Think Question Believe

John the Baptist presents a heroic but tragic figure. Crying out in the wilderness, giving voice not only to his own heartbreak, but also to the pain and suffering of all his people.

However much the Romans might be bravely resisted, it was almost inconceivable that they might be repelled.

Almost.

For men like John still tried, still hoped, still preached that whatever worldly power the Romans might possess, nothing could withstand the might, in echo of Isaiah’s words, of ‘the one who is to come’, the promised Messiah.

For some Jesus was a disappointment, those for whom military might could be the only mark of the Messiah. Far from Isaiah’s notion of the Suffering Servant, they expected nothing less than a second King David, a victorious warrior, triumphant general, a kingdom of this world.

Jesus was an impossible claimant to the title; impossible and scandalous. A betrayal of the very ideal.

Today new fractures are emerging. In certain countries and certain political cultures we are seeing the emergence of what might be called Christian Nationalism, where the faith of Jesus is being twisted and contorted into a reversal, a perversion of all that he stood for – hatred in place of love, racial discrimination instead of compassion , the glorification of the obscenely rich and the denigration of the poor, the celebration of the gun instead of peace.

‘….the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

These are the words of a young man named John, a young prophet of wild and dishevelled appearance preaching to the people of his time, about the saviour who was to come:

‘The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” ’

John presents a very odd picture indeed. Matthew describes him as wearing clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt to hold his ensemble together – eating locusts and wild honey – we can imagine dishevelled hair – a wild man, shouting, accusing almost raving.

When today we see John as the forerunner we vastly underestimate his significance,

For John was very great indeed, there were many religious groups and movements around the Judean wilderness, but John’s charismatic preaching and baptism attracted vast crowds including Jesus himself.

There was also a rivalry between the followers of John and Jesus that persisted well after John’s death.

Lives and relationships are complicated, even, sometimes especially, in the most important and profound relationships. And whilst the voice of the leader of any organisation and movement must usually take priority over those of their followers, nevertheless other voices can carry messages of great value and significance.

Apocalyptic writing is sometimes called the “literature of the dispossessed”. It is the product of a people oppressed and alienated who have little chance of fighting back against those who dominate them with political, economic and military power.Sometimes the oppressors are their own corrupt politicians, sometimes outside ‘foreign’ regimes. And sometimes the stranglehold that our western companies have on their economies and their industries. A stranglehold in which we as consumers, demanding lower prices in the shops, are sadly complicit.And this is should be the goad, the spur for us to reflect upon, and change, our own behaviour, towards each other and within our world. Scripture, and our own eyes, tell us what injustice, cruelty and greed look like, we can also recognize the opposite. So if we say we want to see the Kingdom, and in our prayers we claim that we do, might we not anticipate what the Kingdom might look like, as best we can, and start to behave that way now. And not to wait for others to start, that way the delay is forever, but instead consider our hoped for place in the Kingdom and start to behave as if it were already here, that way, we might have some hope of actually seeing the Kingdom, of catching even catching some glimpses of the way of peace, justice and love, that we claim to desire so much.

Luke’s story of the boastful Pharisee and the repentant tax-collector addresses the theme of what we might call ‘holy reversal’.That the standards of this world, the values of so much of our world, the one with which we are so familiar, in which some of us deem themselves so successful and dominant, are in fact but the shadows of the true reality to which we are called.Up is down and down is up.But what of our present world?Daily on our news we see the Christian faith upended into a cult of greed, pride, hostility and hate – lovers of guns and violence parading Jesus as their hero and guide. But when once we might have at least contented ourselves with the belief that these things happened far away, and in cultures different to our own, now we see, that the sickness has spread rather closer to home, the emergence of enmity and prejudice, no doubt deceiving itself that it is something else.How are we to contend with this challenge both within our world – and within ourselves?

In recent years, we have seen the Christian faith equated with arrogant nationalism, worship of the gun, of money, power and status; and the faith appropriated as an expression of animus and division, prejudice and bigotry. Daily, we can see such distortion and twisting of the faith, so contrary to the teachings of Jesus, that we can only stare bewildered at the mental gymnastics required to turn the carpenter who counselled turning the other cheek, into a belligerent bully.The much-celebrated theologian and Pauline scholar Anglican Bishop Tom Wright once cautioned how first-time visitors to a church might exclaim “Well, if that’s how God’s representatives behave, I suppose the whole thing’s a waste of time!”.In one of the most graphic descriptions of punishment anywhere in the gospels, Jesus warns that it would be better for a millstone to be placed as a collar around the offender’s neck dragging them to the bottom of the ocean, rather than face their rightful punishment for injuring a person’s vulnerable faith, any spiritual comfort that they might have received, negated by the behaviour of the so-called faithful.

‘To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven’, says the first line of Ecclesiastes chapter 3.Except it seems, when it comes to Advent.Over most adult lifetimes, especially for those of us in later life, we have seen the degradation of the season of Advent, as our modern-world has become increasingly restless, impatient and unable to wait or postpone.Christmas trees now appear in shops, pubs and hotels from mid-November. When I was a child Advent calendars were very exciting, but we had to wait to open the serrated card window each day, to reveal a little picture – and the sense of build-up was real.Today, Advent calendars contain a chocolate for each day, so impatient are we to anticipate Christmas treats.And even in church life, we can become so wrapped up in preparation for Christmas events and services, that even we can ‘no time to stand and stare’. We don’t keep Christmas properly any more – we have forgotten how. Forget the 12 days of Christmas where the feasting was prolonged and enjoyed after a long wait through long winter days – now we are almost in danger of being tired of Christmas, just as it starts.But this is to deprive ourselves of a priceless opportunity.

Whenever this time of year comes around, I make sure to keep two commemorations rather than one. Sadly, many churches across the Church of Ireland will only keep All Saints Sunday and disdain the keeping of All Souls Day which is an ancient part of Allhallowstide – the season of remembering, coming at the end of the year, the dying of the year one might say – before it gives way to Advent – the time of preparing for the new.Perhaps it's a hangover from the past, the fear that it was associated with Purgatory and indulgences, concepts that the Reformers rejected, but also possibly tainted by a certain tendency towards negative self-definition – we don’t do it – because they do.But at ‘All Souls’ we remember people who are not particularly famous, nor were they necessarily examples to many, but we lovingly remember those who are so inextricably linked with us that they may well have been amongst the most important influences in our lives.Few of us have ever been spared the pain of loss, sometimes repeatedly. And at ‘All Souls’ we can especially remember that this is a burden of human mortality that each one of us carries, one that we should not and need not carry alone.And then at All Saints the memories are not so personal, so visceral, but nevertheless we honour heroes of the Christian faith.This combined season of All Hallows, this time of remembering, reminds us not only of those who have gone before us, in all their infinite variety, the famous and the obscure, the virtuous and the sinful, but that we also are in the business of building souls – our own.

With the aftermath of the Second World War a new ‘rules-based order’ was pioneered overseen by international organisations such as the UN, the World Bank, the IMF, the International Court of Justice, the EU and the World Health Organisation. They embodied the desire that shared notions of justice, the rule of international law, and the recognition of our interdependence through peaceful trade, would protect humanity from the horror of global war in the future. Albeit multi-cultural and secular organisations, in their depths the echo of recognisably Christian voices resounded.What has been deeply troubling, in the space of only a few years, has been the rapid erosion of that consensus, not only by the most despotic and cruel regimes of the world, but also by certain politicians, certain parties and certain democratic governments greedy for short-term political advantage and personal enrichment.A combination of the cynical, the unscrupulous, the calculating and the downright corrupt, preying on the minds of the vulnerable, the gullible and the easily led – where hundreds of years of progress through struggle, and courageous self-sacrifice are in danger of being swept away by a wave of populism, fear of a fast changing world, nationalism, racism and the promises of material comfort as long as people hand over their freedom and autonomy. We have been truly fortunate to be a generation or two that have lived in comparative stability, affluence and tranquility – at least close to home, and we have accepted them as a given.Following the so-called summit in Alaska, between two men of despicable stamp, the next few weeks and months may well present us with the most severe test of our courage and resolve that we have faced. if we are not prepared to sacrifice our effort, our whole-hearted commitment and our money to the single-minded pursuit of international justice and equity now, we shall have to sacrifice our sons and daughters tomorrow.Will we, and our leaders, be up to the challenge?

We all know, much as we push the thought away, that our own lives are finite.  But also, most of us thankfully, do not know the day or the hour of our ending. But the downside of that is that sometimes we can act as if we have all the time in the world.

All too easily our lives drift along, lots of activity, but sometimes little change. Plenty of tasks and busyness, but if we are not careful those can simply be external distractions, we can really be drifting, simply marking time and avoiding the internal work that is required.

Part of the problem is that we can get to a place in life that may not be the most comfortable, the most at ease with ourselves and our lives that we could be, but at least it is comfortable enough, or even uncomfortable, but not enough for us to risk shaking it all up and making changes, and who knows in any case what the new life would look like?

And this failing is not just in the life of faith, but in every life; for in reality there is no continual oasis of normality to return to, no state of perpetual tranquility to be reclaimed – all lives are in reality, in a perpetual state of flux, of challenge and testing.

Possessions had and still have a profoundly symbolic function for humanity. If life feels fragile and precarious we seem to think that possessions will render it more secure; even though the possessions themselves are even frailer than life itself. 

Whilst the rich man in the parable of the rich fool was supposedly rich in goods, his soul was impoverished. His purse was full, but his heart a desert.

By contrast, Jesus calls us respond in faith and loving trust; and manage our goods, be they many or few, in accordance with that faith. We are to share what we have, and who we are with others, rather than indulge some insatiable need to accumulate.

It is the insatiable, pathological pursuit of wealth, the desire to merely possess, deaf to those in need, and the suffering in our world, that represents the true poverty of heart and soul.