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'So,
with many other exhortations, John proclaimed the good news to the people.'
Good news? Given the tirade we've just heard, you may be forgiven for
wondering. John the Baptist's proclamations have nothing of comfort for
the crowds who flocked to hear him. You can hear the contempt in his voice:
as if they are day trippers, turned out to gawp at this strange spectacle
in the desert, he rails against them, full of rage. A brood of vipers!
He calls them, and asks them why they're here. Fleeing the wrath that
is to come? I don't think so. He dismisses their feeble appeals to the
traditions of faith; to justify their lives as acceptable, because they
are children of Abraham. Bah! Says John. God can raise up children of
Abraham in any age-as numerous as the stones around them. You can hear
John's rage-white heat within him-at these lazy, complacent, pathetic
folk who have turned up for a day out, to see the man with locusts and
honey, the hair shirt and long lanky hair.
But who know not God.
John's rage blasts down the centuries, and like those poor people of his
time, our ears have become unaccustomed to hear such wrath. Good news?
We prefer, don't we, to think of faith as something comforting, loving,
gentle. We're good, today, at nice, warm, friendly faith. Cosy spirituality;
touchy-feely stuff. We're good at the good news that gets alongside people;
that stresses the peace and love, the fellowship.
We're not so good at hearing the good news that scares us to the bone,
that puts the fear of the Lord into us.
One of the seven gifts that a bishop will pray over a confirmation candidate
is that they receive the fear of the Lord. It's often glossed over; domesticated.
Instead of fear, you'll hear how we need to respect God, of have a sense
of awe, etc. etc. But something fundamental is lost here. We need to recapture
a much stronger sense of a God who does judge us; a God of whom we should
be rightly afraid.
John is not mealy mouthed; he preaches destruction for those who do not
bear good fruit; whose lives are wasted in triviality; in greed and complacency.
'Even now the axe is lying at the root of the trees' he cries in the wilderness.
Onto the fire will go all our sin, all our turning away, our rejection
of the God most high. John calls for each to be put in the refining fire,
the unquenchable fire, that consumes our lack of passion for God, our
indolence-so that, like silver, we may emerge true to God. With wisdom,
based on the fear of the Lord.
When do you feel fear?
- there's many different kinds. There's the fear that working girls experience
each time they get into a punter's car-the fear of danger. A fear felt
by all who are vulnerable to the violence-threatened or real-of others.
There's the fear we feel when we're extremely anxious-stressed at work,
perhaps-fearful that we might face the sack; the worry of unemployment.
Bad, ugly fear that is just horrible to experience. The sort of fear and
worry that Paul tried to comfort in his letter to the Philippians: Do
not worry about anything; but make your requests known to God, and the
peace of God will guard you. Good news; comforting news in the face of
terrible fear.
The fear of the Lord
is different to this, I think. We tend to domesticate it because we confuse
it with bad fear; because we can't get our heads around what a 'good'
fear would look like.
Let me give you an
example of a good fear; a fear that is God-given.
When I was a child I used to love a wild strong wind: the stirring pleasure
of it! The sound of the trees thrashing; the birds blown all over the
sky. When I was young, I'd watch the kittiwakes and gannets on the cliffs
in Scotland and rejoice. I'd take sparrows for granted. I knew polar bears
would be with us for ever. I remember skating on a pond outside.
Today my love of nature-which has always spoken to me of God's loving
creativity-is tempered by fear. A gale outside stirs my fear: I think
of climate change. The arctic ice cap is melting: soon polar bears will
be unable to hunt seals as they emerge, hungry from the winter hibernation.
This year has been the warmest since the mid 17th Century. I fear for
the future with a profound anxiety about the world in which my children
and their children will live.
Now I'm not naïve. I know that the climate is always changing; that
it goes through cycles; that there are many complex causes that impact
upon our weather. That planet earth has a tremendous capacity to adapt.
But why is it that the fear I feel just won't go away?
Because I think the Sterne report is right-and the many other scientists
who argue the same way. Because the evidence is increasingly incontrovertible.
Humanity is having a devastating impact upon the environment. To deny
that this is the case starts to look like burying your head.
And it's interesting, that response, in itself. When we feel fear, one
of the ways we deal with it is through denial-blanking it out, arguing
it away. Rowan Williams comments that he thinks we're in massive denial
at what we're doing to the environment: it's so big; we feel so helpless;
we're like headless chickens.
There's little comfort here. Not much, if any, safe, domesticated good
news.
The scientific analysis gathers increasing pace and we need to hear the
evidence and believe it. We can't afford the luxury of denial much longer.
But we also need-as church goers, as people of God-to develop strong theological
arguments too. Theological arguments that run parallel with the scientific
ones, and reinforce them.
Too often we stop at the nice God; the gentle God, the loving God. Too
seldom we speak of the wrathful God; the God who is to be feared. Perhaps
there's good reason: John the Baptist spoke out-and look what happened
to him.
But I think we must. We must start to respond to the prophecies of the
scientists of our age, who foretell of a future that will be bleak. We
need to argue along side them that such a future is also against God's
will. That God is full of rage and wrath at what we are doing to the wonderful
gift that is God's creation.
We can see the signs of the age. We can see them clearly-the polar bear
is one such sign. The fear I feel, and share with so many-is another.
Signs that we are going dangerously wrong.
We are happy to use
theological language when we talk of God's creation; that God loves, redeems
and sustains creation in all its intricate bio-diversity. But we can't
stop there. We can't just stop with the nice language of love and creativity.
We need to take the next step and be prepared to talk of God the creator
who mourns what we are doing; who is full of wrath and rage at our ingratitude,
at our sinful greed and apathy.
John the Baptist directed the wrath of God against the selfish crowds;
against the tax-collectors, against the soldiers. He, and countless Old
Testament prophets had no hesitation about directing God's anger at the
corruptions, the sinful abuses of their day. Today's prophets direct God's
wrath at our greed; our destruction of the fragile earth that God has
entrusted to us.
We need to be afraid. That fear is God-given. It is given by a God who
rages at what we are doing to this delicate, resilient, beautiful gift,
of which we have stewardship.
John's prophecy was not just doom and judgement. He responded to the question:
What then shall I do? With sound advice; with appropriate guidance. We're
not short of guidance from scientists, from experts. I know I'm going
to do more, because I can't live with my conscience, with that fear; because
I know I have to heed the wrath of God.
So what do we do? I was really heartened, when I went recently to the
opening of the Islam Awareness Week, to see that at the top of their agenda
was the environment. We need to work together with people of other faiths
and our own-through the faiths forum, through any and all statutory mechanisms
and informal networks-to build up a real head of steam in this city of
Bradford and beyond. We need to get our own house in order, through the
congregational committee, in our own homes.
We need to get on with it: building upon a sound theological basis that
our stewardship of God's world requires our action. We need to repent
of our sin and greed, and we need to act. Otherwise we deserve the judgement
of a wrathful God.
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