RCL Advent 1B
30 November 2014
Saint Faith’s Anglican Church
Vancouver BC
Focus
texts: Isaiah 64.1-9 and Mark 13.24-37
In
1859 Charles Dickens published one of his most well-known novels, A Tale of Two
Cities, which describes, among other things, the oppression of French peasants
by the aristocracy before the French Revolution and the exodus of French
aristocrats into Britain during the Revolution itself when the same peasants
avenged themselves. The novel begins
with words that many people may have memorized at some point during their
education.
It was the best of times, it
was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of
foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it
was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of
hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing
before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the
other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some
of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for
evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
I remember the novel primarily for its
tale of conversion. The less than
admirable Sydney Carton, an English barrister, becomes a heroic figure. At the end of the novel he takes the place of
a young man who is to be executed by the guillotine and dies in his place.
Conversion
is a word that we frequently use to describe the movement from being a sinner
to being a righteous person. It’s the
word that comes to mind when we sing ‘Amazing Grace’ with its famous phrase,
‘Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.’ There is another way of looking at this word
that I think is helpful as we enter into a new liturgical year, but let me set
the stage.
Twenty-six
hundred years ago the Babylonians conquered the kingdom of Judah and
transported most of the leadership back to Babylon to live in exile. A remnant remained in the two former kingdoms
of Israel and Judah, but they tended to be peasants working the land overseen
by appointed Babylonian officials and a few collaborators. During the seventy years of the Exile, the
Judeans in Babylon longed to return but dared not hope. To the east of Babylon a new power was rising
in that geographic area we now call Iran:
the Persians. The Persians moved
west, defeated the Babylonians and established a new empire.
One
of the first acts of the new emperor was to permit the Judeans to return to the
ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah.
They were permitted to rebuild the city of Jerusalem and to enjoy a
degree of autonomy. The portion of
Isaiah we heard this morning was written during this time of rebuilding and
renewal. The visible ruins of their previous
kingdom were still visible and many Judeans despaired as they remembered the
Jerusalem of old. But others, led by
Ezra and Nehemiah, threw themselves into the task, believing that God had given
Judah a second chance. What others saw
only as ruins, Ezra, Nehemiah and their colleagues saw as an opportunity to renew
the people of Israel and to return to the covenant God made with their
ancestors.
Jump
forward some five hundred years. The
ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah had been absorbed as provinces in the
Roman empire. Religious unrest was
fuelling fires of violence in what was now called ‘Palestine’ as well as in the
city of Rome itself. In Rome riots
between the followers of the way of Moses and the followers of the way of Jesus
had led Claudius to ban both groups from the city. His successor, Nero, would blame a disastrous
fire on the followers of Jesus and begin a violent suppression.
In
Palestine Judean nationalists were beginning a campaign of guerilla warfare
against the Roman forces. Soon this
campaign would ignite an actual rebellion that would end with the destruction
of the city of Jerusalem and the Temple.
Roman troops created ‘no go’ areas throughout the province and
restricted religious groups primarily to the north and to the east. It was a time filled with uncertainty.
Among
the followers of Jesus there were stories circulating about his last week in
Jerusalem as well as his acts of healing, his parables and his controversies
with the religious authorities. An unknown
follower, living in Syria, whom we now call Mark, assembled these stories into
a document we know as ‘the Gospel according to Mark’. Many scholars believe that this document was
written sometime between 64 and 72 ce,
some thirty-five to forty years after the events of that last week in
Jerusalem.
His
readers were frightened. They had heard
the stories of Nero’s persecution of the Christian community in Rome. They had experienced the hostility of their
neighbours, many of whom were followers of the way of Moses, some were even
family. These early sisters and brothers
of ours were looking for the return of Jesus and the coming of God’s kingdom in
their lifetimes, but all they saw was oppression, violence and
destruction. To them the author of the
Gospel wrote, using images drawn from the popular imagination and encouraging
them to ‘keep awake’ even though the coming of the kingdom seems so far off. ‘Look at the current situation differently,’
he says, ‘and you will find reasons to carry on with the ministry God has given
you.’
Conversion,
you see, is ‘seeing with new eyes’. It
means looking at the ruins of Jerusalem through the eyes of Ezra and
Nehemiah. It means looking at the unrest
in the Roman Empire through the eyes of Mark.
It means looking at the tensions and challenges of our own times through
the eyes of prophets such as the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu and Jean Vanier.
Whether
this is the best of time or the worst of times is a question that will be
answered by our descendants. Whether we are
being wise or foolish is a question that our great-grandchildren will debate. Whether our times are times of darkness or
light, filled with hope or burdened with despair, our task, even in these ‘last
days’, is clear: we continue to witness
to the kingdom of God, present in our midst, present throughout the whole
world.
That
kingdom is present when those who have much freely give to those who have
little. That kingdom is present when
those who have been hurt or abused forgive those who hurt and abused them. That kingdom is present when the followers of
the way of Jesus dare to proclaim the good news even when the world around us
seems filled only with the voices of hate and destruction.
As
our preparation for the celebration of the birth of Christ draws near, let us
also ‘see the world with new eyes’. Let
us share with our neighbours and our families the good news that there is another
vision for humanity, a vision of compassion and love rather than of greed and
self-interest. This vision still has
power to transform the heart --- if one keeps awake and watches carefully. Amen.
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