O.M.C

Light in the Shadowlands

A sermon based on Zephaniah 1:7, 1-18, 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11 and Matthew 25:14-30

Emily Schaming
November 13, 2005
Ottawa Mennonite Church

www.ottawamennonite.ca

I was clearing out my desk recently and came across a button a friend gave me in high school. It says, "Jesus is Coming, Look Busy."

There is a lot of scary sounding stuff about God coming to judge the earth in today's scripture readings. In Zephaniah the world seems to be crashing down at God's hand and in Matthew the servant is sent to a place where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Many Christians focus a lot of spiritual energy on the idea of judgment. I once watched a movie in which first graders are learning to sew samplers in school. Most of the children were creating peices that said things like, "I love Mummy" The little girl who is the main character came from a very strict religious background and her teacher was a little bit shocked by her sampler which read, "the summer is ended and we are not yet saved"

It is not hard to get caught up in the idea of salvation as a future event. In the idea that we are waiting for the summer to end. Equally, sometimes we do not think to relate God's future kingdom to our present lives.

Scholar John Dominic Crossan makes a distinction between sapiential and apocalyptic eschatology. The term eschatology refers to beliefs about the end of the world. An apocalyptic eschatology believes that a cataclysmic divine intervention will restore peace and justice in a disordered world. Those who hold this world view preach of the terrible things that will occur to those who don't conform to their sense of what God requires of us. An example would be saying, as some church leaders have recently, that natural disasters are a consequence of the wickedness and immorality of our times. This kind of thinking is found throughout the Hebrew Scripture. The Jewish Exile to Babylon was understood as a divine intervention to punish Israel for worshipping false Gods. It can be seen in the reading today from Zephaniah.

This was the view of John the Baptist, who lived on a diet of honey and locusts in the wilderness, who angered Herod's wife by condemning her wickedness, who urged repentance in order to avoid God's wrath.

This was the view of John the Baptist, who lived on a diet of honey and locusts in the wilderness, who angered Herod's wife by condemning her wickedness, who urged repentance in order to avoid God's wrath.

First Thessalonians reminds us of something very important. It is not our task to just sit around waiting for God to show up. God already came. It says: "But you, beloved, are not in darkness, for that day to surprise you like a thief; for you are all children of light and children of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness." And continues…"For God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep we may live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing."

I think I need another button that says, "Jesus Already Came. Get Busy."

Talents

There's an old tale about one farmer who asks another farmer, "What are you going to plant this spring, Jake? ...Corn?" And Jake replies, "Nope, scared of the corn borer." So he asks, "What about potatoes?" "Nope, too much danger of potato bugs." "Well then, what are you going to plant?" And Jake replies, "Nothing. I'm going to play it safe."

The parable of the talents is an interesting one. Often people think that the man who only got one talent wasn't very well off. The other servants had much more. But a talent was a lot of money, it would have paid the wages of an average worker for 15 years.

But the servant with the one talent was afraid. He played it safe. And so like Jake the farmer, he ended up with even less than he had been given in the first place. This parable is often used to teach that we should take what we are given and do well with it. And certainly that is the case. But what if the first two servants had invested their talents and lost money? Would the master have been pleased upon his return?

I think that it is the fear that is the important factor in the story. The third servant was so afraid of his master that he took 15 years worth of wages and buried it in the ground. Instead of using the wealth he had, he decided to play it safe.

We Do His Work In The World

Sure there are scary aspects to faith. But we can conquor fear!

In her book, A Return to Love Marianne Williamson talks about fear. The kind of fear that the one talent servant seemed to have had. The kind of fear that keeps us from risking the treasure that God has given us - from sharing the gospel with deeds of love, and of power, and of commitment: She says,

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.

It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

Christ's Light Shines Through Us

Christ's light shines through us. We can see it in the 10 000 Villages sales here at the church in November. There are many stages, someone harvests clay from the earth and makes something beautiful out of it, we bring the item to our country, we charge a fair price for it and tell everyone about the item. People see how beautiful the item is and are attracted to it. Then we can tell its story and the story of the person who made it. Love and justice are spread. This is a perfect example of our lives in the world. We were created by God as beautiful creatures with an infinite capacity for sharing our talents. God sent Jesus to us on Earth so that we could see the true value of the Kingdom. So now we are to spread the story, to spread the love contained in that story, to do justice and to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.

Even without the extended metaphor, everyone from the church coming together to support people around the world is exactly what Crossan was talking about when he defined sapiential eschatology. Jesus said help and love one another here on earth.

What About The End?

A former slave known as "Uncle Johnson" died in Michigan in the 1860s at the incredible age of 120. Perhaps his advanced years could be credited in part to the cheerful outlook that characterized his life. One day while at work in his garden, he was singing songs of praise to God. A minister who lived nearby, looked over the fence and called, "Uncle Johnson, you seem very happy today." "Yes, I was just thinking," said the old man. "Thinking about what?" asked minister. "Oh, I was just thinking that if the crumbs of joy that fall from the Master's table in this world are so good, what will the GREAT LOAF in glory be like! I tell you, sir, there will be enough for everyone and some to spare up there."

Of course, an end will come, whether it is merely to our own lives or to the whole world. Until then we can strive to do God's will on Earth like Uncle Johnson, who described himself as a 'trumpet of the gospel' and who lived his life accordingly.

The title of my sermon comes from CS Lewis' final book in the Narnia series, "The Last Battle". Many of you will also recognize 'Shadowlands' as the title of a movie on Lewis' life.

Shadowlands is the term Lewis uses to describe the world in which we live, a mere shadow of the real Earth in which there is no death or suffering. But he makes it clear that what we did in the Shadowlands has an effect on whether or not we get to experience the real Earth, that if we are faithful in doing God's will, the new world is to be ours. Near the end of the story one of the animals explains the beauty of the new Narnia. He says, "I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that it sometimes looked a little like this." We love our world because it was given to us by God. Every person, every lake, every star. And it is here in this world that we are called to be God's children of light.

Safiyah Fosua said it this way in verse…

All quotations of Scripture, unless otherwise noted, are from the New Revised Standard Version.