Thanks for all the comments thus far, and I loved the language that Rob used in his comments as to how far the elastic might stretch. I am pretty conservative in my beliefs, certainly at least on the central ‘fixed’ points, but am convinced that scripture pushes us to engage with some of the internal debate we read of within those pages and that ‘right doctrine’ is far more about right living in relationship to heaven and to earth than it has to do with my professed beliefs. I am glad that we do not have to work out too much more, and certainly that I have not been elected to join the final jury – way beyond all our pay grades, for sure!!
The return of Jesus is a fixed point – but what might that be? I will post on that soon, just aware that we can so easily fall into the trap of knowing what that will look like being absolutely sure we will not get our interpretation of scripture wrong unlike those who could not understand how a crucified messiah could possibly be the personal visitation of God! In all my conservativeness on (e.g.) the parousia I need to take note that there are likely to be some major surprises, and on my stretching of the elastic I need to make sure that it does not get disconnected from where it connected.
What I am convinced about was that Paul (one of my heroes… I see he perfected some of my weaknesses and his focused strengths leave me knowing I need to ‘beef up’ – all personal reflections that probably reveal too much of my misfitedness!!) believed the Gospel that brought Jesus to die in Jerusalem, as no prophet could die outside of the religious setting, was the key to unlocking all of creation. I have no idea if he had sight beyond AD70, but we certainly must. Maybe he thought it would all end with the Fall of Jerusalem, maybe he thought that would be the marker that Rome (and all the other Romes since then) would also fall, be re-shaped and be some kind of tentative image for the New Jerusalem vision. By that I do not mean anything close to the conversion of the emperor and the Imperial forces being the servant of christianising its subjects. If, as I suspect, that Paul did not see the ‘end’ as being the fall of Jerusalem, I think Paul had a long-term vision. No conversion of the emperor would satisfy, but the removal / transformation of structures that reward the opposition to the arc that I wrote about yesterday. The work of the powers (earthly and heavenly) is to dehumanise, and to reward all who dehumanise… Reduce humanity to a number and be rewarded – buy and sell.
We take bread and wine proclaiming his death (why did he die?) until he comes. The past and the future together, giving us a trajectory for now. The trajectory has not changed (or maybe it has, but the trajectory that the cross sets has not changed). I am totally agnostic about what will be transformed prior to the parousia but I am totally convinced that our hope and vision can be set on that trajectory and not be deviated by ‘but what a mess this all is and it is getting worse’. It might be getting worse, but the Gospel says it can get a whole lot better!
I had a call yesterday where someone was saying that child trafficking is now one of the biggest ‘trades’ taking place. That is a sad sign of things getting worse than ever, and I am thankful for all who are involved in responding to this heinous sin. Without diminishing in any way the awefulness of this I write tentatively that it is a sign of the end of an age. As an age passes sins that were present in ‘acceptable’ seed form manifest in full sight. Money, fortune and prosperity make the world go round… and round… till it is unhitched from its axis. Child sacrifice has always been based on sacrificing the future for present prosperity. The gods (Moloch) will reward us today with bountiful crops as those that we should be working to give them a future are sacrificed. Our economic systems have worked toward this – reversing the order that there ‘will always be seedtime and harvest’. When one is sold the lie that one can have today what we have not sown for yesterday we are reversing how we are to work with creation… and it spins off.
Crisis… it is here, but the doorway that indicates transition has always been labelled ‘crisis’. I do believe we are headed toward the end of an era. Maybe that end will mark the end (certainly the fall of Jerusalem was ‘the end of the age’), maybe it will mark the end of an era, where Jerusalem is not our home nor our hope, but the world becomes our one and only place of habitation and we have a hope for the world; that we do not lift a glass to say ‘next year Jerusalem’ but raise a glass concerning the world that has been occupied by alien forces and we say ‘next year the kosmos, the world, the ktisis, the creation’).
Not to get distracted we can get on and pray for the restoration of the bee colonies (a Gospel prayer), for the smart scientists to come up not simply with vaccines and cures, but healing for the eco-system. Pipe-dreams? Could well be, but the elastic can stretch a long way, for the death of Jesus that we proclaim encompassed from the highest point to the lowest – all of creation, visible and invisible.
The elastic has a stretch and a non-breakability inbuilt as the embrace of God is eternal and universal.
Paul lived pre-AD70; I might be living pre-end-of-an-age. His vision went beyond AD70… what about ours? There will always be ‘seedtime’. And if there is ‘seedtime’ there will always be ‘harvest’.
My current reading includes Simon Sharpe’s book ‘Five Times Faster’. He reflects on his long career in the UK civil service working toward climate mitigation and adaptation. It is quite good. His conclusion is that we must work five times faster if we wish to avoid the worst of climate change. In my reading yesterday he described how we understand and misunderstand economics and that misunderstanding has been a problem as we hope to address climate change and so many other pressing issues.
He explored the history of economics and the dominant theory that posits that an economic system behaves like a machine, things in and thing out, working toward a type of balance. He rejects this entirely as totally inadequate to understanding how our world functions. And instead describes our economics (which is how we generate and distribute resources) as an ecosystem. And in doing so, describes our real task as one of ‘managing abundance’ because in our dynamic economic ecosystem there are always new technologies and new approaches that increase abundance. Yes, there are economists who are championing this alternative view but many still want a machine that can be managed and that includes policy makers.
It reminded me that both words, economics and ecosystem, come from the same Greek root – oikos, meaning home and household management. I was also struck by his insistence on abundance as modern economics sees the pie as limited and it is merely an exercise in dividing it up. He sees the pie as constantly expanding even as we are dividing it up.
Yes, we are at the end of an age. The transformation we face is enormous. It includes the ecosystems which are our home and the economics with which we manage the resources in our home. The major sign to me of this transformation is the extreme weather. Hotter and longer heat waves means transforming our agricultural system, shelters, transportation, and energy systems. Larger amounts of rain dumped in shorter amounts of time require similar transformations and more. All of engineering and planning is challenged right now as the parameters used to size up sanitation pipes or determine energy needs or anything else really are being swept away by what we are experiencing. The way we understand our home, at the very basic level, is challenged.
It has also made clear to me that nostalgia is something we cannot afford. We are like refugees on this planet. We have been driven away from our ‘homes’ with the extremes. And so we must make our home in a new place, on this new planet. It seems harsh and alien but perhaps we will find abundance on it. Whenever someone tries to explain to me how something is going to be alright because that is how it has always been, I simply remind them we now live on a different planet than what has always been. And there is no going back. Ever.
This is what we face. We can either see it as a possibility and opportunity to experience the abundance of our home and share that abundance with all. Or we can stick to old ways of thinking that have had such problematic results anyway and make the transformation more difficult and more deadly for many. Our choice.
Hi,
harvest time has different times depending on whether it is our winter autumn fruit we are talking about… The sowing as well.
So we have sowing time parallel to harvest time.
We can sow and harvest on the same day all year round.
We are entering a whole new glory for sure, as AI is a big part of “the new” This new phenomenon, we have zero idea where it will lead us in… Zero idea…
Important to live here and now, wake up sober and prayerful.