The Great Shalom

The season is changing, fall is here and winter is on its way. I had the joy of spending most of this week in Virginia with dear friends, surrounded by trees, many of whom were shedding their leaves for the winter and creating an ever-changing display of extraordinary color and beauty. And here on Morro Bay, the wintering birds are arriving together with the beginning of the rainy season.

In the Church, the season is changing as well. In just two weeks we will be celebrating the last day of the Church’s year, the Reign of Christ; and then Advent starts as we prepare once again for our remembrance of the coming of the Christ in Bethlehem. If you forget that the Church’s New Year is right after Thanksgiving, it can seem surprising that one week we celebrate the culmination of the Christ event – the time yet to come when all things are brought into balance - and the next we are preparing for the coming of the Christ in the Incarnation.

But if you listen carefully to our readings now and into Advent you will hear a common theme. “Get ready, Christ is coming!”  Both these last Sundays in Pentecost and the first Sundays in Advent are focused on the hope of Christ’s coming, both in the incarnation and at the end of time. We have a long word for our belief in the coming time when God  will, as we say in our Eucharistic prayer, “in the fullness of time, put all things in subjection under your Christ.” Theologians talk about the eschaton which comes from the Greek word for last. So our eschatological hope is in the coming of Christ in the end times.

Some people get caught up in ideas about the end times. The end of the world has been predicted again and again, some people count as many as 300 times over the years. In today’s gospel reading the Sadducees (who didn’t believe in resurrection) were trying to trick Jesus by asking him a question about resurrection. He told them they were thinking too literally.

There are many people who want to take things literally – who want the certainty of knowing exactly how the end times will unfold, and who compare the political events in our world with Biblical prophecies.  It seems that the church in Thessaloniki was getting confused by people doing exactly that, because in the New Testament lesson we heard Paul telling them not to get caught up and scared by stories about the end times. The stories he said were just a scam.

I admit find myself doing it sometimes – wanting to identify this world leader as the great beast of Revelation, and this one as the Anti-Christ, as though somehow condemning them in my mind will make it all better.

But our eschatological hope is in something much more vague and yet much more certain – the unconditional and never-ending love of the living God. Our eschatological hope is that the living God is creating in every minute and working with us to bring about the very best outcome in every situation. So even when it doesn’t look like it, the ever-expanding universe is being drawn towards the highest and best.

That is our hope, people of God, that in every situation however dire, God is living, God is here among us and beside us and within us and is working with us to bring about the peace and justice of Shalom. We translate shalom as peace, yet it is a fullness of peace which means much, much, more than just an absence of conflict. Its root in ancient Hebrew has the sense of making whole, of well-being and health.

The living God did not just start the ball rolling with a big bang and then wander off. The living God is right here with us as we work to expand the reign of God, as we work for shalom in our lives, our community and our world.

Working for shalom does not necessarily mean doing things because shalom is a state of being.
Looking again at the New Testament reading. Paul does not give thanks for all the good work that the Thessalonian church is doing, no, he gives thanks that they are called to be “the first fruits for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and through belief in the truth.” I’m not going to unpack that statement this morning; my point is that who they are in Christ is as important as what they are doing. The doing flows naturally from the being.

Our own experience of shalom is important. Jesus once said that the kingdom of God is within you. (Lk 17:21) When our inner life is one of shalom it creates a beautiful ripple effect which blesses those around us. I imagine Jesus was like that. I think that just being in his presence would have brought a sense of comfort and peace because he was abiding in God. Wouldn’t it be amazing if our inner lives were so deeply grounded in Spirit that wherever we go, even to Albertsons, people around us would find themselves calmed and turning toward God?

Inner shalom does not come by ignoring the difficult things both in ourselves and around us but by praying for healing, and remembering that difficulty is not everything.

I don’t know if you have ever had this experience - I’m listening to the news on the radio while I’m driving. I’m driving through great and amazing beauty but my mind and my attention is on something that is happening in Washington, and it’s not good. But then I turn off the radio and suddenly notice that the tide is low and the estuary is full of birds and the hills are starting to turn green, and the marine layer is giving way to sun. My attention shifts and I give thanks.

I think it’s like that with the ‘not-yet but coming’ end times. They give us hope because they provide us with a vision of what is possible. Although we get to focus on what is in front of us, bringing shalom into the difficulties of daily living in this time and place, we do that within the context of something much bigger. Within the context of the creative love of God drawing all things towards balance and completion.

Our trust in the endless love of God helps us to know that we are working and walking towards something glorious.

Most of us in this room have more of our lives behind us than in front of us. It has been fascinating to read the biographies that y’all have been sharing in the Pebble - the places we have been, the people we have loved, the decisions we have made and how our lives have unfolded in expected and unexpected ways. And my friends we have the confidence that our path is taking us toward something much more glorious yet – the day when we will meet God face to face.

And we can take every step between now and then with hope. Yes, our bodies are not what they once were and sometimes it seems like just simple activities take so much longer, but we are, both together and individually, living every day in the presence of the living God, with the support and encouragement of the Spirit, knowing that we are, however imperceptibly, moving toward the Great Shalom.

the Rev. Dr. Caroline Hall