One of the things that the secularists look for is the perfect society, and there is some good news for them. This was hinted at in Kirk this morning: we were ordaining an elder and she gave the children’s talk on this, missing a few of the points.
[My Church does have errors. I think female elders is an error. However, I do not look for a perfect church, but one that requires all elders to helieve in Jesus Christ as their saviour and hold the Bible as the primary guide to life and behaviour. Which, thank God, my kirk still does, allowing variation of conscience on lesser matters, but not that]
But to the passage. In this you get a sense of what we all we know we were designed for. For long life, for joy, to enjoy the fruits of our sweat. We know we lose out in this existence.
17For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. 18But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight. 19I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress. 20No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime; for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed. 21They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. 22They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. 23They shall not labor in vain, or bear children for calamity; for they shall be offspring blessed by the LORD-and their descendants as well. 24Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear. 25The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent-its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the LORD.
We fall into the error of Blake, that we, can by mere effort, make this happen. For this to happen the wolf and lamb ahve to change, and so do we. Blake’s yearning for this is true: but his tactics are fundamentally flawed: and I do not by this mean his reference to English myths that Joseph bought the child Jesus to England.
And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England’s mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England’s pleasant pastures seen?And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark Satanic Mills?Bring me my bow of burning gold!
Bring me my arrows of desire!
Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire!I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England’s green and pleasant land.
We can see that this is in the future, but at present, we are flawed, our lives are short, and we have to deal with the pain each day. Our job is different. It is to endure, to stand firm in the faith, and confront error.
6Now we command you, beloved, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to keep away from believers who are living in idleness and not according to the tradition that they received from us. 7For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us; we were not idle when we were with you, 8and we did not eat anyone’s bread without paying for it; but with toil and labor we worked night and day, so that we might not burden any of you. 9This was not because we do not have that right, but in order to give you an example to imitate. 10For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat.
11For we hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work. 12Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. 13Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in doing what is right.
Which brings me back to the error of the left. The first part is that they can change nature, and make us what we are not. The second is that providing the economic means for life will suffice: if people have the dole and football (or the benefit and broadband) they will be content, forgetting that in this life and the next we are not made for idleness.. And the third is to assume that the state can provide, that we will not need to live in relationships, not care for ou parents and for our children, not love, not feel pain: that we may not live as long as trees but we will have the emotions of the same.
At their worst, the state replaces God. A couple of weeks ago I took this photo in the UN compound in Vienna: I was at a conference in the Austria centre. There aer a number of tall glass towers, and people scurry between them. But at the edge of the compound, next to the underground station, is a small, black building. It is the local parish church (well, one of them: the copts have a church 100 m away). And in there you find shelter, for there is none in the glass towers.
For Christ, incarenate, was no mechanical monster or Leviathan. But instead, he was a man, living a short life, and in that time ensuring our salvation in this life and the next. God deliberately became our scale. We can see in the text of Isaiah were we will be: we can see the vision. But without God changing this world and us, we do not have the power to get there, and anyone promising this is deluding themselves.
