At the request of the prison chaplain, I made a visit this week to an inmate of the Brandon Correctional Centre—the first prison visit I have ever made. The man I saw had asked to see an Anglican priest, which suggested to me that he had some church background. What I found was a person who had been dragged to church as a child by abusive parents. He said “I guess I’m Anglican—that’s what I was baptized,” but he knew next to nothing of the Christian faith, and indeed wasn’t even sure he believed there was a God. He told me he had decided that he needed “a faith,” a statement that raised so many questions for me I hardly knew where to begin. In many ways, this man’s life has been a battlefield for over 30 years. And now he’s wondering “What next?”
It seems to me that this question is suggested in some way by each of today’s readings, and to some extent by our observance of Remembrance Day.
When the Sadducees came to Jesus with their “trick question” about marriage in the resurrected life, their interest was not so much in getting a legal opinion, but in continuing their ongoing argument with other Jews over whether there actually is a next life. They would answer “What’s next?” by saying “nothing.” Dead is dead, and that’s that—a position which Jesus demolishes with an appeal to scripture: the patriarchs remain alive to God, so the question is simply foolish. “What’s next?”—life in the nearer presence of God.
Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, who were sure they knew what was next—Jesus was coming back any day now, and the delay was shaking their faith. He exhorts them to stand firm, living as if the day of the Lord had already arrived, giving glory to God who has sanctified them by the Spirit. “What’s next?”—life lived in the awareness of God’s presence in all things.
The prophet Haggai exhorted the returned exiles to get on with re-building the temple. Work had started, but they were dispirited and disorganized, and the new temple was unfinished. Life in the ruins of
“What’s next?” In every case, we are assured that God is present and at work among his people, always leading them into new life, in this world and the next.
We remember today those who died in the wars of the past century, conflicts which profoundly overshadowed and shaped our country’s history. We sent men and women overseas to fight for “King and country,” often to die. In retrospect some of those battles were questionable, such as the battle of Passchendaele, which ended 90 years ago last Tuesday. After three months, at the cost of half a million Allied casualties and half as many Germans, a final assault by Canadian forces claimed the ridge, advancing the front by a mere five miles. This horrific battle permanently “damaged Field-Marshal Haig’s reputation, and became emblematic of the horror of industrialized warfare.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passchendaele)
Veterans of this and other combats came home to a hero’s welcome, but very often that home was changed almost beyond recognition. War changes people—on both the battlefront and the home front. Many veterans of both wars bore scars of the battle in their psyches for the rest of their lives. And both wars profoundly changed our society—sometimes to the good and sometimes not.
The difficult memories and the challenges our country faced in post-war times were tempered by our being on the winning side. But what happens on the other side? The reading from Haggai helps us understand.
For many years, the exiles in
“Change and decay in all around I see.” (vs. 2, line 3)
Defeat had become the people’s mindset. Is it any wonder they could not find the energy to rebuild the temple?
And then…the prophet says to them:
…take courage, all you people of the land, says the Lord; work, for I am with you, says the Lord of hosts, according to the promise that I made you when you came out of
“What’s next?”—a new temple, a fresh start, and new prosperity, for God is with them.
It’s easy to be grateful to God when things are going well. When things are not going so well, during the muddy hell of Passchendaele, or on the return to a defeated land, we may have a different awareness of God. The man I met at the jail this week was not sure he could believe in God, because his life has been a personal hell. Nonetheless, he is wondering if he does in fact believe, because he sometimes finds himself praying to God for help. As it has been said, there are no atheists in foxholes.
We need to remember, to know our story, and to understand how we got here. We need to give thanks for those who helped bring this story to where we are today—especially our war dead. Nonetheless, we do not live in the remembered past, but in the present, in hope for the future, always asking God “What’s next? Always we know that God’s answer—for the people of ancient
As the hymn continues, in line 4
“O thou who changest not, abide with me.”
God abides with us, in war and in peace, in victory and in defeat, in hardship and in prosperity. May we always remain aware of his presence, ready to hear his call into the future he has prepared for us.
“What’s next?” God is with us always.
Thanks be to God.