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Up-to-the-minute jumping-off points for sermons, linking the reading to the latest news and global issues

Is now the time?

Might we be experiencing the beginning of the birth pangs (Mark 13.8)?

Context

As I write this, we are over halfway through COP26 in Glasgow. The conference is due to finish on Friday 12 November (but previous COPs have overrun!). As you use this material check news websites for latest developments. You may discover that it has been a great success or an utter failure or, perhaps more likely, somewhere in between. Try looking at news websites which may put different slants on the outcome.

Ahead of COP26, a statement was issued by many world faith leaders. On the day COP26 opened there was a multi-faith service. The current Vice President of the Methodist Conference (Barbara Easton) was present in Glasgow last weekend ‘supporting the global Methodist presence at COP26’.

Read the blog from Kathy Galloway of the Iona Community for more about activities in Glasgow during COP26.

The strapline for the 2023 Kirchentag* was announced last month as ‘Now is the time’ (or ‘The time is fulfilled’, Mark 1.15). This week’s Gospel reading is about ‘the birth pangs of the age and kingdom to come’. Whatever may have been decided in Glasgow, the coming age begins here and now.

* An English version of this website is not yet available, but the event will be in Nürnberg in June 2023. Some information in English is available.

 

Ideas for sermons or interactive talks

  • The call of Jesus at the end of this week’s Gospel passage is to be alert to the signs of the times (the birth pangs, Mark 13.8). This apocalyptic chapter of Mark’s Gospel is one which might be overlooked were it not for the challenge of a lectionary. The destruction of the Temple – which did in fact happen in 70CE – was seen, and is still seen, as a major catastrophe for the Jewish people and their religion. We have no single secular or religious focus directly parallel to the Temple for Jews; but what might be seen as similarly catastrophic for our generation and in this century?
  • There is apocalyptic talk around climate change. Unless greenhouse gas emissions can be cut fast, we are heading for environmental disaster. Recent unusual weather events across the world are being attributed to global warming. My wife and I live in a house which has withstood the weather for over 200 years old; but our garden has been flooded twice in recent weeks after heavy rainfall. What might increasing extreme weather events be telling us? Might they represent the birth pangs of a new age?
  • While most Christians believe that party politics should be kept out of the pulpit, it is also true that several of the Old Testament prophets challenged the rulers of their time using language which would now be called ‘political’. Is the climate change challenge one of those moments when the church collectively, and individual Christians, are called to act like OT prophets?
  • Among the slogans shouted by environmental protesters in Glasgow last weekend was ‘Climate justice now’. The word ‘now’ often appears in protest slogans; the call ‘what do we want?’ followed by a shouted word reflecting a key demand is often followed by the call ‘When do want it?’ to which the answer from the crowd is usually ‘Now’. The argument for ‘now’ is a natural call in the face of the challenge of climate change. Time really is running out fast if the goal, enunciated in the COP25 (Paris) Treaty, of limiting ‘global warming to well below 2°C, preferably to 1.5°C, compared to pre-industrial levels’ is to be achieved. Are we sufficiently attuned to the emphasis in today’s Gospel, and in other places in the New Testament, which call us to read signs of the times and recognise that the time is now?
  • Many environmental campaigners argue that politicians are too busy protecting their national and political interests and that much of the COP26 process is, in Greta Thunberg’s words, a mere ‘greenwash festival‘ and a ‘celebration of blah blah blah‘. We might also note that religious language, like political language, is sometimes used to avoid issues rather than to confront them.
  • The events last week around Owen Paterson, then MP for North Shropshire, were far from edifying. Was it right for a slim majority in the House of Commons to try to change the rules retrospectively and let him off the hook? Is it important that, whatever the rules are, they are clear and the same for everyone (these are key features of the rule of law)? Have those events exposed a degree of corruption in British politics?
  • For many people a service today will be focussed on remembrance, especially for those who gave their lives in the world wars of the 20th century and other conflicts. It is worth remembering that a hope of those who fought World War I was that it was the ‘war to end wars’. With the benefit of hindsight, we know that this hope was not fulfilled, partly because the victors imposed punitive terms on the vanquished which then became a rallying cry which underpinned the rise of Nazism in Germany between the wars. The settlement after World War II was less punitive; the rules-based world order has its roots in that post-war period which saw the creation of the United Nations, of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), of what became the World Trade Organisation, of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank and of European Coal and Steel Community (the forerunner of the European Union). Many in the late 1940s and 1950s described these developments in language akin to the notion of ‘birth pangs’ of a new age. Do these peace projects now need to be refreshed? Is that rules-based order undermined by the many local and regional conflicts? Or by the rise of populism? And, if so, how should people of faith respond?

 

Questions for discussion

  • Are faith leaders right to be responding to COP26 in the ways described above? Why is climate change a legitimate faith issue?
  • Are there things other than climate change which might be significant signs of the times for us in the 21st century?
  • Is the rules-based world order important to each of us? What action might each of us take to further world peace?

Dudley Coates is a local preacher in the Yeovil and Blackmore Vale Methodist Circuit , a former Vice President of the Methodist Conference and was head of environment at the then Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food from 1996 to 2001.

 

Check-in

Connecting faith with everyday, real-life issues for young people

Even though I can’t be there in person, I know that there are people at COP26 who are representing similar views to me and contributing to the urgent conversation on the UK’s part to play in keeping the planet’s rising temperature limited to 1.5°C.

Sadly, there are many people from around the world whose voices aren’t being represented enough at COP26: indigenous people, charities, young people. Some people feel that this is a conference for the white and privileged, and that costly accommodation and travel is stopping it being accessible to everyone.

Thankfully there are some at COP26 who are representing exceptionally important areas such as the Amazon rainforest - a daughter of a tribal Brazilian chief spoke at the conference wearing a bird feather headdress made by her father, to show her readiness for ‘battle’.

Jesus talks in this week’s passage of wars and fighting to come, to not be fooled by the attractions of leaders who make empty promises but to put our trust in God.

This feels difficult to do when it comes to our earth, which God gave us, and which is suffering badly. Surely we should be ready to fight and take control?! Is this really a time to be lazy and wait?

I’m not sure Jesus is saying sit back and not play your role in stopping climate change but rather he is saying that follow him and, in time, God’s plans will be put into action. The tough bit is to follow Jesus – to do what he would do, treating every one and every thing with love and respect.

What do you think Jesus would make of COP26 if he was there? What would he say or do?!

Liz Richardson is a theatre maker and actor based in the Peak District where she also works with young people in her parish community. Liz writes and performs her theatre work around the UK with creative teams (www.lrproductions.co.uk).

 

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