Easter 4                                                                                                             25 April 2010

Acts 9. 36-43

Luke 17. 20-37

I have a friend who grew up in a Brethren church. There was great focus on the end times in this church; that ancient expectation that there would be a day when God intervened in history with a great apocalypse – sorting the sheep from the goats; the saved from the damned; friend from friend, parents from their children. As a small child my friend lived in mortal fear of being one of those left behind –a theology used, as it so often is, as stick to force people to conform; toe the party line; compelling them to be both alert and alarmed. I think it’s called spiritual abuse.

This stuff is alive and well. A contemporary series of books known as the Left Behind Series, which is about those poor things who have been left behind at the rapture, have sold 65 million copies in the US in recent years with some being been made into films. They explore what is technically known as: dispensationalist End Times in a pretribulation, premillennial, Christian eschatological viewpoint of the end of the world. Scary stuff aimed at young minds!

These apocalyptic passages in scripture are hard to pick your way through especially when they begin with words as encompassing and affirming as: the kingdom of God is among you, and yet at the same time seem to warn of impending judgment and destruction. How to read them without getting tangled up in dispensationalist eschatology?

I suppose the first thing it’s helpful to be aware of in this passage from Luke is that it is the Pharisees who ask the question: when? When is so often the lurking question of those who are fearful but who have convinced themselves that their way is the best way; the way favoured by God. Just about every church and many religions at some time have their own quality control system about getting into that ultimate place of divine favour known as heaven. It’s what someone at the Parliament of the World’s Religions referred to as the elect fantasy.  

It seems to be part of the human predicament to want to feel that we’re somehow special in the divine scheme of things but when it becomes institutionalised, systematised, we end up playing the same sort of game that was played by the religious leaders in Jesus’ time. When will God sort the sheep from the goats? When will God definitively sort out who is in and who is out? When will we know that we are the righteous ones; the saved ones. Well, says Jesus, the kingdom is actually here already – amongst you; It doesn’t consist of things which can be observed; it’s here already so don’t anticipate some kingdom to come in the future but rather live it now, experience it, bring it into being by being totally present to it in your midst.

I spent a night and two days the week before last at the second Common Dreams conference; held in the St Kilda Town hall. Common Dreams is an Australian progressive religion conference and much of the emphasis for this second one was about what it means to live personal and communal lives which embrace the theological and philosophical understandings which have emerged in the past two centuries. One speaker highlighted that while most of us accept contemporary scholarship and scientific breakthroughs in education and technology and medicine – we would be considered to be quite mad or irresponsible if we didn’t - many in the church still insist on inhabiting the ancient philosophical and theological world of scripture; refusing to read it in a way which takes into account recent biblical scholarship and our contemporary world view and scientific and cultural developments. Maybe the prime example of this would be the obsession of many with the second coming and a judgment to follow.

Our own traditions have not been without this preoccupation:

Thy kingdom come, O God!

Thy rule, O Christ begin!

Break with thine iron rod

the tyrannies of sin!

It’s hard to shake these things off.

What an understanding of an intervening God does is set up an expectation that there must be a right way in God’s mind and therefore some must be on the right side. It’s part of the human predicament that we set ourselves up so that we are somehow in the right; we are the ones with the right quality control. It causes churches to pull up the drawbridge, circle the wagons, have rigorous tests for the right to be included. Is this not what so much evangelism has been predicated on – so often about judgment rather than grace? And so we become concerned about people joining us. Why won’t they join us? Why did they leave? Why can’t they see things our way?

Jesus, whose concern was always the presence of God in our human reality, says the kingdom is already here; present amongst us. It cannot be observed. As one translation says;  the kingdom cannot be detected by careful scrutiny. Is this not what so much doctrine is about;  careful scrutiny; right thoughts, right belief. God will be pleased with us when we believe the right way. No, says Jesus, God is already here, present between us.

At the conference we heard stories of two particular churches which are undergoing very exciting renewal and growth. In both cases the boundaries in these churches are boundaries which are very loose; membership is not about right belief; even about right behaviour; or ticking the right box – whatever that might be. But the vitality seemed to be about acknowledging that God is already present; the spirit is active, blowing where it will. And the gift of the life of God, present and real, is celebrated.

One of the things that both these churches are doing is great social justice work in partnership with other organizations and individuals which are not part of the church. Both these churches are engaged in mission which is about developing communities in which people’s lives are rebuilt rather than about distributing charity. You see charity is about handing something out; often from a position of strength or superiority. It is the nature of much of the work the church does; paying someone else to do it at arms length. But a community model is where partnerships are built and maintained; trust is developed, differences are surmounted. It’s where both receiver and giver are changed by the experience. And it seemed from the stories which were told that the kingdom of God is present in their situations – in those same ways that the kingdom seems to be present in Luke’s gospel , especially, when hospitality is shared.

One of the temptations for us in thinking about the future is that we can be tempted to simply window-dress for the future the same things which were done by the church in the past. If we still maintain a stance that we have the good oil, if we act from a position of strength or superiority, rather than in mutuality and respect, then nothing much will have changed.

The emphasis of what Jesus has to say amongst all this apocalyptic imagery is that the kingdom can be present amongst us if we are ready to receive it; if we are held back or tied down to various concerns then it will pass us by. For Noah’s generation it was a question of readiness – it seems a catastrophe was looming as the rain fell for forty days and nights; but people continued to go on as though nothing would change. Lot’s wife perished because she hankered after those things which her life was based on and which the fire had forced her to flee from. She looked back for them and perished. In the image of Lot’s wife I hear echoes of those tragic stories of Black Saturday where people wouldn’t leave their house – or went back for a treasured possession; only to perish in the inferno. Those who try to make their life secure will lose it, but those who lose their life will keep it. In the same way if we look back to the way things were we will perish – not in a conflagration but simply that the opportunity of responding to the spirit, and finding God in our midst will pass us by.

Kairos

The challenge of living in a way whereby the kingdom can be found in our midst is the challenge to be fully alive. Alive to the extent that we are present to ourselves and present to the other that we find ourselves with. In this being together there needs to be mutuality in which each is respected and honoured as child of God.

Andrew Boyle