THE TIME OF CRISIS AND CHALLENGE

 

Sermon delivered on Advent Sunday the 2nd December 2007 by Fr Nicholas JG Sykes in the congregation of St. Alban's Church of England, George Town, Cayman Islands.

Scriptures: Isaiah 2: 1 - 5    Romans 13: 11 - end    S. Matthew 24: 36 - 44

Romans 13: 12f "The night is far gone, the day has drawn near. Let us then cast off the works of darkness and put on the armour of light; let us conduct ourselves fittingly as in the day."

THE APPROACHING DAWN

St. Paul's imagery is of the approach of dawn. One of the things that surprised me when I first came to the tropics is how early most people got up in the morning. Now I usually rise at 5.15 and if the beginning of daylight catches me still in bed I know I am late. The dawn light is something not to be missed, especially in the summer, because there is light but not too much heat. One can take a walk or put out the rubbish if one has forgotten to the evening before without getting too hot and sweaty. In the tropics especially, it is well worth it to be ready for the dawn.

THE APPROACH OF THE "KAIROS"

Part of the teaching of Christian faith is that the final time of crisis and challenge for the earth, the "kairos" in Greek, is on its way and is about to dawn. The fact that this has been taught for the last two thousand years does not negate the truth of it, as in fact for each one of us the length of time before the kairos may be no longer than our time on earth. As I get older I realise that that is not a very long time at all. Whether after our death our conscious spirits pass immediately to that final "kairos" or whether we consciously wait for it is not revealed to us; but the sources of faith demand of us to be ready for it. If dawn is one hour or two hours away, will I be ready for it, whatever the case? Or to change the metaphor, if the removal vehicle is about to come and take the furniture, will we have sorted out the drawers and the cupboards before the van turns up?

THE PLACE OF FEAR

The hour of crisis and challenge, then, is something to be anticipated and looked forward to, as for any great undertaking or adventure. Should there be fear? Yes, there should be, but we should look the fear full in the face and take the appropriate action. If fear induces us to evade the issue that generates it, then we are taking the wrong path. That would be like running away from your house and letting the removal men take away your belongings unsorted and unprepared. We are indeed to fear God, as indeed in the Scripture we are told to "fear" those who exercise authority over us, but taking fright and running away is not a good response to the gift and challenge of fear. Let us be as those who in a crisis say to one another "Take courage", rather than those who silently run away.

THE SCRIPTURAL RESPONSE

In contrast to the Christian groups of today who tend to go overboard in trying to determine from Scripture just when exactly Christ is to return and what world-event must happen in sequence with other world-events before He comes and during the time of His reign on earth, Scripture itself seems to focus much more on the religious and moral obligations that flow from or are enhanced by the teaching of His return to reign and to judge. The Gospel today tells of Jesus warning that the Son of man is coming at an hour we do not expect. For St. Paul in the New Testament lesson the approaching crisis and challenge of Christ's second Coming spurs us on to take the necessary steps to be raised from sleep, to cast off the works of darkness and put on the weapons of light, to walk as children of the day, and to eschew the mindset and the practices of the children of the night. St. Paul's words are both descriptive and allusive, and it seems clear that the moral implications of the Gospel of Christ had not, then as now, been fully accepted by some of the members of the Church. St. Paul points the way to the pastoral backbone for dealing with such situations. It is Christ Himself we are to put on now, the Christ for whom we must hasten to be ready for the day of crisis, challenge and judgment that St. Paul sees as the Day of salvation. The very command "Love your neighbour as yourself" is turned from a general principle into an urgent challenge: for it is far on into the night and the day draws near, and there will be an accounting and a setting right.

THE SIGN OF HARDENED HEARTS

It has been estimated that if mankind as a whole adopted the lifestyles that Christian teaching has always permitted and advocated, and particularly chaste celibacy and faithful monogamy, the advance of AIDS would be dramatically reversed and contained within a few years. Indeed, those programmes which have included such ideas, such as Uganda’s AIDS programme, have proved to be the only ones with any marked success in reducing the incidence of the disease. Biblical warning signs of Advent do not consist necessarily in the spread of diseases such as AIDS, but they do include the hardening of the human heart. The result of this hardening for the spread of the disease is twofold. First, instead of taking heed of the great dangers to which they are exposed, too many people seem to choose to ignore them altogether. Those who are ignoring the dangers are exercising a determination not to refrain from doing what they want to do and in the way they want to do it, which increasingly they have been taught to regard as one of their rights. The truth is that just as it is reported of the men of Noah's day that they were hardened to matters of right and wrong, good and bad in the moral sense, just so is this largely the case in our own day. We are a civilisation in trouble because even our language is routinely atrophied to exclude judgments of right and wrong. Hearts must first be softened by the consciousness of right and wrong before the looming AIDS catastrophe and other related conditions can be quenched. The persistently hardened human heart is itself for us, however, a great premonitory sign of the imminence of the Day of the Lord. In God, right prevails, no matter what it takes. In God's holy will, the doing of right in the spirit of love for Him is the huge consideration. He promises that if we do right, safety becomes a secondary consideration.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

Concern about domestic violence contains similar signs. Human society has hardened its heart to the holy will of God. As with any cure for the AIDS catastrophe, here too the focus ought to be on what is right in God's eyes, not merely on what is acceptable in ours. The forgotten truth is that domestic violence comes with disordered relationships, and these are chiefly the result of not doing or thinking right. In much of the literature whether the partners are actually married or not is of no account. Yet the statistics on domestic violence show that their marriage status is one of the most significant factors in the whole problem. By not caring about right and wrong in the eyes of God, we only undermine our own ability to do real good for the problem. But what are we to do, on the contrary? The answer is clear. We are to "cast off the works of darkness, and put on the armour of light," entering into the new order of existence - behaviourally and spiritually - of the Lord Jesus Christ.

READINESS FOR CRISIS

Jesus in His teaching on His Coming counsels us to be ready for it and recognise early signs of it, but never to be overly concerned with trying to get a handle on the timing of it. The real point is, Are we ready? If we are ready for that, then we will have a basic readiness for the proximate and lesser crises of our lives as well. Indeed it is true to say that the hour of crisis and challenge and judgment that Jesus and the apostles speak of is foreshown to us in these lesser crises of our lives, crises that test our real character and show us and others of what we are truly made. Let us learn from our lesser crises, then, and test ourselves to see if we are really being made ready for the ultimate test that awaits us.