A sermon on Romans 13: 11-14 and Isaiah 2: 1-5 by Nathan Nettleton

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 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 paralysed 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 characterises 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.