In the space that is today, in the time that is now, it is true to say that the universe will end not in a blaze of glory but more likely in a wimp of darkness but it will end. The world will likely end in a blaze of glory as we are eaten by the sun. The heaven of the past is no longer up there as the astronauts can probably attest but our super dooper telescopes do so much better. If this is the case then what does this mean for readings that we have today speaking of a day of the Lord and preparedness for the coming of God (Zeph. 1:12-18; 1 Thess. 5:1-11; Matt. 25:14-30)? Perhaps we need to turn our thoughts to the very prosaic inhabitant of Judaea who in his insights proclaimed that the Reign (Basilea) of God was present to us in the here and now. Using this insight we may be able to disentangle the entanglement in our theology of Neoplatonism and a foreign world view. We need to understand that just as islands are not independent of the bedrock upon which they sit but in reality are connected to other landmasses around them, we too are not independent but are immutably connected to each other in community.
All good plans take time to mature and plenty of planning. Changing the world does take a bit of doing but as Christians that is our purpose to re-make the world to conform with God and live in love and peace and yes at the end of the day, when this eventually comes into being, there will be a lot of gnashing of teeth. The Gospel story has severe political overtones for the society in which the parable was told. It is all about political manoeuvring on a grand scale in Roman times but has much to say that is beyond the overt political message for us today. Quite honestly we are probably, 90% at least, in the category of the failed servant. Shock, horror and claims of "No we are not". Well I suppose that has to be an expected response to such an announcement and of course we would all put ourselves within the 10% that are not. Of course of those 10% only 9% fall into category 2 and in reality only 1% are anywhere near category 1. All those statistics what does it mean in real life.
The reality of the current day is that most of us are lazy when it comes to our spiritual and faith responsibilities. We would much rather put things to the side and go on about our business and not about God's business or the business of faith. Don't get me wrong, those in religious institutions fall just as equally within the percentages as anyone else. It takes effort to do the work of God and prepare for the coming Kingdom but it is in the work that we see the beginnings of that kingdom here on Earth in the present. Our wandering Aramean was not putting philosophical spin into his words nor was he tangled up in the question of who is God / What is God / Why is God? and so forth. His stories and preaching were about the present, the end was now as we moved into a new understanding of how to relate to each other as we moved into the reign of God's presence reflected in our own interactions in the present. For Christ the time was now to move into the reign of God, which meant that the time was now to change how we relate to each other. In other words the time was now for the present day understandings of how we live to end. It is our investment in our community that God is looking for. For us to realise the coming of God's reign we must invest ourselves in our relationships to show the love which God represents to us.
It is our lives that are at stake. It is our communities lives that are at stake. It is our planet that is at stake. We cannot afford to park the investment of our lives and not do anything. If we do that we are literally banking on others whose interest may not be ours and quite honestly is usually for their own benefit rather than looking towards their neighbours. The stakes are high but we can visibly see the returns on our investments in love within the community. Unlike burying ourselves behind closed doors or watching the stock market investment fall when we invest in love it is always on the way up. The reign of God is just around the corner and it comes when we begin to invest in our communities with the love that God has given us. The longer we leave that love buried in our hearts while we wait for better times and God appearing at the end of creation the longer it will be before the reign of God comes. Christ said that the reign of God was here, now. It was at the end of this present age and until we understand that we are harbingers of the end of the present day when we allow God's love to enter into our communities we will not see God's reign. We will continue to be caught up in metaphysics and Greek philosophical views compounded by an out moded world view.
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