Remembrance Sunday 2017

Amos 5:18-24 (and 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 and Matthew 25:1-13)

The record of the words of the prophet Amos begins with a list of divine judgement being declared against the nations surrounding Israel. Damascus. Gaza. Tyre. Edom. Ammon. Moab. Judah. It is quite a roll call. Denouncement follows denouncement, and with each one we might imagine the cheers of Amos’ audience getting louder and louder. Hah! Despite their impressive defences, the neighbouring peoples are about to get their comeuppance. That is, of course, deeply satisfying, because there is something in human nature that likes to nurse an ancient grudge against our neighbours. The English, for example, have fought both against and alongside every one of our neighbours, in continually-morphing alliances.

Amos builds the anticipation up to bursting-point, and then drops his bomb-shell. Israel will not be spared the judgement that will befall her neighbours. Indeed, God’s judgement on Israel will be even more damning, because they have known God in all God’s loving-kindness and enduring faithfulness, in his compassion and justice and forgiveness and mercy. And they have turned their back on God, exploiting the poor and revelling in obscene wealth, all the while imagining—indeed, regularly celebrating—that their history made them exceptional and that God was on their side.

Taking great pride in their identity, the people told one another stories of the day of the Lord, of how God would appear soon and pass judgement on the other nations. But for Amos, such sabre-rattling was a source of great sadness. ‘Why do you want the day of the Lord?’ he asks, ‘It is darkness, not light.’ In attempting to describe what God’s appearing would be like, he tries this: it will be like meeting a lion, and managing to outrun it…only to stop, exhausted, and be attacked by a bear. Terrifying. But no, that doesn’t quite manage to capture it. It will be more like running away from the lion and making it home, bolting the door behind you—elated—and leaning against the wall—take deep breaths now: in…out—only to step on a venomous snake and be bitten, your raised pulse pumping the poison around your body with heartless efficiency. The cruel irony!

God is not what they expected God to be like. Not because God is unpredictable, a monster who might at any moment turn on them like a lion or a bear or a snake. But, rather, because God is reliably predictable in his unwavering commitment to justice and righteousness—righteousness being what it looks like when we love God with all our heart and soul, and love our neighbour as ourselves—and they had simply chosen to forget. Perhaps God is not what we expect God to be like, either?

The earth was crying out for justice and righteousness like a dry land cries out for reliable water. It still does.

We need to hear Amos’ words on this Remembrance Day, because we remember wrongly. We remember all the grudges we bear against our neighbours, keeping the smouldering ashes of past conflicts from going out, the fire from going cold. We remember the cost to us, and we want them to pay reparations. We remember ourselves as heroes, to be forever held in high esteem; and the other side as villains, to be forever held, at best, in pity. And while we remember these things, we forget the God who is slow to get angry at our shortcomings, quick to forgive us our sin—and who expects us to extend the same forbearing and forgetting of past sins towards others. We forget that our lives are as fleeting as the flowers of the field—the poppies of the field—and that we are to lay the past to rest in peace and look forward to God’s future. Indeed, we are called to live as if that future were already here—acting justly, seeking to love our neighbour—even while recognising that the kingdom of God is both now and not yet, has come into the world and is delayed in its coming.

It was enormous good fortune to have been on the winning side of both World Wars; but it was also a great misfortune. It has made it hard for us to humble ourselves before God. In Germany, they do not commemorate Armistice Day, but on the Second Sunday before Advent they hold the People’s Day of Mourning. This year, that falls next Sunday, and it so happens that I shall be in Germany, along with a delegation from Durham Diocese taking part in a consultation on Confirmation practice. We shall be staying in host parishes over the weekend, ahead of a couple of days at a retreat centre, and we shall be taking part in their services and the acts of remembrance that follow them. I anticipate the tone will be very different from here, and that we have something to learn from them. In any case, I consider it a great privilege to be there, to mourn with those who mourn sin and cry out to God for healing.

Amos’ vision is uncompromising, but it is not a counsel of despair. Israel will be shaken in judgement for her refusal to build a just society in which all can share fully. But after the shaking comes the restoration: not restoring what was—a return to injustice—but restoring God’s vision for his people. Go and read Amos chapter 9, verses 11-15 to hear about that. You see, the day of the Lord comes on us, again and again, unexpectedly like a lion or a bear or a snake, leaving us mauled or poisoned, picture-language for talking of the consequences of our sin. But God promises to come to raise up and repair and rebuild; to heal and restore.

It seems to me that we might appropriately employ the language of violent shaking-up to describe what is going on in our own nation at this time. Austerity has proven to be deeply unjust towards to most vulnerable, and the rich continue to shore-up greater wealth while those who have the least find themselves with less and less. Against that backdrop, the electorate has thrown us out of the European Union, and into the deep and long-lasting uncertainty of Brexit. The House of Commons—all parties—appears to be in freefall, rocked by scandal and accusation. Our institutions are being shaken, from the Church to the BBC to social services to the police.

Might it be that we are being shaken? Might this be a time to lament, and repent, and look to restoration? I think we are in this time for the long haul, but might the outcome be—in God’s grace—a hopeful one? Each time we have passed through a long and dark night, eventually the bridegroom has arrived, and the time has come to celebrate.

Is it possible that Amos, who first spoke-out two-and-and-half millennia ago, might help us to respond to God in our day; and to be ready when Jesus, the bridegroom, comes to us in the night? I believe so, and encourage you to sit with his words, and the disturbing vision of God that he holds out to us, over the week ahead. Speak to us, Lord, through the words of your servant Amos. And come to us in due course, Lord Jesus.