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This Sunday's readings: 1st Sunday of Advent

by
25 November 2010

by Martin Warner

1st Sunday of Advent

Isaiah 2.1-5;
Romans 13.11-end;
Matthew 24.36-44

HERE is an indicator of deprivation which, I suspect, is rarely noted in school inspections. A primary-school teacher asked the ten- and 11-year-olds in her class what they would like to be and do when they grew up. There was silence. They had little or no idea, because the thought that they had any say over their future was alien to them.

The teacher persisted, however. What about if they came top in their class and did really well at school: what would they want then? This produced a bit of response: a place in the Big Brother house; a go on The X Factor; to win the National Lottery.

It is not appropriate for us to criticise these responses. But it is essential that we note how, in a school that has a huge number of statemented children with special needs, and where free school meals are the norm for most, the only vision of the future is one generated by celebrity status.

There is something here that is not real. This is what the future feels like for children from a community where there is no work or prospect of work. They sense that achievement is not for them; it happens on the television, to other people.

These children have an understanding of achievement generated by the media. It typically means having unimaginable amounts of money and living in the glare of the camera. This lacks recognition of the struggle and pain of failure which characterise the determination of most people who achieve these ends. It also lacks any sense of what constitutes human and social well-being.

In a similar way, the notion of cult status attained overnight omits any narrative about the capacity to form relationships, build a home and family life, and value and be valued by friends, neighbours, and colleagues. These are goals that give an outline to some sense of the future in which we have a part to play, enabling us to flourish and contribute to the flourishing of others.

As we begin a new Christian year, the readings for Advent Sunday turn our attention to the often uncomfortable recognition of what the future actually holds for all of us. The discomfort lies in the indissoluble links between this world and the life of the world to come, and the tone is set by Isaiah’s vision of global peace.

In this vision, the habits of war are unlearned, swords are beaten into ploughshares, spears into pruning hooks. But the vision claims our immediate response because its fulfilment begins today: “O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!”(Isaiah 2.1-5). A similar sense of continuity runs through Paul’s comments in his letter to the Christians in Rome: “Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armour of light” (Romans 13.12).

The words Jesus speaks in the Gospel ratchet up the sense of urgency which lies within the bonds linking the present to the future. He calls his disciples to live today in the awareness of divine judgement, “for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming” (Matthew 24.42).

This is the context in which the four last things — death, judgement, heaven, and hell — emerge as elements of the sobering message of Advent. They are not simply statements of doom, as might often appear. Indeed, these last things contain within them a message of hope for those of our children and young people who have no sense of the future as theirs.

This message of hope lies in the Christian conviction that heaven, the environment in which our assertion of human dignity and worth is vindicated, does not exist simply as some remote, theoretical place. Heaven is an account of the future which conditions and transforms what we do today, while hell is a serious proposition about the destruction of the destroyers, the consuming of all evil in the blazing fire of divine love.

Our assertion, therefore, to children and young people is that they certainly do have a future. Above all, that is what the gospel of Jesus Christ tells us about the reality of every human being. Moreover, the claims of this future, which is the Kingdom of God, on our present commit us to ensuring that every young person has a place in our time-limited society. We also assert that we can shape life in this imperfect society which opens up to us the possibility of faith in God.

In 1941, William Temple wrote that “it would strike many people as absurd to say that the cure for unemployment is to be found through worship; but it would be true.” Archbishop Temple was speaking about the part that worship plays in properly forming our vision of temporal society.

Seventy years later, his words still ring true. Worship, the environment in which earth and heaven meet, is also the activity by which we nurture the intention of making “natural communities [into] provinces of the Kingdom of God”.

Welcome to the future, young and old alike.

Isaiah 2.1-5

This is what Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem:
In the last days the mountain of the LORD’S temple will be established
as chief among the mountains;
it will be raised above the hills,
and all nations will stream to it.
Many peoples will come and say,
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,
to the house of the God of Jacob.
He will teach us his ways,
so that we may walk in his paths.”
The law will go out from Zion,
the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
He will judge between the nations
and will settle disputes for many peoples.
They will beat their swords into ploughshares
and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
nor will they train for war any more.
Come, O house of Jacob,
let us walk in the light of the LORD.”

Romans 13.11-14

11Brothers and sisters, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; 12the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armour of light; 13let us live honourably as in the day, not in revelling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarrelling and jealousy. 14Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

Matthew 24.36-44

Jesus said: “No-one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.

“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.”

 

 

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