(this may indeed be mind blowing to some/many who do not realise that there are many who pray daily in a regular way…psalms and scripture, hours and seasons)
…. any way we have been exposed to a whole lot of new scripture songs.
There is indeed a multitude of readings for this penultimate Sunday of the Church's year. November 17 2013; 26th Sunday after Pentecost and today we have the amazing Song of Isaiah which expresses something of what the psalms do about our hope in waiting for God.
x Don’t give up your day job!x
Christians took a while to understand what Jesus was saying. On the one hand they heard him say he was going to ‘come again’ and bring everything to completion.
But on the other hand their experience for the first two hundred years was that Jesus didn’t seem to be coming immediately
I don’t think we can begin to imagine how much of a dilemma this presented for early Christians.
Some were so caught up with the idea of Christ’s second coming that they stopped living their normal lives. We have seen that happen from time to time throughout Christian history.
Well-meaning (but perhaps zany) believers put their life on hold.
Jesus told them not to
This is despite the fact that Jesus told us not to worry about when this great return was going to happen.
Even today some Christians think they can hasten God’s plan
some believe that when the Jews return to Israel, for example, then Jesus will come to reign from the Holy City.
There is a certain irony that millions of American dollars were shelled out by fundamentalist Christians
to encourage Russian Jews to emigrate to the Holy Lands.
Thinking that some how they would hasten the second coming
And I say it again
This is despite the fact that Jesus told us not to worry about when this was going to happen.
Jesus’s point seems to have been not that we should stand around waiting
but rather that we should live each day
as if it were our last.
What would YOU do this week, or today
if you viewed it as your last possible opportunity
--to express your love for your child, or your friend
--to seek forgiveness for something you have done wrong
--to do something you’ve always felt you should do
Few of us would be saying: “I should work longer at the office”...or “I just need to ensure that my financial situation is more secure.”
This would seem to be more of the point.
Paul tells the Christians not to stop working
but rather to get on with finding Christ in their day to day life
Far from being pious
(he is a bit blunt) you should get on with living
But do it with this new and better perspective.
If you stop working...you won’t eat.
Balance
There is a balance that needs to be struck
But it is not the balance of trying to manipulate God (it won’t work any way)
But rather of trying to have in our life
that sense of priority and perspective
that says
Live this day as if this is not only the day that the Lord has made.
But also the day when we will sit down
and explain to Jesus just what we think we are doing with the life we have been given
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