This blog provides a meditation on the Episcopal daily readings along with a headline from world news:
Zechariah 2:1-13

“OCCUPY WALL STREET” GOES TO CALIFORNIA

working for "Jerusalem/ Son of Man"

2I looked up and saw a man with a measuring line in his hand. 2Then I asked, ‘Where are you going?’ He answered me, ‘To measure Jerusalem, to see what is its width and what is its length.’ 3Then the angel who talked with me came forward, and another angel came forward to meet him, 4and said to him, ‘Run, say to that young man: Jerusalem shall be inhabited like villages without walls, because of the multitude of people and animals in it. 5For I will be a wall of fire all round it, says the Lord, and I will be the glory within it.’

6 Up, up! Flee from the land of the north, says the Lord; for I have spread you abroad like the four winds of heaven, says the Lord. 7Up! Escape to Zion, you that live with daughter Babylon. 8For thus said the Lord of hosts (after his glory sent me) regarding the nations that plundered you: Truly, one who touches you touches the apple of my eye. 9See now, I am going to raise my hand against them, and they shall become plunder for their own slaves. Then you will know that the Lord of hosts has sent me. 10Sing and rejoice, O daughter Zion! For lo, I will come and dwell in your midst, says the Lord. 11Many nations shall join themselves to the Lord on that day, and shall be my people; and I will dwell in your midst. And you shall know that the Lord of hosts has sent me to you. 12The Lord will inherit Judah as his portion in the holy land, and will again choose Jerusalem.

13 Be silent, all people, before the Lord; for he has roused himself from his holy dwelling.

The League for Democracy in Burma ia legalised. Working for "Jerusalem / Son of Man"

This is a vision of comfort for returning exiles from Babylon, or it may be using their historical situation to convey a message to despondent people of another age. In any case it proclaims the Lord’s love for his suffering people and his promise that Jerusalem shall be his dwelling place. It’s useful to note that this promise was never fulfilled, albeit successive restorations of the city and its temple took place. For many Jews the tragedy of the Roman destruction in 70 CE has not ever been reversed not even by Jerusalem’s contemporary prominence as the capital of the Israeli state. Christian people have tended to refer the prophecy to coming of the kingdom of God, the “new Jerusalem”.

The prophet insists that it will need no humanly built walls of defence although its population will spill out into the countryside, for the Lord’s presence will be its security and its light. The community of God’s people will be composed of many nations. Two things are evident here: the stubborn Jewish faith in Israel as God’s chosen people, in spite of the reverses of their history; and the vision that God is greater than his people and is a gathering point for all humanity-a conviction which gave the image of Jerusalem to those who believed that human beings should not be slaves of privilege or wealth.

The wonderful radical anthem “And did those feet” sung with such passion every last night of the Prom Concerts in London by hordes of daft conservative English people, imagines that Jerusalem can be built by human hands. The work and witness of human beings are not irrelevant to the Biblical vision of (New) Jerusalem but the establishment of the city is always as much gift as achievement. In it we shall meet people from other cultures- the sort of foreigners about whom conservative Englanders are fairly sniffy- because the true Jerusalem is not for one people but for many. We should never “cease from mental fight” in our own efforts to create the City of Peace; each person’s small contribution is needed; but the human labour also comes from people and places we do not know; and the end of all labours must not be to impose our own rule but to receive the rule of God.

Matthew 24:32-44

32 ‘From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. 33So also, when you see all these things, you know that he is near, at the very gates. 34Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. 35Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

36 ‘But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 37For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 38For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, 39and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. 40Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. 41Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. 42Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. 43But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. 44Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.

A Roma woman protests in Turin: working for "Jerusalem / Son of Man"

There is mystery in these words, indeed they increase uncertainty about the “day of the Lord” rather than dispelling it. Were these\things to happen in the time of the first disciples? It seems to say so. Buy what sort of happenings are these? Catastrophic? Yes, but what exactly is the catastrophe? That’s not clear. It will be like Noah’s flood. Are the ones who are taken the lucky ones, like Noah’s passengers? Or are the ones who are left lucky in that they are not swept away? It’s not clear. If we are looking for clarity perhaps we can say this:

1. Jesus prophesied the coming of the Son of Man, that is, the rule of Himself and God’s saints in the world (See Daniel 7 and my comment in Blog 606) He thought this would happen in the lifetimes of his disciples.
2. This would happen at a “time” known only to God
3. Disciples should stay awake and be ready for it.

There seems to me no doubt that Matthew saw partial fulfilment of these words in the destruction of Israel as nation in 70 CE and the dispersal to the ends of the earth of the Christian message. The reader can however understand that the Son of Man is still coming into the world, in ways that divide one working woman from another, offering a saving justice for which Jesus’ disciples must be ready.