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Thought for the
Week Sunday
18 November 2007 – Second Sunday before Advent Psalm 98 (2 Thessalonians 3, 6 – 13: omit if only two
readings are used) Luke 21, 5 – 19 Andrew,
the Vicar’s son, was generally a good and well-behaved little boy, but he
didn’t like prunes. When he came down
for breakfast one morning, there was a bowl of prunes. “Andrew darling, you’ve got to have
some prunes to keep you regular.” “No, thank you, mummy, I don’t like
prunes.” “Don’t be silly, darling, they’re
good for you. Now just eat your
prunes.” “No, thank you, “ said Andrew, “you know I hate prunes,
and I am not going to eat them.” “Now come along, Andrew, do as you’re told.” “Shan’t!” “Now, Andrew, that’s very naughty. God tells us that we must honour our mother
and father, and that means you have to eat your prunes.” Well,
the upshot was that Andrew went off to school having had no prunes, nor anything
else for breakfast. When he came home
from school, he still refused to eat the prunes, so he was sent to bed early
with no supper. No sooner had he gone
to bed, than the most almighty thunderstorm began. There was torrential rain, and loud claps
of thunder, and then a bolt of lightning, which seemed to be right on top of
the Vicarage. His parents heard the
door of Andrew’s bedroom open, and as he headed for the kitchen, they heard
him say, “All right, all right, I’ll eat them, but really, God,
that’s an awful lot of fuss about a measly plate of prunes!” In the
ancient world, what we think of as natural phenomena, like thunderstorms,
were generally understood to be supernatural.
A lightning strike was God’s wrath.
A roll of thunder was God’s voice, or possibly an angel’s voice. An earthquake and a volcanic eruption were
God’s ways of destroying the sinful.
God’s will could even be understood by studying the patterns of the
clouds, or the entrails of a slaughtered chicken. Most religions have thought like this. The Hindu Gods wield thunderbolts. Baal, who gets a very bad press in the Old
Testament, was the Canaanite storm God, and much of the language and imagery that
the Children of Israel used about their own God, Jahweh, was lifted directly
from their neighbours, and distant cousins, the Canaanites. In particular, some of the Psalms may well
have had a previous life in Baal-worship. With
modern understanding of electricity and plate tectonics, we see these things
as an integral part of God’s wonderful and beautiful creation. However, the risk of divine thunderbolts is
still just about alive enough in the common perception of things to ensure
that God’s priests are generally treated with more respect than we probably
deserve … Nevertheless,
even today, with modern scientific understanding, we Christians do well, when
confronted with the uncontrollable power of nature in a thunderstorm, or an
earthquake to remember Who is the Lord of Creation, and whose children,
within that creation, we are. Saint
Luke sets the Last Supper firmly in the context of the definitive battle
between God and Satan. For Luke, this
passage threatening wars and rumours of wars, which we call the Lucan
Apocalypse is the background against which the Last Supper takes place. According
to John, Jesus dies on the cross at the same time as the lambs are being
slaughtered for the Passover meal.
John records that the Jews ask the Romans to finish off the crucified,
Jesus and the two thieves, so that they will not be still on their crosses as
the Passover begins at sunset. But for
Luke, the Last Supper is the Passover meal.
At the first Passover, Jahweh called and formed his chosen people, the
Children of Israel, when He freed them from slavery in Of
course, Luke was writing as a member of the Church. He had probably been a member of the early
Church for some thirty years when he wrote his Gospel. For him the heart of the life of the Church
was the Eucharist. Sunday-by-Sunday,
Christians would gather to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. They would make the memorial of his passion
and death with the bread and wine of the Last Supper, and in wonder, and
gratitude, they would receive the body and blood of Jesus. Here they would find strength for another
week to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, to preach and live out his Gospel
and to avoid sin. Many of them lived
through the persecutions. The first persecutions of Christians were begun
under the Roman Emperor Nero, a little before the time Luke was writing, but
then persecution continued off and on for the next two and a half
centuries. Every week could be their
last, and they knew that the knock on the door could come at any time. Our
first reading today is the Prophet Malachi.
We know that Malachi was writing at the time of the second
These
issues were just as live at the time of Jesus, and indeed, they are just as
live now. If you think the clergy
today don’t sacrifice unworthy animals, just look, for example, at some of the
excesses of the American tele-evangelists, or the goings on at some Christian
Shrines even in As for
the rich exploiting the poor, wee pray often enough for the poor, but what do
we do for the rich to challenge them and support them in using their
resources rightly? And, compared to
the poor of the third world, are not we the rich today? Malachi
means “Messenger of Jahweh”. Perhaps
this was actually his name, or perhaps they named the Book after the first
verse of Chapter Three. In any case,
the whole book is about communication with God. Malachi voices the complaints and fears of
the people against God. God responds,
telling them off, answering their complaints, and stressing his absolute and
unchanging trustworthiness. Our
reading today is part of God’s answer to the accusation that He doesn’t take
justice seriously enough. Malachi
argues very forcibly that God is indeed an ethical God, for Whom justice is
second only to compassion. The day of
the Lord will come, and God’s justice will prevail. The evildoer will come to a sticky end, and
the virtuous and faithful will be rewarded.
God’s agent will be the “sun of righteousness”, who will rise with
healing in his wings. What a lovely
phrase is “risen with healing in his wings”, which may stick in your mind
from the hymn. Incidentally,
no matter how much work June and Father Charles put into this preaching
ministry, it is the memorable phrases like that from the hymns that you
remember, fixed in your mind by the music.
Just as the times leader writer is wrapping the fish by eleven
o’clock, so the sermon is generally forgotten by the cup of tea after
church. Another good reason for not
holding the clergy in too much respect … Malachi
probably helped to found and establish the Fr. Charles Howard: Anglican Chaplaincy
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