Sunday, January 1, 2012

Revelation 21:1-5 "The Eagle and the Condor"

Joe and I enjoy swimming laps at St. Joseph’s College in Windham a couple of times a week. Throughout eleven months of the year, there are generally 3-4 people at any given open lap swim. I like these numbers because usually everyone gets his or her own lane, so only rarely do I have to share a lane.

However, the month of January is different. At the beginning of each calendar year, the pool is crowded with folks we regulars have never seen before. I know those of you who frequent Planet Fitness experience the same phenomenon.

For three or four weeks, you share your gym space or pool lane with men and women who have made a New Year’s resolution to loose weight and get fit. It generally all passes within a couple of months, and the gym and the pool are then back to normal. I find New Year’s resolutions to be both funny as well as a little bit sad. For most of us, they are made to be broken – and often are broken by Valentine’s Day.
When you think about them, most New Year’s resolutions are self-centered, that is, they focus inward, on oneself. I will lose 20 pounds. I will stop biting my fingernails. I will drink less coffee. I will eat more fruit. I will change my diet, change my physique, change my job. There are few of us who resolve on New Year’s Day to change our world.

However, there is something particularly compelling about doing just that on this New Year’s Day. I am referring, or course, to all the hoopla about 2012. Perhaps you have read or heard about its significance for many people around the world.

December 21, 2012 marks the end of the Mayan calendar. It is also the predicted year of a Galactic Alignment, which is when the winter solstice sun aligns with our galactic equator, the midline which runs down the Milky Way, dividing our galaxy in two. This alignment happens about every 26,000 years. And, of course, there is the perspective taken in the apocalyptic film “2012”: that this is the year when the world will end. In general, there is an overwhelming sense of unusual things about to happen in 2012.

Undoubtedly, as the winter solstice comes closer this year, there will be those who will give up all hope for the world, presuming its climactic finale, Armageddon, doomsday. In fact, you can go onto the internet and find all sorts of websites detailing how to prepare for the impending catastrophe.

However, there will also be those who see this year of 2012 as symbolic of a great hope, a hope that humanity will finally begin climbing out of the dark abyss it finds itself in and emerge in the sunlight of a new and higher consciousness – we becoming more each day as God wants us to be – children of light, people of justice and compassion – people like Jesus.

Indigenous communities, from the Incans in South America to the Mayans in Central America to the Hopis in our own Southwestern United States all hold this common prophecy, and the year 2012 lies at its heart.

Joseph Robert Jochmans summarizes the gist of it this way: "…the Hopis and Mayans (and the Incas) recognize that we are approaching the end of a World Age... However, the Hopi and Mayan (and Incan) elders do not prophesy that everything will come to an end. Rather, this is a time of transition from one World Age into another. The message they give concerns our making a choice of how we enter the future ahead.”

The Incan prophecy says that “now, in this age, when the eagle of the North and the condor of the South fly together, the Earth will awaken…Now is the time.

(We are in the midst of) an era of light, an age of awakening, an age of returning to natural ways (in order to) understand the message of the heart, intuition, and nature…When (human) consciousness awakens, we can fly high like the eagle, or like the condor…” (www.incaprophecy.com)

Now whether you believe in prophecy in general or non-Christian prophecy in particular is irrelevant here. What is important for us to consider on this New Year’s Day 2012 – even as Christians - is what is articulated at the heart of this prophecy – and that is the concept of change. What is important for us to come to grips with is whether we believe that transformation of our world is even possible and whether we – specifically you and I – play a role in that transformation.

When I heard Christian theologian, John Dominic Crosson, speak this past fall, he said that, at its heart, Christianity is all about transformation. I agree with him. For me, of all the agents of change in all of human history, Jesus is the person who has most influenced – directly or indirectly - our growth as human beings.

Even our own Bible speaks of change and transformation:

"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away…And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people…for the old order of things has passed away…Behold! I am making everything new!”

Do you believe in the possibility of change? Do you believe that this world can be made new? Do you believe in the Biblical truth of transformation? Do you believe that it might just be happening now – or do you believe that change is something God will unleash in the distant future?

The Incans called this period of transformation that they believed we have entered “Pachacuti” which means “great change.” They would say that now is the time in which the world will be turned right-side-up, so that harmony and order can be restored.

At their core, these ancient prophecies that swirl about the year 2012 are optimistic. Rather than being a time for the world to end, they refer instead to the end of time as we know it — the death of a way of thinking and being, the end of a way of relating to the earth and to one another.

This dying away of the old is a significant part of the Apostle Paul’s theology. He used the metaphor of dying and rising in Christ to talk about ending the old ways of living and being reborn into lives of loving service to the earth and to one another.

Do you believe in the possibility of such change? Do you believe, as Paul did, that the old can die away and something new can take its place? Do you believe in the Biblical truth of transformation? Do you believe that might just be happening now?

According to the ancient 2012 prophecy, the pachacuti, or great change, has already begun. Now is the time of the great gathering and reintegration of people from of the four directions – north, south, east, and west - the building of a truly global community. Now is the time that “munay,” love and compassion, will be the guiding force of this great gathering. Perhaps as Christians we might say that now is the time for Jesus’ great commandment: Love one another - to take hold in the world.

The 2012 prophecies also speak of tumultuous changes happening (not only) in the earth, (but also (and perhaps more importantly)) in our psyche, redefining our relationships and our spirituality, offering us an opportunity to redefine ourselves not as who we have been in the past but rather as who we are becoming. Now is the time when we have the potential to become a new kind of person. As our own Biblical Book of Revelation reads, “Behold I make all things new.”

Do you believe in the possibility of change? Do you believe that we can be made new? Do you believe in the Biblical truth of transformation? Do you believe that might just be happening now?

The Q’ero tribe, who are the modern day keepers of the Incan prophecy in Peru, believe that the doorways between the worlds are opening again. And here lies the special significance of 2012. Holes in time that we can step through and beyond, where we can explore our human capabilities, where we can once again become children of the light – that light that shines in the darkness, and the darkness will not overcome it.

Do you believe in the possibility of change? Do you believe that this world can be made new and that we can once more shine brilliantly with the light of God? Do you believe in the Biblical truth of transformation? Do you believe that might just be happening now?

The ancient 2012 prophecy would say that rekindling this light is a possibility today for all who dare to take the leap – and, as a Christian, that is what I find so hopeful and so exciting about the year ahead.

The Andean shamans say, “Follow your own footsteps. Learn from the rivers, the trees and the rocks. Honor the Christ, the Buddha, your brothers and sisters. Honor the Earth Mother and the Great Spirit. Honor yourself and all of creation…Look with the eyes of your soul and engage the essential.”

As Christians, we call this period of transformation the coming of the Kingdom, and Jesus’ message is that you and I are instrumental in its unfolding. “The Kingdom of God is among us, within us,” he preached. “Thy Kingdom come, they will be done on earth (here, now) as it is in heaven,” he prayed.

f the ancient prophecies of the Incas, the Mayans, and the Hopi have any relevance for us as Christians, it is because their essence is so similar to Jesus’ Gospel message. And if this year of 2012 will have any special significance for us, it will be that we will make the commitment to be the agents of change that I believe we are called to be.

The time is now. The place is here. The people are us. Will this be the age when the eagle and the condor fly together? Will this be the age when we really see more than just glimpses of the Kingdom of God among us? Will this be the age when humanity exercises its potential to be transformative? After all, as Gandhi once said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

I believe there is a new world about to unfold. For me, this is a time of great high hope. And so I must ask these questions: What do we want this new world to look like? How do we want it to be when it is finally transformed? What can we do to begin that change, that transformation?

Here are a couple of broad themes to think about:

1. Building community globally – What is one thing you could do, one action you could bring to fruition, that would build up relationships between different cultures and peoples?

2. Building community locally – What is one thing you could do, one action you could bring to fruition, that would build up relationships between people or generations in this church and between this church and the Town of Raymond?

3. Building collaboration - What is one thing you could do, one action you could bring to fruition, that would foster collaboration rather than conflict, that would enhance discourse rather than argument, that would bring individuals, groups, or political parties together rather than polarize them?

4. Building a viable earth – What is one thing you could do, one action you could bring to fruition, that would help to ensure that you are passing on a livable earth to your children and grandchildren?

I truly believe that in this year of 2012, we can be agents of change and transformation. And I hope that I have convinced you to at least entertain that possibility.

Working against that hope, we are going to take some time now to come up with a

2012 resolution – just one resolution – a specific action you commit to take that reflects one of these themes that are so essential to the transformation of our world.

For the next 10 minutes right now, using the insert in your bulletin as a reference, think about what you will do to help in this pachacuti, this time of great change, the coming of the Kingdom. This is not a test. Nothing will be collected, and no one will see what you write down. However, this is an opportunity to take concrete action in 2012, to help the eagle and the condor to fly together and to usher in the Kingdom of God.