Consequences

Today’s collect is one of my favorites. "Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life…" Most of us "cradle Episcopalians" probably know it. I feel like I have heard and known it all of my life. I expect that I remember it clearly not for any profound theological or liturgical reasons, but because, as a child, I was intrigued by that phrase about inwardly digesting the Scriptures. I think it brought to mind a rather literal and graphic image. There is, after all, that passage in Ezekiel where God says to Ezekiel, "Mortal, eat this scroll that I give to you and fill your stomach with it." Ezekiel, the prophet of God’s word, recounts that he did, indeed eat the scroll and it tasted to him like sweet honey. Blessed Lord, grant us so to inwardly digest Holy Scriptures…

Anglicans have been saying this collect since the birth of the Church of England. It appears in the first English Book of Common Prayer, published in 1549. We used to read it on the Second Sunday of Advent on what was sometimes called Bible Sunday (as though the others aren’t). In our current prayer book we read it every year on this next to last Sunday of the church year.

It does seem ironic that the church offers us this collect on a Sunday when the readings from Holy Scripture are particularly dire and difficult. The collect commends Holy Scripture to us, stressing that all Holy Scriptures are written for our benefit. And then the Scriptures appointed to accompany this very collect are passages most of us would probably prefer to overlook. Ironic.

In the Old Testament reading today the prophet Zephaniah speaks of the coming Day of the Lord… a day of wrath, of distress and anguish, of ruin and devastation, a day of darkness and gloom, of clouds and thick darkness. This is the Day of the Lord, in the vision of the Old Testament prophets. This horrible day of God’s judgment, of reckoning, will be visited upon those who, according to Zephaniah, are complacent… those who do not take God seriously. The people who assume that God will not really act, that God will not intervene in their lives… these are the people who will experience the darkness and ruin of the Day of the Lord.

This theme of an active God, a very active God, who does in fact intervene in human lives is a theme also in today’s Gospel reading. Both readings portray a God who exacts or enforces consequences for human behavior. Those consequences are the focus of the story about the actions of the three slaves. The two slaves who made the most of what they were given were rewarded and commended; the slave who in fear did nothing with what he was given… the consequence of his inaction was to be cursed and punished.

This idea that our actions with respect to God will have real consequences is one that most of us work pretty hard to deny, to keep at bay outside our every day awareness. I know that much of the time in my own life I think of God as relatively passive, a great loving being somewhere, eternally patient, unflinchingly benevolent, waiting to enfold me in gentle and loving arms whenever I decide to turn to him… in the midst of my other activities and priorities. That is not the God of today’s readings.

It is odd that we do not seem to expect our actions with respect to God to have real or significant consequences. Certainly in most other aspects of our lives we expect our actions to have consequences. We expect our civil laws to enforce consequences that punish illegal behavior. We expect diligence and hard work to be rewarded with prosperity. We expect inattention to result in some sort of mishap. We expect that adequate rest, exercise, and a good diet will lead to a relatively long and healthy life. We expect justice in life. We resent injustice. We expect our actions, and the actions of others, to have consequences.

As we raise children up—parents, teachers, all of us who nurture children’s growth—one very important lesson we seek to impart is to teach children that their actions will have consequences. Good and bad. Failure to look both ways before crossing the street will lead to danger. Preparing for a test, studying diligently in school, will bring reward. Honesty and loyalty will lead to lasting relationships. But do we teach them that whether or not they are true to God will also have consequences?

We also seek, as we raise children up, to ensure that at least the consequences we impose upon their choices, their actions, be appropriate in magnitude and character. This is important as we seek to interpret today’s Scripture readings. Even for those of us who are all grown up, we expect our actions and their consequences to be commensurate. Any Gilbert and Sullivan fan will smile perhaps remembering the patter song: "to make the punishment fit the crime." The man who cheats at billiards is forced to play for all eternity on a sloping table with a twisted cue. The punishment fits the crime. A parent who has read any recent parenting book will not meet a child’s minor offense with some major punishment. A child’s lapse in honesty should result in a consequence which address honesty and trustworthiness. It is, again, an issue of justice. We believe, we expect, actions and consequences—whether good or bad—to fit, to be commensurate.

Which brings me back to Zephaniah. Perhaps his threat of overwhelming cosmic destruction isn’t so way out there after all. If indeed all of the world is God’s, created by God, given life and spirit by God, a whole cosmos drawing all of its purpose and meaning from God’s presence… If this is true, surely a complacent denial of God’s presence and purpose should lead to cosmic consequences. Zephaniah probably visualized those consequences on a socially global scale. I am very wary of anyone who seeks to do that today. It is enough to take Zephaniah’s prophecy into our own hearts. To consider soberly the profound implications in just our own lives of our complacency towards God’s presence.

Today’s Gospel parable also challenges us to look at our individual lives. And to consider if the consequences meted out by the landowner are not, in fact, appropriate. The life we have been given by God, that we could never have obtained for ourselves… all of the vitality, and talent, and gifts, and skills, and hopes that make up that life… Surely to treat that life with laziness and indifference, to make nothing of God’s gift… surely such behavior should have consequences that might devastate the very heart of life itself.

On the other hand, the parable tells us that if we exercise fully the life and the talent and the creative vitality we have been given by God, the consequence will be to enter into the joy of our Lord, a joy that sparkles and is enkindled in the very core, the heart of life itself. The slaves in the parable who utilized what they had been given were commended for being good and for being trustworthy. That word trustworthy has often been translated as faithful. It is the same word which is used again and again for faith in the New Testament. To be good and full of faith… the consequence is an entry into God’s joy.

Joy and desolation. These are the consequences of our actions with respect to God. Next week’s readings, too, will stress the theme of God’s judgment in the world, how the consequences of each individual life will be made known in the final judgment. It is no mistake that these mighty and salutary themes come at the close of the church year. Advent is just around the corner.

Blessed Lord, you have caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning. All holy Scriptures. And just as we are called to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest the harsh prophetic words of judgment found in Scripture, so, too, are we called to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest the words which we will soon hear telling of the birth of Emmanuel, God with us. Yes, our actions have consequences, overwhelmingly real and profound consequences. And yet, ultimately, there is no action so dire, no sin so heinous, that it cannot be redeemed by the saving work of a baby soon to be born in Bethlehem.  Amen.