Whether a beleaguered community whose disappointed wails Isaiah captures (64.1), or a vulnerable Christian community at risk of being swept away by Rome along with the Jewish Temple around 70CE, or a contemporary Christian living in Britain, there are huge forces claiming to command our imagination, suggesting they have power to name and shame us, to hurt us, to coerce our behaviour; claiming they know which is the biggest threat and they have the solution. A prophet and a Saviour and, for that matter, a good preacher will use just about anything to reveal the truth about those powers and our avoidance of responsibility before them; to reveal a godly perspective on the present and to break the power of those dubious authorities over our imagination.

This week's news

There is tense debate about how much power of surveillance our security forces should be given. Constant allusion to a sinister, ever-present threat of terrorism takes its toll on our confidence.  Meanwhile, Prince Charles strives to keep his private letters out of public view. But who is our ultimate scrutineer? 

A few days after a school boy with a toy gun was shot dead by police, the US Grand Jury made a judgement that a (white) police officer should not be charged for shooting (black) Michael Brown; crowds have then passed judgement on the jury and violence spread in the streets of several cities. The crowd’s indignant violence responding to police violence and, in turn, US gun laws in the background, might warrant careful judgement.

Terrorism is, of course, by definition immeasurable and shifting, which is its real danger, but its faceless amorphous quality allows all sorts of things to be justified with shrill fear: surveillance, drone strikes, summary execution of terrorists, attempted exclusion of Jihadists. Meanwhile there is understandably considerable anxiety in the negotiations about Iranian nuclear capabilities, but remarkably little attention on the false sense of security we derive from our own stockpile of catastrophic weapons.

Who are we to judge?

A red top newspaper recently blared out the headline ‘Murderer is Migrant’ in a deliberate attempt (perhaps not without success) to raise fear and prejudice in order to scapegoat others for our own social and political inadequacies. It may take a firm judge to snap us out of our self-delusion.

In the face of so many powers clamouring for our attention, so many things to fear, we wish someone would sort it all out.  Why did God have to make it all so complicated? We cry out to her, like frustrated teenagers wanting Mum to fix everything, but then the next moment we shout ‘leave me alone! It’s my life!’ over-asserting our independence. 

Reflection

At the beginning of Genesis, we hear an account of creation, then the disruption of humanity’s relationship with God. Then begins a saga of turbulent families slowly shaping a nation who will relate to God by fits and starts like a passionate and clumsy teenager. Although this story is told as a chronological sequence, it does not mean to suggest that the creation happened precisely at such and such a time. The story does not primarily tell us how things used to be. Rather, it is crafted in such a way as to help us understand how things are now. The story of Eden and fall helps us to understand our present human longings. It displays the frustrations of our relationship with God and each other to this day. This is the enduring poetic power of Genesis. We accept its unembarrassed slow shift from myth into history-telling and we generally don’t have much difficulty in letting it do its poetic work on our hearts and in our preaching, without getting hung up on ‘when’ and ‘how’ questions. Just so, the poetic power of stories about the other end of time, the wrapping up of history, the rolling up of the very skies like a scroll (Isaiah 34.4) and the final judgement of creation, is not about clever prediction and precise futurology. Rather, the chronological story sequence has power to shape our imagination and so radically change our perception now, about the present, about the truth under our noses.

This is not to say God won’t one day resolve our story into Hers, but Jesus gives so many steers away from guessing ‘when’ and ‘how’ that perhaps we should accept that picturing a final Judgement at the end of time is the most effective poetic way of communicating the ultimate nature of God’s judgement now and always. Jesus’ poetry is the advent of God’s judgement. We are to ‘keep awake,’ not so as to avoid being caught out one day in the future, but so as to live truthfully and daringly now.

Israel, after release from Babylon’s grip, is experiencing disillusionment. Leadership is dysfunctional, internal division is rife, there is dreadful disappointment that a supposed victorious return home has been a damp squib. This makes for mean-spirited ethnic superiority, while civic and religious leaders are lining their own pockets. Into this world, III Isaiah speaks (538-515 BCE). The prophet names their frustration, a wail going up that God should come and fix everything, but then he leads the people into a confession which acknowledges they have not played their part and Israel has rather taken advantage of God’s apparent absence (Isaiah 64.5b). It is a confession that admits we want it both ways. ‘Sort it all out…Leave us alone,’ we say. Finally the prayer gives in to God, the people offering to be pliable as clay in His hands. If we are disillusioned with our political life, perhaps we need to mature beyond a ‘Someone should sort it out’ attitude, and let our hearts become pliable enough for God to show us our part in restoring health to the community.

For Jesus’ followers, Rome seems to be the final arbiter of everything. He has described all too plainly the man-made suffering that is to come (Mark 13.1-22) but now he overwhelms the Roman powers, proclaiming that even the stars will announce something new is about to happen. The believer is now looking up, not bowed nervously before the Emperor. God has their attention. Then Jesus uses the simple rural image of a fig tree to show that discerning the truth is not about cleverness or great theological training which, after all, hasn’t got the religious leaders very far. Anyone can see God’s common sense and share in her vision of the world. Anyone can wake up to life by accepting, perhaps with a shudder, but then with relief, that God is our judge.

What grips our imagination? Are there any preoccupations distorting the perception of the community you serve?

Prayer

Whatever your tradition, it might be a good day to open worship with the apostolic greeting of 1 Corinthians 1.3.

The Isaiah reading could be used as a corporate confession.

Prayers after Mark 13.29,35-6

Lord, you came in the evening, praying anxiously in Gethsemane. 
We pray for all who hope their suffering will pass from them…
Helps us to show them you are near.
At the very gates.

Lord, you came at midnight, interrogated, beaten. 
We pray for all in captivity;
for all distorting faith with power;
for people and nations tempted to bully to hide their own weakness;
for the United States’ heart searching about ethnicity and law;
for our confused political life.
Help us to see you are near.
At the very gates.

Lord, you came at cock crow, betrayed by friends.
We pray for the Church, that we may awake and with humble courage
to speak your truth to power.
Help us to trust you are near.
At the very gates. 

Lord, you came at dawn, risen from the tomb.
We pray for all who prepare for the end of their life,
or who are letting go of someone they love,
wondering what lies beyond,
and how kind is your judgement going to be.
We remember ….(you could include names of those who have died). 
As you welcome them by name, reassure us that you are near.
At the very gates of heaven.