RCL
Proper 18B
2
August 2015
Saint
Faith’s Anglican Church
Vancouver
BC
Resetting
the Clock
Click here to listen to the Sermon as preached at the 10.00 Eucharist on the 2nd of August.
Click here to listen to the Sermon as preached at the 10.00 Eucharist on the 2nd of August.
For
as long as I can remember, I have enjoyed science fiction. I know that it is not everyone’s cup of tea,
but I am intrigued by the imaginative ways that authors attempt to construct
the future and how technology is a two-edged sword. I admit that my first mobile telephones were
Motorola flip-phones because they resembled the communicators used in the Star
Trek television series and films!
One
of the recurrent themes in science fiction is time travel. In the popular BBC science fiction series Dr.
Who, the lead character is a ‘Time Lord’ who navigates forwards and backwards
through the centuries and the millennia with the same ease as a power boat on a
river. Several episodes in the various Star
Trek series involve going back in time in order to save the present.
When
these writers explore the mystery of time, they often put before their
characters the classic dilemma: If you
change an event in the past, do you change the future? The classic idea is that if you or I were to
travel back into the past and changed an event that shaped our future, we would
cease to exist in that moment. In other
words, what we do matters, not only in the present but also as part of shaping
the future of all humanity.
Believe
it or not, but today’s conclusion to the tragedy of David, Bathsheba and Uriah
is an exploration of time and the role that human beings play in the creation
of the future. David has united the
northern and the southern tribes into a unified nation. He has healed some of the wounds caused by
the failure of Saul’s kingship. He has
established a new religious and civil centre in Jerusalem. Then comes a fateful day when he sees
Bathsheba bathing on her roof and he makes a choice with fearful consequences.
David
chooses to yield to greed and lust. He
is powerful and he uses his power to take Bathsheba and, when she becomes
pregnant, he arranged Uriah’s death with the complicity of his general. In so many ways David, the beloved of God,
the favoured son, the friend of Jonathan, falls mightily into sin. And his choice has consequences for the
future.
What
Nathan says to David is this: ‘There was
a particular future for you and for the people of Israel had you remained
faithful and obeyed God’s laws. But you
did not obey. Your child with Bathsheba
will die. Your sons will rise up in
revolt against you. Your kingdom shall
be shattered. This was not God’s plan
for you, but it is the future that you have just created. God has forgiven you, but this future will
come to pass.’
Sometimes
people think that forgiveness means forgetting the past and pretending it never
happened. This is a false and inadequate
understanding of forgiveness. Sin has
consequences. It alters the future that
might have been had one not sinned.
Forgiveness, the process of reconciliation, means being willing to work
towards a different future. It is a
process that is tinged with regret and sometimes with a longing for what might
have been. Those who have been wronged
must be willing to be reconciled. Those
who have wronged others must be willing to acknowledge their fault and pledge
change.
Reconciliation
takes place in many dimensions of our lives.
We are all familiar with our church’s commitment to reconciliation with
First Nations. It began with Archbishop
Peers’ public apology and continues to this day. We have established new jurisdictions where aboriginal
bishops are leading First Nations into new expressions of Anglican life. In the north we are committed to supporting
First Nations in their efforts to participate as full partners in the
development of their lands.
But
we need to remember that the future we are presently working towards is not the
future that might have been. Had the
first European settlers and their descendants treated their aboriginal
neighbours with respect and defended their rights as much as we defended our
privileges, what would Canada be today?
In
our lives we know friends and family members who hold onto the wrongs that have
been done or who refuse to acknowledge the wrong that they have done. They cannot see how the future has been
changed by their actions. They are now
swept by the currents of time that contribute to alienation and further hurt
rather than take oars into their hands and navigate the currents towards safer
waters.
When
Nathan confronted David with his sin, David had the grace and the courage to
acknowledge his guilt and repent. His
repentance was a step towards forgiveness, but it did not erase the
consequences his sin had unleashed. But
it did mean that there was the possibility of a different future, one in which
God still was at work in David’s life and among the people of Israel.
What
you and I do today affects the future.
Our efforts to be faithful to our baptismal covenant can contribute to
shaping a future in which every person, whether Christian or not, can grow into
the full maturity of Christ. Just like
the time travellers of science fiction, we can influence the currents of time
so that justice, dignity and peace become the qualities of the future of our
neighbourhoods, our country and, we hope, our world. We can reset the clock of history so that it
measures the journey to the future as intended by the Holy One rather than
distorted by human sin.
We
do not need a star ship like the Enterprise or a blue call box like Dr Who’s to
go to this ‘unexplored country’ of the future.
All we need is our faith in God’s love for us, our willingness when we
fall into sin to repent and return to the Lord and our commitment to choose
wisely by keeping the kingdom’s goals before us. But the adventure is before us.
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