“But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will come. Mark 13:32-33 NIV
Father God, help us to make our first words in the Church’s year a call to be awake to what is happening in our world and to be looking for and in tune with the one who comes. Amen
Welcome to our preacher this morning who is Rev Patrick Rudden After morning service tea hosts Chris and Judith
Our thanks for the flowers this morning that are given by Cynthia Martin in memory of her husband Alex Organist:Joan McGowan
Sunday 4th December 11.00am Rev Marian Jones
Diary Dates
November
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Sun 27th Advent Circuit Service Overton 6.30pm
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Mon 28th Every Day with Jesus Bible study 1.30pm
December
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Fri 2nd Lunch Club in School Room 12 noon. £2.50 This is the last lunch until March
Family Service Sunday 11th December
Don’t forget to come to our annual Advent Family Service in the School Room at 11.00am. The Boy’s and Girl’s Brigades and the Sunday School will be taking part and after the service there will be tea and mince pies.
Carol Singing Mon 19th December, 6.00pm
We will again be singing carols in the village this year and hope you will be able to join us. We intend to sing in the Heulwyn Close area this year and finish in the School Room for hot tea and a biscuit. Hopefully we won’t have the inconvenience of frozen pipes to hinder the good folk who provide the refreshments.
Please pray for the following:
Avril Williams
Sandra Johnson
Phyllis Davies
Everett Williams
Liz Coulton
Ena Wild
All those who care for those in need.
We thank God for answered prayer and ask that he helps us to understand that all things do work together for good.
Alan Birchall Concert
The recent concert provided much laughter and enjoyment. Alan didn’t bring his trio with him this time but did a one-man show which was thoroughly enjoyed by all who came. We raised £200 for church funds.
Iona Talk
Thanks to those who came to the talk given by Rev Richard Sharples and Bob Gilston. Richard’s virtual pilgrimage of the island was supplemented with chants led by Biddy Crossfield and readings given by Gill Tanner and Beryl Blackmore. We raised £100 for Action for Children.
Advent 1 Mark 13:24-37
Mark’s hearers would have known about oppression. The earlier part of the chapter alluded to the horrendous consequences of the Jewish revolt, 66-70 CE, which ended with the Romans starving out Jerusalem before breaking through and destroying the temple. They would have been able to relate to warnings about false messiahs and false prophets. They were in a good position to read the signs of the times. In Mark’s view their times must be the last times. It is very hard for most of us to walk in those shoes. What does it mean to feel that things are so bad the only hope is going to the end of the world? The poetry of pain and despair, the fantasies of escape and resolution, challenge us to silence, to listening, to action.
Mark’s hearers are at one remove. They, at least, have time to gather and hear. Mark has had space to reflect and write. We can give ourselves a hard time about not being right there where it bleeds, but nor was Mark, nor probably most of his hearers. Mark even tones down the irrational tendencies to guess the end, plot the events. To his mind not even Jesus can do that. The mandate is then not to ignore what is happening in the world, but to think about it, to watch, to live in the light of it and in the light of the hope which is beyond it.
To do so is not to focus on predicting the future in a kind of ‘I know what’s going to happen’ game, where I and my group indulge our powers of prediction or claims to privileged revelation and get a religious buzz out of applying biblical prophecy and the fantasy of believing we know. It has more to do with living with the authority which hope gives. People who have the time and space to articulate and reflect on what is going on in the oppression of people whose suffering most often renders them inarticulate have a crucial role for change in the world. Watchful living has less to do with speculation about the end of the world – and we shall have plenty of that as the millennium ends! – and more to do with carrying out our trust, as Mark illustrates it, in a way that finally makes the date of the end a matter of irrelevance. Readiness has as much to do with being ready for life as it has to do with its end.
In Mark’s day to watch was to live the life of a disciple with an eye to what is happening in the world and probably with the strong expectation that history was approaching its climax. 2000 years of failed guesses and expectations have sobered such predictions, and rightly so. But with that has all too often come a withdrawal from the events of the world, not to speak from the cries of pain, so that not much watching really happens except watching one’s private footsteps and moral goodness. Just having a ‘good’ sleep, a sleep of ‘good’ – is good and harmless and may have many other marketable qualities like being peaceful and stress free. It makes for attractive religion, but it has little to do with the engaged alertness which recognises the new leaves, feels the shaking, and sees what the powers of this world are doing. Jesus’ last words become our first words in the Church’s year, a call to be awake to what is happening in our world and to be looking for and in tune with the one who comes, whether for the final time – as in traditional expectation of the second advent – or for any time, for now. Mark’s point is that the implications are the same.
William Loader, Murdoch University, Uniting Church in Australia
