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It’s been a bit of week! – The Reverend Catriona Cumming

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Advent 3 2018 -December 16 2018

10am Matins

It’s been a bit of a week in British Public life.

The latest in a long line of bonkers weeks stretching back for quite a while.

In this febrile atmosphere, cool calm certainty seems unimaginable, perhaps even somewhat naïve.

Wake up and smell the chaos!

At times like this, what do, or what should people of faith, who believe in some kind of order, have to say, or shout into the void?

There is an assurance running through many of the readings in Advent that God has a plan, and that plan is coming to fruition at just the right time. But this seems out of step with what is happening in our world.

In the Old Testament reading, the chapter begins with a hymn of praise to a victorious God, who has done wonderful things,
plans formed of old, faithful and sure.

Delightful, you might think.

But has God noticed what is going?

Is God not paying attention?

The world is going to hell in a handcart!

The promise of the feast of rich food, a feast of well-matured wines,
of rich food filled with marrow, of well-matured wines strained clear is lovely. But while we’re feasting, look at what is going on around us!

Global warming is ramping up.

War and famine still large parts of the world, there are riots in Europe, and political discourse in the United States remains perplexing.

But this is nothing new.

10 years ago if I were preaching this sermon, I would be doing so as the world economy spasmed, and shrank, with dire results for millions of people. 100 years ago it’s less likely that I would be preaching this sermon for a variety of reasons, but if I were, this sermon would come in the context not only of the aftermath of an horrific conflict, but in the midst of a flu pandemic even more lethal.

The struggles human beings have faced down the centuries may have recurring themes.

What we people of faith believe is that God has does something different in mind.

God steps into this human world, and offers something new, something other, something that says that there is another way.

The hope offered to the people of Israel through the Prophet Isaiah, and to all of us in Jesus Christ, is a hope that does not rely on human beings to break the cycle of struggle we seem to be trapped in.

This hope has also endured through the centuries.

It is incredibly powerful.

But it must not be taken for granted, and we must resist the urge to characterise it as, or relate it to, a political cause of outcome.

God is bigger than the mess in which we currently find ourselves.

And because God is bigger than this, we can look to God for rest: respite from the craziness around us.

But more than that.

God offers something new, something different.

Justice. True justice, rather than human justice, which, even with the benefit of hindsight, is inevitably shaped by context, and bias.

There is however a twist to this tale.

Because God uses us, engages us, with our consent, in building God’s kingdom: a kingdom which may share some of the political values we believe our important, but is ultimately richer, and more solid and lasting than any human political institution, nation, or church building.

Throughout history, God has worked through the lives of ordinary human beings, through worship, and scripture, and reason, to bring to light those things hidden in darkness.

God’s timing and God’s plans may infuriate us.

The hope is that amidst whatever chaos we find ourselves in, God remains unchanging: a refuge no matter how crazy the world gets. But God also intervenes, challenges and provokes us to look for better things, and to build God’s Kingdom.

 

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