Sermon Tone Analysis

In 1964 the poet and musician Bob Dylan sang these words.

“Come mothers and fathers

Throughout the land

And don’t criticize

What you can’t understand

Your sons and your daughters

Are beyond your command

Your old road is rapidly agin’

Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand

For the times they are a-changin’”

This song, written 13 years before I was born, rightly recognised and proclaimed that the world, and the normal roads of cultural life and the times were a-changing.

This was the era of the civil rights movement, growing anger at the vietnam war, ‘ a recognition that the old way of life’ , the worldview and authority structures which were assumed, no longer held sway.

In the 60’s the times, they were are a changing, and the times still are a changing.

The world we each dwelt in as a child no longer exists, old certainties are now a memory and society, for good and for ill, has shifted to the point of no return.

This change effects our personal and society levels of happiness, it effects the items we consume, our marriages, our entertainment, our views on sexuality, our emotional health, views on abortion, our laws, our identiies and our values.

This song could also be the soundtrack for the church, for it is also going through immense change.

Perhaps the greatest change for a thousand years or so.

Once the Church and Christianity, as a product of Christendom since the time of emperor Constanine, was normalised within Culture and often in a position of power in the public square, was recogniseable in the workplace and in evangelism basic christian tenants could simply be assumed.

Yet, the times are a-changing as in recent decades we have seen a sharp decline in those who attend church or identify as Christians.

Census Data of 2012

In the UK the proportion of people calling themselves Christian fell from 72% in 2001 to 59% in 2011.

Those saying they have no religion rose from 15% to 25% in that period (including 177,000 claiming to be Jedi).

The number of churchgoing Anglicans fell by 12%, and in 2013 stood at 1m.

Some 19m baptised Anglicans do not attend church.

The “christendom’ world we inhabited as Children no longer exists.

The world in which parents seeks to raise their childrens as Christians is often hostile and apathetic to Christianity like no previous generation.

There is no going back.

The times they are a-changing- Christians are

moving from a majority position, to that of a minority,

from the centre to the margins,

and the Christian position in no longer privileged but takes its place alongside other faiths and ideologies in the post-modern marketplace of pluralism.

It is not surprising that some commentators note that the Church finds itself in a place of Exile.

Stuart Murray the baptist historian writes.

We are “a powerless minority of resident aliens,”“in a culture that no longer accords Christianity special treatment.”

And now I want us to look again at the ancient text, remembering although it is not written to us it is written for us.

Last week we looked at the prophet Ezekiel who spoke at a time when the ‘the times were a changing for the ancient people of God’.

Once they were a mini-empire, living in the land, with the temple and the law, they could muster armies and wealth of their own, but now the God’s people of old found themselves in Exile.

They were resident aliens living in Babylon.

The warning which we looked at last week of impending judgment fell on deaf ears and hard hearts, and the the destruction which Ezekiel warned of had taken place.

YHWH had left the Temple, the temple and city and been detroyed and much of the population has been deported and exiled into the Babylonia.

In in this place of Exile the following words were sung.

1By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept

when we remembered Zion.

2There on the poplars

we hung our harps,

3for there our captors requested a song,

and our tormentors demanded songs of joy:

“Sing us a song of Zion.”

4How can we sing a song of the LORD

in a foreign land?

God’s people hang up there harps and can no longer sing the songs of ZIon.

They are in geographical exile….. in Babylon!

The are in Spiritual Exile: Has God abandoned them.

How can they sing a song in a foreign land?

The world has changed, the old ways are gone,.

The people of God have moved from a place or orientation (where all is well with the world)- to a place disorientation (or disorder, and unknowns)

In in this place they would have echoed the words of the Psalm that was read to us earlier.

To you I lift up my eyes,

O you who are enthroned in the heavens!

2  Behold, as the eyes of servants

look to the hand of their master,

as the eyes of a maidservant

to the hand of her mistress,

so our eyes look to the Lord our God,

till he has mercy upon us.

In this place of Exile there seem to be two options before the people of God.

Firstly, they could despair.

Despair is, “ the complete absence of loss of hope.’

In their exile they feel abanonend.

In this place of the despair questions are raised which are picked up in many of the Lament Psalms.

God ‘Are you blind?

Are you deaf?

Have you forgotten the covenant you have made, Are you hiding’ .

The question the ’love of YHWH’, the power of YHWH’.

There is no going back to the way things are, nor is there any future.

The second option is that of Assimilation.

There were a number of Jews in Babylon who found Jewishness too demanding, and who capitulated and simply joined dominant  Babylonian values and identity.

In assimilation they forget their history and experience, and compromise with the culture round them so that their lives look no different to their pagan counterparts.

The easiest way to assimilate is to fail to retell the stories of faith and and instead to participate in the the liturgies and symbols of the prevailing culture.

And yet Ezekiel offers a third way to respond. he seeks to stir up the imaginations of his hearers, so that in the situation of despair, and with the temptation of assimilation, a seed of hope is planted.

Without a vision the people perish, but Ezekiel will provide a vision for the future in which the Exile will be over.

Yes, the exile is dark but there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Yes, God seems absent but one day he will be closer than our skin.

Yes, its friday but Sundays Coming.

For many Exile seemed like the end of the Road….…. but for Ezekiel he offers a future in which the exiles will return in a glorious homecoming parade.

The times are a-changing and hope is on the horizon.

(TNIV)

22“Therefore say to the house of Israel, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: It is not for your sake, house of Israel, that I am going to do these things, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you have gone.

23I will show the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, the name you have profaned among them.

Then the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Sovereign Lord, when I am proved holy through you before their eyes.

24“ ‘For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land.

25I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols.

26I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

27And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.

28Then you will live in the land I gave your ancestors; you will be my people, and I will be your God.

29I will save you from all your uncleanness.

I will call for the grain and make it plentiful and will not bring famine upon you.

30I will increase the fruit of the trees and the crops of the field, so that you will no longer suffer disgrace among the nations because of famine.

31Then you will remember your evil ways and wicked deeds, and you will loathe yourselves for your sins and detestable practices.

32I want you to know that I am not doing this for your sake, declares the Sovereign Lord.