Advent 1b 2014 by Holy Trinity

Advent 1B Mark 13:24-37 30/11/2014 During my recent leave in September I decided to do a little research part time on the side. I wanted to get the perspective of people who don’t go to church. Clergy are very cloistered in a church bubble. Everything we do revolves around church culture for the most part and that is not all bad. But if the church’s main task is to reach those outside of it, then it would be wise for me to get the pulse of those outside the church bubble. How can we be effective at reaching others with the gospel if we don’t seek to understand what they do, where they live, how they experience pain, and what their hang-ups are about religion and Christianity in particular. I wanted an honest perspective. For example, one Sunday morning I didn’t go to church, Instead, I went to that other institution occupied by thousands every Sunday morning; late breakfast- the café where the proprietor told me that church people are not very generous and why does she have to pay rates and the church doesn’t. I don’t know if she goes to church, but her impression of church members is that they are not very generous and live off the community. So I filed that away— “Impression of church people: lack generosity.” Another time I sat at a pub bar for lunch and struck up a conversation with the landlord. I sat there with my pint of beer and asked a few benign questions. I found out that he grew up in pubs all his whole life. His parents owned a pub. I said, “I’m curious. You have a unique perspective being around pubs all of your life. What’s the most important thing you have learned?” He replied, “Never trust anybody who says, ‘You can trust me.’ ” Then he said, “And I have learned that the only person you can count on is yourself.” I filed that one away — “Trust is a very important issue.” Perhaps the most striking conversation I had was on a golf course with my brother and some work colleagues. I was by myself and was paired up with a couple of people. I got to know a man in the group who was in insurance. He had taken a big hit in the GFC and was trying to get his feet back on the ground. He had just gone through a bitter divorce and was going through other personal struggles. He said, “The older I get the less I find things to believe in.” Then he railed against politics, religion, and anything else he could think of. At the end of the round he asked, “What can you really believe in?” That question echoed in my mind for days. If I were to run into that man again, what would I say? What would you say? That really is the feeling of so many people in our culture today. What can you really believe in? What can you really count on in life? In fact, most of the conversations I had with strangers during my time off re flected cynicism about life. Those conversations reminded me of the words of Ecclesiastes, “ ‘Vanity of vanities,’ says the teacher, ‘vanity of vanities, all is vanity… for all is vanity and chasing after the wind’ ” (Ecclesiastes 1:2; 2:11). You can translate the word “vanity” as “emptiness” or “meaningless.” The writer of Ecclesiastes came to the conclusion that all of life is empty. Self-indulgence and even hard work leads to emptiness. It is easy to be cynical in our world and come to this conclusion. It is easy to feel like that man on the golf course, “The older I get the less I find things to believe in. What can you really believe in?” It is easy to feel like the landlord who said, “Never trust anyone who says, ‘You can trust me.’ ” It all feels so empty. Nothing is new. Nothing satis fies. You may be hitting mid-life and feel that way. All the goals and ambitions you set for yourself have lost their lustre. Nothing seems new and exciting anymore and you feel stuck. You 1