Pandemic Parables 1. It isn't going to happen . . .

Life has changed a lot in 2020.  I've been thinking about how it changes the way I look at some Parables of Jesus.

Like this one:

Matthew 25:1-13

“At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. The wise ones, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep.

“At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’

“Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps.  The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’

“‘No,’ they replied, ‘there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’

“But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut.

“Later the others also came. ‘Lord, Lord,’ they said, ‘open the door for us!’

“But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I don’t know you.’

“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.

This parable speaks into the pandemic's most amazing and controversial issue - preparedness.  Put simply, we (that is the whole world) didn't see it coming.  Look up any example of 'Looking ahead to 2020' on the internet and you will not find a trace of the coronavirus - but plenty about the Olympics and Brexit.  This absence of foresight even applies to this report about China (where the virus was already known to exist late in 2019).

We won't get a practice run for Jesus' Return.  But I think that Covid-19 is a reasonable echo which has quickly (but not in the blink of an eye, 1 Corinthians 15) re-ordered the world without an army or an assembly being able to stop it.

Surely this generation will never live quite so complacently ever again?  But then again, the parable suggests that even those who should be attuned to watching, become drowsy.  Great shocks can speak to unpreparedness, but cannot cure it.

May the Holy Spirit of God reach the drowsy souls before midnight.

Lamping Out

The Harvest season comes to an end and the dark evenings are upon us.  But London doesn't easily sleep.

Although London has long had all-night buses it now has all night underground trains.  As well as being helpful to people who must travel at night, it certainly doesn't make hectic London any more restful.

And although there are currently only a few lines on two nights it threatens the unique moment - unknown to all but a handful of Londoners - of lamping out.

I thought about this the other day when I hurried down a passageway only for the doors on the train to shut in my face.  It is not a rare thing for London travellers.  Except on one train.

The exact exception to this common experience takes place nightly when the last train runs.  A member of staff stands on the platform, another in the entry upstairs.  On the platform the train does not leave until anyone counted into the station has boarded the train, whereupon it is lamped out.  Instead of the passenger being held up by the leaving train, the passenger becomes the focus, the pivotal crux of the leaving train.  

And I thought about it again when I heard the harvest hymn about 'all is safely gathered in'.  The story of harvest but the metaphor of salvation.  For not one of God's elect will be missing; for every believer a place, for every place a believer.  Continuation of the current universe is because there are still sheep that are lost, still prodigals in a far country who must come home.  

Sabbatical Picture No 4 The Poster

There are few more politicised places in the world than Jerusalem.  The time I spent there was relatively peaceable but 'peace in Jerusalem', despite its Biblical pedigree, seems almost a contradiction in terms.

Mr Trump had visited Israel not long before I was there.  In the UK our Prime Minister invited him to visit almost before he sat down in the Oval office but later reflection has led to some pause as to the wisdom and timing of such a visit.  Outside the USA - and in several parts inside the USA - this poster would not have survived a night, never mind several weeks.  In several parts of Jerusalem it wouldn't have survived ten minutes.  Yet on this and several nearby boulevards it and its cousins hung undisturbed long after Mr Trump had departed West.

Such is the black and white politics of modern Israel.

Will true peace ever come?

By one measure Jerusalem had its chance and blew it.

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!"

But the same Book that tells me of that missed opportunity, tells me that the King of Jerusalem will return one day and, following the End, peace will be the everlasting state of affairs.

Make Jesus Great Again.

Just a Second

These two scenes from yesterday have something in common.  Two women crying almost uncontrollably.  Ah, well. Such is life.

But no.  They have something else in common.  They have just both won silver medals.  Gemma in Judo, Victoria in Gymnastics.  You can see how upset they are to have not won gold.

But no again.  Gemma Gibbons (top) is crying with joy.  Victoria Komova is crying with dismay.

Same Olympics, same medal, same intensity of emotion, opposites.

Cometh the day when we all see humanity's Messiah.  His the Golden Glory, ours the silver lining as the consequence of being human but second best dawns on every other one of us.  For all humanity tears.

Tears of joy or the opposite.

Teenager

So Google is thirteen today!

And yet it is so hard to remember life without Google.  Was there a time when a whole day passed and nobody, nobody in the wide world said, "Just google it"?  How did you find the Stagecoach timetable?  How did people find Luther's 95 theses?  Is it possible that Alexander the Great conquered the world and it wasn't mentioned on Google?  Could Methuselah have lived 969 years and not used Google even once?

The preposterous thought that Google has become what it is in such short order is a solemn sign I think.  Could one entity rise to prominence in a world of billions of people as the Biblical prophecies suggest?  Can the whole world really be part of anything when there are billions of us that will never meet each other?

Google is, methinks, not the Beast!  But perhaps it reminds me how plausible the previously implausible has become.  In no time we could be at the end of time. 

Today

"Quick!"

According to eccentric old Harold Camping you only have 60 seconds left - no less than that . . . . .

"No, Wait!!"

No, wait a minute - or more - Harold is over in Western America.  Phew! 8 hours more!

"No, don't wait!!!"

You and me both - we can't see 60 seconds ahead ever.  So old Harold was not right on two counts:  he was too early regarding the Lord's return, and he gave us too long - the time to make Christ Lord of our lives is always NOW.

Waiting

Waiting.

It has to be the most miserable way to live a life?  Stuck in the terminal.

We should live in this evil world with wisdom, righteousness, and devotion to God, while we look forward with hope to that wonderful day when the glory of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, will be revealed.

Last evening we thought about these words.  If we only have one life in this world why do Christians waste it waiting?  What good is it to believe mainly in the future?  Why would anyone want to lay up treasures in heaven when they've never seen heaven?  Why not just live life to the full and to hell (whoops . . .) with the consequences?

The Terminal shows that just because someone is waiting, doesn't mean life is meaningless.  To the contrary, Viktor ends up with some better relationships that the people rushing past him. 

Sure, this world could be a better place to wait in.  But the fact I am waiting for Another Place does not make my life useless - just a great deal more hopeful! 

Undecided

Here we are, the Sunday after the Thursday before, and we still don't know who'll be Prime Minister next month or which party(ies) will form the next UK Government.

A hung parliament.  It's all so wonderfully post-modern.

Nothing is certain.  Nothing is absolute.  Nothing is true for us all.  Nothing is inevitable.  Anything is nothing if I want it to be. 

I guess the financial markets, which are not so post-modern, will get some decisions made shortly.  And that reminds me that while everything seems to be relative, the opposite is actually true.  The future only has a single destination when it comes to bowing the knee.  Yep, Jesus has the Hung Parliament thing well sorted in the long run.