Imagine The Divine Midwife Next To Us Whispering, "Push, Push, Push. It’s Almost Here" Series

Sermon preached on my second last Sunday at St Barnabas Northolt,

17th November 2024

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[lean to one side] Over confidence?

[lean to the other side] Over panicked?

[scratching head] over sight?

This is a time, a season, for strong emotions. In America President Elect Donald Trump particularly evokes these.

On the one side - Donald Trump is the “annointed one”. God saved him from the assassins bullet so he could make America right again. After decades of woke mania and an establishment who ride roughshod over ordinary people and their value, In January the Donald is going to drain the swamp and put everything right.

On the other side - Donald Trump is - well “the devil is probably a too religious word” - but THE danger to Democracy, the dictator for a day- he will bring fear and terror for women, ethnic minorities, gays. He will bring war. He will personally be responsible for the Climate Crisis. He will bring tariff inspired global poverty

That’s the same man we are talking about - “interesting times”

In England - well the Church of England - [confident voice] “always been here - always will be here” - this week, for the first time since Thomas Cranmer was burnt at a steak, an Archbishop of Canterbury has been forced from office in a scandal.

“Interesting times”

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[lean to one side] Over confidence?

[lean to the other side] Over panicked?

[scratching head] over sight?

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OVERCONFIDENCE

“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.’” (Mark 13:1-2)

Have you ever been to St Peter’s in Rome? Its an amazing building. And HUGE! The day I went there, I went to an English in a side chapel. Now side chapel - you are thinking small? [shakes head -] uh uh. At the time I as a curate at St John’s Church Bethnal - an East End church that could seat a thousand people. In St Peter’s in Rome - this side chapel was bigger than my entire church back home. This side chapel could seat way more than a thousand people - and that was just the side chapel. The lettering you could barely see on the dome above - that lettering was apparently 9 feet tall. This building was full of art going right back to the renaissance - and this building had been there for ever.

That is how first century Jews felt about the Temple.

“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.’”

For first century Jews the Temple was a sign of Permanence - God’s never departing presence that assured them everything would go on safely.

But Jesus knows - only 40 years later in AD70 the Romans would destroy Jerusalem and the Temple would be torn down. Jesus did exaggerate slightly. Not every stone was thrown down - a tiny section known today as the “wailing wall” survives as a reminder of the great edifice that once stood there. But the rest of it - “Not one stone [was] left here upon another; all [was] thrown down.’”

It is easy to be sucked into over confidence - nothing can really go wrong. Things will continue the way they always have…

In Afghanistan - there were beautiful statues - the Bamiyan Buddhas. The larger one was 180 foot high. The smaller one 125 foot. Even that is equivalent to more than twenty people standing on each others shoulder. These statues had been built in the 6th century. Generations had walked past them. Wars had gone on around them. Languages had come and gone. But the statues were always there.

Then in 2001 the Taliban blew them up.

In 1993 I was invited to go on a University Reading trip to Assisi - we would study theology together and also see the sights including the incredible basilica there. Well I can’t quite remember why I said “no”. Perhaps I had another holiday to go on. Perhaps it was too expensive. I do remember thinking I could always go to Assisi another time.

Then in 1997 an earthquake obliterated the Basilica and most of the art work within it. A copy has been rebuilt, but not the original - and the art work is gone.

I never visited Sycamore gap. But apparently - in that dip in Hadrian’s Wall there was an Amazing Tree there. A tree that had stood on the sight for hundreds of years. A tree that had been voted the nation’s favourite tree.