Romans 13:11-14 & Matthew 24:36-44.

We are perhaps the first generation in which even those without a
religious world view can envisage the end of the world. We may also be
the generation that is least equipped to cope with its approach.

We can envisage it like no others before us because our generation has
the
knowledge and the technical capability to bring about the end of the
world by our own actions. And not only are we capable of doing it, we
are doing it. We may not do it by nuclear holocaust as was the big fear
ten or fifteen years ago although, as former Australian Prime Minister
Paul Keating said in the paper during the week, with more nations
becoming nuclear capable and some older nuclear armaments falling into
disrepair or at risk of being stolen there’s little reason for
complacency, but even with that fear somewhat diminished we are
inexorably bringing about
the end of the world with a slower and less visible environmental
holocaust.

Our governments are doing next to nothing about it of course, because
they
can’t think past the next election and it will probably be about another
thirty years before it gets to the stage where the wealth and power of
the
western nations can no longer guarantee refuge from the effects of holes
torn in the ozone layer, toxic wastes pumped into our waterways, soils
needing more and stronger chemicals to get anything to grow, and species
extinctions chopping link after link from the food chains. Most of
today’s politicians won’t live that long, but many of us will.

For previous generations, to speak the end of the world implied God
stepping in and bringing time to a close. If God didn’t act the world
would go on much as it always had. But for us it’s the other way around.
Now the end of the world would just be the inevitable consequence of
things continuing unchanged as they are now. Now it seems that it would
take a massive intervention by God to avoid the end of the world because
we’re making no significant progress in averting it ourselves. Those
with the power don’t have the will, and those with the will don’t have
the power. And the vast majority of us are so paralyzed by the enormity
of it all that we just do our best to go on living as though paying off
the mortgage on our quarter acre will ensure a secure future for our
kids, and whenever the social and ecological doom-sayers get too loud we
just go numb and have no way of processing or responding to their
message.

So as we enter this season of Advent, this season during which more than
any other we stand on tiptoes and crane our necks in an attempt to see
over the horizon and speak of expectation and promise and hope, what do
we have to say in the face of the gathering clouds of darkness? As
people well trained in anaesthetising ourselves to our fears of the
future, can we find something in the message of Jesus that speaks with
genuine hope before the all too real and all too concrete perils bearing
down on our generation? To say that the end is nigh is no longer seen as
a sign of religious excess, just an unwelcome statement of the obvious.
How then shall we live?

It is quite remarkable how often the words of scripture seem to speak
clearly into a situation that their writers had no way of imagining. The
words of Paul to the church at Rome that we heard read a few minutes ago
sound a wake-up call to a people who needed to know how to live if the
end was near. Paul writes as one who is confident that God is about to
break into creation like a thief in the night and bring to an end the
world as we know it. Paul could not have begun to imagine that nearly
two thousand years later his words would sound remarkably contemporary
and relevant to a people who are fast running out of time if they are to
stop the world being rendered uninhabitable by its own inhabitants.

“Wake up,” says Paul, “stop doing the things that belong to the dark and
take up the weapons of the light.” You’ve got to change your ways, he’s
saying, because your ways belong to the darkness, to the ways of death,
but a new era is dawning in which such ways will have no place.

Today there are multitudes of ecological scientists and environmental
activists telling us that we’ve got to change our ways because our ways
belong to the darkness, to the ways of death, and such ways can have no
place if life on earth is to continue. A new era must dawn with new ways
or the end will come quickly.

And we, as followers of the one who is coming at an unexpected hour, are
the ones who are in a position to know that both of those things are
true and that whichever angle you look at it from the implications for
how we are to live are basically the same. Whether Christ is returning
any day now to bring to fulfilment the reign of God or whether he delays
for another thousand years, the things necessary for life are pretty
much the same. Stop doing the things that belong to the dark and take up
the ways of the light.

Even some of the problems we are called away from are similar in both
contexts. Paul calls us to shun revelling and drunkenness, debauchery
and
licentiousness, fighting and jealousy. Now you know that I’m not averse
to a party and that I’m seen with a beer in my hand far too often to be
giving temperance sermons, but I still think that if we open our eyes to
what’s going on around us we’ll find that Paul’s making a lot of sense
here. We’ve got a whole culture built more and more around hypnotic
hi-tech entertainments. A culture of compulsive partying, of
mind-blowing over stimulation, of instant gratification. A culture where
provided you don’t infringe on anyone else’s freedoms you can have
whatever sensual kicks you want, when you want, and hang the
consequences. And only a people who have lost hope in the future can
live like that because the consequences for the individuals, the
societies and the planet are actually disastrous beyond belief. But when
you’ve got nothing left
to hope for, who cares? Just live for the moment and pack in as many
thrills as you can even if they come through a syringe, or you forgot
your condom, or they consume obscene quantities of irreplaceable
resources. If there’s no tomorrow, eat, snort and be ecstatic for
tomorrow you die.

But what if there is a tomorrow? What if either we manage to wake up to
ourselves and turn around our present slide into destruction, or the
world as we know it does come to an end and there is a new heaven and a
new earth on the other side? Well once again the ecological prophets and
the apostle Paul are both sounding a similar message. They’re both
saying that if you are going to find life in the new era that is dawning
you need to start living the lifestyle of that era today.

“The night is nearly over,” says Paul, “the day is near, therefore put
aside the ways of darkness and take on the ways of the light.” Note that
– he’s saying take on the ways of the light now even though the light
has not quite yet dawned. The time of darkness is not yet over, there’s
only a glow on the horizon, but now is the time to start living the ways
of the era that is about to dawn. Now I know I’ve been harping on this a
bit lately, but that is yet another reminder of how much the life we are
called to live is radically out of step with the culture we have to live
it in the midst of. They are, Paul says, like night and day, like light
and dark. Like chalk and cheese.

But I know that if I’m honest about my own life, about my own lifestyle,
it’s not that different. I have a few little things that I do
differently from what’s the norm in the world around me, but they’re
mostly fairly cosmetic – church attendance, morning prayers, that sort
of thing. But if I measure my life by the words of Jesus it looks pretty
much like most people around me. “Love your enemies and do good to those
who hate you.” There’s a bloke who double crossed me seven years ago and
I still find my fists clenching every time I think of him. I still have
occasional fantasy scenes in my mind where I beat the living daylights
out of him.

“If anyone hits you on one cheek, let him hit the other one too, and if
someone takes your coat, let him have your shirt as well.” I lent my
leather jacket to a bloke six years ago and he sold it in a pawn shop,
and I still find myself going all sullen and resentful every time I see
him.

“So do not start worrying: Where will my food come form? or my drink? or
my clothes? Your Father in heaven knows that you need all these things.
Instead, be concerned with the kingdom of God and with what God requires
of you and he will provide you with all these other things.” I can
recite those words by heart, but do they stop me worrying when I think
about the prospect of a pay cut? Not really. But I do get a feeling of
increased security when I look at my superannuation statement each year
and see it rising.

No, when I compare my lifestyle and values and attitudes to the usual
lifestyle and values and attitudes found in the world around me, the
difference is not like night and day, dark and light. More like dark and
off-dark, and that’s on my good days. And I don’t think I’m on my own
there. I think most of us are just like the people in Noah’s day as
Jesus described them in our gospel reading – eating and drinking,
working and shopping, marrying and raising families, and they knew
nothing until the flood came and swept them all away. So too, says
Jesus, will be the coming of the Son of Man.

Our generation are doing the same things even though we know with a
great deal of scientific detail that without massive changes in the
lifestyles of us in the western nations that by the time our children
are our age they’ll be having trouble finding enough to eat, drink and
breath.

Paul is telling us, and Isaiah is telling us, and Jesus is telling us
that if we would live life in its fullness, and life that is
sustainable, life that continues to generate new life into the future,
then it’s not worth making war over a leather jacket and it’s not worth
storing up riches for yourself instead of sharing them around. There’s
enough for all, but there’s not enough for everyone on earth to indulge
in the level of gross over-consumption that characterizes nations like
ours. The average Sudanese family will not find fullness of life until
they know the joys of justice and peace. The average Australian family
will not find fullness of life until they know the joys of simplicity
and community.

So how are we to take that huge step into the lifestyle of an era that
has not yet dawned but is lightening the horizon? Well Isaiah points the
way for us in the other reading we heard. His wonderful and well known
vision of nations beating their swords into plowshares and turning their
tanks into tractors doesn’t come out of the blue. It is preceded by a
vision of the nations saying, “Come let us go up to the house of the
Lord, that God may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.”
And it is also no idealistic nonsense about an absence of conflicts or
tensions, but it speaks of God arbitrating for the peoples, so that
instead of resorting to fists or swords or bombs people turn together to
God for resolution and reconciliation.

For us to make the transition it will be the same. “Come let us go up to
the house of the Lord.” It will start with worship. With joyously
approaching the God made known to us in Jesus and celebrating the life
he has given us. And as we worship and celebrate together the hunger
grows to learn of God’s ways and to walk in his paths and so we study
the scriptures together and tell one another the stories of our journey
of faith and encourage one another to take new steps in living the life
of the new era we are emerging into. And when we clash with one another
as we inevitably will we come before God again and seek the ways of
reconciliation. Luke described in in the Acts of the Apostles: the
believers continued together in close fellowship and shared their
belongings with one another. Day after day they met as a group and spent
their time learning from the apostles. They had their meals together in
their homes eating with glad and humble hearts, praising God, and every
day the Lord added to their group those who were being saved.

That sounds like the lifestyle for a new era. Community instead of
competition. Shared belongings instead of over-consumption. Shared meals
with humble gladness instead of debauched escapist revelling. That
sounds like a lifestyle that could be light to the world’s dark fear.
That sounds like a lifestyle that could prepare us for Christ’s return.
And it also sounds like a lifestyle that could prepare us for life if
Christ delays for another thousand years. It won’t save the planet if we
here are the only ones who do it, but if we’re one of a number of little
communities all over the world that start living the life of the new era
now in the midst of the old, and day by day the Lord adds to each group
those who are being saved, then we just might. And even if it’s already
too late for that, we’ll be ready for the end, for we’ll be beginning to
live the life of the new heaven and the new earth.

Now is the moment to wake up from our sleep, for salvation is nearer now
than it was when we first believed. So let us lay aside the works of
darkness and put on the Lord Jesus Christ, for it is the light of Christ
that is glowing on the horizon. The new day is near. Come, Lord Jesus,
Come.

Nathan Nettleton.