Apocalypse Now - or Not
What I say to you, I say to all: Keep Awake!
Do you know the story of the people of San Jose de Gracia? The story, so it goes, is set back in 1899, at the end of the last century, and, if you’re really interested, San Jose de Gracia is a little mountain village in central Mexico. And back in that rural place, in those simpler days, amongst the poor and uneducated, they were quite apprehensive of what would happen on New Year’s Eve, on the brink of the end of the century. And the story goes like this:
There were some who spent the savings of several generations on one last spree. Many insulted those they could not afford to insult and kissed those they shouldn’t have kissed. No one wanted to end up without confession. The parish priest gave preference to the pregnant and to new mothers. This self-denying cleric lasted three days and three nights in the confessional before fainting from an indigestion of sins.
When midnight came on the last day of the century, all the inhabitants of San Jose de Gracia prepared to die clean. God had accumulated much wrath since the creation of the world, and no one doubted that the time had come for the final blowout. Breath held, eyes closed, teeth clenched, the people listened to the 12 chimes of the church clock, one after the other, deeply convinced that there would be no afterwards...
Well - the people of San Jose de Gracia had clearly been spending a lot of time reading certain parts of the Bible. Parts of the Bible, perhaps, rather like the ones we have been hearing this morning, from which we learn how when the Lord comes down to the earth, the very mountains quake, so terrifying is the prospect of the Lord in his wrath. And if Old Testament prophecy is not enough for you, we have Jesus himself, in that gospel passage we have just heard, speaking of the sun and the moon being darkened, and of a time of great suffering, and then the final judgement coming upon us as the Son of Man comes in glory. Terrifying stuff, in its way.
And, as we know from history, the people of San Jose de Gracia are far from unique. I’m sure we all still remember how just about everyone in the developed world approached the millennium only eight years ago. We were so concerned about the utterly non-existent Y2K bug that people didn’t dare fly, they didn’t dare use machinery, they didn’t even think it was safe to drink tap water. And we are meant to be capable, educated, developed people, unlike those in San Jose de Gracia. But, for all that, I suspect that you and I don’t, by and large, think we will live to experience in our life time all the terrible apocalyptic predictions we find in the pages of the Bible, whether from Old Testament prophets, or even on the lips of Jesus himself. We don’t think we will live to see the wrath of God made manifest on earth in that way, do we?
That, I suspect, would have been pretty much the opinion of a lawyer called Mark Abell - a British lawyer working for a major firm of solicitors in the City of London, who happened to go to India on a business trip, and who, this week just past, was staying at the Oberoi Trident hotel in Mumbai. Like me, you may have heard this brave man speaking of his experiences on the Today programme on Friday morning. It was, as you can imagine, sobering listening. It transpired that he was, I think, only one floor above the most focussed part of the siege in that skyscraper hotel, and he barricaded himself into his room using all the furniture at his disposal for a stay that lasted about two whole days, before being rescued by the Indian Army. Talking to Jim Naughtie on Friday morning, he said of his rescue:
They took me and my baggage to the lift, and took me down to the lobby. The lobby was carnage. I mean, there was just blood and guts everywhere. It was very, very upsetting.
I'd had dinner in the Kandahar restaurant and I've now just found out that's one of the places it started and unfortunately - PAUSE - sorry - PAUSE - the waitress who served us was one of the first to get shot. People I'd seen only minutes before going up to my room are now dead.
The number of people killed in the awful events in Mumbai was probably more than lived in San Jose de Gracia in 1899, and Mark Abell and so many others were caught up in horrors that must have felt truly apocalyptic. Gunshots, panic, darkness, fear - and all quite out of the blue. And one thing I would venture to suggest is that Mark, and all who were caught up in this week’s traumatic events would now understand is just why it is that Jesus tells his followers to keep awake, to beware and to keep alert. For, truly, none of us knows the hour when something apocalyptic might happen to us - even here in Kettering. But the wrath of terrorists is not, we must recognize, the wrath of God.
And so, on this first Sunday of Advent, let me echo those words of Jesus and say to you, right here and now - Keep Awake! But, despite the horrors that unfolded in Mubai this week, I’m telling you to keep awake not because I think that the second coming is imminent. Nor, even, am I saying it because I think you or I are particularly likely to have an experience similar to Mark Abell and the other poor folk caught up in last week’s dramatic events. The reality of our situation, yours and mine, is that we are most, most unlikely to be plummeted into something you might call apocalyptic. And that’s good, because, actually, it’s not very helpful to live apocalyptically...
Some Christian sects are fanatical and obsessed about the coming of the day of judgement, and how world events relate to it. The season of Advent, if they notice it at all, must be a special cause of excitement to them, with all the talk of judgement and end-times the season brings. But, in fact, such Christians don’t need the seasons of the church’s calendar to get carried away. After 9/11 there was no shortage of people out there on the lunatic fringe trying to explain how it had been foretold in the Book of Revelation. But actually, it’s not our place to be trading in apocalyptic visions of the second coming and the judgement. As one writer put it:
Apocalypse is the cry of the helpless, who are borne passively by events which they cannot influence, much less control. Apocalyptic rage is a flight from reality, a plea to God to fulfill their wishes and prove them right and the other wrong. Apocalyptic believers could hardly think the saying, "Go, make disciples of all nations," was addressed to them. Had apocalyptic believers dominated the church since the first century, there would have been no missions, no schools, no hospitals, no orphanages, no almsgiving. The helpless cannot afford to think of such enterprises; they can only await the act of God, and then complain because that act is so long delayed. The gospels and epistles rather tell the believers that they are the act of God.
That’s a very powerful and coherent statement, and it reminds us, I hope, that - as a Christian community - we are not called to be helpless people, caught up passively in events. The reason why Jesus tells us - us good people of Ss Peter & Paul, Kettering - to keep awake is to make sure that we are not distracted from undertaking the work of God and the building of God’s kingdom, right here and now. We, I hope, are the type of Christian who takes comfort that over the years, the Church has helped create missions, schools, hospitals, orphanages, and almsgiving. Because, you know, if we don’t, it’s not always plain who will...
As I think many of you know, I returned to the parish on Wednesday night having spent ten days leading a pilgrimage along with five actors from Riding Lights, whose Passion plays have been the highlight of our Holy Week celebrations in recent years. And, if I am honest, I thought I had the Holy Land fairly well wrapped up - in the last twelve years I’ve led over 15 such trips, and made countless other private visits. But on Tuesday night - the night before I returned - a friend introduced me to a nun who lives and works in Gaza City. And, like many people in the west, even those who know the Middle East quite well, I forget about the people of Gaza all too easily. In Gaza - only an hour’s drive from civilized Jerusalem that I know and love so well - in Gaza there is almost no fuel and no electricity. Food supplies are getting scarcer and there is almost no choice in shops. Medical supplies, too, are harder and harder to come by. The Israeli blockade of the Gaza strip goes almost unnoticed in the west, and is causing hardship not just for the leaders of Hamas who are in some sort of political or military charge of this densely-packed human jungle - it is causing awful hardships for about 1.4 million people.
And this Roman Catholic nun, without any showiness or drama, told me of how she is principal of a school - a Christian school (although 90% of the students are muslims) - offering remarkably high quality education in the most dire surroundings. And just down the road from the Rosary Sisters’ school is the Al Ahli Hospital - a hospital founded by of all people, the Anglican church in the Holy Land. One of the smallest of denominations, but working desperately hard to provide a touch of hope and healing in this awful situation.
And this nun, and the brave staff of this hospital - who are convinced Christians - they do it by keeping awake. They do it by being open to God’s call in their lives - and, boy, that call is not an easy option, given where it has taken them to serve and to work.
And like them, we - you and I - we can only serve God if we keep awake. That is my message for you this morning, and it is the message of the gospel. Because the real point of that passage we just heard from Mark 13 - the real point of it is that precisely because we don’t know the hour of the coming of the Son of Man, it has to be business as usual - which means the business of today to prepare for God’s tomorrow.
That is why, at the offertory, our wardens are going to present your pledges for the mission and ministry of this church in the coming twelve months. That is why we have been conducting a questionnaire to find out what we need to help us function best as a church. That is why we are looking at how best we should use this remarkable building we have been given. For all of it is part of being a Christian community that is both alert and awake, and ready to answer God’s call to take us into the future.
I’m afraid that the people of San Jose de Gracia quite misunderstood what kind of a future God was calling them to, and they ended up being profoundly embarrassed by their behaviour.
Let us pray that with God’s help we will be wiser this Advent, and use this holy season to redouble our efforts to seek out and obey our extraordinary and Incarnate God, and to show Him all the more clearly to the rest of the world around us. Amen.
Dominic Barrington, November 30th, 2008
