Advent 1A Nov. 28, 2010

            Life as we know it can change in an instant.  We may not expect the big change, and most of the time it is not welcome.  There are any number of ways we can be brought up short.  Perhaps you suddenly find a lump where it should not be while you are taking a shower.  Or your spouse tells you that he or she wants a divorce.  Maybe the police show up at your door and tell you there has been an accident.  Your boss calls you into his office and tells you that you are going to be laid off.   Suddenly life seems a whole lot less secure, your best laid plans go up in smoke.

            Not all of these sudden changes need to be negative.  Perhaps you win the lottery, so you never have to worry about money again.  Or you get a letter of acceptance into the school you want to go to, which will give a whole new career.  You find out that you are going to have a child, or you have been accepted to adopt a child.  These are all life-changing events.  It will never be the same again.  Whether we view the sudden event as beneficial or detrimental, it will take time for us to absorb its impact, to adjust to new realities.  Sometimes we can anticipate them; sometimes they come as a complete surprise.

            During this season of Advent which begins today, we enter a season of anticipation for an event that changes not only us, but the whole world.  Of course, we look forward to the birth of the Christ child at Christmas.         The baby Jesus did not come into the world in the way we would have expected, and he will not likely come into our hearts in the way we expect either.  Unless we prepare for him and expect him, we may not welcome him as we should – in fact we may not recognize him at all.

But today’s readings are not about Jesus’ coming at Christmas;  they are about Jesus’ second coming.  They sound apocalyptic, about the end times when Jesus will come back to judge the earth.  But Jesus comes into our hearts again and again, a second coming, a quadrillionth coming.  We push him away, but he is always there ready to return again.  I suppose there may be a last coming some day, when the fires of earth grow dim and we reach the end of time, but right now Jesus wants us to respond to him.  And time is short.  There is an urgency in what he says and in what Paul says.  “Salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers,” Paul says.  We can keep putting this off, but at some point we must be prepared to make a commitment.

            Jesus says, “Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.”  That is not an easy thing to do.  We need our sleep.  We can’t stay on high alert all the time.  I read that the country is about to drop the color coded alerts that began after 9/11, because it loses its impact, we get used to them and begin to ignore them.  We need to do the daily acts of living that we do, to go to work and earn a living, plan for retirement.  We need to eat and drink, to marry and give in marriage, as the gospel says.  Do you remember when the millennium changed in 2001, and there were people who believed that it heralded the end of the world?  We cannot be like those people who drop all their responsibilities and just wait for the apocalypse.  But it is easy to get caught up in those daily things we do, to forget that there is a larger story, and that we have a part to play in that story.

            So if we can’t stay awake, can’t stay on alert all the time, what does Jesus mean when he tells us to keep awake?  What does Paul mean when he says now is the moment to wake from sleep?  What do we do during this Advent as we anticipate Christmas or the second coming?  How can we come to expect the unexpected?

            Perhaps the best advice, and it may be close to what Jesus meant, is summed up in the Boy Scout motto:  “Be Prepared.”  For Boy Scouts, that may have meant having the necessary equipment along on the camping trip.  More often it meant having the training and knowledge to deal with unexpected situations.  It means developing the attitude that you can deal with just about anything that comes up.  For new parents, being prepared may mean gathering all the new paraphernalia for a new baby, picking out names, or creating a nursery.  These are ways of getting ready for a huge change about to happen.  For us in this season being prepared means preparing our hearts, to develop an attitude which will help us deal with the unexpected fact that God is with us.  Advent has traditionally been a time, somewhat like Lent, in which we spend a little extra time in prayer, study and self-examination, in preparation for this life-changing event.

            Jesus may not have meant that we have to literally stay awake, but I do think that he wants us to be alert to the signs of his coming.  The signs of apocalypse, war, rumors of war, famine, plague, have been with us a very long time.  They seem to be nothing new.  But perhaps instead of those awful signs, what we should be alert for are the signs of God’s grace.  These are the signs that indicate that the Kingdom of God is at hand, already begun if not fulfilled. They too are all around us.  Wherever there are acts of kindness and compassion, wherever there is reconciliation and forgiveness, wherever the light of understanding and truth overwhelms the darkness of ignorance and corruption, there is a sign of God’s grace.  So this Advent, why not contemplate where love has cast out fear, where truth and compassion and forgiveness have triumphed.  These are the signs that Jesus is coming, and the kingdom has begun.

            Jesus tells us to be awake so that we can watch, for we do not know on what day the Lord is coming.  In the very next chapter of Matthew, we have Jesus praising those who feed the hungry, gave drink to the thirsty, welcomed the stranger, clothed the naked, took care of the sick, and visited the prisoner.  “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”  This Advent season, we are being called to be awake and watch for those who are in need and to be generous in the giving of our selves.  For Jesus may appear in the most unexpected ways.

You see, this time of Advent, not just these four weeks before Christmas, but all of our Christian lives, this time of preparation and waiting,  is not a passive thing.  It has never been for any of the biblical writers. The time in the wilderness has always been a time that formed  a people into God’s people.  We are to cooperate with the coming of God’s kingdom, even while we are still in the wilderness.  If we want to live, as Isaiah suggests, where nations will not learn war any more, then we need to try to find ways to beat our swords into plowshares, and our spears into pruning hooks.  Or as Paul says, if salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers, we must try to live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy, but by putting on the Lord Jesus Christ in self-denial and loving our neighbor as ourselves. 

            Be prepared, be alert to the signs of God’s grace, and watch out for your neighbor.  Do these things, and we may be ready for the unexpected.  Our lives will be changed, but this change is nothing less the beginning of the kingdom of God.  It is time to get ready.

Proper 28 Nov. 14, 2010

            The temple in Jerusalem must have been an awesome sight to the disciples.  It might have appeared as one of the wonders of the world to them.  I can imagine them gawking up at the walls soaring above them, much as we might gawk at the National Cathedral.  They admired the beautiful stonework, and the beautiful gifts dedicated to God.  Then Jesus poked a hole in their balloon by saying, “the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another, all will thrown down.”  He went on to describe the apocalypse that was to come, when there would be wars, and famine, and plague.  Not even the temple, this holy place, would withstand what was to come.  In fact the temple was destroyed by the Romans in the year 70.

            Let me change the scene.  In Shenandoah National Park, you can take a short hike to an abandoned Episcopal mission on the side of one of the mountains.  It is called the Pocosin mission, and served the hill folks in that area for a short time.  It was begun by an energetic young missioner in 1904 and had to be abandoned when the Park evicted all the residents.  It was probably never much to look at – a small church in the woods with a small cabin (rectory?) and a shed for the animals.  When we visited we could trace out from the foundation stones where the steps into the church had been, and where the sacristy and altar must have stood.  I couldn’t help but reflect on how hopeful and excited that young minister must have been to build his own church.  It was quite an effort.  When the people were evicted and the mission no longer had a purpose, it must have felt a bit like the apocalypse to the people and the minister.  Now where walls had stood, where people had gathered to baptize and marry and bury, there were only a few foundation stones left one upon another.  Someday even that will be gone.

            As we come to the end of the church year, the readings for the daily office and for Eucharist take on an apocalyptic flavor.  We are to ponder the end of time, the end of things as we know them.  There will be tribulation, wars and rumors of war, famine, and earthquakes, and plagues, and dreadful portents.   It doesn’t take much watching of the evening news on TV to believe that the apocalypse could be right now.  As we speak we are in a war, there is famine, there was an earthquake in Haiti, and now an epidemic of cholera.  Greed and corruption abound as people look out for themselves, and beggar their neighbor.  These can seem like dreadful portents.  We fear what it might mean for us, for our nation, and for the world.  Fear easily turns to anger, and anger easily turns to violence in a terrible cycle.  Will one stone be left upon another?

            Then there are the small apocalypses closer to home.  We have our own personal apocalypses.  Jesus tells the disciples that they will be arrested and persecuted.  “You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends.”  The death of loved ones, divorce, sickness, the loss of a job, economic insecurity all feel like the end of good times, like the apocalypse.  How devastating it must have felt for that young minister, to have his dreams dashed for his mission church.

            But all of these apocalyptic portents have been true since before the time of Jesus.  It would not take much to predict that they would continue.  All that we build, stone upon stone, will one day be torn down.  As it says in Ecclesiastes, all is vanity, and a chasing after wind.    Perhaps we have been fooled into thinking that what we build will continue.  Perhaps we have believed the advertising that a nice home and car, having the right stuff, the good education will protect us from suffering.  If we are honest, we realize that we are in the end times right now, and have been for some time.

            It would be easy to sink into despair and fear.  But we Christians have a different perspective.  Jesus tells the disciples that even as they are being arrested and persecuted, that he will give them the words and wisdom that they need.  He tells them that not a hair of their head will perish.  By their endurance they will gain their souls.

            We Christians know there is a better prize than earthly wealth and security, better even than our earthly lives.  That prize is our spiritual integrity and our relationship with Christ. That prize is to live in the truth, in the affirmation that goodness overcomes evil.  That prize is living in the joy of knowing there will be a new creation after present things have ended.  In Isaiah God tells us he is about to “create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind… no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it.” We begin to live in that new creation even now, as the old passes away.  That is our Christian hope.

            It is that hope that changes our view of suffering.  The widespread belief of our contemporary culture seems to be that suffering can be eliminated with enough education, advances in medical research, and well managed economics.  But suffering seems to be part of life, and our response to suffering tells us something about our character.   I’m not saying that we should welcome suffering, that we should go looking for it, but that it will come to us in its own time and its own way, at least as long as we are living in the apocalypse.  When we endure it, we learn that we need not be defeated by it.  Through it, we find that Christ is by our side, enduring it along with us, and so we make Christ our friend.  We let others give us comfort and care, and they become new friends too.  By it we are humbled to know that we are not gods ourselves, and come to know our need for God himself.  Through suffering we learn the power of hope that there will be an end to it, and so we look forward to the coming of the Kingdom.  By our endurance we will gain our souls.

            One of our core beliefs as Christians is in the resurrection of Christ after he died on the cross.  But I think the idea of resurrection is broader than one person, or even of all of us.  Resurrection is a law of nature, I think.  Death propagates life.  A seed must die to being a seed in order to become a new plant.  The nutrients released by decomposing plants and animals nourish new life.  Sometimes encrusted organizations must die in order for vibrant new ones to take their place.  We must die to our old sinful and self-centered nature in order take on new life in Christ.  Perhaps nations and cultures must perish in order for something new and surprising and wonderful to begin.

            While we enjoy the comfort and joy of our Christian hope, this hope also gives us a sacred responsibility.  In a world that is afraid, and angry, and violent, we must let people know that there is hope.   In the BCP it says that our mission is to reconcile all people to God and each other in Jesus Christ.  We begin to do that when we help people see we are in this together, and that our hope is not in vain.

            It may well be that one stone will not be left upon another.  It may well be that all will be thrown down.  But God promises that resurrection happens.  I trust that young minister of Pocosin mission found another parish or other ways to minister, and that his work was not in vain, but helped build something new.  I trust that we will endure our small apocalypses and sufferings, and it will enlarge our souls.  And I trust that in the end, when the end really does come, that the Kingdom of God in its fullness will astonish and delight us.  For God says, “I am about to create new heavens and a new earth..Be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating.”