Gospel Reading: Luke 11.1-13 (click HERE for last Sunday's readings)
For almost all my life I've been farsighted. The condition is more annoying than debilitating in my case. Still, it's more difficult to focus on things close up than on things at a comfortable distance - antichrists included.
The distance between the antichrist and me was once very comfortable. Fortunately I had heard that there was to be only one Antichrist, an evil world ruler who would come near the end of time. So even if he were to be living, the chances that I was the Antichrist were one in several billion. My task then was simply to keep the distance between us comfortable. But that distance has been closing ever since.
I was first surprised to find that antichrist is never mentioned in the apocalyptic book of Revelation. It only appears in the epistles of John. And there it says that "...even now many antichrists have appeared." So there's not just one. And they were already showing up in the first century. Maybe I am still in the running...which, of course, is the point. I'm always still in the running for antichrist.
We all must share (I hope it's not just me) a tendency to locate the world's problems and even our own problems out there somewhere. A huge industry depends upon this inclination. How many talk shows - on radio or television - depend on parading one form of dysfunction or another before us so that we might be reassured that our problems are the fault of people like that. Advertisers know well enough that we'll tune in.
How startling, then, are the closing words in this week's chapter in Amazing Grace. "Each of us acts as an Antichrist...whenever we hear the gospel and do not do it." The distance between the Antichrist and me didn't just get uncomfortable. It disappeared.
Jesus taught the disciples how to pray in the gospel reading on Sunday. And even in Luke's shorter version of the prayer, Jesus includes these familiar and impossible words: "...forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us." When we really consider the life and words of the Christ, becomming an antichrist doesn't just seem possible. It seems inevitable.
But the Lord's prayer gives us a clear, simple way to start acting like the Christ, even acting on behalf of the Christ. In ways we probably can never fully comprehend, our forgiving is bound up in or flows out of the forgiveness of God. Jesus did not teach us to pray, "Make us indignant towards those wicked people, as you are indignant towards them." He taught us to forgive, so that we might stop being antichrists. We need nearsighted vision for this, but the impact will be out of sight.
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
(ramblings on theological things)
About Me
- Scott Walters
- Rector, Christ Episcopal Church, Little Rock, AR
Posts
1 comment:
On Luke 11:1-13
Daddy had a wreck last week. Not a fender bender but a major creaming. When my sister called to ask how he is doing, he said, "I'm being framed!" Daddy's version of the accident is that a woman ran a red light and hit him, and by the time the police got there she had "gotten a bunch of her friends together who all claimed to be witnesses and said he ran the red light." According to the insurance company, the police and the other people who were waiting for the red light, it was actually Daddy who ran the light.
Now you see, Daddy likes his gin and tonic, and it complements the effects of certain medications he takes. We gave up a long time ago recommending that he either not mix his meds with alcohol, or at the very least not drive. In recent years there have been other accidents and similar stories that evolved in the days before court dates, which is why neither my sister nor I are surprised that he claims he's "being framed." No doubt attorneys and friends in city government will do there best to enable my dad to continue doing as he wishes. By the grace of God, this time, no one was hurt. Vehicles can be replaced and accident victims bought off. And so it goes.
Meanwhile, back to Luke 11, Jesus invites us to pray, "Father..." Daddy being who he is, this has always been troubling for me. I have been told that addressing God as Father was Jesus' way of making God more familiar, intimate, like a loving parent. I could go with Brother, Friend, even Loving Spirit, but "Father" has always caused me a moment of mental gymnastics in which I jump over that part, and get right to the "who art in heaven" part. And I have never been attracted to the "new age" tendancy to play around with liturgy, i.e. "Creator, Mother" or some other euphemism for the traditional words of scripture.
I am grateful beyond words that Jesus has given us Himself as Brother, Friend and Loving Spirit, so we are not just left with Father. Kathleen Norris suggests that the Antichrist is "Each one of us...whenever we hear the Gospel and do not do it." Doing the Gospel in this case, for me, is a little prayer flip over "Father" and right into the knowledge that Jesus is my Brother, Friend and Loving Spirit, who stands with me and guides me to the "Father" in heaven, whose love is beyond my wildest dreams.
Post a Comment