You don’t need me to tell you, we live in uncertain times. The outcome of the United States presidential election seems to crystallise and probably accelerate a growing move towards nationalism and away from global cooperation and collaboration for economic wellbeing and the preservation of peace and justice. Possibly even bigger than economic wellbeing and peace, is the unremitting direction of travel for global warming with the seemingly exponential increase in extreme weather events and heightened risk of flooding. In our church we are dismayed and disorientated that, when news of the John Smyth abuse came to the attention of church leaders, at best, the needs of victims, past and present, were disgracefully downplayed; at worst there has been deliberate cover-up.
However unsettled we feel, uncertainty is not new. It’s probably fair to say that the discussions between Jesus and his disciples in our gospel reading about end times, reflects a sense of uncertainty impairing the hope and confidence of that community all those years ago.
And the conversation would certainly have been unsettling and even shocking to the disciples. As they leave the temple, they offer their comments, admiring the grandeur of the temple buildings. Instead of joining in with the small talk, Jesus disrupts it with his prediction that the temple would be destroyed, and this ties in with the warning signs of the end times coming to humanity and all the world.
Now, it is tempting to cross reference Trump’s self-belief of messiahship with Jesus’s warning of false messiahs, our extreme weather events with Jesus’s warning about earthquakes and famine and the terrible wars blighting our planet from Ukraine to the Middle East to Africa with Jesus speaking of wars and the rumours of war.
It’s tempting to make those comparisons and conclude our world is soon to end, but I’m not convinced that’s the best approach to scripture; not least as similar exercises could have been done in every age between then and now!
What I think we want to draw out of the passage is the encouragement to persevere in the faith and to remain steadfast in faith despite the turmoil around us. And that is not an easy ask.
We can fall into two traps about how we respond to the uncertainties and concerns around us. One trap is to become so caught up in grief and lament for where there is pain and destruction that we feel the issues are beyond anything we can hope to engage with or influence, and we descend into silent inactive despair. The second trap is to be breezily confident that all will be well, all will work out, and not to let our living get distracted by problems that will come and problems that will go.
A renowned psychotherapist, Francis Weller, talked about inhabiting a place between grief and gratitude, and his words have something to say to us about how we inhabit our uncertain world.
He writes: “The work of the mature person is to carry grief in one hand and gratitude in the other and to be stretched large by them. How much sorrow can I hold? That’s how much gratitude I can give. If I carry only grief, I’ll bend toward cynicism and despair. If I have only gratitude, I’ll become saccharine and won’t develop much compassion for other people’s suffering. Grief keeps the heart fluid and soft, which helps make compassion possible.” I would like to reframe this to comment on uncertainty: ‘the mature person, facing uncertainty, carries hope in one hand and fear in the other. If we carry only fear we’ll bend toward cynicism and despair; if we carry only hope we will overlook the depth and seriousness of the challenges before us.’
Our gospel this morning reminds us of the uncertainties humanity faces, then and now. We are called – we have a vocation – to watch, to take seriously, to give support to one another, to use our voice and actions for the common good and take an active part in yearning for the coming of God’s kingdom.
This is a painful and challenging calling. It is always easy, and this year perhaps more so than others, to let despair smother trust, fear eclipse our hope and darkness extinguish our light. And yet the encouragement of Jesus is to persevere in faith, trust and love despite the turmoils and damaging events in our world. We are called to inhabit an interweaving of hope with fear and trust with uncertainty in our being. Asking God for God’s grace to sustain, inspire and empower us to do all that we can to yearn and look for and trust in our familiar prayer ‘your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.’ A prayer o so important in these uncertain and fearful times we live in.
So help us God.
Amen.
