Readings:
Jeremiah 33.14-16; Psalm 25.1-10; 1 Thessalonians 3.9-13; Luke 21.25-38
To Peter and Mamuor: Thank you for the guiding lights that you have been to me over the years we have known each other. I beg your forgiveness of any factual inaccuracies below, your witness to me remains true.
May I speak in the name of God; always creating, redeeming, and sanctifying.
We always start with a little apocalypse, that’s what we’ve just read. So, I’m wondering, what’s the scariest apocalypse you can imagine? Is it zombies? Vampires? That’s what’s in the pop culture at the moment; lots of movies and TV series about the end of the world being brought about by vampires or a virus that creates the undead. For some of us it might be world domination by a foreign power. Something like Russia, North Korea, or the USA – I find that just as terrifying.
For most of us in this parish, though, whether the apocalypse be brought about by zombies or vampires by the USA or Russia, it is all a fairly abstract idea. We still get to gather safely and go home tonight with a reasonable certainty of our safety in our homes and our beds. I’m mindful that in many of our neighbouring parishes, particularly Goodna and Yeronga, there is a large population of South Sudanese. These people are largely refugees, and some are migrants. Having heard some stories from a couple of my beautiful friends that were kidnapped, had rifles put in their hands at very tender ages, and being forced to be soldiers in a war, these are the things that are in my head today as we read our little apocalypse. And that’s just the boys. The girls have had fates equally torturous.
So, I’m remembering them today. What must be like for the Dinka speaking community in Goodna to hear Jesus say, “When you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near.” I know that they’ve experienced such things that make the kingdom of God feel very, very distant.
Rev’d Peter and Rachel Mayen with Rev’d Elizabeth.
And yet… my friends Peter and Mamuor are two of the most generous and kind people I have ever met in my entire life. When Peter and I were in college together we would be sitting in a lecture, and he would be the only person of colour there; the only person who had had a need to flee his country; and the only person who has lived such traumatic events that we can barely even imagine. We, homegrown Australians, would have a wonderful time discussing whatever this or that meant – it didn’t matter what the topic was – often living in the abstract because we simply have not had the life experiences that make this kind of reading today tangible and visceral. Peter would quietly listen to us. He would listen to all we would say and then politely raise his hand and in two sentences bring us home. He had a way of articulating his faith so succinctly, his faith in God, and every single time we would sit in silence, just soaking it up.
A couple of years ago I went to listen to Mamuor give a talk at St Mark’s, The Gap, and he spoke of his time being forced to walk miles and miles per day. All very young boys from their families, terrified, missing their mothers and their fathers. There was never enough food or water. They often collapsed and many died. I remember him speaking about how they helped one another, share what little food and water they had, and helped to carry each other, literally. I spoke to Mamuor afterwards and remember being in awe of how they cared for each other and asked whether anyone refused to help – because of all our apocalyptic literature would lead us to believe that that is the more natural human response, that self-preservation – and Mamuor said, “No, if we didn’t help each other we would die.”
“If we didn’t help each other we would die.”
Mamuor (2nd from left) directly ahead of his ordination to the priesthood.
It was so simple, as most profound truths are. “If we didn’t help each other we would die.” Mamuor’s story shows us that is truly possible to live in hope. That is what it looks like: helping each other. Mamuor and the other boys co-created a little piece of God‘s kingdom in spite of their vampiric captors.
God’s love did not leave. They were not abandoned while they waited for their redemption. They lived as far as possible into God’s kingdom as they possibly could. This week is the first in our season of advent. We begin our liturgical with a season of anticipation, of fasting, and of prayer. And we see many conflicts on the world stage, some are more scary to us than others. But there are also conflicts closer to home, and maybe even within our homes. Here Jesus is calling on his Jewish heritage and reminding us that God is coming, we are never abandoned. And the waiting is not simply waiting for the Christ child, the vulnerable infant that cannot help in that state, but it is waiting for Christ’s coming again. We live in hope of that.
The people who Mamuor and Peter are, gives me hope. They are men of hope. When they lived a real life apocalypse they stood up, raised their heads, and lived their lives knowing their redemption is near. Let’s live our lives, especially when things get scary, as if we know deep in our bones, as Mamuor knows, that we must help each other so that we do not die. For to live that way is to live in hope.
It is to live co-creating with God, God’s kingdom here and now.
Amen.