Sermon for the Last Sunday of the Church Year
Dies Irae
Matthew 25:1-13
Last Sunday of the Church Year
November 22, 1963
Everyone in my parents' generation always remembered where they were on December 7, 1941, when they heard that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. For the current generation, it's September 11, 2001, otherwise known as "9/11." But for people of my generation, the date which sticks in our minds and on which we'll always remember where we were and what we were doing is forty-six years ago today- November 22, 1963.
Our teacher, Mr. Williams, was also the principal of Grace Lutheran School, so when the phone rang he had to leave the classroom to answer it. When he came back, he told us that somebody- whoever it was was too excited to identify himself- said that President Kennedy had been shot and killed.
Everybody laughed. That's the thing that stands out most clearly in my memory: everybody laughed. It wasn't that we found the idea of the President of the United States being assassinated funny. It was that we found it ridiculous. Presidential assassinations were things we read about in history textbooks. They might have happened back in the barbarous times when Lincoln was president. But the last time a president had been assassinated had been way back in the late Cretaceous era, when my father was four months old!
But John F. Kennedy being shot wasn't something Dad was expecting, either. It was a bolt out of the blue, something so unlikely that it seemed as if some fictional event had somehow escaped into reality. We laughed because the thought that someone would shoot the President was almost as unthinkable as the notion that our young, dynamic President could die for any reason.
But when the phone rang a second time, and this time it was the mother of one of the students, we stopped laughing. We went into shock. So did the whole country. So did the whole world. The unthinkable had happened, and nothing would ever be the same.
And a day will come- no one knows the day or the hour- where something even more unthinkable than a presidential assassination or a sneak attack on an American naval base or airliners being flown by terrorists into the Pentagon and both towers of the World Trade Center will happen. Nothing will ever be the same- and the change will be far more profound than the era of fear and chaos and tumult that began the day JFK was shot. There was a day when the whole Western world lived in constant expectation of that day. But no longer.
A few years ago I was in Chicago for a presentation by Dr. Stephen Hawking. In the course of the evening, a student asked the great physicist what the chances were of the earth being sucked into a black hole some day. He answered that they were 100%, if the sun didn't go nova and destroy it first. We are all, it seems, swirling down the galactic drain, spiraling closer and closer to the massive black hole at the center of our galaxy. But Dr. Hawking advised the student not to lose any sleep over it. After all, he said, we'll all be long dead by that time.
That might be a fitting slogan for our culture today: "We'll all be long dead by that time." We accept that the world will end some day. But that day is something we push into the distant future- so distant that we won't have to worry about it. We chuckled when people told us about the disasters which would supposedly befall our computer-driven world when Y2K came. We chuckle now at those who predict the world's end on the basis of the Mayan calendar, which starts in ancient times and ends with that year. And we're not a bit surprised when the slightly annoyed Mayans point out that while 2012 will, in their tradition, mark the end of an era, they have plenty of other ancient calendars which go on for hundreds of years after that!
The end will come "like a thief in the night," Paul says in our second lesson. Whenever Howard Camping or some Pentecostal prophesy-monger predicts the Second Coming for a specific time, we certainly can take some sort of comfort in the fact that they're wrong. Jesus tells us that "no one knows the day or the hour."
"Dies iræ! dies illa/Solvet sæclum in favilla" "Day of wrath, that dreadful day/When all the world will melt away." So goes the Thirteenth Century hymn which was a part of the Tridentine Requiem Mass, which was used for every Catholic funeral right up until Vatican II. But the Fathers of Vatican II decided that it somehow didn't fit into the spirit of the modern age. And they were right. Today we think of the end of the world as coming when our planet goes down the galactic drain, or the sun goes kabloey, or when some other event takes place in the distant future. Or perhaps we worry about the planet turning inhospitable to life because of global warming. When I was in seminary, and nuclear war was the fashionable horror, the frozen mass extinction of nuclear winter was much discussed. At least that had some prospect of happening in our own lifetimes!
But the prophets of climate change- some of them, at least- tell us that we can stop the disaster by taking action, and that the way to prepare is to lower or carbon signature or refrain from dropping fusion bombs on each other. The idea of an end not only which might occur in our lifetimes, but over which we have no control, and which could possibly be followed by even worse events, is a notion comparatively few of us moderns take seriously. Even Christians seldom give a second thought to the very real possibility that the sun might not rise tomorrow morning, or set tonight; or that the pastor may never get to the end of his sermon- not because he's long-winded, but because the Lord might come first.
But all of us will die. Jack Kennedy died. A couple of weeks ago, when Barry from my former congregation visited, he told me that a young man whose youngest child I had baptized when I was at St. Andrews had died of cancer. Accidents happen. Aneurysms pop. Heart attacks and strokes take the lives of people far younger than Jeff. None of us are guaranteed the rest of the day. And a car could drive through that door and take several of us out before this sermon is over even if the Lord doesn't come first. It was not for nothing that the hymn Dies Irae was not sung only on the last Sunday of the church year, but as a standard part of the funeral Mass!
Whether we are among those here on earth when the Lord returns, or whether we are called from this life to face our judgment, no one knows the day or the hour.
Jesus once observed that if the householder had known the hour when the thief would come, he would not have let his house be broken into. But we don't know. And there are no guarantees. As a native Chicagoan, one other day I'll always remember is the day when I was in my twenties on which Richard J. Daley- the only mayor I had ever known, and one of the most powerful political leaders our nation has ever seen- dropped dead of a heart attack in the reception room of his doctor's office, on his way out the door after having had a thorough physical and having received a clean bill of health.
True, Jesus gave us- tongue in cheek, I personally believe- a set of warning signs that the end is near. They are signs which could have applied to literally any moment before or since, and people have been convincing themselves that the end was imminent ever since by taking note of how closely they were being fulfilled. I do not believe that to be an accident. I believe that Jesus intended that His disciples of all the ages, when they beheld an eclipse, remember that changes in the sun and the moon are a sign of the impending judgment, and that the same goes for famines and earthquakes, and wars, and rumors of wars.
The message, I believe, was simply this: be ready, because you won't get any more warning than these signs. And since the householder doesn't know the hour when the thief will come, and no one knows the day or the hour of his own death, much less that of the the Final Judgment, there can be no question of delaying our preparation until the proper warning signs appear.
The only way to be sure of being ready is to be ready now.
And how does one prepare for something as cataclysmic as the end of earthly life, whether for ourselves personally or for every living creature? Paul tells us.
One remembers who she is.. One remembers that he bears upon his brow the mark of the Crucified, traced there at his baptism. One bears in mind that the baptized are called to be sons and daughters of light, and not of darkness. One remembers that it is to faith, and not to cynicism, that we are called as children of the Kingdom; to love, and not to hate- and still less to indifference. One recalls that there are eternal stakes here, and ramifications to our every word and act which may well echo in eternity, or others if not for ourselves.
And those things being the case, one lives one's life in sober expectation that today might be that "day of wrath" of which the old Latin hymn speaks, and that we are appointed by our baptism to be found when the Lord returns- or when we are summoned to Him- not among those who have forgotten that He is coming, or who never expected Him in the first place, but rather among those who are waiting, our lamps trimmed and burning and full of oil.
I'm tempted to say that this is a sad thing, but it's not. It's tragic. It's tragic beyond words. There is nothing nearly as tragic in all the world, and there has been nothing nearly as tragic in all of history. But when the Bridegroom comes, most will be found asleep. Most people will not be waiting. Many who had lived their lives in expectation of the wedding feast will find themselves shut out. In the parable, there are five foolish virgins, and five wise ones. In reality, the foolish will always outnumber the wise. The way to destruction is broad, and the path to salvation is narrow. Jesus warns that there are few who find it.
There is nothing more important than to be among that few, and to have oil in our lamps when the Bridegroom comes. And that oil is faith.
One gets it in the Word. One receives it in the Sacraments. One hears the Word of the Law, summoning us who have been redeemed by the One Who first loved us to reflect our love to Him in our lives. One uses Holy Baptism, daily putting the Old Self to death so that the New Self may arise. One has his faith and confidence strengthened by the words of Holy Absolution, spoken by the pastor's lips but coming from Christ Himself. One eats the body and drinks the blood of the Savior, given and shed that her sins be forgiven, so that He might live in her and so that she might live in Him.
One journeys down the pathway of this life in the company of one's fellow redeemed, sustained and upheld by their encouragement and example. These are the places one goes to fill one's lamp, and the more faithfully we make use of them, the surer we will be that our flames will never go out, and that when the Bridegroom comes, He will find us awake and waiting, fit guests for the wedding feast that has no end.
We neglect them at our eternal peril. But we use them knowing that the confidence in the righteousness of Jesus that is ours by faith- the only righteousness which will avail before the throne of the Great Judge- is to be found there, and that no one who seeks what He offers there in sincerity and trust will ever be turned away- or ever have cause to fear the "Day of wrath, that dreadful day/When all the world will melt away."
May the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
.
Matthew 25:1-13
Last Sunday of the Church Year
November 22, 1963
Everyone in my parents' generation always remembered where they were on December 7, 1941, when they heard that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. For the current generation, it's September 11, 2001, otherwise known as "9/11." But for people of my generation, the date which sticks in our minds and on which we'll always remember where we were and what we were doing is forty-six years ago today- November 22, 1963.
Our teacher, Mr. Williams, was also the principal of Grace Lutheran School, so when the phone rang he had to leave the classroom to answer it. When he came back, he told us that somebody- whoever it was was too excited to identify himself- said that President Kennedy had been shot and killed.
Everybody laughed. That's the thing that stands out most clearly in my memory: everybody laughed. It wasn't that we found the idea of the President of the United States being assassinated funny. It was that we found it ridiculous. Presidential assassinations were things we read about in history textbooks. They might have happened back in the barbarous times when Lincoln was president. But the last time a president had been assassinated had been way back in the late Cretaceous era, when my father was four months old!
But John F. Kennedy being shot wasn't something Dad was expecting, either. It was a bolt out of the blue, something so unlikely that it seemed as if some fictional event had somehow escaped into reality. We laughed because the thought that someone would shoot the President was almost as unthinkable as the notion that our young, dynamic President could die for any reason.
But when the phone rang a second time, and this time it was the mother of one of the students, we stopped laughing. We went into shock. So did the whole country. So did the whole world. The unthinkable had happened, and nothing would ever be the same.
And a day will come- no one knows the day or the hour- where something even more unthinkable than a presidential assassination or a sneak attack on an American naval base or airliners being flown by terrorists into the Pentagon and both towers of the World Trade Center will happen. Nothing will ever be the same- and the change will be far more profound than the era of fear and chaos and tumult that began the day JFK was shot. There was a day when the whole Western world lived in constant expectation of that day. But no longer.
A few years ago I was in Chicago for a presentation by Dr. Stephen Hawking. In the course of the evening, a student asked the great physicist what the chances were of the earth being sucked into a black hole some day. He answered that they were 100%, if the sun didn't go nova and destroy it first. We are all, it seems, swirling down the galactic drain, spiraling closer and closer to the massive black hole at the center of our galaxy. But Dr. Hawking advised the student not to lose any sleep over it. After all, he said, we'll all be long dead by that time.
That might be a fitting slogan for our culture today: "We'll all be long dead by that time." We accept that the world will end some day. But that day is something we push into the distant future- so distant that we won't have to worry about it. We chuckled when people told us about the disasters which would supposedly befall our computer-driven world when Y2K came. We chuckle now at those who predict the world's end on the basis of the Mayan calendar, which starts in ancient times and ends with that year. And we're not a bit surprised when the slightly annoyed Mayans point out that while 2012 will, in their tradition, mark the end of an era, they have plenty of other ancient calendars which go on for hundreds of years after that!
The end will come "like a thief in the night," Paul says in our second lesson. Whenever Howard Camping or some Pentecostal prophesy-monger predicts the Second Coming for a specific time, we certainly can take some sort of comfort in the fact that they're wrong. Jesus tells us that "no one knows the day or the hour."
"Dies iræ! dies illa/Solvet sæclum in favilla" "Day of wrath, that dreadful day/When all the world will melt away." So goes the Thirteenth Century hymn which was a part of the Tridentine Requiem Mass, which was used for every Catholic funeral right up until Vatican II. But the Fathers of Vatican II decided that it somehow didn't fit into the spirit of the modern age. And they were right. Today we think of the end of the world as coming when our planet goes down the galactic drain, or the sun goes kabloey, or when some other event takes place in the distant future. Or perhaps we worry about the planet turning inhospitable to life because of global warming. When I was in seminary, and nuclear war was the fashionable horror, the frozen mass extinction of nuclear winter was much discussed. At least that had some prospect of happening in our own lifetimes!
But the prophets of climate change- some of them, at least- tell us that we can stop the disaster by taking action, and that the way to prepare is to lower or carbon signature or refrain from dropping fusion bombs on each other. The idea of an end not only which might occur in our lifetimes, but over which we have no control, and which could possibly be followed by even worse events, is a notion comparatively few of us moderns take seriously. Even Christians seldom give a second thought to the very real possibility that the sun might not rise tomorrow morning, or set tonight; or that the pastor may never get to the end of his sermon- not because he's long-winded, but because the Lord might come first.
But all of us will die. Jack Kennedy died. A couple of weeks ago, when Barry from my former congregation visited, he told me that a young man whose youngest child I had baptized when I was at St. Andrews had died of cancer. Accidents happen. Aneurysms pop. Heart attacks and strokes take the lives of people far younger than Jeff. None of us are guaranteed the rest of the day. And a car could drive through that door and take several of us out before this sermon is over even if the Lord doesn't come first. It was not for nothing that the hymn Dies Irae was not sung only on the last Sunday of the church year, but as a standard part of the funeral Mass!
Whether we are among those here on earth when the Lord returns, or whether we are called from this life to face our judgment, no one knows the day or the hour.
Jesus once observed that if the householder had known the hour when the thief would come, he would not have let his house be broken into. But we don't know. And there are no guarantees. As a native Chicagoan, one other day I'll always remember is the day when I was in my twenties on which Richard J. Daley- the only mayor I had ever known, and one of the most powerful political leaders our nation has ever seen- dropped dead of a heart attack in the reception room of his doctor's office, on his way out the door after having had a thorough physical and having received a clean bill of health.
True, Jesus gave us- tongue in cheek, I personally believe- a set of warning signs that the end is near. They are signs which could have applied to literally any moment before or since, and people have been convincing themselves that the end was imminent ever since by taking note of how closely they were being fulfilled. I do not believe that to be an accident. I believe that Jesus intended that His disciples of all the ages, when they beheld an eclipse, remember that changes in the sun and the moon are a sign of the impending judgment, and that the same goes for famines and earthquakes, and wars, and rumors of wars.
The message, I believe, was simply this: be ready, because you won't get any more warning than these signs. And since the householder doesn't know the hour when the thief will come, and no one knows the day or the hour of his own death, much less that of the the Final Judgment, there can be no question of delaying our preparation until the proper warning signs appear.
The only way to be sure of being ready is to be ready now.
And how does one prepare for something as cataclysmic as the end of earthly life, whether for ourselves personally or for every living creature? Paul tells us.
One remembers who she is.. One remembers that he bears upon his brow the mark of the Crucified, traced there at his baptism. One bears in mind that the baptized are called to be sons and daughters of light, and not of darkness. One remembers that it is to faith, and not to cynicism, that we are called as children of the Kingdom; to love, and not to hate- and still less to indifference. One recalls that there are eternal stakes here, and ramifications to our every word and act which may well echo in eternity, or others if not for ourselves.
And those things being the case, one lives one's life in sober expectation that today might be that "day of wrath" of which the old Latin hymn speaks, and that we are appointed by our baptism to be found when the Lord returns- or when we are summoned to Him- not among those who have forgotten that He is coming, or who never expected Him in the first place, but rather among those who are waiting, our lamps trimmed and burning and full of oil.
I'm tempted to say that this is a sad thing, but it's not. It's tragic. It's tragic beyond words. There is nothing nearly as tragic in all the world, and there has been nothing nearly as tragic in all of history. But when the Bridegroom comes, most will be found asleep. Most people will not be waiting. Many who had lived their lives in expectation of the wedding feast will find themselves shut out. In the parable, there are five foolish virgins, and five wise ones. In reality, the foolish will always outnumber the wise. The way to destruction is broad, and the path to salvation is narrow. Jesus warns that there are few who find it.
There is nothing more important than to be among that few, and to have oil in our lamps when the Bridegroom comes. And that oil is faith.
One gets it in the Word. One receives it in the Sacraments. One hears the Word of the Law, summoning us who have been redeemed by the One Who first loved us to reflect our love to Him in our lives. One uses Holy Baptism, daily putting the Old Self to death so that the New Self may arise. One has his faith and confidence strengthened by the words of Holy Absolution, spoken by the pastor's lips but coming from Christ Himself. One eats the body and drinks the blood of the Savior, given and shed that her sins be forgiven, so that He might live in her and so that she might live in Him.
One journeys down the pathway of this life in the company of one's fellow redeemed, sustained and upheld by their encouragement and example. These are the places one goes to fill one's lamp, and the more faithfully we make use of them, the surer we will be that our flames will never go out, and that when the Bridegroom comes, He will find us awake and waiting, fit guests for the wedding feast that has no end.
We neglect them at our eternal peril. But we use them knowing that the confidence in the righteousness of Jesus that is ours by faith- the only righteousness which will avail before the throne of the Great Judge- is to be found there, and that no one who seeks what He offers there in sincerity and trust will ever be turned away- or ever have cause to fear the "Day of wrath, that dreadful day/When all the world will melt away."
May the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
.
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