You too must stand
ready, because the Son of Man is coming
at an hour you do
not expect.
Luke 12:40
We manage with
the frenetic pace by buying 'smart' phones that keep us in constant contact
with anyone and everyone, diaries thick with appointments and multiple family
vehicles for transporting our equally demanding cargoes to their next venue. There
any number of 'big' days ahead of us, Red Nose Day, International Day of the
World’s Indigenous People, International Youth Day, World Humanitarian Day and
shortly the Feast of the Assumption of Mary. There is a calendar of events that
would test the skill of a private secretary. Each of these days has a message
for us; each has its own significance. Yet we are so time poor, too busy to make sense of what these days are asking of us. Our world today is
a demanding place, full of complexity, extraordinary business.
Life was simpler
once upon a time (it is said) when you didn’t have to plan your children’s play
days because they were too busy climbing trees, making go-carts and tin canoes,
putting on plays and cycling until you were exhausted. The calendar was
consulted for birthdays and Christmas and nothing was more important than being
home for tea on time, summer days on the beach, winter footy, raincoats and
gumboots.
Our world has
provided us generously. Good jobs are there to be had and the rewards from hard
work ensure we do better than merely provide for food and shelter. With this
wealth come greater demands. Not only providing attention to our families but
to the many charities, committees, organisations, schools, clubs, interests
that envelope us. The evangelist Luke (12:48) writes: “When a man has had a
great deal given him, a great deal will be demanded of him; when a man has had
a great deal given him on trust, even more will be expected of him.”
And so it is
equally demanded of us. In our full lives, rich as they are, we are plainly
called to give more, though I strongly suspect that Luke does not mean more of
the same, but more deeply, more richly, more passionately, more willingly. For
those who fail to respond to the gifts so freely offered, they will not be
prepared “because the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect (Luke
12:40).”
Be prepared, but
be prepared to give.
Peter
Douglas
To be a
Christian is to live in patient expectation
Fr Terrance Klein
31 July 2019
When we celebrate the Eucharist, when
Quakers convene only to sit in silence and when the Amish shun technology that
would accelerate the rhythms of life, we are all doing what Jesus did when he
found communion with his Father in prayer. We are living out, giving expression
to a fundamental character of our Christian faith. It is an eschatological
orientation.
Eschatos is the New Testament’s word for what
comes last, for what is final. Jesus taught that what surrounds us is fleeting.
Hence his parable about storing treasure not here but in the life that is to
come. Christ personally witnessed to this with his freely accepted death on the
cross. To be a Christian is to embrace the teaching and witness of Christ.
Many of the world’s wisdoms remind us that
all things must pass. In his teaching and life, our Lord proclaimed and
produced something more. He said that the flux we call history, the rush of our
daily lives, is moving toward a purposeful conclusion, a gathering in of grace
and comfort, which he called the kingdom of God. In his resurrection from the
dead, this kingdom broke into history, decisively yet only to a degree. Had it
come completely, what we call history and the lives we have been given to live
would already be at an end.
This is why eschatology, the study of end
times, is fundamental to our identity as Christians. All wise ones know, like
the author of Ecclesiasticus, that the world rushes toward us only to race past
us. However, in his death and his resurrection Christ has summoned our whizzing
world to himself.
Eschatology is an extraordinary word. If
you would like a simple substitute, try “patience.” You cannot be a Christian
and not live an eschatological life, which is to say, you must live one marked
by a patient expectation in the promise and plan of Jesus. One can be spiritual
without being religious, but one cannot be Christian without engaging in
eschatological activity, which is anything that appears as folly save to those
patiently awaiting their Lord.
St. Paul told the Colossians:
Brothers and sisters:
If you were raised with Christ, seek what is above,
where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.
Think of what is above, not of what is on earth.
For you have died,
and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
When Christ your life appears,
then you too will appear with him in glory (3:1-4).
If you were raised with Christ, seek what is above,
where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.
Think of what is above, not of what is on earth.
For you have died,
and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
When Christ your life appears,
then you too will appear with him in glory (3:1-4).
In the eyes of the world, nothing is
accomplished when we gather for Eucharist. We only fulfil the command that our
Lord gave to us the night before he died when he revealed that in his life and
death the fate of the world had been contested and conquered.
To sit in Quaker silence is to insist that
nothing more needs to be said. The Amish do not disdain the modern world;
they find delight in their share of the kingdom. When some Christians embrace
the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience, they give witness
that their lives are rushing toward the loveliest and the everlasting.
To recite the Nicene or the Apostles’ Creed
is to rehearse for ourselves the meaning that Christ gave to history, to our
own stories. In them we are reminded that, if we give ourselves to him, our
lives rush toward a radiant conclusion.
The great Carmelite mystic and doctor of
the church, St. Teresa of Avila, put the need for patience in fewer words.
Found in her handwriting on a card in her prayer book, they are easily
memorized in their original Spanish:
Nada te turbe;
nada te espante;
todo se pasa;
Dios no se muda,
la paciencia
todo lo alcanza.
Quien a Dios tiene,
nada le falta.
Solo Dios basta.
nada te espante;
todo se pasa;
Dios no se muda,
la paciencia
todo lo alcanza.
Quien a Dios tiene,
nada le falta.
Solo Dios basta.
Let nothing disturb you,
Let nothing frighten you,
All things are passing away:
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things
Whoever has God lacks nothing;
God alone suffices.
Let nothing frighten you,
All things are passing away:
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things
Whoever has God lacks nothing;
God alone suffices.
Fr Terrance W. Klein is a
priest of the Diocese of Dodge City and author of Vanity Faith.
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