imagine going to bed tonight and waking up tomorrow to... Pent 24A

Imagine going to bed tonight and waking up tomorrow to a pristine creation.

Imagine going to bed tonight and waking up tomorrow to no news of war, coups, or ethnic cleansing.

Imagine going to bed tonight and waking up to a world where everyone eats breakfast.

Imagine going to bed tonight and waking up to a waterfall of heart felt repentance for sexual misconduct and harassment – starting a new day without domestic violence and violence against women.

Imagine going to bed tonight and waking up to a healthy humanity, and doctors or nurse practitioners for everyone.

We have all wished – hoped – for a different world than the one in which we live. We talk a good talk about wanting peace.  We contribute to NGOs whose missions are to bring relief, to feed the hungry, dig wells, and supply goats.  Some will even teach and preach that waking up to a renewed creation, a world of peace, no more hunger, violence, or sickness, that this is the kingdom of God.  Is this not our hope?  Is this not where we have placed our Christian mission – to make the world a “better” place to live? To bring about God’s kingdom now?  To arrive at the Day of the Lord, with all its glory….  Yes.

No.

There is a part of us that resonates with the Gospel and entertains ideas of wholeness and life, yet, we live in a reality that hinders embracing Truth; and is in bondage to fear.  In the backs of our minds are nagging questions: have I done enough, been good enough, what happens after I die, will I face judgement, will my enemies be punished, will evil be damned, is God all that loving? These are the underlying percolating questions of humanity – just running under the surface, making everyone a little uneasy.  Scriptures sound harsh today, for they articulate theology we are too scared to voice. One cannot skip over the thrust of the readings in November. All speak of end times; where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, a day of wrath and judgement, a day that comes like a thief in the night, accompanied by labour pains.  Ideas we like to veil behind walls of inclusive liberalism, pluralism, and political correctness.

Church is this lovely place we come to hear the Word, to be filled by the Gospel, and be inspired by the Spirit to be about God’s vision and mission in the world. We come for community and all the benefits that gives our lives. There is a sense that Sunday morning is a small reflection of the God’s kingdom with a banquet meal where all are welcome; where there is singing and praying and harmony. In the safety of this space, Christians have gathered for over a hundred years to hear of and enact the coming Day of the Lord. Our situation is not that different from the people of Zephaniah’s time waiting for the Messiah and the fulfilment of the covenant with all the promises that entailed.  In this context, Zephaniah presents a very dismal, fraught filled, description of the Day of the Lord; the side of the day of the Lord the people avoid talking or thinking about. I am sure it disturbed the people of Zephaniah’s time, as much as the description disturbs us.

Professor Margaret O’Dell, of St. Olaf’s College in Minnesota wrote: “…the audience is jarred out of its ritual commemoration of the Day of the Lord to find itself in the far more destabilizing reality of God’s actual presence.”

Is this not the crux of our lives: we imagine waking up to a different world, hoping for a brighter tomorrow, then we are confronted by the destabilizing reality of God’s actual presence – the enormity of risk and change the imagined vision would be?

Imagine you go to bed tonight and tomorrow you wake up to a pristine environment and so on.

The truth is that everything would be turned upside down.  For this kingdom to come, the way I envisioned it, we would wake up with millions of people gone, down to a number that the environment can sustainably provide for.  Human living would be drastically downsized. We would wake up to the disappearance of comfort technologies, ones that make too much pollution, like automobiles and air conditioners; toilets would be converted to composting varieties.  As discussed, a few weeks ago, we would eat worms and insects for protein. We would not eat anything processed. We would all have less product, less stuff. We would wake up to a world with no markets to grow investments, capitalism and consumerism would cease to exist. We wouldn’t tell some of the jokes we tell, sing some of the songs we sing, behave the way we do; we would tell the truth even if it cost us our jobs, promotions, our reputations. The focus of humanity would change, attitudes and living would be entirely for the other, for the good of the whole, and all to the honour and glory of God.  To be the kingdom, the world as we know it disappears; what we currently take for granted and status quo is destabilized in God’s presence.

Destabilization freaks people out.  Start talking about overhauling the education system, or the health care system to create something that will work into the future, and one sees how difficult change is.  Better the devil we know than one we don’t. Whenever I cleaned my room as a kid, I would empty all the drawers out into the middle of the floor and start fresh to put things a way. The room went from utter chaos (instability) to a re-creation of order.  The transformation slowly came about over time with lots of sweat equity and determination to get it done.

As a community of faith I think we can be room cleaners, comfortable in facing, perhaps even creating utter chaos – pushing instability in situations – so that transformation and re-creation abounds and the day of the Lord appears.

Professor Jane Paterson from the seminary of South West Austin wrote: “The day of the Lord will entail judgement not because God chooses to be judgemental, but simply because the full presence of absolute holiness is destructive to whomever or whatever is unprepared to be in its proximity.”

The Apostle Paul wrote: But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, and put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.  For God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep we may live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing.

As we anticipate, or fret, the day of the Lord; as we talk about or hope for a better world, Paul gives a very simple activity for Christian community to be focused on. Focus on encouraging one another. Use faith, love, and hope. We continually prepare to be the in proximity of absolute holiness.  We have moments, glimpses, experiences of the character of God.  We hear the destabilizing Word, and continue to hear Jesus’s parables that upturn the economic systems and religious understandings of his day and ours.  We get that God’s ways are not our ways.  Each time we are pummelled with scripture like this morning’s we get cracks and holes in our human exterior; that makes more room on the burning day of the Lord for God’s light and heat – absolute holiness- to penetrate to our hearts.  We are to be about encouraging others, planting seeds, cracking human exteriors, in preparation for the coming day of the Lord.  Share faith, love, hope – instigate conversations where attitudes are confronted, system change suggested, and institutional stability questioned; prepare people by offering different options, embody compassion, respond to circumstances with hope.  Encourage those put in your way: be love to those who feel unloved, be forgiveness to those who are guilty, be peace to those with anxiety; counter depression with hope, hunger with food, loneliness with relationship, scarcity with abundance. 

Something so “other” -the Day of the Lord is- there is cause for fear, for anticipation; for denial, for hope. Let this not paralyze us. We are told over and over to stay awake. Preparation comes in articulating our fears, the underflowing theology, thoughts of judgement, that somewhat embarrass us to say aloud.  Abate the fear through conversation about this sticky topic, and focus your energy on encouraging each other --- continually cracking human exteriors – so that all are ready with enough cracks, so not to run for fear of judgement, but, rather to stand before God long enough, that God’s refining and purifying holiness can penetrate to the depths and salvation settles in.

Imagine going to bed tonight and waking up tomorrow to an encouraged humanity, ready to welcome the day of the Lord.

Imagine going to bed tonight and waking up tomorrow to a humanity full of humbling cracks.

Imagine going to bed tonight and waking up tomorrow humanity anticipating the full presence of absolute holiness.