Word to the Wise
Friday, May 28, 2010 - Friday in the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time
[1 Peter 4:7-13 and Mark 11:11-26]The end of all things is at hand. Therefore be serious and sober-minded so that you will be able to pray. Above all, let your love for one another be intense, because love covers a multitude of sins. Be hospitable to one another without complaining. As each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace. Whoever preaches, let it be with the words of God; whoever serves, let it be with the strength that God supplies......
There is a stereotypical figure of a person wearing sackcloth and carrying a sign that reads: THE END IS NEAR, and these same words appear on roadside signs, especially in the Deep South. The context for these words is different than the context represented in the passage from the First Letter of Peter. There, the writer is seeking to encourage communities undergoing actual and current persecution. Part of the encouragement is to urge them to preserve the unity and cohesion of the community by maintaining the distinctive elements of their faith and lifestyle. The thought that a complete vindication may be near at hand can be a powerful motivating force, but that force is not as obvious to us modern Western Christians, nor do we see ourselves as being under active persecution in the sense that we are endangered because of our faith. The vindication expected by Christians in the first and second centuries was not an "end of time and space" thing. They expected an earthly deliverance when God would establish divine rule. We generally think of the "end of time and space" variety of deliverance with a dramatic judgment scene. This subject is called "eschatology" and it is an underlying theme of the New Testament. We are called to live a good life in the present because of a future expectation. This is a complicated subject on which many volumes have been written. The presence of the Holy Spirit in the church is a testimony to God's PRESENT presence in the church, urging us to live as the writer of 1 Peter urges. If we fail in our efforts to be faithful, we will disappear under the competing ideologies of our age. That alone would be a terrible final judgment. As it is, we can be confident as long as we continue in our faith and prayer and sharing of the gifts of the Spirit for the common good. AMEN
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