Last week a group of about 10 folk reflected on the readings for Sunday 6th November to give some input into the sermon: this is the result!
“let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever flowing stream”.
On the last few Wednesdays some of us have been meeting to learn more about prayer by practising some different approaches and techniques. It has been very instructive.
It was suggested that one week we sit and look at the readings for the following Sunday and then reflect on them – the scriptures can be important for our prayer – and I thought that it could be worth a try, so today’s sermon bears the fruit of that collected wisdom and reflection, but ultimately this sermon was written by me and no others can be blamed for errancy or bad theology, but can claim the credit for any original thinking that follows in the next few minutes!
We are in that season which begins with All Saints Day and takes up most of November and includes several days of remembering – All Souls when we recall our departed loved ones, Guy Fawkes “remember,remember the 5th November”. Remembrance Day and Remembrance Sunday, culminating on the last day of the Christian Year with the Feast of Christ the King, the Sunday before Advent.
So it is no surprise that there is a linking theme running through the reading about the coming Day of the Lord, which is a thought that occurs several times in scripture, and which some evangelical groups latch on to, including that crazy guy in America who believed the world would end sometime last May, and when it did not, decided it would be on October 21st. When he got that wrong, he told his dwindling band of followers that it would be sometime next year. Some Christians have always believed that the end of the world would be soon, hence Paul’s letter to the Christians in Thessalonica speaks of the imminent coming of Jesus in glory, because some in the early church firmly believed in this second coming. This particular passage described what some groups call “The Rapture”. The Rapture is a reference to the "being caught up" referred to in 1 Thessalonians 4:17, when the "dead in Christ" and "we who are alive and remain" will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord.
This theme was extensively promoted by early American evangelists, but is not widely held in mainstream Christianity because many of us understand Christ’s second coming to have been at the time the Holy Spirit was unleashed upon the world after the Resurrection. And consequently we believe that when we die we shall be caught up into the eternity that is God’s gift to us.
The gospel reading with the tale of the bridesmaids and their lamps is about being ready for the coming of the bridegroom who is Christ. So there is a theme linking our three readings.
There was a bit of a feeling as we pondered these readings that the five bridesmaids who had spare oil were being a bit unselfish in not sharing their surplus with the unprepared ones, but that there was no getting away from the fact that all our readings urge us to Be Prepared. If we are not prepared we will miss out.
However, we spent most of our time looking at the few verses of Amos, the Old Testament reading. Amos is generally believed to have been a sheep and fig farmer in the 8th century BC who turned to prophesy possibly only for a few days when the Jews were at a very low point in their religious life, doing the rituals, and literally getting away with murder. Hence he says “Is not the day of the Lord darkness, not light, and gloom with no brightness in it? I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies…” Words that could often be applied to the church today. But he concludes, “let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever flowing stream”.
Our thoughts quickly turned to what has been happening around St Paul’s Cathedral these last few weeks with the protests, linked with those in other places of our world, about Bankers, justice and inequality and who seek what one protester calls “Global Improvement Works”. They wanted to occupy the London Stock Exchange but could not, so they occupied a softer target, St Paul’s, where to date the only real impact has been to show up the Church’s inability to respond to people’s felt and expressed needs. So much so that the Dean and two others on the Cathedral Staff have resigned presumably because they were at odds about the Church’s proper response. The choice is to side with protestors, drive them out of the Temple precincts or, perhaps to welcome them and enter into dialogue. For yes, we need wealth creators for the good of the world, but we do not need greedy wealth creators whose only real concern is the bonus at the end of the year.
Dialogue is urgently needed, change is urgently needed, and the gospel needs to be heard inside St Paul’s cathedral, outside in the Churchyard and within the walls of the Stock Markets and Bank Boardrooms of the City of London. The message has to be clear: many people are now scraping a living where resources are being severely cut. The message of Jesus is that we must work for a society which is part of the Kingdom which Christ lived died and rose again to inaugurate. A kingdom in which all can equally share. And it now looks as if Canon Giles Fraser and others will lead that vitally important dialogue because politicians of every hue have dramatically failed to deliver a just and fair society in my lifetime.
Our little group believe that the last few days will inevitably change the Church of England. To close the doors of St Pauls was a travesty of everything that was required. Cowardice, running away from the issues of engagement, dialogue and the cause of the gospel. Certainly the Dean and some of the chapter appeared to be like the five foolish virgins who were not prepared.
So let your life be based on those words of Amos where justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like an ever flowing stream.