“When did God begin?” was the tongue in cheek question blurted out as a challenge to the RE teacher. The boy wore an analog timepiece. The teacher said, “Show me your watch.” The boy put forth his wrist. “Trace the circumference with your finger. It’s a perfect circle. Show me where the circle begins and where it ends.”
An inspired answer! Someone reminded me this week of a sermon I delivered more than 30 years ago in which chronos time (measured in linear terms like the hands of the watch) is surrounded by kairos time (significant events where awareness of the eternal encompassing the temporal, like a circle without beginning or end, breaks in).

Next Sunday’s readings bring us full circle on the lectionary year, using the language of sovereignty (The Festival of Christ the King) to celebrate this all-encompassing mystery of completion in endings and beginnings.

2 Samuel 23:1-7 

Hence, the dying words of King David point to confidence in a continuity for his realm that rests in the ways of the Holy.

 Psalm 93

This same confidence is echoed in the psalm celebrating the sovereignty of YHWH

Revelation 1:4b-8

The vision of the Sovereign Christ, the Alpha and Omega, Beginning and End, begins a dream-like journey of Completion (or Fulfilment) for all things narrated by John on the island of Patmos where he is exiled.

John 18:33-37

Pilate stands as an agent of temporal empire in all its expressions (even today’s!) non-plussed, incomprehensive, yet strangely drawn to tho the figure that stands before him, speaking the language of kairos of which he alone is Sovereign.

This Sunday also marks the change from a year dominated by the necessary pathway of trial and suffering that is part of the disciple’s journey portrayed in Mark’s Gospel. The cycle now takes us to Luke’s Gospel, which during the coming year, will have us exploring the pathway of mature and committed service for the sake of others – a focus on community building that includes but goes beyond the walls of the church to serve the world. The anticipation of Advent and the joy of Christmas will provide the portal through to that path!

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Next week’s texts are suitably apocalyptic as we approach the climax of the church year. They coincide with a week following the centenary commemorations of the end of the Great War “to end all wars.” Yet there is a global unease as the world retreats into defensive poses in the wake of natural calamity, shifting balances in world power and economic and political angst. An apt metaphor for “Apocalypse” is “drawing back the curtain to see things as they really are.”  Our texts hint at this.

1 Samuel 1:4-20 

We visit the anguish of Hannah, grieving and taunted for her barrenness in a society that measured its wealth and prosperity in creating descendants to ensure tribal viability. It is the soil for the beginning of the story of the birth of Samuel, Israel’s kingmaker and the unfolding narrative of human salvation. Even in the midst of hopeless despair, destiny is awoken.

Psalm 16

This could well be Hannah’s prayer. The Psalms provide instances that allow the fullness of expression of human anguish to train through to expressions of trusting hope that speak of guarantee and not merely wishful thinking.

Hebrews 10:11-14 (15-18), 19-25

“And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds …” This is the “therefore” of the thorough discussion and comparison of Christ’s “once for all” sacrifice with the perpetual sacrificial rites of the old priestly system. There is a particular way to live even in the midst of what some have called the age of spiritual melancholia – the way of agape love spelled out in mutual acts of care and encouragement.

Mark 13:1-8

The little apocalypse – Jesus urges the disciples to keep their focus on the reality of the way of the kingdom against the distractions of the times.

The texts for next Sunday, November 11, feature the wisdom of two wise widows born centuries apart. Both provide touchstones that anchor active and thoughtful engagement with robust faith.  

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Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17 

We get a peek into ancient welfare systems and ancient middle eastern tribal succession rites infused with the tenderness of interpersonal relationships involving an outsider, Ruth, who is welcomed into the intimacy of the inner circle. Directly through her came Israel’s eventual monarch of note, David, and then eventually to the one who would be recognised as Messiah, the Christ, Jesus of Nazareth. Hence grass-roots Christianity has always had a bias to recognising the Christ in the alien, the other, the stranger – a pertinent reminder in this age of so-called “border protection.”

Psalm 127 

Again, the Psalm echoes the acclamation of Ruth’s successful marriage to Boaz, affirming that the striving of the human spirit to overcome complicated, vexing and tragic circumstances falls within the purview of divine destiny, evoking a confidence in a continuous orientation to the ways of God revealed in Israel’s faith.

Hebrews 9:24-28

It is incorrect and disrespectful to think of Jesus’ role as High Priest superceding the sacrificial system of the original Hebrew covenant. Rather, Jesus completes it, bringing it to its zenith, its fulfillment. This is how it should be addressed in interfaith dialogue and understandings.

Mark 12:38-44

Echoing the wisdom and trust of Ruth’s Naomi, the widow at the temple treasury provides a non-conscious contrast against the show-off religiosity of those who wear the masks of piety and righteousness. That Jesus would point this out to his disciples after a strong verbal rebuke of the scribes whose talk doesn’t match their walk cements the immanence of his arrest, trial and execution.