2 Kings 2 page 1

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One hymn I didn't pick for this morning was

Come let us join our cheerful songs
    With angels round the throne;
Ten thousand thousand are their songs
    But all their joys are one.
[Isaac Watts, 1674-1748]

It was once parodied by someone talking about preachers who seem to have their pet theme, whatever Bible passage they are preaching on:

Ten thousand thousand are their texts
    But all their sermons one.
[David Stacey]

As I introduce my theme today, you might feel I fall into that category. Our Old Testament Lectionary reading for today, the Sunday before Lent, is about transition. It's the transition between the ministry of Elijah and the ministry of Elisha. It's probably been chosen for today to go with the Gospel reading about the Transfiguration of Jesus, when he was glorified in the presence of Elijah and Moses.

But it's that theme of transition that grips me in the passage. It's a key moment in the history of God's people. An era is closing and God is leading them into a new one. Times of transition are vulnerable times. The old ways are dying and we're not sure what the future will hold.

These transitions can be about a change of leadership - a new minister at church, a new manager at the office, a new head teacher at school. They can be about moving to a new area. They can be about a new phase in our lives - moving from school to university, starting work, or retiring.

But as well as the transitions that individuals, families and groups face there are the major transitions we all get caught up in as part of society or as part of God's bigger plans.

We can set down questions as markers of these changes. The question for earlier generations was, 'Where were you when you heard JFK had been shot?'. In recent years it became, 'Where were you when you heard that Princess Diana had died?' or 'Where were you when you heard about 9/11?' These questions mark the shattering changes in our society.

So yes, I'm returning to the theme that has so often occupied me since coming here: the fact that we are Christians in a fast-changing world, and we face some critical choices if we are to serve God faithfully in a new era. What we're doing at present clearly isn't working: as someone has put it, the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same things but expecting different results. That is to say, if we keep doing what we're doing, we're going to keep getting what we're getting - and that is decline and irrelevance. By this definition much of the Christian Church is insane at present.

So I want to tease out a little bit more this morning what it will involve to serve God prophetically in times of transition.  I'm going to explore this in two main sections, one about 'The Lost Glory' and the second about 'Facing The Future'. But because I want to make a few brief points within each of the two sections I'm delivering the sermon in two halves in the hope that makes it more digestible.

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Copyright © David D Faulkner, 2006 except where other sources are attributed or noted as inspiration.