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Proper 29 November 26, 2006 As some of you know, my all-time favorite author is Madeleine L’Engle, whose best known book is the Newberry award-winning Wrinkle in Time. L’Engle is not a theologian, and she’s not a “Christian author”, but she is a life-long Episcopalian, and she has a very cosmic sort of theology that bleeds through into much of her writing. She has also been known to read quantum physics for fun; she is a mystic who also takes very seriously the notion that God operates in and through a world that science attempts to explain. Wrinkle in Time is based in part on the notion that time is not as linear and finite as we normally conceive of it, but rather that it wrinkles and folds in on itself so that things do not proceed in the cosmos in a simple chronological order. I don’t pretend to understand quantum physics—I don’t read it for fun—and I don’t know how scientifically sound L’Engle’s idea is, but it is a notion that I find intriguing, especially when I think about God’s actions in the world, and the enormity of all creation. Last week we heard Steve preach on the notion of the apocalypse, the eschaton or end time, based on the concept of dispensationalism—a view which posits that time is divided into dispensations or eras, each marked by a different sort of relationship and covenant with God, and a view that holds that the world as we know it will at some point come to an end at the hand of God. Many who embrace this theology hold that we are in fact living in the last dispensation, the last era before the second coming, and thus we must prepare ourselves for that second coming and we must prepare ourselves in fear and trembling. This is the theology of the Left Behind series that Steve cautioned us about last week, and it is a theology that depends on a strictly linear conception of time. It is also a theology that is, to my way of thinking, pessimistic and fatalistic, a theology long on judgment and short on grace. This week our readings again include portions of scripture that have apocalyptic overtones; the book of Daniel and the book of Revelation are both parts of scripture that are often used to bolster this dispensational, apocalyptic theology. But this week these readings are paired with a reading from the Gospel of John that refers to Jesus as “King”—King of the Jews, perhaps, or even King of all creation, Jesus reigning over a kingdom that is not of this world. These are the readings not only for the last Sunday of Pentecost, but also for the Feast of Christ the King, because today we observe and celebrate both of these things. It is this juxtaposition of readings and observances that might help us take another look at what all this talk about eschatology, about end times, might mean for us today. In our liturgical calendar today is an “end time;” it is the last Sunday not only of the season of Pentecost but also of the church year. Next Sunday, Advent 1, is the New Year, the beginning of our cycle during which we await the coming of the Christ Child, celebrate his birth, and then travel with him towards Jerusalem and the inevitable climax, the crucifixion and resurrection. This is a cycle that we repeat year after year, that we attempt to live into as we live as the Body of Christ in the world. It is a cycle filled with both wonder and frustration, both hope and despair, but it is a cycle that always culminates in the promise of the resurrection, our ultimate hope and joy. And it is a cycle that symbolizes for us that God’s time is perhaps not linear time, but rather time that circles and cycles and folds on itself. Today is not only the last Sunday of Pentecost, it is also the Feast of Christ the King. It is no accident, I think, that the Feast of Christ the King is celebrated on the last Sunday of Pentecost as one season ends and we are about to embark on another. Just as the end of one year marks a transition to a new time, a time that will inevitably not be the same as what came before, so too does the coming of the Christ Child, which we prepare for in Advent, signal for us the coming of something new—a new hope, a new way of being, something dramatically different from what came before. And celebrating Christ as the King of that time indicates for us what that newness will be like. When Pilate asks Jesus if he is the King of the Jews, Jesus answers that his kingdom is not of this world. This has been interpreted a number of ways, but I don’t think Jesus meant that his kingdom was to be something abstract and nonmaterial, nor do I think he meant it was to be only an inner transformation of the heart in those who believe. Rather I believe that Jesus saw his kingdom as the beginning of something new in the world, something radical, a transformation that meant that things would never be the same again. It is in a sense an apocalyptic vision, this notion of the end of the old world and the instantiation of the new. But it is an apocalyptic vision that does not require us to wait until some distant future to experience the new. Rather it calls us to live into the new in the here and now even as we prepare for the future. And it is an apocalyptic vision that does not depend on straight, linear time. " ’I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ … [the one] who is and who was and who is coming, the Almighty.” The one who is and who was and who is coming—coming now and again and again. This is not linear time. This is not a God who came to us once and then left us to fend as best we could until a second coming, as dispensational theology would have it; this is not a God coming in straight chronological order, but rather a God who comes to us now and in the past and always, over and over in a never ending cycle. This is a God who calls us to do a new thing, and who is there for us when we fail at that new thing and lifts us up to try one more time. And this is a kingdom of God that is present for us here and now, not just at some distant end time. This is, my friends, realized eschatology—a living out of the Kingdom of God in the here and now, in our daily lives in the real world. When Daniel and John of Patmos give us an apocalyptic vision they are not just predicting what might happen in the future, at the end of time; no, they are reacting to what is going on in the world at the time they are writing. When we hear that vision we are called not to fear what might be, but to grasp the hope that is contained therein, the hope of a God of wonder and glory who is there for us in all the trials of the world and we are called to hold onto that vision as we deal with our own troubled world. It is that same hope that is contained in the vision of a kingdom of God in the here and now, of doing the new thing that Jesus calls us to. Because of this we can be sure: Jesus is coming, not just at the end of the world, but now—when we gather at the altar together, when we proclaim the Good News, when we reach out to care for others in the world. We celebrate this coming as we cycle through the church year, and we celebrate it each time we try to live out the gospel message. Jesus is coming, Jesus is here, Jesus is coming and it’s the end of the world as we know it—and for that we can give thanks. AMEN.
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