The Coming of the Kingdom of God

An illustrated sermon preached by Ray Anglesea at Crook LEP, Sunday 17^th November 2013

"The days will come when not one stone will be left
upon another; all will be thrown down." Luke 21 v6

Heading south to see my new granddaughter on the East coast mainline to Kings Cross I swiftly pass some of England’s great churches. These spectacular historic buildings look like haunting and majestic apparitions as their towers and spires emerge out of the thick mist on dark November mornings. York Minster with its Saxon foundations and Benedictine community now a 15^th century architectural masterpiece;  St George’s, Doncaster rebuilt by George Gilbert Scott in the 19^th century; the parish church of St Mary Magdalene at Newark which has one of the tallest spires in England; the large medieval 13^th century parish church of St Wulfram, Grantham, built of Lincolnshire limestone and finally to Peterborough Cathedral, another Benedictine Abbey dedicated to St Peter, St Paul and St Andrew celebrating its 900^th anniversary. These historic and architectural significant buildings with vast spaces, filled with music reveal the human imagination at work on glass, stone, and other fabrics. The buildings are perfect stages for the contemplation of the ordered universe and the transcendent beauty of traditional holiness.

The best church I kept till last. Durham Cathedral, where I work and much admired by passengers – views from Durham railway viaduct reveal one of the photographic icons of north-east England. “Grey towers of Durham, how well I love thy mixed and massive piles, half church of God, half castle 'gainst the Scot, to quote Sir Walter Scott.” But of course, the view is not just admired by train passengers with Cannon cameras, it is well-liked by people across the world, many of whom see it as the greatest Romanesque building in Europe. The celebrated vista of Cathedral and Castle set on the acropolis of their wooded peninsular is unforgettable, as is the interior of this wonderful church. For this reason the UNESCO World Heritage Site, of which the cathedral and its environs are a major part, was one of the first to be inscribed. Epithets like “Britain’s best loved building” try to capture what it is that gives the Cathedral its unique place in the affections of so many and particularly in this year when the Lindisfarne Gospels made a 3 month return to Durham. Its beautiful setting and its architectural purity, the spirituality imparted by the long history of prayer and worship certainly play a part.

These mainline churches were built as if to last for ever. They remind me of Ken Follett’s popular novel The Pillars of the Earth, set in the middle of the 12^th century. The novel traces the development of Gothic design out of the preceding Romanesque architecture and tells the fortunes of the Kingsbridge priory, Priory Philip and his master builder, Tom.  But do these buildings last forever? King Henry VIII set in hand the administrative and legal processes in the sixteenth century by which he disbanded England’s monasteries, priories, convents and friaries – only the local ruins of Fountains Abbey, Finchale and Tynemouth Priories now remain. In our own tradition many of our nonconformist chapels have been demolished or converted to furniture warehouses, carpet shops, antique sale rooms and restaurants. And if they haven’t been demolished or converted to other uses they may well have been robbed of their lead - payouts from metal theft from places of worship have increased by 70% nationally and are expected to reach £5.5 million by the end of the year. One of the Durham cathedral community members, the widow of the late Bishop of Peterborough, was in Christ Church Cathedral New Zealand in February three years ago when the earthquake destroyed the spire and part of the tower – and severely damaged the structure of the remaining building. She was shaken by the event but mercifully not hurt. The Cathedral in New Zealand was deconsecrated in an emotional ceremony as it was returned to secular use. This new cardboard Cathedral has been built as a temporary replacement whilst long term options are considered.

Listen again to the opening words of today’s gospel from Luke. The disciples are admiring the splendour of Herod’s temple: ‘Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!’ And Jesus says to them: ‘Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another: all will be thrown down’.

It’s as a consequence of this alarming prediction that they question him further: ‘Lord, when will these things be, and what will be the signs of the end?’ The warning of this ‘little apocalypse’ is clear: be ready, for you do not know the day or the hour’. Taken at face value, these Scriptural images make little sense to the 21st century mind. They are profoundly disturbing ones - signs in the sun and the moon; stars falling from the sky; the powers of heaven shaken and the Son of Man coming on clouds with power and glory. For most modern day Christians they bring us face to face with uncomfortable questions. How do we live with all this talk of judgement;  How can we relate to the call of the prophets that God might tear open the heavens and come down and cause the nations to tremble at God’s presence?

As we look back over the last Christian year no-one could accuse 2012/2013 of being a slow news year. In the last couple of years heads of great democracies have fallen. In France, Britain, Spain, Italy and many more countries, governments have felt the electorates disapproval of their failed attempts to shelter their citizens from economic chills. Jobs have been lost in their millions, incomes have stagnated, services have been curtailed, optimism has drained away and politics has become shrill and discontented. Some of a more radical disposition who read this morning’s gospel with end-time thoughts in mind might say it has been a decade of disaster, catastrophe, a day of reckoning, judgement day. We have had protests and regime change in Tunisia, in Egypt, in Libya - not to mention political demonstrations in Jordan, Yemen, Morocco, and Palestine, and the savage chemical and military slaughter of the innocents in Syria. And this week one of the most powerful storms in living memory struck the coastal town of the Philippine Islands of Leyte and Samar on Friday. It was one of the most powerful storms on record to make landfall with devastating consequences.

Here in Britain over the last year barley a week passes without a street demonstration by those claiming that their faith has been insulted, or calls for new laws to curb those abusing religion as an instrument of incitement. Debate in Britain has seemed to leap back at least two centuries to an age when religion lay not only at the heart of politics but was central to the clash of cultures, ideas and the struggle for liberty and was the cause of bitter divisions. Too add to these national difficulties the Vatican issued a statement in May that credible research has reached the shocking conclusion that every year an estimate of 100,000 Christians are killed every year because of some relation to their faith.

But whatever we think of recent global events and the fear and uncertainty that they provide,  this dark and difficult passage is, let me remind you, about a building. Even the temple, says Jesus, will not last forever. When you visit Jerusalem, as I have done, and place your hands in the crevices of the western wall which is all that is left of Solomon’s magnificent and beautiful temple, and pray, you cannot help being reminded that man’s grandest designs are subject to the same law as everything else: earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

To take our Gospel reading literally this morning would imply that one day, inevitably, but hopefully not soon, not one stone of our great buildings will be left standing upon another? I think that the monks who put up Durham Cathedral 900 years ago knew that while they built as if forever, it was not forever. They built for God and his kingdom; they knew from the rule they followed that his kingdom was not of this world. In this, it stood in sharp contrast to the earthly kingdom to whose ruthless power this cathedral was also a monument: the Norman conquerors. Like Herod’s temple, even the buildings that stand most powerfully for spiritual aspiration can also represent ambition, power and hubris.

I think this ambivalence is good for us. Listen to the voice of the New Testament. ‘The things that are seen are transient; the things that are unseen are eternal.’ ‘We have here no abiding city, but we seek that which is to come.’ In today’s passage from St Luke, we are faced with the stark realisation of how provisional everything is: our possessions, our relationships, our institutions, our achievements, our lives. All this, says the apocalyptic Jesus, will be swept away at the coming of God that will wind up history and bring in the reign of his kingdom. And even if we step back from the imagery and ascribe it, as we must, to the feverish, end-of-the-world milieu in which 1st century Christians believed they were living in, we can’t escape the vividness of Jesus’ teaching, its urgent summons to look afresh at things and consider what we rate as truly important in this life.

Whilst places like Durham Cathedral and our own chapels in the District and Synod look to fresh challenges and opportunities of engaging with a secular society, of how to use their buildings for community purposes and in the public interest of religion, it is good and sobering for people like me, a former URC synod Listed Buildings Advisory officer as well as Methodist property stewards and custodians of magnificent church buildings to be reminded every so often that there will come a time when not one stone will be left standing upon another. I pray that you and I never see it. And yet, doesn’t that prayer betray the possibility that I might love these stones too much, the symbol rather than what it points to, the creature rather than the creator?

The coming of God’s kingdom exposes to his just yet loving scrutiny of all our fears and longings. This means willing the one thing necessary for our happiness, for the salvation of our race, for the healing of our world. That one thing is God’s kingdom. It is the only hope we have. If we are true to the One who is not only in all things but above and beyond all things, then we shall have understood our great building aright, and shall cherish our stones all the more because of him for whose glory and kingdom they, and we, exist. And if one day tower and temple fall to dust, it is to make way for something greater, when death and hell have fled before the presence of Light and Love, and the holy city, the new Jerusalem has come, of which it is foretold: ‘I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light.’

Luke 21 v5-19