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Transcript

Oil in the Lamps · Holy Trinity Winchester Podcast

• 0:00
  [music]
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: May I speak now in the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Please sit down.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Well, all three of our passages,
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: our scripture passages that we've just heard this morning,
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  SPEAKER_00: they are about what we might call a Christian view
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: of the end of the world.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: How is the world going to end?
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  SPEAKER_00: Christianity says something very specific about this.
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  SPEAKER_00: Which may differ from other views, other philosophies, other religions.
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  SPEAKER_00: Christianity does not say that the world is simply going to peter out in some way
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: with the heat death of the universe due to entropy or something like that.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: It does not say that things are just going to go around and around in endless cycles of time.
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  SPEAKER_00: The Christian view at the end of the world says
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  SPEAKER_00: that at some stage God himself will return.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that God himself in the person of Christ will judge the world
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  SPEAKER_00: and will bring perfect justice and restore things
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  SPEAKER_00: to the way they ought to be.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now I don't know how that strikes you.
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  SPEAKER_00: I think for many modern people, particularly in Western nations,
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  SPEAKER_00: the concept of judgment is something that can sound very difficult.
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  SPEAKER_00: I think it sounds intolerant.
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  SPEAKER_00: I think it maybe sounds somewhat nasty.
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  SPEAKER_00: But the fact is that I would put it to you that this is actually a good thing
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  SPEAKER_00: that at some stage God will come to judge the world for a couple of reasons.
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  SPEAKER_00: The first reason would be that we all long for justice.
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  SPEAKER_00: We all long for things to be put right.
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  SPEAKER_00: When we see injustice in the world, something within us reacts against it.
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  SPEAKER_00: We all long for a just world.
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  SPEAKER_00: We all long for justice.
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  SPEAKER_00: But the fact is, is that we cannot have true justice without God's judgment.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Justice, if you like, is on the other side of judgment.
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  SPEAKER_00: So it gives us hope, not that we have to judge the world,
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  SPEAKER_00: but that God himself in Christ will judge the world with complete justice,
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  SPEAKER_00: with complete mercy and love, So this is actually a good thing.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: And as I mentioned, we long for our world to be restored.
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  SPEAKER_00: And therefore, at some stage,
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  SPEAKER_00: this must happen for something like the world that we long for to come about.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: And this is particularly relevant on a day like today, on Remembrance Sunday.
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  SPEAKER_00: On a day like today, It's quite right that we give thanks and we honour those
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  SPEAKER_00: who have sacrificed their lives, sacrificed in other ways, in war,
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  SPEAKER_00: in their own way to bring about a better world and to ward off evil.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: This is quite right, it's quite proper that we do that today.
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  SPEAKER_00: But we also, when we observe days like today,
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  SPEAKER_00: remember the great sufferings That war causes
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  SPEAKER_00: the destruction to the natural
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  SPEAKER_00: and to the human environment that it brings about.
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  SPEAKER_00: And of course, the loss of life and the great grief that it causes.
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  SPEAKER_00: War, like terrible sin and destruction in general,
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  SPEAKER_00: naturally causes us to long for a better world.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that world, Christian view says, will ultimately be brought about by Christ Christ.
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  SPEAKER_00: And this is the Christian hope.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now, that might sound somewhat irrelevant to us.
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  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if it does.
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  SPEAKER_00: But I would say that it has actually great relevance for our ordinary lives.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now, Christ tells a story in our Gospel reading today, the parable of the ten virgins.
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  SPEAKER_00: There were five virgins who were very wise and they took oil with them
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  SPEAKER_00: in their lamps to meet the bridegroom.
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  SPEAKER_00: There were five others who were foolish.
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  SPEAKER_00: And they did not take oil with them.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then for one reason or another, in the course of the story,
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  SPEAKER_00: the five who took oil ended up being admitted to the wedding feast.
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  SPEAKER_00: The five who did not take oil were shut out.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now, my question about that story is, what does that oil represent?
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  SPEAKER_00: What does that oil mean?
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  SPEAKER_00: And Christ doesn't actually tell us.
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  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't say what the oil represents.
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  SPEAKER_00: So we have to think about that ourselves.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's part of the point of the story, to make us think.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now, the great early Christian writer, St.
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  SPEAKER_00: Augustine, said that that oil represents inward charity or inward love for God
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  SPEAKER_00: and our neighbour.
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  SPEAKER_00: And in other words, then, we are to cultivate inward charity,
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  SPEAKER_00: inward love for God and our neighbour.
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  SPEAKER_00: And this, as it were, prepares us to meet the bridegroom who represents Christ.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's a good interpretation of that story.
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  SPEAKER_00: After all, Christ did tell us that the two great commandments are
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  SPEAKER_00: that we should love God and that we should love our neighbour.
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  SPEAKER_00: So in other words, we should get on with these things whilst we are waiting
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  SPEAKER_00: for the bridegroom to return.
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  SPEAKER_00: Our New Testament passage, 1 Thessalonians 4, also has relevance today.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now, the Apostle Paul, who wrote that letter,
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  SPEAKER_00: He wrote two letters to the same place in what we call now Greece,
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  SPEAKER_00: a place called Thessalonica.
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  SPEAKER_00: He wrote two letters to the church in Thessalonica.
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  SPEAKER_00: And he talks a lot about Christ returning in these letters.
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  SPEAKER_00: And some scholars seem to believe that the people in Thessalonica had come
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  SPEAKER_00: to believe in the return of Christ in a particular way that made them stop Working
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  SPEAKER_00: and stop seeing to their responsibilities.
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  SPEAKER_00: They had, in other words, downed tools because they believed that Jesus was coming,
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  SPEAKER_00: and so they thought this means that we no longer need to do anything.
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  SPEAKER_00: We don't need to see to our responsibilities, we just need to wait and take it easy.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: And some of the things that Paul said to them were very practical
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  SPEAKER_00: and I quite like these things so I'm going to read them out to you.
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  SPEAKER_00: This is from his second letter.
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  SPEAKER_00: He wrote to them For we hear that some of you are living in idleness,
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  SPEAKER_00: mere busybodies, not doing any work.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now such people we command and exhort in our Lord Jesus Christ to do their work
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  SPEAKER_00: in quietness and to earn their own living.
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  SPEAKER_00: Brethren, do not be weary in well-doing.
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  SPEAKER_00: And again from the first letter, even better in my opinion,
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  SPEAKER_00: make it your ambition to live a quiet life,
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  SPEAKER_00: to mind your own affairs and And to work
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  SPEAKER_00: with your own hands as we chant you.
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  SPEAKER_00: So the attitude that Paul wants the believers in Thessalonica
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  SPEAKER_00: to have is not Christ is coming and therefore we do not need to do anything.
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  SPEAKER_00: Quite the opposite.
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  SPEAKER_00: It is that God has given you responsibilities
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  SPEAKER_00: and He has entrusted things to you
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  SPEAKER_00: which you are to see to.
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  SPEAKER_00: So carry on doing those things.
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  SPEAKER_00: Get on with doing what he has entrusted you to do
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  SPEAKER_00: in light of his coming kingdom.
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  SPEAKER_00: We desire the kingdom of God to come and therefore let us do what we are called
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  SPEAKER_00: to do to bring it about here and now again.
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  SPEAKER_00: We do not have to save the world, Christ will save the world,
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  SPEAKER_00: but we do have things to do which God has given us to do in the meantime.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to quote this week from C.S.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: Lewis' great book, The Screwtape Letters.
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  SPEAKER_00: I actually quoted from this last week, funnily enough.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not obsessed with this book, but it's a very good book,
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  SPEAKER_00: and so I'm going to quote it again because it's relevant here.
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  SPEAKER_00: If you don't know this book,
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  SPEAKER_00: this is a fictional book about a senior devil in hell giving some advice
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  SPEAKER_00: to his nephew about how to tempt a young man in such a way
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  SPEAKER_00: that he will eventually end up with our father below, as he calls him.
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  SPEAKER_00: This is the quotation.
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  SPEAKER_00: The humans live in time, but our enemy destines them to eternity.
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  SPEAKER_00: He therefore, I believe, wants them to attend chiefly to two things.
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  SPEAKER_00: To eternity itself and to that point of time which they call the present.
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  SPEAKER_00: For the present is the point at which time touches eternity.
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  SPEAKER_00: He would therefore have them continually concerned either with eternity,
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  SPEAKER_00: which means being concerned with him, or with the present.
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  SPEAKER_00: Or else obeying the present voice of conscience,
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  SPEAKER_00: bearing the present cross.
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  SPEAKER_00: Receiving the present grace, giving thanks for the present pleasure.
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  SPEAKER_00: Friends, when that day comes, there is much that will fall away.
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  SPEAKER_00: There is much that will be of no relevance or use.
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  SPEAKER_00: There is much that will be renewed and will be restored.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so, therefore, let us cultivate in ourselves that which will last.
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  SPEAKER_00: In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
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  SPEAKER_00: Amen.