A reflection on mortality (Wisdom 2:23-3:9)

Reflection for Morning Worship withn the Community of Brendan the Navigator on Tuesday 14th November 2023

In this season of remembrance, we remember those who have died – the saints who have gone before us, and our loved ones departed. We also remember those who have suffered and died in cruel wars. This year we see again the hatred and cruelty of war, as generations of our ancestors did before us. We watch in horror the hideous death and destruction in Israel and Gaza, and the continuing ugly, grinding conflict in Ukraine.

But we are also prompted to reflect on our own death, which we know will come to us all.

The reading we have just heard from Wisdom (2:23-3:9) contrasts the world-view of the foolish – those who do not trust in God and his love for us – with the world-view of those of us who do. It is a reading recommended in our BCP for funerals, but I think rarely used.

For the foolish, death is a disaster. The dead are gone. They decompose. Their loves and their lives are meaningless. Their sufferings are worthless afflictions, leading to annihilation. Ultimately there is nothing for the foolish to look forward to.

But for we who trust in the love of God, it is different. We perceive, as Wisdom has it, that ‘the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God and no torment will ever touch them’. Even as they suffer, ‘their hope is full of immortality’. Their trials, ‘like gold in the furnace’ will become a blessing. The good they have done in their lives, the love they have shown us, will reverberate after their deaths - ‘in the time of their visitation they will shine forth, and will run like sparks through the stubble’. We understand the truth that at the end we will abide eternally with God, who will watch over us in his grace and mercy.

When the foolish mock us, saying, ‘How can you believe such ancient tosh in this age of science and technology?’, my answer is this: 

"We live our lives from birth to death in Einstein’s 4-dimensional space-time, on lifelines weaving around and touching each other for good and ill along the way. The God of love in whom I trust exists in a higher dimension. He sees you and me and all his creation as a whole, from start to finish. What pleases or displeases God is the quality of the love that I show to those I encounter in my life as our lifelines interact, and also to his good creation.

"God has made me to be an embodied soul, made in his own image, with a conscience through which I can distinguish good from evil, right from wrong, truth from lies, beauty from ugliness, as he does. I know from experience that while I would like to do right, I often do wrong. The good that I do throughout my life will propagate into the future, and so will the evil.

"But I trust in God’s Fatherly lovingkindness, so perfectly embodied in Jesus Christ. Though I may burn with shame for what I have done wrong, and for my failures to do what is right, this is surely no more than God refining me, like gold in a furnace. I trust in God’s grace and mercy, and my hope is to be found worthy when my time comes. I pray for forgiveness so that I may ‘abide with him in love’."

 

 

Do Not Fear!

Address given at St Mary's, Nenagh and Killodiernan church on Sunday 9th January 2022, the 1st after Epiphany, year C

‘Be afraid. Be very afraid’

I’m sure you’ve heard this popular catch-phrase – it’s used to warn us that something dire is about to happen, in a menacing but slightly jokey way. But do you know where it comes from? It’s from the 1986 remake of the science-fiction horror movie The Fly, in which a mad scientist experimenting with a matter transporter mixes up his DNA with a fly’s, and gradually changes into a horrific creature, half-man and half-fly.

Today, many of us really are feeling afraid, very afraid, about what can seem like a threatening, dangerous future.

• Think illness and death – due to novel viruses, and growing antibiotic resistance.
• Think rising sea levels, droughts, and floods - due to catastrophic climate change.
• Think famine and wars - due to declining soil fertility, water shortage, rising population - and the evil in human hearts that causes us to hate others.

 It would be very easy to let ourselves be overwhelmed by pessimism, to feel the future is hopeless. But that would immobilise us. It would prevent us from responding to the real dangers we face. And it would make the bad outcomes we dread more likely.

That is not how we as Christians are called to behave. The future is not hopeless. God has given us a great gift of hope, hope for the coming of God’s kingdom. And surely we must share this gift of hope with others, who may not share our faith, but badly need our hope.

The ground of our hope is our conviction that God loves us.

This is at the heart of the good news that Jesus preached. But its roots go back much further. The OT tells the story of how over hundreds of years the children of Israel gradually came to understand that God - the terrifying mighty creator - also loves his people. As Psalm 29 which we have just read puts it, the God whose voice ‘breaks the cedar trees’, ‘shakes the wilderness’ and ‘makes the oak trees writhe and strips the forest bare’, is also the God that ‘shall give strength to his people’ and ‘shall give his people the blessing of peace’.

Nowhere is this more beautifully expressed than in today’s 1^st reading from Isaiah (Isaiah 43:1-7). Scholars tell us that this passage was probably written around 540BC. The children of Israel are in captivity in Babylon. They are afraid for their future, on the verge of giving up hope that they would ever be able to return to their homeland. So the poet seeks to encourage them in these words:

‘But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel:

Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.’

And why should the captive children of Israel not fear?

‘Because you are precious in my sight, and honoured, and I love you.

These are beautiful, encouraging and reassuring words, aren’t they?

‘Do not fear … because you are precious in my sight, and honoured, and I love you’.

500 years later the Jews of Jesus’s time were utterly convinced that God loved them and this gave them hope for the future, even though their country had been conquered and occupied by the Romans. They believed that God loved the Jewish people, the children of Israel, in a special way; they were God’s chosen people, with whom God had established a covenant; and they lived in hope for the coming of a promised Messiah, the anointed one of God, who would restore the fortunes of his chosen people.

This is the background to Luke’s account of Jesus’s baptism by John in our 3^rd reading (Luke 3:15-17, 21-22), in which God marks Jesus out as the Messiah. God as a loving Father sends the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, and says, ‘You are my son, the beloved; with you I am well pleased’, in an echo of Isaiah’s words. It is the only place in the Bible where we encounter all 3 persons of the Trinity at the same time – God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.

Jesus himself and the first Christians were Jews, and we have inherited their Jewish conviction that God loves us, and with it, God’s gift of hope – thanks be to God for the insight of the Jewish people!

With a fresh insight, Christians came to believe that God loves all people created in his image, not just Jews but gentiles like you and me, not just white people but people of all colours and ethnic origins, not just those who are like us but those we find alien.

In this I feel sure we follow Jesus himself. But it is interesting to notice how Jesus’s own self-understanding developed over the course of his ministry. Matthew’s Gospel records him telling the Canaanite woman ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel’ (Matt 15:24); but by the end of the same Gospel he would say to his disciples, ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all nations’ (Matt 28:19).

The Epiphany season is traditionally a time to reflect on how God reveals his nature to us.

So, I invite you to ponder God’s loving nature, revealed in Isaiah’s beautiful poetry:

Thus says the Lord…, ‘Do not fear … because you are precious in my sight, and honoured, and I love you’.

Let us give thanks for the insight which we have inherited from the ancient Hebrews and the first Christians, that God loves all his people.

The implications are life-changing:

·       Because we believe that God loves us, we live in hope.

·       Because we live in hope, we do not fear the future, no matter how dangerous it may seem.

·       Because we do not fear the future, we have the confidence to work for God’s kingdom.

All this poses a great question to each one of us – and to us all as a body, Christ’s body, the Church. The question is this: What am I, what are we, going to do to make God’s kingdom a living reality?

I shall finish with a Collect of the Word

Spirit of energy and change,
in whose power Jesus was anointed
to be the hope of the nations:
be poured out also upon us
without reserve or distinction,
that we may have confidence and strength
to implant your justice on the earth;
through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen

Do not fear

This address was to have been given at Templederry and Puckane on Sunday 10th January 2010, Epithany 1, but the services were cancelled due to the icy weather.

‘Be afraid. Be very afraid’
I’m sure you’ve heard this popular catch-phrase – it’s used when someone wants to warn us that something dire is about to happen, in a menacing but slightly jokey way. But do you know where it comes from? It is from the 1986 remake of The Fly, a science fiction horror movie in which a mad scientist experimenting with a matter transporter mixes up his DNA with a fly’s, and gradually changes into a horrific creature, half-man and half-fly.

I’ve noticed that people seem to be using the catch-phrase more often recently, perhaps because so many of us really are feeling afraid, very afraid, about what can seem like a threatening, dangerous future.

• Think unemployment, poverty and emigration for our children - due to economic collapse.
• Think rising sea levels, droughts, floods - due to catastrophic climate change.
• Think famine and wars - due to resource exhaustion and rising population.
• And nuclear weapons haven’t gone away you know – the latest issue of Scientific American has a frightening article about the global effects of even a limited nuclear war between Pakistan and India.

It would be very easy to let ourselves be overwhelmed by pessimism, to feel the future is hopeless. But that would immobilise us. It would prevent us from responding to the real dangers we face, and make the bad outcomes we dread more likely.

That is not how we as Christians are called to behave. The future is not hopeless, because God has given us a great gift of hope, hope for the coming of Christ’s kingdom. This gift of hope is surely one which we must share with others, who do not share our faith, but badly need our hope.

The ground of our hope is our conviction that God loves us.
This is at the heart of the good news that Jesus preached. But its roots go back much further. The OT tells the story of how over hundreds of years the children of Israel gradually came to understand that God - the terrifying mighty creator - also loves his people. As Psalm 29 which we have just read puts it, the God whose voice ‘breaks the cedar trees’, ‘shakes the wilderness’ and ‘makes the oak trees writhe and strips the forest bare’, is also the God that ‘shall give strength to his people’ and ‘shall give his people the blessing of peace’.

Nowhere is it more beautifully expressed than in today’s 1st reading from Isaiah (Isaiah 43:1-7). Scholars tell us that this passage was probably written around 540BC. The children of Israel are in captivity in Babylon. They are afraid for their future, on the verge of giving up hope that they would ever be able to return to their homeland. So the poet seeks to encourage them in these words:

‘But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel:
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.’

And why should the captive children of Israel not fear?

‘Because you are precious in my sight, and honoured, and I love you.
…
Do not fear, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you; I will say to the north, ‘Give them up’, and to the south, ‘Do not withhold.’’

Beautiful and encouraging words, aren’t they?
‘Do not fear … because you are precious in my sight, and honoured, and I love you’.

The poet’s words were prophetic – some of the exiles did return from Babylon. 500 years later the Jews of Jesus’s time were utterly convinced that God loved them and this gave them hope for the future, even though their country had been conquered and occupied by the Romans.

But they saw God’s love in exclusive terms: God loved the Jewish people, the children of Israel, in a special way; they were God’s chosen people, with whom God had established a covenant; and they lived in hope for the coming of a promised Messiah, the anointed one of God, who would restore the fortunes of his chosen people. Other people really didn’t count.

This is the background to Luke’s account of Jesus’s baptism by John in our 3rd reading (Luke 3:15-17, 21-22), in which God marked Jesus out as the Messiah, sending the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, and saying ‘You are my son, the beloved; with you I am well pleased’.

The first Christians were Jews. We have inherited their Jewish conviction that God loves us, and with it God’s gift of hope – thanks be to God for the insight of the Jewish people! But from the very start, with a fresh insight, Christians transformed the conviction of God’s love being exclusive to Jews to being inclusive of all people. We believe as Christians that God loves all people created in his image, not just Jews but gentiles like you and me, not just white people but people of all colours and ethnic origins, not just those who are like us but those we find alien.

• In this we follow Jesus himself, but it is interesting to notice how Jesus’s understanding developed over the course of his ministry. Matthew’s Gospel records him telling the Canaanite woman ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel’ (Matt 15:24); but by the end of the same Gospel he would say to his disciples, ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all nations’ (Matt 28:19).
• In today’s 2nd reading from Acts (Acts 8:14-17), the apostles Peter and John recognise that God loves gentiles as well as Jews, when they pray for the non-Jewish Samaritans, ‘that they might receive the Holy Spirit’.
• And St Paul would later write to the Galatians saying, ‘For in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith… There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus’ (Galatians 3:26-28).

Epiphany is traditionally a time to reflect on how God reveals his nature to us.
So to finish, let us reflect again on what God tells us through Isaiah’s beautiful poetry:
‘Do not fear … because you are precious in my sight, and honoured, and I love you’.

• Let us give thanks for the insight that God loves all his people, which we have inherited from the ancient Hebrews and the first Christians.
• Because we believe that God loves his people, we live in hope.
• Because we live in hope, we do not fear the future, no matter how dangerous it may seem.
• Because we are not afraid, we can work to make Christ’s kingdom a reality.