There was a film out a few months back entitled “seeking a friend for the end of the world”. Now if like me you enjoy the cinema, you often get to watch apocalyptic motion pictures where an asteroid is about to crash into the earth or the volcanoes are going off, or the gulf stream shifts and the world is about to freeze. And then the heroes deflect the asteroid or build an ark to survive the tsunamis or rescue those trapped in a frozen New York.
“Seeking a friend for the end of the world” is a bit different. It begins with a news reel - the final attempt to stop the asteroid has failed. In 21 days time the world ends. This is not like disaster movies where somehow people get rescued. This film explores how people react when faced with the inevitability of their own death and everyone else’s. How would you react?
1 Thessalonians 3:13 “and may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blamless before our God and father at the coming of Our Lord Jesus with all his saints.”
Today is Advent Sunday. If you ask most people in England what Advent means they’ll say it’s when you get Advent calendars. You open the little doors and there is chocolate. If you dig a bit deeper they might tell you it is counting down to Christmas. And that is true. But Advent means more than that.
Advent is from the latin word for “coming” - it is when we prepare for the coming of Jesus. We prepare for the coming of the of the baby Jesus at Bethlehem. And we also prepare for his second coming: for the “coming of Our Lord Jesus with all his saints” at the end of the world. Are you ready for the end of the world. If it happens before the end of this sermon - are you ready? In fact does anyone need to dash off and sort anything out?
In “Seeking a friend for the end of the world” you keep getting captions saying “21 days to go”, “13 days to go”, “12 days to go” etc. A bit like opening your advent calendar doors to count down to Christmas. Except in Advent we are also opening doors to count down to the end of the world. There’s one wonderful scene in the film where a man says “I go to the doctor and they tell me I have got cancer and I only have 6 months to live. Then I get home, turn on the TV, and the news says an asteroid is going to hit us and I only have 21 days to live”. We don’t know how long we’ve got. I don’t know if I am going to die in 3 months time or if the world is going to end in 2 months time. Advent tells us to be prepared. Advent tells us to be like the man in the film with a sandwich bord saying “the end of the world is here” - the hero looks at him and says “well he’s finally vindicated!” “May he so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and father at the coming of Our Lord Jesus with all his saints.”
Our reading from 1 Thessalonians chapter 3 tells us 3 things Paul wants us to do to “Be prepared!” (make scout sign).
If I was to summarise those 3 things in one phrase it would be a phrase of our Bishop Stephen Cotterell: “living distinctively”. Get used to that phrase you are going to be hearing it a lot “living distinctively”. it is the first of Bishop Stephen’s 4 topics in his Transforming Presence agenda.
Before we can evangelise effectively, serve with accountability or minister differently, first we have to live distintinctively. Before we can share our faith, first we have to have a faith to share.
You’ll notice at mass that usually the priest and eucharistic ministers receive communion first before giving it to everybody else. That’s a symbol - and it symbolises an important point: “you can’t give what you have not got”. We have to live distinctively - we have to live as if the end of the world is coming at any moment - so that we have got a faith and a lifestyle that is worth sharing.
So what are the three points that Paul identifies in his letter?
1)vs 10 “night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you face to face and make up what is lacking in your faith.” Paul only had three weeks establishing the church in Thessaloniki before he had to flee because of persecution. He is incredibly grateful to God for the amazing growth of the church there. But he knows they need more teaching. And the best way of doing that isn’t a written document but face to face.
I hope you will agree that you and I both need to learn more about the Christian faith. if you have learnt everything you need to learn, then please come up here, take my place, because there is certainly loads I need to learn. The Christian faith is a bit like an aeroplane “if you stop, you drop” (demonstrate with hand gestures). I hope you will agree that none of us have learnt all we need to know until we get to the end of the world.
And to agree with St Paul, one of the best ways of learning is face to face. part of that is sermons. Whether it is Mother Margaret, myself, or our lay preachers Tony or Rosemary, I hope you listen with an expectation of learning something. if you are tempted just to think of it as entertainment, imagine for a moment that “21 days to go” flashes up across the screen. Does that make you listen to a sermon any differently.
Actually, many guest preachers often comment to me what a listening congregation you are, how attentively you listen to sermons. Sermons are part of how we “make up what is lacking in our faith” - and I would add, sermons alone are not enough. How much can we learn from just 15 minutes teaching, even if it was someone as good as Bishop Stephen?
That’s why weekly small groups are so important as a place to learn. Small groups where we can learn not just from the preacher but from each other “face to face” as Paul puts it. I think you’ll agree that an hour or an hour and a half each week is far more than just 15 minutes, and that a whole group full of Christians contains more wisdom than just one preacher. That’s why as a church we encourage people so strongly to be part of a homegroup. Maxine’s currently looking for people to help relaunch her homegroup, and I am sure none of the other homegroup leaders would say no to a few extra people, so if you are interested in joining one, please do speak to one of us.
2) vs12 “and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you”
In “Seeking a friend for the end of the world”- at the very beginning just after they have heard that the asteroid is coming, the main character’s wife get’s out of the car and leaves him. Yes - i mean leaves him for good. And he begins to search for his long lost love from childhood, but in the end he finds love not at the end of the journey but on the journey with the one he is travelling with, the one who has been showing him kindness and helping him.
Now according to Hollywood love is romantic love, but love is much more than that. We live in a love starved world. Mother Theresa said “loneliness is the leprosy of modern society”. So if we are to live distinctively we have to live less self centredly and more love centredly. “and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you”
St Paul starts by saying “for one another” - ie for fellow church members. When the pagans looked at the early Christians they said “see how they love one another”. If this church is to abound love there is ONE absolutely essential ingredient to make that happen. Don’t wait for other people to show you acts of of love, generosity and kindness before you show them to other people... It’s like sitting at a junction: if you are waiting for the other car to go, and the other car is waiting for you to go, nobody’s going to move. Now I know of some quite amazing acts of kindness and generosity that some of you have done for other members here in this church, but to stop people getting embarrassed, I can’t mention them all out loud. And others of you may not know about them. But don’t wait before you see someone do something amazing before you do something amazing yourself. According to the wisdom of the the 16th century carmelite St John of the Cross, “Where there is no love, put in love and you will find love”. “Where there is no love, put in love and you will find love”
3)vs 13 “and may he strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.”
How do you get your heart fit? Is it push ups? sit ups? Is it going for a five mile run each morning? What do you do to strengthen your heart?But we know that when the bible talks about hearts, it is not talking about the lump of muscle in your chest.
What do we do to strengthen our spiritual, emotional hearts?
That will involve prayer - St Paul doesn’t actually tell the Thessalonians to pray. But he models it to them. “Night and day we pray most earnestly for you”. “we pray for you” - it is not just praying on his own, which I know from elsewhere St Paul does, it is corporate prayer, a small group of Christians getting together to pray - again the sort of thing we do in each of our homegroups.
well what else can we do to strengthen our hearts? We can live a life of readiness.
In “Seeking a friend for the end of the world” the characters come across a restaurant, a sort of Frankie and Bennies joint. And with just days to go, the people are still working there. They may running low on supplies and have to make a hamburger using a doughnut as the bun, but when everyone else has left their jobs they are still there. The waiters had thought of leaving, but then realised that working there was what gave them meaning and purpose. There was nothing else they wanted to do.
Now I am not suggesting that working for Frankie and Bennies is the answer to life. But are you doing the things in life now where if tomorrow you learnt you had 21 days to go, you wouldn’t change your life? I’m not just talking about your job: I’m talking about the things you do with your spare time. If you heard that you had 21 days to go, would you turn round and say “There’s nothing I want to change”.
That is our challenge this Advent to live not as if it is three weeks to Christmas, but as if it is three weeks to the end of the world.
