THE LAST WORD

Sermon delivered on the 21st Sunday after Trinity, the 13th November 2011 (Remembrance Sunday) by Fr Nicholas JG Sykes in the congregation of St. Alban's Church of England, George Town, Cayman Islands.

Scriptures: Zephaniah 1: 7, 12-18     1 Thessalonians 5: 1-11     S. Matthew 25: 14-30

Zephaniah 1:7 “Be silent before the Lord God!”

Most women will I suppose admit that if they ever got into a serious physical fight with a man they would probably lose the battle, other things such as age and condition being equal. Men I think will admit that when they get into a battle of words with a woman, other things being equal, they will probably be the losers. That balance, I suppose comes from the wisdom of the art that created our species. I suppose too that it is correct to imagine some of the verbal battles between our Lord and his opponents that are recorded in the Gospels, as being conducted on His part with a twinkle in the eye.

These are some thoughts, then, on “the Last Word”, because it seems that the Scriptures today point out to us that whatever our judgments may be on things, it is in fact God who has the last word and not we. The “last word” of God, moreover, is depicted not merely as decisive answer but as decisive event: in this “last word” the subtlety of a woman and the force of a man come together. Ultimately, with God we win neither the battle of words nor the battle of force, except of course when God Himself allows it, as when Jacob is said to have fought with God and prevailed, or when the words of faith of the Syro-Phoenician woman and others in the Gospels win the Lord’s heart and attention. Through faith, we too even participate in His ultimate victory. The portion of the Book of Zephaniah that we read from in the first lesson today begins with the words, “Be silent before the Lord God!”, and then in verse 14, “The great day of the Lord is near, near and hastening fast; the sound of the day of the Lord is bitter, the mighty man cries aloud there. A day of wrath is that day, a day of distress and anguish, a day of ruin and devastation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness.” St. Paul too in 1 Thessalonians 5 says "You yourselves know well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night," and the Lord Himself counsels us to be ready, for we know neither the day nor the hour.

We might very well be tempted to brush such considerations away. Ordinarily, it is good to think positively rather than negatively. Disaster management people speak of a recovery operation after the rescue operation has failed. So might it not just be better to leave out themes of wrath and devastation completely? After all, in the same book of Zephaniah in which we are warned of the great day of the Lord, we read in the last chapter (Ch 3 verse 15) “The Lord has taken away the judgments against you, he has cast out your enemies. The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; you shall fear evil no more.” We might ask, What’s the point of having disaster in our consciousness if we are also to be assured against the fear of it?

Part of the answer to this is that the Scriptures and all Christian thought value the truth over the immediately comfortable. The Way of Jesus is the Truth, not the Easy. Indeed by faith in His grace we are assured of His strength to deal with that which is true. That is our very great comfort. But the comfort that is provided by God is not at the expense of truth, even when the truth we have to face is most terribly difficult, as did those who had to face the fact of world war and engage in it, or when we face the reality of death.

Perhaps what the Scriptures are saying to us about the Day of the Lord might be put this way. We should not think that the natural progression of history or the world or the state of things in general is in the direction of a greater order. We should never make the false assumption that the future is naturally going to be more ordered, more structured and therefore more predictable than the past has been. Even today’s science admits that such things as meteors crashing into the earth and disrupting us could happen at any time. A modern paradigm points to our present world order as being born from recent catastrophe. The remarkable thing, when we experience it, is not disorder and chaos, but the order with which we are able to have stable positions and make settled judgments about anything. God alone must impose a non-natural order upon natural chaos, whether upon the world that is external to us, or in the working of our own minds. The Scriptures say that God will not for ever be held to ransom by any part of His own creation, and the Day will come for its transformation.

Even with such a threat-containing prospect naturally speaking, the Gospel gives firm assurance to us. I say firm, not because we can never be affected, but because we have a firm hope upon which we can draw in the time we are tested. Our hope is in the One who even now has granted order to natural chaos. The earth is not at this time “without form and void, [with] darkness upon the face of the deep” as in Genesis 1:2. So in that future Day also, when sudden destruction might be widely evident as predicted by prophets and apostles, because of our abiding hope in the One who grants order, we may all be children of the light, children of the Day. In that Day, we have the sure hope to be part of God’s new Order. As St. Paul says, “For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us that whether we wake or sleep we might live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.”

Being in the way of listening to God’s words we should not fear His “last word”. Did you notice how in the parable of the talents of the Gospel, those who were entrusted with the property and did what was expected had no need to say much when the owner returned, but just to point to the results of their labours. They had listened much, protested little and were faithful. The one who had no results to point to, though, had all sorts of things to say. He had not listened, and had presumed the master’s character to be an image of his own, and then he had reason to fear the master’s last word.

None of us who listen to Him have need to fear God’s last word. Nevertheless Jesus warns that any of us might ultimately have to, if we do not listen to His word now when we have the opportunity to do its bidding.