The Shadow of Death

This is an edited and expanded version of the sermon for the Third Sunday before Advent. The sermon itself is available as a podcast. To hear it, click the link below.

The Shadow of Death

The Third Sunday of Advent

Reading: 1 Thessalonians 4:13

‘We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.’ (1 Thessalonians 4:13)

Yesterday was St Martin's Day. In the past in some parts of the Church, this marked the beginning of an extended season of Advent. Although we do not follow that practice nowadays, our readings and our service nevertheless take on an Advent theme. In our reading this morning, St Paul tells the Thessalonians that he does not want them to be uninformed about those who have died. This, he writes, is so that they will not grieve as others do who have no hope.

St Paul raises two issues here. Firstly, what has happened to those who have died? And, secondly, just how are we as believers to grieve?

In response to the first issue of what has happened to those who have died, the standard Christian response is that those who have died have gone to heaven to be with God. In heaven, we believe, they enjoy a blissful existence, hence the phrase, ‘they have gone to a better place’.

So secondly, when it comes to the question of how we should grieve as believers, while understandably we miss those who have died and passed away and feel their loss, we can be happy for them - or so the argument goes. This even leads to Christians saying that funerals can be a time of rejoicing.

If all this is what St Paul believed, it is not what he says, not here at least, and certainly not as most Christians mean it. We need to backtrack a bit and ask why St Paul writes what he does. A clue to the explanation lies, in fact, in our Gospel reading (Matthew 25:1-13). Jesus tells his disciples the Parable of the Wise and Foolish Bridesmaids to teach them that they should always be ready for his return. He warns the disciples that he will return at any time and at a time when they least expect it

So, after Jesus' death, resurrection, and ascension, the first believers took Jesus at his word and expected his return at any time. It was imminent in their minds. Jesus was coming soon, and when he came, he would bring about the Kingdom of God on earth, as we pray for every week in the Lord's Prayer.

When Jesus came back, they believed, he would judge the living and the dead; he would give eternal life to those who had trusted in him, and he would punish those who had not. This hope of Jesus’ return was a central part of their message. It was not something peripheral to it but belonged to the very core of the Gospel they preached. It followed that if Jesus was coming soon, the majority of believers would still be alive when he did. Their focus, then, was not on those who had died and passed away, but on those who were still alive and being prepared for when their Lord came back. Those who were still alive had to be ready for his return.

As time went on, however, Christ’s return seemed to have been delayed and the issue of what would happen to those who had died became much more pressing. Would those who had died before Christ’s return miss out?

St Paul is anxious to reassure the Thessalonian who were worried that this would be the case, and the answer he gives is perhaps not quite what we would expect. St Paul does not say that those who have died have gone to be with Jesus in heaven; he says that when he returns those who have died will rise to meet Christ first, and it only after he has gathered up those believers who have died that he will then gather those who are alive to himself. We do not grieve for those who have died as others do who have no hope, St Paul writes, because Christ, when he comes, will come for them too. The hope that St Paul talks about remained firmly the hope of Christ's return: Christ’s return to us and for us.

The hope was not that we would go to be with Christ in heaven but that Christ would come to us on earth. It was possible to hold onto this hope while believers thought that Christ could return at any time. As time passed, however, and Christ did not return, believers had to face the reality that Jesus was not going to be coming back any time soon.

So, there developed in the Church what we can describe as a two-sided hope. Firstly, the fundamental hope remained that Christ would one day return, and believers’ hopes remained focused on this expectation. It was then, and only then, that our salvation would be complete. Believers in Christ would be rewarded with the gift of eternal life; sinners would be punished; and the kingdom of God instated here on earth.

Secondly, in the meantime, however, those who died before Christ’s return would go to be with Jesus in heaven to wait for the Day of Judgment and Christ's return. This received some refinement over the years, but you get the general idea! Heaven was not the destination; heaven was the waiting room. It is here that believers waited with Christ for the Day when God would raise them, and Christ would take them with him when returned to earth in glory.

This hope of the return of Christ was not just about the future; it affected how believers saw their life in this world in the present. This life, they believed, was a preparation for the life to come. They saw this life as transient, temporary, and testing. This life, in other words, was about God getting us ready to live, as we saw last week, in the City of God.

In the old funeral service in the Book of Common Prayer, there are these words:

‘Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay. In the midst of life we are in death: of whom may we seek for succour, but of thee, O Lord, who for our sins art justly displeased?’

Full of misery! Believers in the past were far more realistic in their assessment of life in this world. Their hope, as a result, was very much for a better life in the future when Christ’s Kingdom came and Christ returned. This life here and now was a preparation for it, but the life of the world to come would only be fully ours when Christ returned.

This, however, has all changed in today’s Church and for most believers. It is, though, only comparatively recently that it has changed. The reason it has changed is because we have largely given up on the idea of Christ's return. This is why we never talk about it. On those occasions when we cannot avoid talking about it, such as at Advent, we talk about it without any expectation that it will actually happen. What is more, we have also largely rejected the idea of any future judgment. God is just too loving and too nice. Our belief now is that we are all, each and everyone of us, going to a better place, regardless of what we do or fail to do here.

So, what about here? Well, we find all this talk of life being short and full of misery and of being cut down like a flower far too depressing for words, and far too depressing for us modern day Christians to believe. Rather than worrying about the future and what will happen to us when we die, our focus is on getting the most out of life now. In any case, we do not think we have to worry about the future, for the simple reason that there is nothing to worry about. God is going to look after us anyway. Instead of worrying about the future, we want to make the most of this life for ourselves and for our family, and, if we have any time left over, to use that time in making this world a better place for our children to grow up in.

Our goal now as believers is to enjoy this life and all that we have, following our hopes and ambitions in this world, doing what good we can as we do. The problem for Christians, of course, is that this does not sound very different to what everyone else is doing. Where does God fit into all this?

I think God fits into modern-day Christians’ hopes and dreams in three ways. Firstly, as a way to justify our goals and give them divine authority. Secondly, in helping us to achieve those goals. And thirdly, by being there for us when we do not achieve them or find it hard to do so.

As believers in the 21st century, we need to see that all this leaves us with a very different faith and hope to that of the Thessalonians and to that of previous generations of believers.

Now I am not asking you this morning to choose between these two different ways of seeing things, just to see the difference. To see the difference between the sort of faith expressed, for example, in the Old Book of Common Prayer and the faith of most modern-day believers.

Rather than having a hope centred on Christ and what God is going to do in the future when Christ returns, our focus has become on ourselves in the present and what God can do for us now. We often use the same words and phrases as they used in the past, but we have given them a very different context and certainly a very different meaning. If we can see this, it is at least a step in the right direction.

Over Advent and the time leading up to it, I hope to examine more fully the direction I believe we should be going in. But in closing this morning, let me just ask briefly, what practical difference does this make? What I have been saying can seem very theoretical and perhaps even irrelevant. What difference, if any, would it make if we regained the perspective of the past?

The first difference it would make to us is that we would stop deceiving ourselves! We who live in the 21st century have a narrative of progress. Things are better now, we think, than they were in the past, and what is more, they are only going to go getting better. We are so much wiser, cleverer, and richer than previous generations. They lived in ignorance, superstition, and fear. We know better! But is that really true? Well, it is certainly true that some things are better materially now than they were.

I, for one, prefer living in a world with anesthetic, antibiotics, and vaccines, for example. But let me ask this question. If things are so much better nowadays, why doesn't it feel like it?

Only this week, here in Christ Church, I was recorded as part of a video for secondary school students to attempt to give them some hope when they are feeling suicidal. Because, as you will have read, suicides among secondary school students have risen, and risen dramatically. What is all the talk amongst young people today? It is of mental health issues. Huge numbers of young girls, for example, are engaging in self-harm and in self-destructive behaviour. Our material achievements have resulted in our spiritual poverty. And so, blinded by our material wealth, we continue to gamble on everything being okay in the end as we concentrate on trying to enjoy our life in this world now, and not doing a very good job of it.

How can we talk of a narrative of progress when there are two major wars taking place in our world, sucking in the nations of the world? Who would have thought that after two world wars we would see war in Europe and war in the Middle East? And these are just the wars we are talking about. Any thought that we give now for the well-being of others is for well-being in the present, and we are not even achieving that.

‘We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope’, St Paul writes.

We believers do grieve, we grieve as people who know that death is terrible. Death is an enemy still waiting to be destroyed. In this life, in the present, we, like all people, are walking through the valley of the shadow of death. Death isn't just something that happens at the end of life; it is a powerful enemy that casts its shadow over the whole of life and the whole of human endeavor. But while a powerful enemy that is to be taken with the utmost seriousness, we as believers face that enemy with hope.

As we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we do not walk through it alone. We walk through it with the Lamb who is our shepherd, who will lead us to the springs of the waters of the river of life (Revelation 7:17). We walk through the valley of the shadow of death with the One who has conquered death and who will one day seal that victory with his return.

And so today, as we remember those whose lives were cruelly cut short in war, and as we think of the power of death, we think too of the power of Christ, and we rejoice in him and look for his coming again. We rejoice in his triumph and his victory over sin and death, a victory in which one day we will share.

Even so, come Lord Jesus!

Amen.

Memento Mori

Here is the transcript of my latest podcast, 'memento mori'. It is based on the Gospel reading for the Seventh Sunday after Trinity.

Memento Mori

Reading: Luke 12:13-21

In the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ ministry, Jesus is described as having an uneasy relationship with the Pharisees and, in our reading, it is not a relationship that is about to get any easier. In chapter 11, we read of how Jesus has been invited to dinner at a Pharisee’s home (Luke 11:37). The Pharisee is amazed when Jesus doesn’t follow the normal religious protocols for washing before dinner. Jesus then criticizes the Pharisees in very definite terms for worrying about things being ‘clean’ on the outside while being themselves ‘full of greed and wickedness’ on the inside (Luke 11:39). When the lawyers present protest that Jesus in saying this is by implication criticizing them as well, Jesus, in no uncertain terms, makes clear that that is exactly what he is doing and explicitly condemns the lawyers too!

It has not been a very successful dinner party and the outcome bodes ill for future relations between Jesus and the Pharisees and their allies. St Luke writes:

‘When he [Jesus] went outside, the scribes and the Pharisees became hostile to him and began to interrogate him about many things, lying in wait for him, to catch him in something he might say.’ (Luke 11:53-54)

Jesus may be falling out with the Pharisees, his popularity with the crowds, however, is only growing. In chapter 12, St Luke describes how the crowd has gathered by the ‘thousands’ (Luke 12:1). Jesus speaks first to his disciples, warning them of the ‘yeast of the Pharisees, that is, their hypocrisy’. Jesus is referring to how the Pharisees by their religious practices act as if they are very holy people, while in reality their outward religious show only hides what they are really like. This leads to Jesus warning his disciples, in more general terms, that there is nothing hidden that will not be exposed. The Pharisees may be able to hide their greed and wickedness by their external religious rituals, but one day the inner secrets of everyone will be revealed (Luke 12:2-3).

No wonder, then, that Jesus continues by warning the disciples not to fear those who can only hurt them physically, but to fear the One who after killing them can also throw them into hell (Luke 12:5). This is genuinely scary stuff, but Jesus seeks to reassure his disciples by telling them not to be afraid, even the hairs of their head are counted (Luke 12:7). They are of great value in God’s sight.

What matters most, therefore, is people’s attitude to Jesus. Those who acknowledge Jesus before others, the ‘Son of Man’ will also acknowledge; equally, those who deny Jesus will be denied. The disciples, Jesus tells them, will be brought before the authorities because of their faith in him. They are not to worry about what words to use to acknowledge Jesus when that happens; the Holy Spirit will teach them what to say.

All this speaks of God’s judgement, and it may be this that prompts a man in the crowd to say to Jesus:

‘Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.’ (Luke 12:13)

The man obviously thinks Jesus would be a good person to act as a judge in settling a family dispute between him and his brother. The man has failed completely to understand Jesus’ message.

Jesus has just criticized the Pharisees for greed, and Jesus now also warns the crowd against it. The man in the crowd wants what he believes rightfully belongs to him; what he thinks should be his own. Jesus tells them that the meaning of life does not lie in how much we own. This is a very challenging statement and one which would have huge implications for all of us if we took it seriously, which, of course, we don’t. To make his message clear, Jesus, as he often does, then tells a story.

The story Jesus tells is about a rich man whose land has ‘produced abundantly’, so abundantly, in fact, that the man’s storage facilities are not adequate to store all he has. Jesus describes the conversation the man has with himself. He decides to pull down his existing store houses and build bigger ones to store his grain and all his goods. When he has done this, he says, he will say to himself that he now has enough to live on comfortably for many years; he can ‘relax, eat, drink, and be merry’. Jesus now describes an unusual twist in the story. Jesus’ stories are often about God but God himself does not appear in them. Here God actually speaks. This is of the utmost significance. God says to the rich man, ‘You fool!’ That very night, God tells the rich man, he will die. God asks him who his goods will belong to then? Jesus concludes with the message of the parable:

‘So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.’ (Luke 12:21)

The Psalmist writes:

‘The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”’ (Psalm 14:1; 53:1)

Today, we understand this to mean a denial of God’s existence, and it can certainly be applied to those who claim to be atheists, but it also refers to those who live as if there is no God. The rich man in the story would have believed there was a God. In all probability, he would have attended synagogue on the sabbath, but his belief in the existence of God didn’t change how he thought of his life and how he approached the future. There may as well be no God for all he cared. There will, however, Jesus teaches, come a day when everyone will have to care. By which time, of course, for many it will be too late.

Jesus will go on to draw out the practical implications of this for his disciples and for how they should live their lives in the present. Life, Jesus will tell them, is more than food and the body more than clothing (Luke 12:23). Rather than storing up riches on earth, as the rich man in the story did, they should instead seek to make sure they have riches in heaven. Jesus says:

‘For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.’ (Luke 12:34)

Jesus is telling his disciples that their heart will be with what they value. Jesus then goes on to warn his disciples to be ready, not as we might expect from the story for their death, but for the coming of the Son of Man. The Son of Man, Jesus says, will come at an hour they do not expect (Luke 12:40).

Jesus is urging his disciples to live their lives in the context of two realities. The first is the reality of death. We see this in the story of the rich man. The rich man had forgotten a fundamental fact of human life. Without exception, we will all die, and none of us know when the moment of our death will be. The second is what scholars refer to as the eschatological. In Christian theology, this is when Jesus will return, what is often described as the ‘second coming’. In the Gospels, Jesus often refers to this moment, as he does in chapter 12 of St Luke’s Gospel, as the coming of the Son of Man. In Jesus’ teaching, the coming of the Son of Man is related to the coming of the Kingdom of God. We saw in the sermon last week, for the Sixth Sunday after Trinity, how in the Lord’s Prayer Jesus taught his disciples to pray for God’s Kingdom to come (Luke 11:2).

Jesus teaches his disciples that as they don’t know when the coming of the Son of Man will be, they are to live their lives as if it could happen at any time. They are to resist the temptation to think that because it doesn’t seem as if it will happen soon, they can do whatever they like without having to worry about the consequences. They must always be ready for the coming of the Son of Man.

Being ready

There are two tendencies in the Church when it comes to this teaching about the coming of the Son of Man and of God’s Kingdom. Firstly, to do the precise opposite of what Jesus commands and ignore it, and secondly, to obsess over the details and to miss the whole point of it.

In the mainline churches, Jesus’ return and what it will mean is largely ignored. I doubt, for example, that at the Lambeth Conference of Anglican Bishops, which is taking place in England at the moment, you will hear much about the return of Jesus. Most churchgoers don’t give it much thought either. They simply don’t think that Jesus is going to return any time soon, if, that is, they think he will return at all. On the other hand, there are some who are obsessively interested in Jesus’ return and speculate on both when it will happen and the precise details of it.

In the New Testament, the return of Jesus is taken as a given, and the assumption is that it could occur at any time. There is also, however, a recognition that it may not occur immediately. The attitude of the New Testament writers is that we should live in obedience to Jesus’ teaching as though he could return at any time while at the same time waiting patiently for his return. The important thing is for us to be living in such a way that we are ready for Jesus whenever he does come.

In addition to this eschatological perspective in which we are to live our lives in the light and expectation of Jesus’ return, there is what can be called the mortal perspective. This emerges from the first reality in which we live. Not only as humans will we all die, we are also to live our lives in the expectation of our death. St Paul, for example, often reflects this perspective in his own life.

These two perspectives are not the same, but they do belong together, as they are in this chapter of St Luke’s Gospel, and both are important. While we may feel we can put off considering Jesus’ return in the belief that it will not happen in our lifetime, we don’t have that luxury when it comes to our death, that is something that will definitely happen in our lifetime! Nevertheless, despite the absolute certainty that we will die, our death is not something that many of us want to think about. We prefer to put it out of our mind and to get on with our lives. God, however, calls us back to reality with the words, ‘You fool!’

Rather than ignoring the fact that we will die and refusing to face up to the reality of our mortality, an ancient medieval practice is that of ‘memento mori’, Latin for ‘remember your death’ or ‘remember that you will die’. This practice encourages us to live our lives in the light of our death. St Benedict told his monks to keep death daily before their eyes (Rule of St Benedict, 4:47).

Sister Theresa Aletheia Noble, a nun of the Daughters of St Paul, has done much to revive the ancient practice, although perhaps not everyone would want to keep, as she does, a skull or similar artefact on their desk to remind themselves that one day they will die! The idea is that, by reflecting on our death, we get life into perspective and see what is important and what not.

Reflecting on our death brings two themes in Jesus’ teaching into sharp focus.

Life is not about what we own

Firstly, life is not about how much we have and what we own. The rich fool in Jesus’ story thought that because he was well off materially, he had nothing to worry about; he could stop work and enjoy himself. He may have realized that one day he would die, but that wasn’t going to stop him enjoying himself in the meantime. Nowadays, we would say that the fact that one day we are going to die is an added reason for getting on with enjoying our life now. Hence the idea of the ‘bucket-list’: things a person wants to do in their lifetime before they die.

What the rich man did not realize in his self-satisfied materialism was that the rich man wasn’t going to die sometime in the future; he was going to die that night. Not only was all that he possessed going to be of no use to him, he was going to have to face the God whose existence he had ignored.

We are all aware that one die we will die. We also know that it is foolish to act as if we are going to live forever in this world. We even know how precarious life is, and yet we still prefer to chance it now, in the hope we will have the time and opportunity not only to acquire stuff but to enjoy it as well.

Nowadays, we do not store things up ‘where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal’ so much (Matthew 6:19; Luke 12:33)’. Nevertheless, while we may not live in an agricultural society, which keeps its goods in barns, we do make investments that market forces and inflation can devalue overnight. Jesus is not suggesting that we should not be prudent or that we shouldn’t make financial plans for the future. He is, however, warning forcefully against greed and against making such financial provision the basis for our hope and security in life.

As a priest, I am used to taking funerals for people. It is not uncommon to hear the bereaved say things like, ‘I would give everything to have her/him back with me.’ It often takes the death of someone we love to make us question our priorities in life. Sadly, even after losing someone close to us, it is not long before we are back to putting material wealth and possessions at the centre of our life. Jesus’ warning against greed and materialism is one we need both to hear and to act on.

But Jesus’ words have a wider application. We not only value material wealth and possessions as individuals, we live in a materialist society, which depends on us doing just that. Consumption, constantly acquiring stuff, is intrinsic to the society we live in. If we don’t buy stuff – stuff we don’t need or want – the economy collapses. Only this week past, I got a text notifying me that my next ‘consumption voucher’ will soon be available. Apparently, the only way out of the pandemic economically is for us to do the very thing that Jesus warns us against. If we don’t allow our lives to be about the abundance of our possessions, then businesses go broke, people are made unemployed, and the economy collapses.

Economic growth, that is, producing an ever-increasing amount of what we don’t need for people who don’t need it is what a market economy is all about. As believers, we cannot hope to change this, but we do need to change our own personal attitude to wealth, consumption, and possessions. We also need to challenge the mentality that thinks that the acquisition of things is what life is all about and what defines whether we are living a successful and fulfilled existence.

One day we will find out just how successful we really have been in life when we stand before the judgement seat of Christ, the Son of Man. Memento mori: remember your death and change your life now, while there is still time to do so.

Rich toward God

Secondly, Jesus says that what he has described in the story of the rich fool is how it is with those who store up possessions for themselves and who are not rich toward God.

I don’t know if your bank does the same, but my bank keeps sending me promotional material telling me how easy they are making it for me to check my bank balance and the value of any investments I may have. They want to encourage me to check my financial health and see how much I am worth financially (or not, as the case may be!). Jesus uses this idea of our financial worth to challenge us to consider our spiritual worth. How much have we got invested in the bank of heaven?

Now the Church is, in many ways, its own worst enemy when it comes to encouraging people to check their spiritual account. We quite rightly want to assure people of God’s love for them. We want to tell them of God’s grace and forgiveness, which is given freely and which cannot be earned. All of which is true. But what we also communicate is that it doesn’t matter what we do, what our values and attitudes are, or how we live our lives, which emphatically is not true. All of this does matter. In our second reading from Colossians, St Paul writes that the wrath of God is coming on those who are disobedient (Colossians 3:6). As we saw in the sermon for the Second Sunday after Trinity, St Paul having described the works of the flesh, says to the believers in Galatia:

‘I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.’ (Galatians 5:21)

Jesus tells his disciples to seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness (Matthew 6:33; Luke 12:31). He tells the Devil that man shall not live by bread alone (Luke 4:4). He tells the crowd in the synagogue in Capernaum that unless we eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, we have no life in us (John 6:53). In other words, that we need to depend on him utterly if we are to live. He tells a lawyer that the two greatest commandments that we must keep if we are to have eternal life are to love God completely and our neighbour as ourself (Matthew 22:36-40; Luke 10:27-28). He tells his disciples that anyone who wants to be his follower must deny themselves, take up their cross daily, and follow him (Luke 9:23).

We hear all these words and many more like them often enough, but they wash over us. They don’t resonate with us. Instead, we listen to the message that we hear everywhere that tells us that we ourselves are what matters: our desires, our hopes, and our dreams. Even the government, for example, is now using this language to talk about its policies towards young people. It does so because it knows instinctively that this is the language that people understand and respond to.

Let me tell you now as bluntly as I can that it is the language of hell. Jesus saw it as coming from Satan himself when St Peter used it (Mark 8:33). It is the language of the rich man in Jesus’ story. In the story in our English translation, the rich man speaks three sentences to himself. He uses the word ‘my’ five times and ‘I’ six times. This is someone completely self-centred who is very pleased with himself. He has achieved his dreams.

The irony is, of course, that it wasn’t even him who achieved them. How does Jesus begin the story? Jesus begins, ‘The land of a rich man produced abundantly.’ The man got lucky with his land. But instead of using what he had been given, he sought to save it all for himself. He was rich in himself, but poor in God.

Jesus’ message to us who are so used to checking our bank balance is to check our spiritual balance. What’s our spiritual statement? How much have we got invested in God? Anyone investing for a purpose such as for their child’s education or for their own retirement won’t leave it until the very last moment to check how much they have got. ‘Memento mori’, remember your death. Don’t leave it until your death to discover how much you have got invested with God.

So, check your spiritual balance today and start investing with God while there is still time because there really will come a day when it will be too late.

Memento mori: remember your death and find life in God.

Amen.

Since I wrote the post about excessive meetings, I have been both encouraged by the number of people who have said they agree and discouraged by the relentless number of meetings that keep popping up.  The need is for discernment to know which are important and which are not.

I have been working on the sermon for this week and next, which will both be based on the second reading for the day from 1 Thessalonians.  The theme will be the same for both: death and the future.  Readers of this blog and those who know me will know that I am not a big fan of death.  I really dislike the flippancy with which some Christians discuss it.

Anyway, looking at what the New Testament writers, in general, and Paul, in particular, have to say about it, I am struck more and more by difference in perspective between us and them.  The emphasis in most Christian preaching and pastoral care today is on the destiny of believers once they die.  Understandably, we want to reassure bereaved families and those facing death - whether that of their own or a loved one - that the deceased or dying are going to heaven to be with Jesus.  Hope is expressed very much in terms of what happens when we die.

In the New Testament, however, this is not the emphasis.  The emphasis is not on what happens to us when we die, but on what will happen to us when Christ returns.  Now given that Christ's return has been delayed, from our point of view, for a very long time, it is understandable that we should focus on what happens at the point of death and not at some apparently very far off moment when Christ comes again - if we still believe he will, which many do not.

The problem reflected in the passage from Thessalonians for this coming Sunday seems to be that the Thessalonians were very worried about what would happen to those who had died before Christ came again. Paul writes at the start of the letter:

'...how you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath that is coming.'
(1 Thessalonians 1:9-10)

Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy in their preaching of the Gospel seem to have stressed the fact that Jesus will return and we are to wait expectantly and be ready for Him.  Perhaps because of the relatively short time they were in Thessalonica, they did not deal with the issue of what happened to someone who died before Jesus returned and it is this question that they are now answering in their letter.

Their answer is interesting: they do not say, don't worry those who have died are safe with Christ, but, don't worry those who have died won't miss out when he returns.  In other words, they remain focused on the return of Christ as the ground of Christian hope.  It is then, and only then, that we will be raised and forever be with the Lord.

This still leaves hanging the question of what happens to the dead in the meantime.  Some people think that Paul either changed or developed his theology in his future letters.  Personally, I think it is a case of him explaining it in the light of different situations and questions.  But more on that in another post!

Wet and Weeping

One of the projects that we have started here at Christ Church recently is the renovation and reordering of the building to the side of the Church in order to create a multi-function space for different groups to use. Today the builders were going to start work on laying new drains. Needless to say, today turns out to be one of the wettest so far this rainy season. It is really very wet!

I am hoping that the rain will go off soon - not for the builders, but because we have a funeral in Church this afternoon of a long-standing church member who, sadly, died a few days ago of cancer. I am sure other priests and pastors will know what I mean when I say how hard it is to take the funeral of someone you knew reasonably well.

As priests and pastors, we often get asked to take funerals of people we never or only barely knew. I would like to think that we do so with sensitivity and sympathy, but when you knew the person and are yourself part of the grieving community, it is always that much harder. I have always made it a rule not to take the funeral of close family. This rule was pushed to the limit in my previous parish when there was a time when I was regularly taking the funeral of parishioners who had become good friends.

It is a reminder that important though things like building work are in a Church, the real work of ministry is to 'rejoice with those who rejoice and to weep with those who weep'. Regular readers of this blog will know that I regard death as always an occasion for weeping, even though as Christians we look forward to the day when God will wipe all tears from our eyes.

Until then, he entrusts us with the task of wiping each others eyes for him.

Thank You

A big thank you to all who have contacted me after reading of the death of David.  Your thoughts and prayers mean a great deal to me and are appreciated more than words can express.

My other brother Charlie, who is also an Anglican Vicar, is much involved in the Woodland Burial Trust and was instrumental in setting it up.  The idea behind woodland burial is to provide a burial in an ecologically sensitive way.

Some of you may be interested in the website which explains more about it:

www.woodlandburialtrust.com

The Death of My Brother David

The past couple of weeks have been particularly sad for me and my family.  My dear brother David died suddenly and unexpectedly just under two weeks ago.  He was only 38.  I have just returned from attending his funeral in the UK.  David was buried in Bedford at a woodland burial ground nearby.  It was raining hard and we all got soaked, which only added to the sense of tragedy.  

Long time readers of this blog will know my views on death.  It is a great enemy that only comes to rob us of life and of those we love.  Death is no friend of the Christian.  Nevertheless, for the Christian there is always hope.

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord,

and let light perpetual shine upon him.

Ash Wednesday

Next Wednesday is Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent. I have just recorded a talk to be broadcast on Shrove Tuesday. Here it is!

Ash Wednesday

We are about to enter the season of Lent. Lent begins with Ash Wednesday and in many churches a traditional service will be held that includes the imposition of ashes. This is where the minister makes a mark of the Cross in ash on the foreheads of those assembled. As this takes place, the minister says:

‘Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
Turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ.’

There then follows a period of about 40 days when people are meant to be penitent, that is, to be sorry for their sins and to show that they are so by giving things up and practising self-denial.

This really goes against the grain of the sort of society we live in. Our economy would actually collapse if people did seriously engage in self-denial as opposed to a token self-denial such as giving up sweets or whatever. The consumer society is just that: a society in which we consume and the more the better. Of course, there is a downside to this as we are discovering with global warming. Yet even though we know we need to do something about global warming, one solution we won’t countenance is consuming less. The message of self-denial is not one we are ready for and not one any economy is likely to adopt any time soon.

If the idea of self-denial is one that we don’t want to hear, the words: ‘Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return’ are words we want to hear even less. The consumer society thrives on advertising designed to show us how happy we can be if we buy a particular product. The last thing we want to hear is that we are dust and that we are soon going to die. In fact, we are engaged in this orgy of consumption precisely because we don’t want to think about death. We want to focus on the here and now. If we did think more about death, we might have to reorder our priorities and change the way we live.

No, death is not something that we want to be reminded of. This is why millions spend millions on creams and treatments that are supposed to ward-off ageing. We do not want to see the face of a dying person in the mirror every morning. The creams and treatments don’t work, of course, but we are so desperate that we will try anything. However, the face that stares back at us in the mirror, whether we want to hear about it or not, IS the face of a dying person: Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

The reaction to this Ash Wednesday reminder is often to see it as typical of religious kill-joys: people who don’t know how to enjoy themselves and don’t want anyone else to either. It is seen as very negative and morbid. It is not meant to be. It is meant to remind us of who we are and of our mortality so that we can prepare for our death and make the most of our life. A popular saying is: ‘Life is not a dress-rehearsal’ meaning that this is all there is so we had better make the most of it.

The Christian message is that indeed life is not a dress-rehearsal, but it does not follow that this is all there is to it. There is another life beyond this one and what we do in this one directly affects our life in the next. No dress-rehearsal indeed!

It is because life is not a dress rehearsal, but the real thing, that we need to hear the Ash Wednesday sentences:

‘Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
Turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ.’

We will die and the best way to prepare for our certain death is not by trying to blot the thought out with work or pleasure, it is by turning from sin and being faithful to Christ who Christians believe not only died, but rose again from the dead.

His death gives us hope as we face our own.

A Deadly Affair

I have just returned from having taken a funeral. It was unusually early: 8.00am. I always worry about being late for funerals or missing them for some reason. I actually dreamt last night that I had forgotten it and woke in a panic trying to work out what to do. It was some time before I realised it was only 5.00am and I had been dreaming. I know clergy who have forgotten they had a funeral and for them it has been a real nightmare!

Funerals here are very different to how they are in the UK. The funeral parlours are quite crude and brash and there is little sense of dignity. There are also all sorts of traditional customs attached to the funeral that take a while to get used to as a westerner.

One thing that happens here a lot, and which used to happen in the UK, but does so rarely now, is that people go the night before to view the body. Often the coffin will be left open for the service and the congregation will be invited during the service to walk round the coffin as a mark of last respect. Frequently, I am asked to be there when the body is put into the coffin. It can be quite strange, especially when you did not know the deceased. Strange, that is, that the first time you meet someone is when they are dead!

Death is not something I am good at. I can cope with other people's - I have to - but the death of others brings you up against the fact of your own. I have never understood those Christians who make light of death. I hate, HATE, that Henry Scott-Holland piece about death being 'nothing at all'. 'What is death but a negligible accident?' the poem asks. If death is nothing at all, a mere negligible accident, why did Christ have to die? And why was God raising him from the dead such a big thing? And why must Christ now reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet? The last enemy, still to be destroyed, says Paul is death.

Don't misunderstand me, I believe that the love of God is stronger than death, but death is still horrible. I don't want to die, but I accept it as inevitable fact of life, a consequence of sin, and something that will destroy me and all that I am. I will not slip away, I will be consumed by a powerful enemy. And I for one will 'not go gentle into that good night', but will indeed 'rage, rage against the dying of the light'. I know it will take a miracle to save and bring me back, what the Bible calls salvation and resurrection. At death, I will trust myself to him, trembling and afraid, but hopeful that 'he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day'.

Tonight, it is the Diocesan Synod. I often quote the saying, 'No-one on their death bed wishes they had spent more time in the office.' On my death bed, I am sure I won't wish I had spent more time at Synod meetings!