25^th November 2009

FUTURE HOPE, PRESENT RESPONSIBILITY (Sunday 15 November 2009)

Lessons -- Daniel 7:9-14; 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11; Mark 13:1-10

And when you hear of wars and rumours of wars, don't be alarmed; this
must take place, but the end is not yet. (Mark 13:7 NRSV)

Today's good news doesn't sound like good news. It isn't very cheerful!
As Jesus sets his face towards Jerusalem and the cross he warns his disciples against both pessimism and naive optimism. We live in a harsh world. Political upheavals, natural calamities and persecution will continue to afflict the human family. Hope in God's future must be lived in the midst of suffering, conflict and death.

'Be not afraid!' is a timely word to Christians under pressure and desperate for a better future. The 'end' is unpredictable. It is dangerous to look for evidence of the glorious fulfilment of history in tragic situations. Even in AD70 the destruction of the temple (v1-4) -- so central to Jewish faith in God -- isn't a sign of the end. Cataclysmic events or promises of happiness mustn't distract the Church from being a community of hope. 'Take heed,' says Jesus, 'that fear of evil or a desire to escape misery on earth doesn't leave you open to exploitation by religious or secular fanatics or take your mind off present responsibilities.'

Until recently when we have become alarmed about terrorism and climate change, it has been easy to ridicule 'apocalyptic fanaticism'. Prophets of 'the end' have had to eat their words, their followers disillusioned.
Sensible people like us, who are rational, humane and practical, have more than enough to do coping with daily life! We think that pre-occupation with the future is unhealthy.

We have the opposite problem. We don't know what to make of talk about 'the end'. The 'Little Apocalypse' in Mark 13 is an embarrassment. We are uneasy about traditional Christian teaching of the 'Last Things' which affirms confidence in God's final judgment, the reality of heaven and hell and hope for individuals, communities and the world. We think that such beliefs lead to de-valuing or ignoring our present secular tasks. We've lost the conviction of an earlier age that history is moving towards a glorious consummation according to the gracious judgment of God.

Such a lively and profound hope has been all but lost in our culture -- no more so than in the Church. Hardly surprising! Christianity has been reduced to a vague belief in God and a general concern for others. Jesus is understood as a moral example to follow now -- not the embodiment and pledge of God's purpose for the future of humanity. We think that focusing on the future is irrelevant and dangerous. Because we can't know such a 'religious future', we mustn't neglect the 'secular present'!

It's not that interest in the future is completely ignored. We believe in progress, not only in science but also, astonishingly, in human behaviour.
We naively believe that reasonableness, good will and education will create better people, improve society and overcome evil in the world.
Short-term goal setting is popular, as is planning based on imagining a variety of possible futures. Concern for the long-term viability of Earth is evident among environmentalists. Horoscopes, now featured in daily papers, are consulted by a depressingly large number of people.

Even when the future is not neglected, however, there is virtually no interest in whether there is an over-arching purpose for humanity and the creation. We are content to create a sense of meaning for ourselves and let others do likewise in their diverse ways, without considering the ultimate purpose of history and human existence. This crucial question is simply put to one side, by Christians and others alike. We are too preoccupied with our own little worlds to bother with this big question.

Therefore, while we have become more afraid of the future recently and while there are still a few who think the 'end' will come soon, our age is largely sceptical about the prospect of a glorious 'end'. The future is very dark, especially when we suffer because of tragedy, evil, sin, death and disappointment. Optimism that we can create a truly human future and eliminate evil may be comforting, but it is naive and arrogant and eventually leads to cynicism, despair and resignation. It can't sustain us in the midst of suffering and persecution because it is not confidently grounded in God's future, a future already pledged in the resurrection of the crucified Jesus.

What precisely is this future end or goal of which the Creeds and the Te Deum say that 'Jesus Christ will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead'?

This doesn't seem very promising! The language is difficult, obscure, jarring. Judgment seems out-of-place in a 'non-judgmental' society. And talk of Jesus 'coming again' from God makes no sense to us because we think of him being dead and buried and therefore belonging entirely to the past.

* Unfortunately our idea of judgment is often drawn from images in pagan religions and wrongly applied to Jesus in whom God's judgment and grace ultimately cannot be separated. As Bruce Barber puts it, 'He who is to be our judge is already shown to be our advocate.' (The Apostles' Creed p38.) He who is for us in Christ shall come to judge us.

* Unfortunately too our ideas of 'sitting at the right hand' and 'coming again' are often understood in a crudely literal way: more as space travel than as metaphors to signify a glorious future reality that can't be adequately understood in simple thoughts and words. It is only because in Christ God has triumphed over evil that we can affirm our hope that his return will bring an end to evil for all time.

When the Church affirms her hope in the glorious end towards which history is moving according to God's will, she is sketching the future implications of what has taken place already in Christ's incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection! We express confidence in this 'end' of God when our humanity shall be judged and restored in line with the grace of God already revealed in the humanity of Jesus.

Thus believing in 'Christ's second coming to judgment' is an act of hope for 'a future which crosses the frontiers of our present life (in which) the course of this world is marked by the (success) of the godless, by ...
(forms) of behaviour which are a mockery of (our) humanity, and by the suffering of the innocent' (W Pannenberg, The Apostles' Creed in the light of Today's Questions p121).

Without a future judgment already embodied in history there would be no final answer to the problem of evil, no escape from fate, no reckoning of arrogance and despair, no possibility of patience in affliction and no courage to name or to withstand idolatry and inhumanity in the present.

Hope in God's future encourages us to serve God in our own day. It enables us to 'know that God's judgment in Jesus Christ is the freedom to stand for the truth in a hopeless situation now; it is the freedom to serve my fellow man without profit now; it is the freedom from the illusion of hiding the truth about myself from myself and others now; it is the freedom to meet death now in the knowledge not so much of what awaits us, as much as the knowledge of who awaits us' (Barber p40).

Hope in this future 'Kingdom which has no end' (as the Nicene Creed says) thus commits the Christian community to unmask current beliefs in our society and Church which mock God and trample on human dignity at the same time as she continues to 'preach the Gospel to all nations' (Mark 13:10) and to 'encourage one another and build one another up' (1Thessalonians 5:11).

We do not know when the 'glorious end' will be. But we do know that already it has appeared in the resurrection of the crucified Jesus as a sign and pledge of God's gracious judgment on humanity. We are easily afraid in a world where so much terrible suffering, conflict, tragedy and persecution occur. We are prone to resignation or despair. We may doubt that things will change. But that is precisely why we need to have our sights lifted beyond the present and our own small worlds, to see in the distance the 'glorious end' which God already has displayed so magnificently in Christ.

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Rev Dr Max Champion is minister in the St John's Uniting Church, Mt Waverley, Victoria, Australia. Dr Champion is Chair of the Assembly of Confessing Congregations within the UCA.

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