Sermon given at Sung Eucharist on 6 November 2011

6th November 2011 at 11:00 am

The Very Reverend Dr John Hall, Dean of Westminster

That’s not a bad question to ask on 6th November. Whether we think of yesterday’s observance as simply Bonfire Night or Guy Fawkes Day or Gunpowder Treason Day as it was generally known in the 17th century, it does commemorate one of the most extraordinary crises in our entire national history. It seems to be fading in the public memory these days and to have lost much of its resonance. It is a long time since I have seen a group of children on the street asking for a penny for the guy. And yet, if we could conceive the impact of the destruction not only of the Monarch and court, but of the entire political, diplomatic, legal and military establishments, in one fell swoop, we would begin to come close to the cataclysmic effect of the crisis that would follow.

I have recently re-read King James I’s address to Parliament on 9th November 1605. He reflected on God’s Providence in relation to the events of 5th November. That extended to how he came to understand what the plotters’ intercepted letter meant. He said, ‘as I ever did hold Suspicion to be the Sickness of a Tyrant, so was I so far upon the other Extremity, as I rather contemned all Advertisements or Apprehensions of Practices. And yet now, at this Time, was I so far contrary to Myself, as, when the Letter was shewed to me by My Secretary, I did upon the Instant interpret and apprehend some dark Phrases therein, to be meant by this horrible Form of Blowing us up all by Powder.’ So the King expressed his wonderment at God’s grace in allowing the plot to be uncovered and himself and his people to be spared. Perhaps the crises of Stuart England put our current crises, real and important though they are, into a fresh perspective.

In this season of the Church’s year, between All Saints’ Day and Advent, our attention begins to turn to stories of the coming of God’s kingdom. The readings chosen for the lectionary include some of the amazing parables of the kingdom told by Jesus towards the end of his ministry as he was preparing for his sacrificial death.

The message from today’s Gospel reading seems overwhelmingly simple and clear. Be prepared. You never know the day or the hour. But there is perhaps more than that to discover. There are certain oddities from our point of view, if this is the account of a wedding. Why was the bridegroom delayed? Was the wedding really going to start when he arrived at midnight? Why did not the wise bridesmaids who had spare oil share it with the foolish ones who had run out of oil? Why when the foolish bridesmaids eventually came back did the bridegroom say to them, apparently through the locked door, that he did not know them? Now we may take it that this parable is not really about a wedding but about the Parousia, the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ at the end of time.

We shall be saying soon when we recite the Nicene Creed, ‘We look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.’ What does that mean?

St Paul in our second lesson this morning from his epistle to the Thessalonians, tells us to look forward to the Second Coming of Christ, and to expect it to be imminent: ‘The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air.’ [I Thessalonians 4: 16- 17]

There has been endless debate in the Church over the centuries about the apparent inconsistency between the expectation of St Paul and other contemporaries – that Christ would come again within the foreseeable future – and the simple fact that the end of the world has not yet come.

Whether St Matthew has modified or adapted the original parable of Jesus is debated, but the parable as he records it seems to be aware of anxiety about a delay in the Parousia. The bridegroom will come, he is saying. You must be prepared. He may come at the most unexpected time – at midnight – but be prepared. If you are not prepared, do not expect to gain entry to the Kingdom. The Lord will say he knows you not.

Eccentrics continue to predict the end of the world this year or next. Meanwhile, scientists suggest that the earth is 4.5 billion years old and that four billion years from now the increase in the Earth's surface temperature will mean that most if not all the life on the surface will be extinct. They say the most probable fate of the planet is absorption by the Sun in about 7.5 billion years, after the star has become a red giant. So, there may be a little time to go. Or perhaps we shall destroy the planet ourselves, or at least human life, far sooner.

The real meaning of crisis, is point of decision or point of judgement. A crisis then is a test of our judgement and the final crisis, beyond our death, will be when our own judgement, our own decisions, our way of life, is subjected to the ultimate judgement of our Lord Jesus Christ himself. And that moment may, almost certainly will, catch us unawares. So, the parable means something real and important whatever our view of the end of the world.

You may feel that a debate about the Second Coming makes little practical difference to you, that what really matters is that in countless ways our Lord Jesus Christ is present with us already. He meets us in his Word, read and proclaimed, in the Sacraments, in the Christian community, the Church which is the Body of Christ. He meets us in our neighbour, and teaches us who is our neighbour. He meets us in those in need. He meets us in moments of crisis, giving us through his Holy Spirit strength and power. He will meet us again when our own final moment of crisis comes, when we stand before him as our Judge. Our own end will come. We shall surely die. We should pray God that it will not be like the end Guy Fawkes had planned for King James I in 1605.

So, be prepared. And how do we prepare? We come close to our Lord, in all the ways he is present to us, through the Church and through the world. We come to the sacrament with heart humble and disposition expectant. Open our heart and life to him. Let his love flow. He will not shut the door on us.