we have written words rather than TV footage. None of us know anyone who was there, and the world around us is full of disbelief and sometimes wilful misunderstanding*. So it's maybe easier for us if we subconsciously begin to regard Christ as a metaphor rather than an actual person and Christmas as a fable rather than a historic event. That way we can extract some good moral teaching without having to ask any difficult questions, and place Christianity in the "that's nice" category of life without facing up to the demands, or blessings, of transformation. Again, back to Genesis 12, God asks Abram to leave three things behind, and one of those is the place he knows - God is asking Abram to take steps into the unknown, to abandon safe and comfortable living for the possibilities of something much greater. The subconscious downgrading to metaphor status gives us a safe and comfortable place, but it's not nearly as exciting.
Have we realised Jesus is already here?
Even after we see the danger of the metaphor trap, we can still trip ourselves up by assuming the second coming is so far off as to be irrelevant.
I wonder what we imagine when we think of Jesus coming back? Some of us presumably visualise passages from Revelation, and have great horses, angels, beasts, leviathans and other things all in an imaginary diorama. Some of us perhaps think of it in a much more personal way (and I think this is how I've heard it preached the most) where it becomes about what if Jesus turned up in your living room RIGHT NOW? Usually, I've heard sermons along the lines of, "Wouldn't it be embarrassing if you were watching something unholy, and suddenly there's Jesus sitting on the sofa next to you? Imagine how bad you'd feel then eh? Imagine having to explain to Jesus exactly why you were watching that straight-to-video Steven Seagal movie when you could have been reading the Bible eh?"
There's merit in those sermons, because God is undoubtedly concerned with our behaviour and the question of holiness. In Matt 24 as in other places where he's talking of the second coming Jesus is talking about the importance of being ready, and about the need to make sure our lives are fitting for his return. There are two problems with only preaching that kind of sermon about the return of Christ though. The first issue is that in the new covenant God seems to major a lot more on carrot than on stick, and the second is that those sermons seem to have forgotten the Holy Spirit.
Perhaps there's a better balance to be had where we see the Second Coming as something to be celebrated and looked forward to, not as something to fear for its potential to embarrass us? Perhaps we can remember that not only is this not one big metaphor, but that part of the reason for our existence is to enjoy being blessed by God. I think that's a much better motivation for a right life than worrying about the stick anyway, after all, 'his kindness is intended to lead us to repentance' as Romans 2:4 puts it.
More immediately though, we must not forget that Jesus is already here with us in the Holy Spirit. Some of our brothers and sisters in different denominations might interact with Him more often than we remember to, but God has given the Holy Spirit to each and every one of us. So, there's no point worrying about Jesus review of the Steven Seagal film come the second coming, he's already been watching it with us every time, by his Holy Spirit within us!
Again, we can focus on the stick aspect of this - we can't get away with anything - but let's try to focus on the carrot instead. The presence of the Holy Spirit within us means that the blessing is never far away, and transformation lurks around every corner, which is nice.
*I got distracted for a while by someone else's blog where the author had listed '28 reasons to be ashamed of Jesus'. The 28 reasons were based on quotes of Jesus surgically removed from all context and any effort to understand the meaning, but the author seemed proud of themselves for coming up with such a cast-iron refutation (I say that with a measure of sarcasm) of centuries of scholarship. Sometimes I wonder about people.
So it's not surprising that England fans have downgraded the dream into a fairy tale, and that Christians have downgraded Christmas, and the Second Coming, into a metaphor. 0 AD was a very long time ago, and we have written words rather than TV footage. None of us know anyone who was there, and the world around us is full of disbelief and sometimes wilful misunderstanding*. So it's maybe easier for us if we subconsciously begin to regard Christ as a metaphor rather than an actual person and Christmas as a fable rather than a historic event. That way we can extract some good moral teaching without having to ask any difficult questions, and place Christianity in the "that's nice" category of life without facing up to the demands, or blessings, of transformation. Again, back to Genesis 12, God asks Abram to leave three things behind, and one of those is the place he knows - God is asking Abram to take steps into the unknown, to abandon safe and comfortable living for the possibilities of something much greater. The subconscious downgrading to metaphor status gives us a safe and comfortable place, but it's not nearly as exciting.
Have we realised Jesus is already here?
Even after we see the danger of the metaphor trap, we can still trip ourselves up by assuming the second coming is so far off as to be irrelevant.
I wonder what we imagine when we think of Jesus coming back? Some of us presumably visualise passages from Revelation, and have great horses, angels, beasts, leviathans and other things all in an imaginary diorama. Some of us perhaps think of it in a much more personal way (and I think this is how I've heard it preached the most) where it becomes about what if Jesus turned up in your living room RIGHT NOW? Usually, I've heard sermons along the lines of, "Wouldn't it be embarrassing if you were watching something unholy, and suddenly there's Jesus sitting on the sofa next to you? Imagine how bad you'd feel then eh? Imagine having to explain to Jesus exactly why you were watching that straight-to-video Steven Seagal movie when you could have been reading the Bible eh?"
There's merit in those sermons, because God is undoubtedly concerned with our behaviour and the question of holiness. In Matt 24 as in other places where he's talking of the second coming Jesus is talking about the importance of being ready, and about the need to make sure our lives are fitting for his return. There are two problems with only preaching that kind of sermon about the return of Christ though. The first issue is that in the new covenant God seems to major a lot more on carrot than on stick, and the second is that those sermons seem to have forgotten the Holy Spirit.
Perhaps there's a better balance to be had where we see the Second Coming as something to be celebrated and looked forward to, not as something to fear for its potential to embarrass us? Perhaps we can remember that not only is this not one big metaphor, but that part of the reason for our existence is to enjoy being blessed by God. I think that's a much better motivation for a right life than worrying about the stick anyway, after all, 'his kindness is intended to lead us to repentance' as Romans 2:4 puts it.
More immediately though, we must not forget that Jesus is already here with us in the Holy Spirit. Some of our brothers and sisters in different denominations might interact with Him more often than we remember to, but God has given the Holy Spirit to each and every one of us. So, there's no point worrying about Jesus review of the Steven Seagal film come the second coming, he's already been watching it with us every time, by his Holy Spirit within us!
Again, we can focus on the stick aspect of this - we can't get away with anything - but let's try to focus on the carrot instead. The presence of the Holy Spirit within us means that the blessing is never far away, and transformation lurks around every corner, which is nice.
*I got distracted for a while by someone else's blog where the author had listed '28 reasons to be ashamed of Jesus'. The 28 reasons were based on quotes of Jesus surgically removed from all context and any effort to understand the meaning, but the author seemed proud of themselves for coming up with such a cast-iron refutation (I say that with a measure of sarcasm) of centuries of scholarship. Sometimes I wonder about people.
0 comments:
Post a Comment