Sunday Preview

The Collect
    Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

1 Thessalonians 3:9-13
    How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy that we feel before our God because of you? Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you face to face and restore whatever is lacking in your faith.
    Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you. And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you. And may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.

Psalm 50:1-6
The mighty one, God the LORD,
    speaks and summons the earth
        from the rising of the sun to its setting.
Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty,
        God shines forth.
Our God comes and does not keep silence,
        before him is a devouring fire,
        and a mighty tempest all around him.
He calls to the heavens above
        and to the earth, that he may judge his people:
‘Gather to me my faithful ones,
        who made a covenant with me by sacrifice!’
The heavens declare his righteousness,
        for God himself is judge.

Luke 21:25-31
    Jesus said, "There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see 'the Son of Man coming in a cloud' with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near."
    Then he told them a parable: "Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near.

Chaplaincy Review

No creature has meaning
    without the Word of God.
God's Word is in all creation, visible and invisible.
The Word is living, being,
    spirit, all verdant greening,
    all creativity.
This Word flashes out in
    every creature.
This is how the spirit is in the flesh—
    the Word is indivisible from God.

Hildegard of Bingen

[Calling all poets and authors! If you'd like to see your work in this spot, please contact Jennifer or Ben.]

Morning After Preaching (29B)

Missed church? Trying to remember that line from the sermon that made you think? This is the place! Make comments, debate, get engaged! This is your chance for 'monday morning quarterbacking', in a churchy-sense.

Texts: Daniel 7:9-14; Psalm 93; John 18:33-37

The Christian year ends this week. And it ends in the same way that a new Christian year will begin next Sunday, Advent Sunday, with a very Jewish story. One about the coming messiah. It shouldn’t be a surprise that the beginning and end of the Christian year – its alpha and omēga – are about the Jewish messiah. After all, the Jewish scripture is the foundation upon which Christianity is built. It is Jewish scripture that tells us what God is like and what God’s messiah is like. The difference between the Jewish and Christian understanding of scripture, though, is whether, when the messiah comes at the end of time, that messiah will be someone we recognise – Jesus – or someone we don’t. For me, that is what is at the heart of Jewish-Christian relations. We are all looking for the messiah to return, but the question is whether when he comes it will be Jesus or not.

The Christian year ends with a Jewish story in which God is an Ancient One – the Ancient of Days – who chooses as ruler of the earth someone “like a human being, like a Son of Man, coming with the clouds of heaven” (Dan 7:13). It is a story that Jesus used, during his earthly ministry, to talk about himself. Jesus identified himself as that Son of Man who will come again with the clouds of heaven (e.g. Mk 8:31-38). Jesus was convinced of his own role as the messiah, and so it is as the one who is to come that Churchgoers next Sunday will begin a new year talking about him.

So let’s look at the messiah story in Daniel a little more closely. The prophet Daniel describes his vision like this: “I saw one like a human being coming with the clouds of heaven. And he came to the Ancient One and was presented before him. To him was given dominion and glory and kingship, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away, and his kingship is one that shall never be destroyed” (Dan 7:13-14).

Daniel’s vision is a typical example of the prophetic vision: it’s rather weird and frightening. The prophets of ancient Israel were given the gift of seeing such visions of God. If you like, it’s part of the job description of a prophet! Think of Isaiah praying in the temple and Ezekiel as he sat by the banks of the river Chebar in Babylon. Both of them see God in what appears to be human form, just as Daniel does when he sees the Ancient One. But these are visions of God – prophets are keen to show that this is not God, but only a visible image of the invisible God. Visions do not claim to see God as God really is; a vision takes as its starting point that it will not be able to capture God in all God’s glory.

So Ezekiel heavily qualifies what he sees in his vision, so that we don’t end up thinking that the invisible God really looks like anything: “This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord” (Ez 1:28b). Let’s just be clear – Ezekiel is saying this is the 1) appearance of a 2) likeness of a 3) glory that belongs to God. And so it is with Daniel’s vision. God is not an Old Man in the clouds – instead, Daniel’s vision has God, the Ancient of Days, seated on a throne of fiery flames with burning wheels: not something you are likely to run into on the streets of Cambridge. And the one whom God sends, the messiah, is one “like a human being,” not just any human but an extraordinary one so that he is only “like” a human.

In the Gospels, Jesus claims he is the one chosen by the Ancient of Days to be the coming messiah, the King of the Jews. He is the one to be “given dominion and glory and kingship, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him.” All the earth is to be blessed through this king of Israel. He will be the just and merciful ruler of the whole world.

Now I know, in this country, you are all a bit suspicious of kings. A ruler of the whole world might not be what you are looking for exactly. A ruler who is given supreme power but who claims to use that power for the good of all, might sound to you, like it did to your forebears, a contradiction in terms. Kings will only ever be tyrants, demanding taxation without representation?

But for those of you who fear a king who lords it over you, think of the messiah you are promised. For this is the wonderful bit about Christianity. If Jesus is the one chosen by God, what does the representative of God’s glory on earth look like? A humble Jewish carpenter.

In our Gospel reading today, the Jewish carpenter is face to face with the Roman Proconsul. Pilate is a representative of the Roman Empire of which Judea is one small part. If the Roman Empire was the known world, here was Jesus face to face with the personification of this world. And Jesus tells him that “My kingship is not from this world.” The king of the known world is Caesar, but the kingship that really matters is from God. That is the kingship given to the messiah.

“My kingship is not from this world,” says Jesus. “If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over.” They would be fighting if his kingdom were of this world. But for those of you who fear tyranny, here is the key: Jesus is not the sort of king whose dominion is backed up by violence. Not a representative of a regime with all the machinery of torture at its disposal, for that is the role of Pilate his accuser. Not a King George III. But someone who has gone up against worldly power with only prayer and the hope that the world will be a better place. The kind of king I am talking about is someone who, on the cross, seemed to have his prayers of suffering go unanswered and his hope snuffed out. That sort of experience doesn’t breed tyranny – the sort of leader who has gone through suffering opposes tyranny.

If we are looking for modern parallels, the nearest I can come up with is a Nelson Mandela. And not the young ANC freedom-fighter, but Mandela after he spent all those years doing hard labor in prison on Robin Island and came out not mad or bad but merciful and just. Or a Vaclav Havel, a philosopher who opposed the communist regime in Czechoslovakia and came out of prison a leader of a peaceful opposition movement. Both these men lost out to power and suffered as a result – but through that suffering learnt how to rule.

Think of these worldly examples and times them by a thousand, for Jesus says, “my kingship is not from this world.” Jesus’ kingship is even more merciful and just because it is not from this world. Instead, it is kingship for the world. If we believe Jesus is the messiah then his kingship has already begun, a kingship for carpenters, fishermen, prostitutes, sinners. A kingship by one who has suffered on the cross. A kingship, as the Creed says, for us and for our salvation. No taxation, no representation, simply salvation.

Welcome!

The Harvard Episcopal Chaplaincy holds services every Sunday at 5pm at Christ Church, Cambridge, through the academic year. We would love for you to join us for service and for dinner afterwards!