2nd Sunday before Advent

Hebrews 10.11-25; Mark 13.1-8

In the Eastern Church today (15th November) is the start of what is known as the Nativity Fast; the start of the 40 days to Christmas. It's not as strict a fast as Great Lent but it is nevertheless a time of fasting. We in the West have a shortened time of preparation for Christmas that we call Advent and it has a slightly different feel to it. In a way, this last couple of weeks of our Ordinary Time, have a theme, that of the Kingdom of God which, if taken in the right spirit make a nice lead in to Advent and which, taken together with the four weeks of Advent give something like the length of the Nativity Fast. On Advent Sunday in two weeks time we will begin to think in earnest about our preparation for the Christmas celebration and what that means in terms of preparation of heart and mind so that we might come to the celebration in the right way. And I hope that all of us will take advantage of the time to make a good preparation so that we can find new meaning in the celebration and new hope in God when Christmas comes around.

Last Tuesday bishop James sent out a letter to all the clergy and to all PCCs asking them to put aside a whole PCC meeting to consider three questions: How are we serving our community; How can we kindle our love for God and our love for our neighbour; and how can we grow numerically? I think it's the last question, more than the other two that is exercising bishop James, as it was the subject of his Presidential address at the last diocesan synod recently and he sent out a copy of his address with his letter. It was strange or providential, really, to receive that letter when I did, because only the week before, following our Question Time in church I was thinking about the questions that had been asked and writing about that for the next issue of our parish magazine. I'll leave you to read the whole article when it's published and I think you'll find it has a bearing on bishop James's letter. But I think the short and only answer to the question 'how can we grow numerically' is when more people's hearts and minds are turned to God and the whole of their life is lived in Him. You see, I really and truly believe after quite a long time in the Church now, and seeing many people come and go, that the only thing that keeps people coming to Church, in the end, is if God means more to them than just about anything or anyone else; when their whole life, as I said, is lived 'in Him'. The term 'in Him' is the only one I can come up with which adequately expresses what I want to say, and really it's what Jesus said when he talked about 'abiding' in Him. It's that life giving, life enhancing spiritual connection that you just can't live your life without. It's being a branch on the vine so that if you are cut off you wither and die. So there's not just a wish or a desire or a longing for the connection, there's a real, life or death need.

Now I raise this today because I think the readings set for today are taking us in that direction. It's the direction of the Kingdom, the direction of Advent, the direction of God. St. Paul reminds us in his letter to the Hebrews that Jesus himself is the once and only sacrifice for our sins so that we are no longer cut off from God, except through our own wilfulness. Our continuing sin, through our own free will, through our own negligence, weakness and our own deliberate fault keeps us distanced from God, it obscures God's image in us, blocks it out so that we can't see it, like dust on a mirror stops us seeing our own reflection. But the sacrifice for our sin has been made in Jesus once and for all and true repentance, that hard personal work of repentance, of turning the heart to God, brings us back, restores or reveals the image of God in us again, and our life giving relationship with God is restored to its fullness. Our sins have been washed away in baptism, which we are reminded about where the reading talks about being sprinkled and washed with water. Our sins have been washed away in baptism and the Spirit of God given to us once and for all; and it's only our continuing sinfulness that grieves the Spirit and hinders the Spirit's work in us. So, blessed are those who mourn, as Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, blessed are those who mourn over their sinfulness and weep tears of repentance and turn again to God.

As we are reminded of this very personal thing that Jesus has done for each one of us in giving himself for us, St. Paul in his letter to the Hebrews exhorts us to remember all this, to hold fast to this 'confession of our hope' as he says. And then he goes on to say that we should encourage one another in the faith. He says that we shouldn't neglect to meet together, because how can we encourage one another in the faith if we never meet to worship together? And notice he says 'not neglecting to meet together as is the HABIT of some.' How very easy it is to slip into the habit of not coming to church. How easy it is to 'give church a miss' this week, and then next week and then the week after and the week after that. And it's much easier for me because I have to come, I'm paid to come to church unlike yourselves. But I have been and will be again, God willing, in the very dangerous and difficult position of waking up on a Sunday morning and having to decide whether or not to go to church. And I use the words difficult and dangerous because Sunday morning's got to be the devil's favourite and most busy time of the week. At that most perilous time of the week, when you aren't on a rota for anything or you don't have to take the children to church for Andy's Kids or go and watch them perform, and when you take out getting your attendance mark so the kids will get a place in school or the nagging feeling of guilt you'll have if you don't go, there's really only your love for God that will stop you turning over and pulling the covers over you and will get you out of bed, into your clothes and through the church door on a Sunday morning. In the end, only your love for God will bring you here, week after week, month after month, year after long year. And that's how it should be, and there's not enough of it and that's why attendances are falling.

And we aren't really moved these days by the sort of writing we've read in St. Mark's gospel today out of which we hear echoes about what is known as the 'end time', the apocalypse when history will be rolled up and God's eternal kingdom will come to pass. We in the West have become so numbed and desensitised to any notion of urgency in life, of any notion of eternal judgement or reckoning, that we can no longer be frightened into a relationship with God as maybe our predecessors were, who feared that they might go to hell or suffer eternal damnation if they didn't please God. That might not altogether be a bad thing, but at the very least we really perhaps should have some feeling for the fact that our life and what we do with it has consequences that go far beyond our immediate self and lifespan.

As I said, only our love for God will keep us coming to church. Only because we want to please God hour by hour, day by day will we keep coming to church. And it's as we see this in one another that we are encouraged by one another to love God more and to, as St. Paul so eloquently put it 'provoke one another to love and good deeds.'

So as we think about these things over this next couple of weeks and certainly in the season of Advent, as we look forward to the celebration of the Nativity of our Lord, let us use this as a time of real reflection, of preparation of heart and mind, as a time to do some more of the work in ourselves of repentance, of turning our hearts to God again so that we can with a real wish and longing sing 'O come, O come Emmanuel'.