The End of History? A Homily for the Twenty Fifth Sunday After Pentecost (Yr B)

A Homily for Remembrance Day and for the Twenty-Fifth Sunday After Pentecost, Preached at All Saints, Collingwood, Anglican Diocese of Toronto, 10 November, 2024.

Year B Texts for this Sunday:  Ruth 3:1-5, 4:13-17; Psalm 127; Hebrews 9:24-28; Mark 12:38-44

One of my abiding memories of Remembrance Day is of standing beside my father at the cenotaph.   Even in old age, he would stand erect, as he was taught as a youth on the parade square.  Remembrance Day was the only day I would see his medals, pinned to his coat - medals from the Second World War, from Korea, and from his Cold War service.

The men and women of his era are almost all gone now, and yet they gave us the world we grew up in and took for granted.  It was not a perfect world, but it was a reasonably stable one.  We had clear ideas about freedom, democracy, human rights, and international law.   We believed that smaller countries should not be invaded and brutalized by larger ones.   Then, in the 1990s, the Berlin Wall fell, the Cold War ended, and we all thought we’d come to a good place,  thanks to the work started by the greatest generation.  Some people even said that we had come to the end of history.

History never goes away that easily, and this week it seems like we’re in a new and ominous era of history.  On this Remembrance Day, it seems as if all the good work and sacrifice we remember is in danger of being lost. The world is getting darker, and is being carved up by despots and strongmen.   For decades we looked to America to protect and defend us, but after this week it’s clear that America is turning inwards, trusting in a strongman for protection and greatness.   Smaller countries like Canada now feel exposed and vulnerable.  If anyone is going to protect our values, it will have to be ourselves, assuming that we can still agree on what our values are.

Where we go from here is a conversation about civics and politics, and indeed, Remembrance Day, at least at during public services at the cenotaph, has always been about civics and politics.    Remembrance Day for the church, well, that’s a little more complicated.    Yes, we want to give remember and to give thanks for those who went before us, and yes, we pray that something good may come of their sacrifices.

At the same time,  I think that we the church must never forget that that God is greater than human history.   On Remembrance Day we are Canadians, but we are also followers of Jesus Christ and citizens of his kingdom.  We never see the kingdom of God clearly in this life, we only catch glimpses of it.   That’s because the kingdom of God  is found somewhere between hope and future, but it is real and it is the answer to all of our fears and darkness.    Our second lesson from Hebrews reminds us that “has appeared once for all at the end of the age to remove sin by the sacrifice of himself” (Heb   ).    In other words, the forces of fear, darkness, and hatred have already been defeated because Jesus carried them to the cross for our sakes.

Because the letter of Hebrews was written to a Jewish audience that understood the rituals of the Temple in Jerusalem, the message for that audience would have been clear: Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross  is the only sacrifice that matters, because it was done once for all.  Without the cross, all the efforts of all the priests, all the rituals, all the animal sacrifice, would be in vain, and sin and suffering would continue.

For us as Christians at Remembrance Day, I think we can draw a similar conclusion.    While we honour the sacrifices and the victories of the past, we also acknowledge the final sacrifice and the victory of Christ.   Without Christ, we would be trapped in an unending history of sacrifice and suffering, but, as Hebrews reminds us, we are “eagerly awaiting” the return of Christ that will truly be the end of history.

Eagerly waiting for Christ’s return does not mean that we are fatalistic, ignore the problems of the world,  and wait for pie in the sky.   Jesus gave his followers work to do in the meantime, the work of loving God and loving our neighbour.  In our gospel reading today, when Jesus notices the widow, he isn’t just praising her piety, he’s asking who has reduced her to such poverty (Mk 12:38-44), because the kingdom of God is also a kingdom of justice.  So yes, we have good work to do. We need to notice those that Jesus notices, and care for those he cares for. A dark world needs those who witness to the light, as Christians have been doing for two thousand years.    Maybe now more than ever, our neighbours need us to be a people of light and hope.

As I noted this week in our parish newsletter, we are a few weeks away from Advent.    Advent is a time of waiting for the return of the king.  It’s a time of trust that God will set the world to rights.   It’s a time when we light candles to show that we keep faith in the darkness.      So if the events of this week have left you troubled and fearful, then let us keep Advent with hope and confidence, trusting that Christ, the Alpha and Omega, will come to free us from darkness, free us from sin, and free us from history.