(By Jody)
Matthew 24:36-44
Mosque shootings
Climate crisis
Israel Folau
Ōwairaka planting
Measles epidemic
Just a few issues from our wedge of the world, which might suggest, apocalypse indeed.
Apocalypse is a word that, for most of us I guess, carries dire overtones.
The End; and not with a whimper but a bang.
Pop culture connections include but are by no means limited to:
Nuclear fallout, asteroid crash, social disorder, AI takeover, climate collapse, Jesus returning.
And why on earth would anyone think this a good subject to raise in the approach to Christmas? When we seek assurance of joy, hope, peace and love, angels, shepherds, mother and baby??
The reading is exactly the kind of bible reading I’d avoid anytime of the year, because it’s weird and disturbing, and particularly during Advent, when it plonks itself uncomfortably into our happy slide to Christmas.
But each year I understand a little more about the purpose and possibilities of Advent:
That it is not only the anticipation of Christ coming to us in our Christmas story, though there is always that precious truth,
that it is a troubled and troubling time – of uncertainty, unease, unknowing – of deep and demanding waiting.
Which is why Matthew’s images of the end are offered in the lectionary cycle. Because it centres the unknown in this season of waiting, and insists that while we don’t presume to know all the details of how God shows up in our lives and world, we do trust that God shows up.
If you have been exposed to rapture theology, it’s probably the version expressed in the “Left Behind” books or this 1974 postcard, in which God’s people are whisked away to be with God, and everyone else is left behind in a steaming heap of failed infrastructure. The bible does indeed have these removal passages (in 1 Thessalonians and Revelation), but you might have already noticed Matthew’s vision is the opposite. The faithful remain right where they are; it’s the unfaithful who are swept away.
Matthew’s passage does include some grim dystopian preamble to the main point of being ready to remain, but his intention is clearly to shape lives in the now with his startling vision of the end, not to throw everyone into panic or despair.
It does not seem very motivating, on the surface, the suggestion that if you’re awake, and ready, and don’t get swept away, you can stay where you are... but with a double work-load.
Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left.
What could it mean to be shaped by this?
Christ comes, a baby to the world, and in this, God assures us that the creation and the divine are bound up with each other.
God has tangled with us irrevocably through the incarnation – God is part of this.
And while Matthew’s vision of the end has the unnerving reminder of the flood and the sweeping away, it seems to function as a dramatic declaration that anyone or anything that cannot bear to coexist with God will have to go – because God will not, cannot, abandon this place God fiercely loves and believes in.
This is what we stay awake to.
Our readiness and alertness are not out of desperation to leave, but willingness to remain; to be in the world and all the complexity that God chose to be in too.
The lives we live, the relationships we nurture, the values we invest in, the courage we seed, the earth we stand on, the air we breathe, they all matter in the biggest scheme we can imagine.
Which takes me back to
Mosque shootings
Climate crisis
Israel Folau
Ōwairaka planting
Measles epidemic
We could easily put these into the too hard and too ugly and too painful basket, wish it all swept away.
But that is not what Jesus offers, or asks us to wait for.
The call of Advent Apocalypse is to be motivated now by what matters in end, which is the creation and creatures that God so loves.
Our annual fresh start, heralded in with expectations of the very end, challenges us to tangle with the complexities of involvement and attachment.
Jennifer Bailey, named one of 15 Faith Leaders to Watch by the Center for American Progress, ordained minister, public theologian, and itinerant elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, motivated me to finally front up to the alarming theme of apocalypse in Advent. (In an On Being interview – of course.)
Along with Lennon Flowers, she co-founded “The People’s Supper” after Donald Trump was elected as their President in 2016. In a time of pain and fear, they wanted to create opportunities for unlikely co-dinner-guests to go beneath the surface, and connect meaningfully with one another, across all manner of divides. They are quick to acknowledge not everyone can, or should be required to, bridge in this way. But many, with the right environment and encouragement, can. And it could change the world.
Their organisation has continued, and they continue to ask themselves: “How do we create space for real relationship-building and a chance to hear the stories we don’t otherwise get to hear, in a way that feels authentic and meaningful and produces deeper empathy and understanding, rather than mere signaling?”
Jennifer Bailey insists: “The community I long for will not be found in shallow platitudes promoting reconciliation. It will require the courage of everyday heroes to dig deep and find within themselves the wherewithal to lean into one another...
None of us can do it all, which is why we need each other. Let us call one another into a space of moral courage and hold each other well.”
When I think of the prejudice and racism exposed by the Mosque shootings in March, when I think the lack of drastic action despite the steady rise in horror at climate collapse, when I think of the theology that has shaped Israel Folau and the drama that eggs him on, when I think of the pain and misunderstanding embedded into our land and condensed in the Ōwairaka replanting situation, when I think of the measles epidemic in Samoa and the ethics of freedom and the greater good...
I think, yeah, Advent 2019 is the perfect time to call one another into courage for the sake of the world God so loves, and hold one another well through the inevitable turmoil. Because it’s exactly here we are invited to remain.
Matthew 24:36-44
Mosque shootings
Climate crisis
Israel Folau
Ōwairaka planting
Measles epidemic
Just a few issues from our wedge of the world, which might suggest, apocalypse indeed.
Apocalypse is a word that, for most of us I guess, carries dire overtones.
The End; and not with a whimper but a bang.
Pop culture connections include but are by no means limited to:
Nuclear fallout, asteroid crash, social disorder, AI takeover, climate collapse, Jesus returning.
And why on earth would anyone think this a good subject to raise in the approach to Christmas? When we seek assurance of joy, hope, peace and love, angels, shepherds, mother and baby??
The reading is exactly the kind of bible reading I’d avoid anytime of the year, because it’s weird and disturbing, and particularly during Advent, when it plonks itself uncomfortably into our happy slide to Christmas.
But each year I understand a little more about the purpose and possibilities of Advent:
That it is not only the anticipation of Christ coming to us in our Christmas story, though there is always that precious truth,
that it is a troubled and troubling time – of uncertainty, unease, unknowing – of deep and demanding waiting.
Which is why Matthew’s images of the end are offered in the lectionary cycle. Because it centres the unknown in this season of waiting, and insists that while we don’t presume to know all the details of how God shows up in our lives and world, we do trust that God shows up.
If you have been exposed to rapture theology, it’s probably the version expressed in the “Left Behind” books or this 1974 postcard, in which God’s people are whisked away to be with God, and everyone else is left behind in a steaming heap of failed infrastructure. The bible does indeed have these removal passages (in 1 Thessalonians and Revelation), but you might have already noticed Matthew’s vision is the opposite. The faithful remain right where they are; it’s the unfaithful who are swept away.
Matthew’s passage does include some grim dystopian preamble to the main point of being ready to remain, but his intention is clearly to shape lives in the now with his startling vision of the end, not to throw everyone into panic or despair.
It does not seem very motivating, on the surface, the suggestion that if you’re awake, and ready, and don’t get swept away, you can stay where you are... but with a double work-load.
Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left.
What could it mean to be shaped by this?
Christ comes, a baby to the world, and in this, God assures us that the creation and the divine are bound up with each other.
God has tangled with us irrevocably through the incarnation – God is part of this.
And while Matthew’s vision of the end has the unnerving reminder of the flood and the sweeping away, it seems to function as a dramatic declaration that anyone or anything that cannot bear to coexist with God will have to go – because God will not, cannot, abandon this place God fiercely loves and believes in.
This is what we stay awake to.
Our readiness and alertness are not out of desperation to leave, but willingness to remain; to be in the world and all the complexity that God chose to be in too.
The lives we live, the relationships we nurture, the values we invest in, the courage we seed, the earth we stand on, the air we breathe, they all matter in the biggest scheme we can imagine.
Which takes me back to
Mosque shootings
Climate crisis
Israel Folau
Ōwairaka planting
Measles epidemic
We could easily put these into the too hard and too ugly and too painful basket, wish it all swept away.
But that is not what Jesus offers, or asks us to wait for.
The call of Advent Apocalypse is to be motivated now by what matters in end, which is the creation and creatures that God so loves.
Our annual fresh start, heralded in with expectations of the very end, challenges us to tangle with the complexities of involvement and attachment.
Jennifer Bailey, named one of 15 Faith Leaders to Watch by the Center for American Progress, ordained minister, public theologian, and itinerant elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, motivated me to finally front up to the alarming theme of apocalypse in Advent. (In an On Being interview – of course.)
Along with Lennon Flowers, she co-founded “The People’s Supper” after Donald Trump was elected as their President in 2016. In a time of pain and fear, they wanted to create opportunities for unlikely co-dinner-guests to go beneath the surface, and connect meaningfully with one another, across all manner of divides. They are quick to acknowledge not everyone can, or should be required to, bridge in this way. But many, with the right environment and encouragement, can. And it could change the world.
Their organisation has continued, and they continue to ask themselves: “How do we create space for real relationship-building and a chance to hear the stories we don’t otherwise get to hear, in a way that feels authentic and meaningful and produces deeper empathy and understanding, rather than mere signaling?”
Jennifer Bailey insists: “The community I long for will not be found in shallow platitudes promoting reconciliation. It will require the courage of everyday heroes to dig deep and find within themselves the wherewithal to lean into one another...
None of us can do it all, which is why we need each other. Let us call one another into a space of moral courage and hold each other well.”
When I think of the prejudice and racism exposed by the Mosque shootings in March, when I think the lack of drastic action despite the steady rise in horror at climate collapse, when I think of the theology that has shaped Israel Folau and the drama that eggs him on, when I think of the pain and misunderstanding embedded into our land and condensed in the Ōwairaka replanting situation, when I think of the measles epidemic in Samoa and the ethics of freedom and the greater good...
I think, yeah, Advent 2019 is the perfect time to call one another into courage for the sake of the world God so loves, and hold one another well through the inevitable turmoil. Because it’s exactly here we are invited to remain.
