Not the end of the world
Sermon preached in St Salvator's Chapel, St Andrews on the 18th November, 2007 by Rev Dr Helen-Ann Hartley
Readings: Isaiah 65: 17 - 25 and Luke 21: 5 - 19
Sermon
A friend of mine who works for Oxford University computing services told me recently about a professor in one of the Colleges who was finally persuaded to get a computer in his study. So my friend went along and installed the computer and everything was fine. About a week later he received a frantic phone-call. "What's wrong?" my friend asked. "It's the mouse", the professor replied, "it's reached the end of the mouse-mat." It transpired that the poor professor had spent the week intricately moving the mouse around the mouse-mat in an attempt to prevent the day when the inevitable would happen and the mouse would run out of space. Somewhat incredulous at this predicament my friend simply said in an exasperated tone, "it's OK to pick it up, don't panic it's not the end of the world!"
Those words "don't panic" - immortalised on the front cover of Douglas Adams' apocalyptic tale The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. You know the story - the Galactic Hyperspace Planning Council want to build a hyperspatial express route through our Galaxy and Earth is one of the planets scheduled for demolition, the process taking slightly less than two Earth minutes. The prophet Isaiah's words seem to fit bizarrely into this tale. "Don't panic!" But in a sense Jesus is saying that too in our Gospel reading.
It's an odd time of year, don't you think - just when the commercial world is gearing up with Christmas decorations, a short while before we begin Advent, we are assigned, courtesy of the Lectionary, a rather gloomy prediction, it's almost as if Jesus is reflecting our own mood at the terrible state the world is in (or at least the state of the world that the media would have us believe in).
I wonder then, what you made of today's readings? Alarming, strange, terrifying? While Isaiah speaks about a new heaven and a new earth, our Gospel reading contains a rather bleaker tone. Jesus and the disciples had come to Jerusalem as visitors, amazed at the size of the buildings around them - I'm sure we've all had that experience of visiting a place and being overwhelmed by the sight that greets our eyes. Certainly the Jerusalem Temple would have been impressive stuff for people from Galilee! If you go today to Jerusalem you can still see some of those huge stones, and they are indeed, huge, so it's no wonder the disciples were impressed yet Jesus' answer, "You like these stones? They won't be here for long" probably left them deeply puzzled.
Just over 6 years ago, a friend of mine began a new job as minister of a large church in downtown Manhattan in New York city - he usually gives titles to his sermons - his very first sermon was entitled "It's a good thing not to know where you are going" but that was on September 9th 2001 his second sermon was entitled "How in God's name?" "How in God's name" the disciples may well have asked Jesus "can these stones fall - are you serious?" So as Jesus sat there the disciples asked just when all this would take place. What Jesus was announcing was unimaginable, a world turned upside down.
Most people have an opinion about Iraq or Afghanistan, even if it's just one of two words - should we stay or should we go. The price of war is always terrible (that much we have been reminded about only last Sunday). In a way, both our readings address the difficult issues not just of what to do in the mess but what might come (so we hope) out of the mess. Our Gospel text today demands we address this issue - at its core is a passage about a world turned upside down and how Jesus' disciples learned to live in a time of political, religious and social chaos not unlike many places in our world today.
No doubt the early followers of Jesus must have been well aware of this story about the Temple, Jesus' prediction that one day not one stone of that Temple would remain on top of one another and how they must go on in a world where the symbols and icons of their faith and security had been knocked down. By the year 70 in the first century that Temple would lay in ruin just as Jesus said it would.
So where's the good news then?
The danger in reading this passage is of course, to take it purely in isolation, which is what the lectionary does, and which indeed many people are inclined to do but we know the wider picture and we know that God will lead us at the last to something better, something that is in a sense beyond our understanding God redeems messes and even though we sometimes cannot see a way through a situation, we trust that God will take our efforts and make of them something better. This doesn't let us off the hook of course, but it is the difference that we can make in the world in how we live our lives through the lens of our faith. And it doesn't have to be grand gestures, rather more glimmers of light and hope.
A number of years ago I spent a month on an archaeological dig at the ancient Biblical city of Megiddo, known in the New Testament as Armegeddon. I wasn't drawn so much by the potential opportunity to provide first-hand reporting should the end of the world happen to occur while I was there, rather more the somewhat naïve picture of Indiana Jones uncovering lost treasures and then embarking on an adventure to discover its hidden meaning. But of course, archaeology isn't like that at all but I remained suitably optimistic in my 6 by 6 metre square situated in what was meant to be a domestic dwelling from the period of King Solomon. All that changed when one morning I uncovered a distinctively 20th century looking falafel wrapper. It turned out I was digging in a rubbish pit from one of Israel's many skirmishes over the last 100 years. The end of my archaeological glory? Oh dear. The rubbish pit took ages to excavate before we were back on track and I continued in a somewhat down-hearted frame of mind. But then I came across the tiniest of things, a glass bead - I almost missed it - but its glinting in the hot sun caught my eye. It was old, very old and the archaeologists who knew infinitely more than I did were very pleased indeed.
Over recent weeks I have on a number of occasions come across this remarkable short poem by R S Thomas with which I conclude, and which I think speaks to us of the glimmers of hope that do exist and reminds us too that we dwell in the light, hope and peace of eternity - our timescale is not God's time scale - that is beyond our comprehension but as we stand on the edge of the journey towards the mystery of the incarnation we do well to be reminded of this. The poem is called The Bright Field.
The Bright Field
I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the pearl
of great price, the one field that had
the treasure in it. I realize now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying
On to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.
Amen.