Readings: Isaiah
65:17-25 Luke 21:5-19
We pray; Loving
God, we have listened to your word through scripture, help us now to discern
your word for us in this time and place to your purpose and glory. Amen.
Do not be too prepared in your defence for what is to
come; I will give you the words and the wisdom. So says Jesus
as he warns his followers that they are in for a very hard time ahead. The destruction of the temple, wars and
insurrections, earthquakes, famines, plagues – and persecution and personal betrayal. Not a lot to look forward to, you might say.
As the Hebrew
people of the time, we can imagine that they would have been familiar with the
stories of their ancestors, where they lived through despair, of persecution, and
great trials. The reading from Isaiah today, giving glimpse into the new heaven
and the new earth, offers words of thanksgiving after a particularly testing
time for the people of God – this scripture they would have known well, and maybe
they drew some comfort from it.
But all the same
they were horrified, scared, potentially going into shut down mode at this landslide
of disaster facing them. Especially I imagine when it gets to family betrayal
and death for their faith. And Jesus, seeing
their very natural fearful reaction to his words, told them that this was not
the time to raise the drawbridge and hunker down – in fact just the
opposite.
Instead he tells them
to have not fear, to in fact enter the fray with confidence because it is in this
time of extreme vulnerability that you will have the chance to tell your story –
and it will be such a convincing story that none will withstand it. I will be with you, I will give you the words
of conviction that none can challenge. Do
not be afraid. Do not be panicked by fear into doing the wrong thing.
He had said those
words to them other times they had panicked: remember the time the disciples
were battling the most horrendous sea and Jesus was asleep in the bow, and they
awoke him sure they were going to drown.
Then too he said– do not be afraid, I am with you, not a hair on your
head will be harmed.
Time and time
again the church has grappled with the sense of the end of time, of the world
falling down around their ears – through wars and natural disasters and, let’s
not forget, the church itself wandering off into institutional incompetence at
best and inquisitions or crusades at our worst.
And our 21st
century church – what are the things that feel apocalyptic in our time?
For we can say
with certainty that we as church also feel seriously threatened today – we could be
forgiven for thinking we best hunker down and see if we can ride out the storm
of indifference, irrelevance, extremism that appears to beset us. And as for the catastrophe that the planet
seems to be approaching at an increasing rate of knots, perhaps we should we
simply lock the doors and walk away, too bowed down by fear and hopelessness to
continue with any fortitude. Jesus would
understand, surely!
Actually – no. Instead Jesus says to us also. ‘This will
give you the opportunity to testify.’
And to testify from the heart – not with our prepared doctrines or our
strategic plans, not with defensive rhetoric but instead leaving all that
armour behind and stepping out in faithful vulnerability trusting that Jesus, the
word, will be with us. That goes against
just about every best practice that I hold dear. Be fully prepared, allow for plan b and c,
try to anticipate what I will need to be, do and say. Well actually I should say everything I held
dear when I came into ministry. That has changed.
I know how it feels to step into a situation where distress and pain is
rife, having no idea whatsoever of anything to say that won’t feel stupid or
insensitive or shallow – and somehow, in the moment, God is there guiding and
giving me the words that are needed. It’s
happened too many times for me to doubt that in our unprepared vulnerability,
God speaks or maybe it is that we allow God to speak.
In our world, how
do we who have been relatively privileged, how do we respond to the suffering
and pain of the world, to the threats of changing climate, increasing
exploitation, extremism in God’s name. What does it mean to testify in times of
great suffering and great hatred? Well
it means courage. Courage in the face of
fear. Hope when all seem hopeless. It means boldness to speak in the midst of
suffering.
We in Aotearoa
have had a sharp lesson in that this year past and we in the church even more
so as we grappled with the hatred of the mosque shooting and its
aftermath. But we also saw the love and
compassion of people of faith, the challenge of the right words to speak into
the horror, a new beginning of relationship and understanding.
The sometimes the sheer
overwhelmedness of what is happening around us has the capacity to paralyse us,
to cause us to give up, to retreat into our shells and yet Jesus is teaching us
to make the most of this scary vulnerable time – our voice is needed and we
must not be intimidated. We must trust
that in our very powerlessness we are well qualified to speak with authority
and wisdom – not ours but God’s. Our
words bear witness to Christ’s unshakeable promise to walk with us in all that this
world might throw at us to a new creation - remember the words of hope from Isaiah
For I am about to create new heavens and
a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.
We actually have
someone in NZ at the moment who epitomises that boldness and courage in the
face of crushing despair. Behrouz Boochani has been incarcerated on Manu Island for
the last 6 years. A Kurdish/Iranian refugee, he left Iran afraid for his life
only to be sent to the prison that is Australia’s answer to immigration
pressures. He could have kept silent, waited and prayed. But he didn’t. He spoke out while he was there
– sending texts and short video clips out to the world. When his phone was
taken he somehow got an another and another, telling the story of the suffering
and despair bit by tiny bit. He did not
lie down and he did not keep quiet – he testified to the injustice and cruelty and
he would not be quiet.
Hear
the story of Behrouz, ‘Manus Island Psalm’ written by Candi Young and hear the
pain and the perseverance of this remarkable man who would not be
silenced. As I pray we will not be.
God, this is not our home, this place of
blistering heat
suffocating us slowly with its dank
humidity
night odours of sweat and foul breath
of decay, degeneration, degradation
strangling our hearts, our spirits.
The cold-steel eyes of the prison guards
the callous, careless arrogance of the
Malaria nurses
God, this is not our home.
We survive during the day thanks to an old
tree
spreading its branches, creating a canopy…
our tent in this alien wilderness.
This is not our home, but it is a refuge
from the oppression of this place
from ever-present surveillance
from nights clutching tightly to our
nightmares
from being broken down slowly from without
and within
…decay, degeneration, degradation.
God, this is not our home, this place of brokenness
of noise for the sake of noise. Our songs, our poetry
have no meaning here, our images are lost
to us
they remain behind in the mountains buried
in snow
in rivers and waterfalls drumming the
ancient chants.
Our metaphors have no substance here in
this barren place.
We would weep, God, if we were not sucked
dry.
This is not our home…but that home, that
place where we began
grew, soaked up our language and history, turned
on us.
So God, teach us to negotiate this culture
of oppression
help us to enter into this new landscape, find
a language of exile
…help us to survive.
This is not our home, and yet it is our
only home.
Jesus
said: This too is required of you – in the midst of the world’s turmoil, to have
the courage and the boldness to testify to a better way, to trust in the
promise of the man who, from his birth, walked towards the cross in the vulnerability
and changed the world forever. Amen.
Margaret
Garland
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