Sermons by Bishop Paul V. Marshall
Millennium Sermon
Dec 31, 1999 Cathedral Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem (9:30 pm)
Bishop Paul V. MarshallEcclesiastes 3:1-15 2 Corinthians 5:17-6:2 Luke 2:15-21
It is a privilege to greet you in the last hours of 1999. Like many of you, I have been waiting for tonight for a long time. I remember being in fourth grade figuring out how old I would be in 2000 -- I was only off by one, as I forgot that my birthday is in the summer. But here we are, so let's start the new year right.
The familiar words of our first lesson, from Ecclesiastes, that there is a season for everything, continue with the observation that God "has made everything suitable for its time; moreover he has put a sense of past and future into their minds." It is that sense of past and future that brings us here tonight. As Christians, we mark a long history of life under the gospel of Jesus Christ, and how that gospel has shaped western civilization and each of our lives.
What does our sense of the past want to remember about the 20th Century? Like many others, I think it may have a good bit to do with technology and with social reform. In 1899 people didn't set their VCRs to capture the dropping of the ball in Times Square and then get into the family car, and drive to First Night, church, and fireworks -- knowing that the thermostat would keep things cozy for them at home. They also didn't have antibiotics, Social Security, thermostats, refrigerators, or cell phones. The labor movement had not yet gotten a decent standard of living for miners or milliners, and the idea that everyone should know how to read and have access to culture was talked about but remained far away. All women and most non-white males did not vote, and churches were almost completely segregated. Museums and theaters were usually closed on the one day the working class would have easy access to them, Sunday. People didn't have the means to identify very deeply with cultures far away -- and what counted as "far away" started a lot closer then. We have come a very long way in a short time.
At the same time, it would wait for the twentieth century to see unparalleled mass murder in Armenia, in the Ukraine and Soviet Georgia, and in the death camps of the Nazis. We will probably never know the extent of mass murder in China, and we live with continuing genocide in more than one place today today. The absolute stupidity of the warfare by attrition in World War I remains unequalled, and even though they saved American lives at the close of the next World War, those blinding flashes at Hiroshima and Nagasaki put us on notice that we can extinguish life on earth, and it remains astounding that for so many years civilized people responded to that terrifying possibility with an arms race. The issues of racism and sexism are far from settled. What was once religious freedom has become the virtual exile of religion from public discourse.
So like those in other centuries, we have seen both advances and declines, whether our view is secular or spiritual. We are called to remember and be thankful for the good; not forget the bad so that we do not repeat it. There is another issue, however. Unlike other centuries, the quantity of change experienced in the 1900s is felt much more because of the speed of communication and the breadth of coverage: we watch wars on television and get details on the intimate lives of people in high or low places everywhere. Combined with the overall domination of computers, the situation has left many older people numb to their own time, while the young and even some of the middle aged are detached from the past or actually contemptuous of it.
When people think that there is no meaning to life, as the book of Ecclesiastes noted long ago, the last resort is obsessive self-indulgence. Thus the bottom line in our day, regarding everything including religion, often is nothing more than "what will it do for me?" People look for churches not in terms of the challenges they offer, but the services they provide. Heroes are not made of such stuff, but not too many people are interested in having heroes, let alone becoming heroes.
If I believed that this situation was beyond redemption and transformation, I would not be using up your time. The fact is that peace has been breaking out in strange places over the last twenty years, and we have the possibility of serious talk about morals in our society. Beyond that, however, the verses we read from St. Paul insist that for everyone united with Christ there is a new creation. The 20th Century has been but the infancy of a remarkably different kind of world than our ancestors knew a hundred or a thousand years ago, and almost every technological advance has brought with it possibilities for enriching and gladdening human experience. As at no other time, we really do possess the resources to feed and clothe the world, to equip people for productive lives. We can now imagine a world of relative health and safety without being at all impractical. It is for us who have that vision to speak as disciples of Christ, and call others to that vision, and insist that our political leaders work for it.
Here our special Christian sense of the past and our Christian sense of the future touch each other. The ancient story that spans from Christmas to Easter to Pentecost points like a compass needle to the fulfillment of all things and all people in Jesus Christ. This is not just a religious comment on the year 2000. It makes all the difference in the world whether or not you believe that history is going somewhere. Because we taste the future at each eucharist, because we have seen God working in our lives and those of others, we share two beliefs. The first is that things will come out right; the second is that we have no idea what that future will look like. This is true because the individual and group memory of Christians is that God delivers more than is promised or expected, but does so in ways that constantly surprise us and point to a different sense of values than those of business as usual. A carpenter's death and resurrection is the central component of human history -- that was and is the biggest surprise of all.
If you believe that history is going somewhere, if you believe that the meaning of life is to LIVE simply and gloriously in companionship with God and neighbor, then you have the impulse to cooperate in changing the world. If we believe that life has a point because of Christ, we can get in touch with our "inner hero" and call forth the hero in those around us. Then we can talk about a future for this planet. In our epistle tonight, St. Paul wants us to feel urgency about becoming part of God's solution, and that we do so now.
I hope that we can each include in our resolutions for 2000 a determination to consume less so that we can give more, to toughen up our spirituality and make a difference in the world. In this regard, I continue to admire Nativity's decision to use its Christmas offerings for relief work -- in fact, remembering that decision has given me joy all week. I hope that this corporate act of love and discipleship can be a model for each of us as individuals. Imagine the impact on your children of your saying that we are taking a vacation that is one day shorter this year in order to have more to give the poor at home or far away. People who do that in a positive way, even a joyful way, and do it often enough, give their children a connection to others that produces the most wonderful adults.
In the Episcopal and Lutheran Churches, January 1st is called "The Holy Name of Jesus," a way of enacting the belief that Christ is where everything starts and ends. It is very important to start 2000 that way, but it is even more important to start each day in his name, and move into God's future with confidence and expectation.
Happy 2000.
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