Collect
Heavenly Father, whose blessed Son was revealed to destroy the works of the devil and to make us the children of God and heirs of eternal life: grant that we, having this hope, may purify ourselves even as he is pure; that when he shall appear in power and great glory we may be made like him in his eternal and glorious kingdom; where he is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
or
Heavenly Lord, you long for the world’s salvation: stir us from apathy, restrain us from excess and revive in us new hope that all creation will one day be healed in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Post Communion
Heavenly Lord, you long for the world’s salvation: stir us from apathy, restrain us from excess and revive in us new hope that all creation will one day be healed in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Readings
Old Testament – Daniel 12.1–3
One in human form said to me, ‘At that time Michael, the great prince, the protector of your people, shall arise. There shall be a time of anguish, such as has never occurred since nations first came into existence. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book. Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever.’
Psalm
1 Preserve me, O God, for in you have I taken refuge; ♦
I have said to the Lord, ‘You are my lord, all my good depends on you.’
2 All my delight is upon the godly that are in the land, ♦
upon those who are noble in heart.
3 Though the idols are legion that many run after, ♦
their drink offerings of blood I will not offer, neither make mention of their names upon my lips.
4 The Lord himself is my portion and my cup; ♦
in your hands alone is my fortune.
5 My share has fallen in a fair land; ♦
indeed, I have a goodly heritage.
6 I will bless the Lord who has given me counsel, ♦
and in the night watches he instructs my heart.
7 I have set the Lord always before me; ♦
he is at my right hand; I shall not fall.
8 Wherefore my heart is glad and my spirit rejoices; ♦
my flesh also shall rest secure.
9 For you will not abandon my soul to Death, ♦
nor suffer your faithful one to see the Pit.
10 You will show me the path of life; in your presence is the fullness of joy ♦
and in your right hand are pleasures for evermore.
Epistle – Hebrews 10.11–14 [15–18] 19–25
Every priest stands day after day at his service, offering again and again the same sacrifices that can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, ‘he sat down at the right hand of God’, and since then has been waiting ‘until his enemies would be made a footstool for his feet.’ For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.
[
And the Holy Spirit also testifies to us, for after saying,
‘This is the covenant that I will make with them
after those days, says the Lord:
I will put my laws in their hearts,
and I will write them on their minds’,
he also adds,
‘I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.’
Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.
]
Therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh), and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
Gospel – Mark 13.1–8
As Jesus came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!’ Then Jesus asked him, ‘Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.’
When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, ‘Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?’ Then Jesus began to say to them, ‘Beware that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name and say, “I am he!” and they will lead many astray. When you hear of wars and rumours of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.’
Sermon on the Second Sunday before Advent
Jesus said “‘Beware that no one leads you astray.’” We have heard this before, from trusted friends and teachers as well, haven’t we? Even our parents told us the same thing. But do we listen? How are we led astray? What diverts us from the straight and narrow way of living good lives ourselves? What can possibly take us into poor decisions, decisions which deflect us away from what is good and right?
We stray, I think, when we don’t love ourselves and our neighbour in equal measure, when we don’t follow the golden rule – of dealing with others as we would wish others to deal with us. When we don’t love, have we missed God in our lives? Where, then, have we travelled on our way?
“Lead us, Heavenly Father, lead us,” are words we have sung in a well known hymn – and there are so many other songs and hymns which express our heartfelt hope of staying on course. We are people of faith who always call on God to lead them into those pastures green. That hymn shows how we long for guidance, and warns us that we are open to being taken in to going astray. That hymn admits that only with proper guidance will we walk the true path of goodness.
In the Lord’s Prayer we petition God, our heavenly father, to “lead us.” Where is that guidance taking us? We pray that our father in heaven will lead us – “not into temptation”, but we pray God will “deliver us from evil.” Some have wondered about this petition. Can God possibly lead us into temptation, into sin? The answer is “No!” obviously, but why does Jesus ask us to pray in this manner? Is it that God can lead us astray? Or is it that our confidence in God allows us to forget our everyday task – that we forget to love as we are bidden by Jesus, to love neighbour as ourselves, and even in the extreme to love our enemy. The temptation is there before us, the temptation is that we will lead ourselves astray.
How does this happen? How can we lead ourselves astray? The ancient Greeks knew about this – the poets and playwrites called this human fault “hubris”, which is that “extreme or excessive pride, or dangerous overconfidence and complacency, often in combination with arrogance.” (Wikipedia) Don’t we all know that we can be just that bit too arrogant and lead ourselves into morally dangerous situations? We see this all the time in our leaders, don’t we? Politicians speak with a dangerous overconfidence of their plans and machinations for the world. I think we find ourselves deeper in ethical debt because of our own hubris.
Hubris is how we are lead astray, even people of great faith have missed the mark of mercy and truth, the heart of the target of love. We have seen this in fiction and in history. Hubris stalks us in our everyday confidence. We never think in our pride, “This could go wrong all too quickly.”
That doubt, I think, checks us in our complacency. We can therefore never be 100% sure about anything – that doubt strips away pride and grants us the insight of humility. In spite of that doubt arising from humility, we can go forward, but we proceed with a modest hope. Although we know that we might fall from our moral high ground, we hope that we might, just might, achieve our aspiration of the good life.
The philosopher once spoke about standing on the cliff’s edge, that the abyss is at our feet and we might fall. That awareness brings everything into a very sharp focus in such a way that we have to concentrate on each step along our way.
The other week I spoke about rethinking all from first principles. It is that most difficult project of appropriating tradition for one’s own self, to keep tradition alive for each and every one of us. If we are to do this, how can we go astray? We will be listening to our conscience, balancing what others say against that modest inner voice which, I hope, speaks to us of truth.
But at that point we stop short, on that knife edge of the abyss, the chattering of the crowd on one side and the silence of conscience on the other. – We are standing before Pilate with Jesus as we are asked, “What is truth?” I don’t think we really know the answer to this question, except when we have to answer it in particular situations. In fact, I think that Pilate’s question is the very one we normally avoid. There are many definitions of what is true, but they only start us down this road towards an answer. They aren’t entirely satisfactory as answers to this existential demand. When Pilate asked Jesus that question, I don’t think he was being entirely honest. He was taunting this humiliated and beaten prisoner, a man broken and now mocked as a king – he stands in a purple robe holding a reed like a sceptre and crowned with thorns. How could anyone at the lowest point of his life answer such a question?
But that is exactly the point. In the midst of the most wretched circumstances, we are asked to answer the most important question of life, “What is truth?” With Jesus, we are confronted with our ownmost possibility in this searching for that answer. I suppose when everything is swept away and we have nothing to distract us, we have to find out just what is true for us. We have to be sure that we have not been led astray from the path of life and truth. “Beware no one leads you astray,” Jesus says.
This challenge which Jesus issues is one which echoes at every moment in our lives. I cannot answer the question once and for all. That temptation is always present for us. “Beware” is a command that is a constant throughout the whole of life. Truth requires it must be grasped at every moment. Truth is an enterprise which demands we are aware of our very tentative grasp on its ephemeral nature at each and every moment of life. Truth is something which may disappear in an instant, especially if we are distracted, and in that blink of an eye we are led astray.
The philosopher has revealed an approach to truth which is very different to our everyday, forgetful grasp of it. He suggests that something is true when there is no concealment. At the philosopher’s cliff edge, we see with a clarity, because there is nothing in the way nor is there a crowd – there is only the singular abyss of conscience’s silence.
Jesus, I think, is demanding the same clarity as well. He was nailed high above the crowds on the cross, There he saw everything. There we can look to see our selves in singular silence, alone, raised up as a sign for our salvation, pointing the way so that we will not be led astray. In the silence of clarity, we must make our way. Forsaking the chattering of the crowd we must follow Jesus to that high point of life in all its fullness, in its silence and its truth. It is then we begin to love as Jesus asked us in that one commandment.