Accent on the Penult

        Pronouncing ancient Greek can be tricky. Sometimes the accent falls on the ultima – the last syllable of the word. Sometimes it’s on the penult, the next-to-last syllable, and sometimes it’s on the antepenult, the next-to-the-next-the-last syllable. Where to put the accent depends on a set of grammatical rules which, as a student of the language, I never mastered. When writing Greek, I used to spread the accents marks about on the page, a bit like shaking pepper on scrambled eggs. The result was visually satisfying, but my Greek professor never liked it.

        Today the accent is on the penult – the next-to-last. This is the next-to-last Sunday in the liturgical year. Next Sunday is the ultima, the Festival of Christ the King. Next comes the first Sunday in Advent, the start of a new year.

        Next-to-last – penultimate – things are important, and should not be neglected.

        The night before you go on that long trip, you lay your packed suitcase on the bed in the spare room.  You leave it open so that in the morning you can put your toothbrush in there before you zip up the case.  Passports?  In the carryall by the suitcase.  Tickets?  Same place.  Spare set of house keys?  Under the neighbors’ doormat.  Note to remind you to turn off the water to the house?  Written on a post-it note and stuck to the inside of the back door.

          Next-to-last things.  Neglect them, and you won’t be prepared for the ultima.

          But here’s the thing about next-to-last things: you can’t attend to them unless you have some idea of what’s going to happen last.  If a taxi is coming to the door to take you to the airport, you’ll need cash for the fare.  If your neighbor, who owes you several rides to the airport, is going to take you, you won’t need much cash.  What you anticipate for last determines your activities for next-to-last.

            The Bible provides more than one scenario of last things.  The visions are more varied than is commonly acknowledged.  We’re accustomed to thinking that the Book of Revelation has the last word on last things.  It doesn’t.

Don’t forget the prophets.  Back in Amos’ day, most of his prophetic colleagues welcomed God’s ultima. The Yom Adonai, they called it: the Day of the Lord.  They saw it as a day of light and salvation, of punishment for Israel’s enemies and reward for the chosen people.  Amos had a very different idea:

            . . . Is not the day of the Lord darkness and not light,
            and gloom with no brightness in it? (Amos 5:18-20)

          If that’s your idea of the last day, then you’d better spend your next-to-last days getting right with God.  Impending disaster demands repentance. 

          Ever found yourself staring at a blank computer screen the night before a huge term paper is due?  This assignment counts for half your grade and you haven’t even generated the first footnote.  Is not [that day] darkness and not light, and gloom with no brightness in it?  It’s the same with God’s future.  If disaster is the main course, then the appetizer is bitter indeed.

          Or, as God’s ultima approaches, you could just give up. 

Remember James Watt, the Secretary of the Interior from 1981-1983? In retrospect, it was probably not a good idea to make a pre-millennial dispensationalist Christian the nation’s chief environmental steward.  Testifying before Congress, Mr. Watt was asked if he believed in preserving the environment for future generations.

"I do not know how many future generations we can count on before the Lord returns,"  he replied.

         See what I mean about last things? If you think God’s ultima for you is to beam you up before global climate change makes matters truly uncomfortable, you’re not likely to make reducing greenhouse emissions your penultimate priority.

        Mr. Watt, it appears, would have felt perfectly at home in the New Testament church of Thessalonica. In those heady days of the church’s life, most believers thought the Lord would return in their lifetimes, and some, it seems, simply gave up.

The Thessalonian session abolished their Strategic Planning Committee.  The Property Council let things slide.  Several church members quit their jobs and cashed in their IRA’s.  They passed the time doing very little, except to stand in the parking lot, gossiping for hours.

          When word of this got back to the Apostle Paul, he hit the roof.  "Get back to work," he wrote the Thessalonians.  "I’m expecting the Lord to return, too, but you don’t see me sitting on my apostolic duff." 

          Paul knew how to treat those whose eagerness for heaven makes them of no earthly use.  First, he admonished them in the Lord.  Second, he provided them an example to follow.  Paul kept up his tent-making trade even while he was establishing that new church in Thessalonica.  He could have drawn a salary.  (You don’t mussel the treading ox [I Cor. 9:9].) But Paul decided to earn his own keep. He didn’t want anyone to think that following Jesus means escaping responsibility.

The prophet we call Isaiah also had a vision of God’s ultima. Unlike Amos, Isaiah welcomed that day. The time will come, Isaiah proclaimed, when people will hear the word "Jerusalem" and will not think "car bombs," "Indefada," and "wailing in the streets."  They will think "stability," "longevity," "peace."

         Given the way Jesus behaved toward the disenfranchised and suffering people of his day, it strikes me that the kingdom of God that Jesus had in mind looks a lot like Isaiah’s "new Jerusalem." In that kingdom, the last will be first and the first last. Children will not be born not to calamity, but to long, prosperous lives. People will get to live in the houses they have built, instead of being evicted when their sub-prime loans come due. All in all, the new Jerusalem will be a place of tranquility and peace.

Now if that’s your vision of last things, what, would you say, might be your agenda for penultimate things?

I opened up my newspaper a few days ago to discover that the infant morality rate for black babies in Leon County exceeds that of several third world countries. A baby born in Afghanistan today has a better chance of reaching his or her first birthday than a black child born in the shadow of Florida’s State Capitol.

Better healthcare, better dental care, and better education for poor people would help bring that death-rate down. Governor Lawton Childs proved that years ago when he made healthy mothers and healthy babies a priority of his administration.

Today, our state leaders are cutting back on programs for the poor. It seems we can’t afford such luxuries in a state which ranks 18^th in per capita income, and 37^th in per capital spending on social services.

The current Governor, who is a great proponent of cutting property taxes, wants us all to vote "yes" on a constitutional amendment that would save a typical homeowner somewhere between two and four hundred dollars a year.

"Look," he told a reporter last week, "The people get it. I mean, if you just tell them that if they vote yes, their property taxes go down, if they vote no, they stay up. It’s kind of a simple thing to explain" (Tallahassee Democrat, November 15, 2007).

Yes, it is simple, unless you allow your life to be complicated by the knowledge that in Leon County, those same property taxes help to fund the Bond Clinic, Neighborhood Health Services, and the County Health Department – the very places in Leon County where many poor, black, expectant mothers go for prenatal care.

How should Christians evaluate a constitutional amendment to cut property taxes, given Isaiah’s vision of life in the new Jerusalem, where "no more shall there be an infant who lives but a few days"?

Is saving $200.00 next year the only thing I should consider when I go to the polls? Should that be my penultimate agenda? Or should God’s ultimate vision affect my penultimate priorities?

It’s not simple, is it? Of course it’s not. Isaiah – and for that matter, Jesus – provide us a pretty clear indication of God’s ultima. Shouldn’t our penult be adjusted accordingly?

"Brothers and sisters", Paul wrote to the Thessalonians. "You’re missing the point of the gospel. Don’t give up now. Do not grow weary in doing what is right." Even if Jesus should arrive tomorrow, let him find us busy tending to next-to-last things.

Brant S. Copeland, Pastor
First Presbyterian Church
Tallahassee, Florida