Sermon for the 1st Sunday of Advent
28 November 2004
Recorded for BBC TV at St Mary's Chesham
The Son of Man comes on clouds descending
In the millennium year 2000, I travelled the Diocese and in every Deanery visited the largest secondary school. I asked the head teacher if I could meet with 16-18 year olds to listen to their dreams and dreads of the future and to say why I thought that Jesus Christ was still relevant today. The door of every school opened and sometimes there were over 250 students. We produced three short videos to stimulate discussion on the future of the earth, relationships and the spiritual search. After the video clip of the environment I asked them on a scale of 0 - 10 to say how worried they were about the future of the planet. In every school 100 per cent of hands went up with students putting themselves between 5 and 10. I then asked them, again on a scale of 0 - 10, to what extent they felt we ought to do something about it. I drew attention to the moral word 'ought' and again found that 98 per cent of all hands went up.
This encounter with thousands of young people made a big impact on me. I came away realising that they were more aware of the environment than my generation. It made me go back to the Bible to see what if anything it had to say about the environment. I went back to the Gospels thinking 'if the environment is so important why isn't there anything in the teaching of Jesus'. The more I read the more I saw that there was more than I realised - it was just hidden by the way we read it. These four Advent services will show us that Jesus' teaching was really down to earth and that he was passionate about bringing heaven down to earth. After all at the heart of the Lord's Prayer is a plea to do God's will on earth as it's done in Heaven. It's a prayer for the earthing of Heaven. It's a prayer about our environment, and making it just like Heaven.
How many children have heard their Mums shout at them "Just wait 'til your Dad gets in!" It conjures up a picture of Dad as the one who'll sort out the children. The threat is meant to stop the squabbling and get the kids back on track!
When the Old Testament prophets wanted to get people back in line they would use the same trick. "God is coming" they would threaten. The magic word was "Emmanuel". "God with us". It was a threat that God would soon come and sort out the sinners. "Emmanuel" meant judgement! It's not very fashionable to talk about this. But it's an age-old theme of this season of Advent as we gear up for the coming of God's Man on earth.
But in the Bible judgement lies not just in the future. It happens in the present. Whatever you sow, you will reap. That's how judgement works. If you do bad things, eventually they'll catch up with you.
We know that on a personal level. If you live life thoroughly selfishly, giving no thought for anybody else and doing others down to get you own way you end up with just yourself as a very lonely person.
But we're beginning to see that judgement on a much bigger scale. For years now we've been poisoning the oceans, slashing down the trees and polluting the air. At first little changed. But now we're beginning to see the harvest of what we've sown. And its frightening. Through too much carbon in the atmosphere, the ozone level that protects us from the sun is breaking up, the air is warming, the climate changing, the ice-caps melting, the seas rising and the lands flooding. We're facing an environmental crisis. That's a good word, for "crisis" actually means "judgement".
When the news bulletins carry the headline "Environmental Crisis" they're brandishing a truth greater than they know.
Mind you, not every crisis makes the news.
With the survivors of the super cyclones which devastated the villages of South East India, I've walked the paddy fields where the bodies of their dead children floated in the floods.
I've sailed in a dug-out canoe up the Patuca River in Honduras and seen the illegal logging companies threaten the last remaining rain forest in Central America - and the livelihood of the local people.
Little of this is heard by the rest of the world.
We are living at a unique moment in the history of the earth. Until recently human actions were trivial and puny by comparison with the power of the forces of nature. Now that is no longer the case. Nuclear Energy, Genetic Modification and Carbon Emissions have altered the balance of power. Human actions now influence fundamental processes of the planet. And we are reaping what we are sowing.
You might well wonder where this will all end. As we turn to the Bible you can read it in at least two ways. Some think the earth will end up in a ball of flames, so you might as well milk the earth for all it's worth while you've got time and concentrate on securing your place in heaven.
Others believe that God has a plan for renewing the earth, as he brings about a new world in which heaven and earth are fused together.
This is the Kingdom that Jesus wants us to pray for. We work for God's will here and now until Jesus comes again and turns the earth into heaven. When we start to follow him we begin a new life that goes on for eternity. His is a Kingdom of fairness and forgiveness, justice and mercy. That's how we're to serve the earth and treat each other.
Not long ago I was visited by a BBC News Crew who were filming a piece about faith in Britain. They wanted to know what faith meant to me. I asked them how long I had. "Twenty seconds". This is what I said.
"Faith in Jesus means
caring for the earth
seeking justice with the poor
and finding a purpose for our existence
which lies in knowing God's love
and especially his forgiveness"
Seventeen point four seconds!
Judging by the mess we have got the planet into I doubt that any would deny we need God's forgiveness - both personally and together.
The whole of creation has come into being through and for Jesus. To spoil it isn't just a crime against the rest of the world and future generations - it's a blasphemy, an offence to God for it's desecrating what belongs to him. Jesus, the Son of Man, professes to come again - this time on clouds. Given all that we now know about climate change it's a powerful image of judgement. But he also comes, to us now, and with mercy - ready to forgive.
As we seek his forgiveness and open our hearts to him we find a new resolve to live a different sort of life. As we will see next week, it's a life where we live under his personal rule and seek justice in and for the whole world.
In this season of Advent we wait for the coming of Christ. Not just us but the whole earth waits for Christ to bring about a new world where justice will flow like a river and mercy will be the air that we breathe.