The Kitchen Sink
An occasional piece of paper
November 14, 2010
Vol. 13 no. 45
If you have read Isaiah and Luke you know that it is a complicated Sunday for worship. In the next to last Sunday of the Christian year and both of the readings are intended for the “end times,” what is called in churchy language, the eschaton, or simply the end. We see fewer cartoon characters around in long beard and robe walking with a sign declaring, “Repent! The End Is Near!” Alas, another occupation disappearing.
Most of society laughs at such characters and concerns as too antiquated and irrelevant. Nevertheless, the church which always seems to be behind the times and frequently ahead of the times is the one way of life that is meant to be concerned about how things result, not simply end.
Towards the end of each Gospel, Jesus delivers a scathing indictment of the way things are, warning about how things will violently culminate. Many a prophet-in-training has tried predicting the exact dates and situations in which this catastrophe will come to pass, but nobody has ever been right. For when you read Luke 21 you realize that it’s been like this all along, living in this world is a treacherous task. If we believe that this is the only way to run a world, we will run it down perpetually like this.
Yet Isaiah, writing during the Exile in Babylonia when things were about as bad as they could get, sees as God’s real possibility – a world of authentic peace, uncommon respect for life, “the wolf lying down with the lamb,” a world in which justice for all life is the first thought. The Good News is: at every moment in every place we have such moments. But then we forget about them and go back to business as usual. Alas, another new heaven and new earth fading out of sight. Keep looking for it.
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan