Second Sunday of Advent – 9 Dec 2007

On Friday I was in Titchfield, a pretty village a little smaller than Cobham, near Fareham in Hampshire. I was there to conduct the funeral of my aunt, my late mother’s sister. St Peter’s Church has very ancient roots. You enter the church via the West door at the bottom of the tower, through an amazing carved Saxon doorway. It reminds one of the centuries of worshippers and visitors who have entered before you. A delightfully helpful churchwarden welcomed me. She had prepared the church for the funeral and was acting as verger. As we waited and chatted about the parish she talked of her concern that nearly everything in the church was being done by older people. She said ‘we are all getting older, who is going to take over from us?’ I sensed a note of sorrow and even a concern that the church she faithfully served might, after 1300 years of continual worship, be dwindling away.

As I reflected on today’s dramatic Advent readings I thought how far some good, faithful people have been allowed to travel from the promise of hope in the scriptures. How we allow ourselves to be convinced by our weaknesses and failings that there is little hope for the future. One of our tasks in Advent is to spend time reflecting on just why God gave us the incredible gift of his son and what that gift means to us. What it means to us individually, as a church, and as a society. Our readings in Advent draw us back to the robust writings of the prophets – the prophets for whom we have just lit an Advent candle. If we think the situation in Titchfield is bad, it was nothing compared to the history of faithlessness and turning away from God when the prophets preached.

In chapter one of Isaiah, the prophet, preaching around 700BC, berates his people:

Ah, sinful nation,
     people laden with iniquity,
offspring who do evil,
     children who deal corruptly,
who have forsaken the Lord,
     who have despised the Holy One of Israel,
     who are utterly estranged!

This was a nation that had lost its way in a far more calamitous manner than our present generation. There was widespread rejection of faith in one true God, the God of their ancestors, and the teachings of the religious leaders. Yet into this desperate situation the prophets remained passionately convinced about the future of their people. The prophets were not predictors or fortune-tellers. Rather, they were people of faith, certain that the world is morally coherent, and that God’s purposes for the future of the world are powerful and will prevail. The prophets have come to be seen as oracles of God – channels for the speech of God. Their writings are not simply to be read as historic literature relevant only to a past generation. We read them in Church today because they speak into our time. They have a passionate insistence that generates energy and courage and hope for obedience to God.

Isaiah proclaims that the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. Paul tells the Romans that these words of Isaiah were written for our instruction so that …’by the encouragement of scriptures we might have hope.’ Are we really meant to believe that our generation is the one when our Christian faith is to gently disappear through a lack of interest and commitment, never to surface again? As was unintentionally implied in my conversation in Titchfield church, that faith as expressed and lived in churches like ours will become a thing of the past. Churches built to the glory of God handed over to be mere historic monuments? Where in this depressing vision is our Advent hope?

I believe there are times when we need people like John the Baptist to shake us out of our pessimism that secularism has overrun our society with an irrevocable finality. John the Baptist is vitriolic in his attack on the Pharisees and Saducees. They came to him to repent and to receive forgiveness only to be berated as a brood of vipers. What had these people done to receive such an attack? They were a very devout people. They prided themselves on their purity and were unlikely to be guilty of any gross or obvious sins. Their sin was not the way they led their lives – it was their attitude of arrogance that everything was up to them. They had lost the sense of humility – humility needed to place their trust and hope in an infant, in a God prepared to come to them as a tiny, vulnerable child.

I sense there is, thankfully, a change of mood in the Church of England. A recognition that we cannot separate ourselves from modern culture and patterns of living. They will mean that the shape of the church for future generations may be very different to the one we have today. Over recent decades the Church has had a tendency to accept doom-laden warnings of almost terminal decline. Insisting on reducing the number of paid clergy, closing churches and theological colleges. It has been in danger of fulfilling its own prophecy rather than that of Isaiah. But there is a change of heart today. There is bold talk of investing in mission and support for those providing new opportunities for people to engage with the gospel of Christ. Dare I say the Church is in some quarters recovering its confidence – its hope for the future.

We have a long way to go. But Advent is not a time for resigned pessimism. Advent is a time to look at ourselves with honesty and humility – that ultimately was John’s plea to the Pharisees and Saducees, consistent with the message of the prophets before him. And it is a time to once more place our faith and trust in God. It is too easy to be lulled into a sense that the destiny of the Church rests simply on our shoulders – if we fail, the church fails. We must learn to listen to God’s word and place our trust in his power. Earlier I quoted my bible’s introduction to the Prophets, which ends with these words: their powerful voices continue to generate energy and courage and hope. May you receive these three gifts this Advent.

© Robert Jenkins December 2007