Advent 2: Christmas Carols and the Love of God

A local radio station begins non-stop Christmas music the day after Thanksgiving. As hard as I try to observe Advent and Christmas as separate liturgical seasons, I confess that I do reset my car radio dial (buttons, really) to make this the station of choice. After all, you don’t want to miss Dominick the Italian Christmas Donkey.

I like the schmaltzy old Christmas tunes and their classic singers: Nat King Cole, Johnny Mathis, Bing Crosby, Andy Williams, Burl Ives, Perry Como, and that whole generation of crooners. I don’t much like modern re-makes; their performers seem to try too hard to be novel, to “put their own spin” on the songs, and it mainly comes off as labored or pretentious or just poor quality music. I do very much like the instrumentals – selections from the Percy Faith Orchestra to the Windham Hill Christmas collections to Tingstad and Rumbel to Mannheim Steamroller. My wife and daughter mainly share these preferences so that our home and car are filled with music and there are no epic battles for control of the CD player or radio.

What I don’t care for are the songs – primarily of recent vintage – that get all touchy-feely with God’s emotions as he beholds his Son made flesh. A song new to me this year, and typical of the genre, treats God as a proud and protective Papa looking over his sleeping child, soothing him and wishing him sweet dreams. I've done that with my child; probably every father has. So it only makes sense that God acts this way too. Right? The trouble with this, with such cheap and easy sentimentality is that it reasons upward from man to God, that it creates God in our own image – God as man writ large. It posits God’s love as different in degree only – and not in kind – from human love. Take the best in man, increase it by a notch or two, and there you have God. While there is not a total disconnect between man and God – we are, after all, created in God’s image and likeness – reasoning upward from man to God is always moving in the wrong direction. We don’t know the love of God by comparison to human love; we know the love of God because he has revealed it to us in Jesus Christ and we try our best, in the Spirit, to conform our human love to this pattern. We do not so much reason our way to God as we listen to and observe his revelation, and ultimately as we unite ourselves to his revelation in Christ through faith and sacrament and obedience. As the great Advent prophet Isaiah calls to us:

Seek the Lord while he wills to be found; *
call upon him when he draws near.
Let the wicked forsake their ways *
and the evil ones their thoughts;
And let them turn to the Lord, and he will have compassion, *
and to our God, for he will richly pardon.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, *
nor your ways my ways, says the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, *
so are my ways higher than your ways,
and my thoughts than your thoughts.[1]

Christmas is a sentimental time, bound inextricably with memories of family and friends and children – especially children. But, we can’t allow our sentimentality to compromise our theology. God is love, as shown in the incarnation of Christ, yes, but also as shown in the Garden, on the cross, and in the tomb – not so much sentimental as absolutely determined to put creation to rights regardless of the cost. God’s love is a purifying fire, a “reckless, raging fury” as Rich Mullins described it.

These truths don’t necessarily make good Christmas carols, but they do make good Christians who can and do and will sing the praises of God now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

[1] The Book of Common Prayer, 1979. Canticle 10, The Second Song of Isaiah.

Advent 1: Watch

We inhabit and are formed by story, inescapably so; our only real choice is which story or stories will form us. And many compete for that role. There is the patriotic story that forms us first as citizens ready to sacrifice all for the good of the nation/state. There is the commercial story that forms us first as producers and consumers willing to sacrifice all for economic security. There is the humanist story that forms us first as free and self-realized individuals willing to sacrifice all for personal happiness. And, there is the Christian story, that forms us first as the image-bearers of God, whose God was willing to sacrifice all for our salvation and for the reclamation of the cosmos. Which story will it be? We all must choose or others will be happy to choose for us.

Each story creates symbols and seasons, moments and rituals and objects in which the story is embedded and embodied. The Fourth of July is such a season and Old Glory is such a symbol in the patriotic story. Black Friday – and the whole season from just before Thanksgiving until just after New Year’s Day – serves the commercial story in a similar fashion. The Christian story has its Sacraments and its daily and weekly and yearly liturgies. Just now, the Christian story offers a symbol in time – the season of Advent. It is a way of making the story present to us again, of making us conscious of our place in it. And such consciousness is by no means easy to maintain. Advent shouts at us: Wake up – the night is far gone and the day is at hand. Your salvation is nearer now than when you first believed.

Advent relocates us in the midst of the story, far from Alpha, at an unknown remove from Omega and calls out – watch. St. Benedict began the prologue to his rule with the imperative listen; Advent begins with look. Look well in every direction possible: backward to the first advent – incarnation; forward to the last advent – parousia. But don’t forget to look around in the present, for we do not simply remember the once-present, now-absent Lord who will one day come again. We even now look around to see the Heavenly King, the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth Who is everywhere present and filling all things, the Treasury of good things and the Giver of life. We look for the Holy Spirit within and without to manifest God’s continuing presence with us. We look for the body of Christ, the church, to manifest God’s continuing presence with us. In the midst of the story, in the present moment, Advent proclaims, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, Who was, and Who is, and Who is to come.”

Advent is the time to look, to keep watch, to be prepared. We keep on believing; we keep on loving; we keep on obeying. But,

We are not simply to believe, but to watch; not simply to love, but to watch; not simply to obey, but to watch…to be detached from what is present, and to live in what in unseen; to live in the thought of Christ as he came once, and as he will come again, to desire his second coming.[1]

The Anglican collect for this first Sunday of Advent says it well:

Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead; we may rise to the life immortal; through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Watch.

[1] John Henry Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, quoted in Jon M. Sweeney, Cloister Talks.

Details: 4 Advent 2009

Sermon: 4 Advent (20 December 2009)
(Micah 5:2-5a/Luke 1:46b-55/Hebrews 10:5-10/Luke 1:39-45)
Details

Blessed be God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
And blessed be his kingdom, now and for ever. Amen.

Little details of the big story of Advent: that’s our focus today. Advent is such an epic tale, spanning centuries and nations, spanning eternity and heaven and earth, that little – yet rich and meaningful – details easily might go unnoticed or unmentioned unless we keep our eyes focused and our ears attuned to the small scale as well as to the large. So, today we look at the story writ small. It is sometimes said that the devil is in the details. But I think God is there.

In the Second Song of Isaiah we read these true words:

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, *
nor your ways my ways, says the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, *
so are my ways higher than your ways,
and my thoughts than your thoughts (BCP 14).

If there is a unifying theme to these little details of Advent it is precisely this: that God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, nor God’s ways our ways.

St. Luke has been and is our guide for this Advent, which is a good thing since he is a keen observer of detail. He prides himself on it, as he make clear in the prologue to his two-volume history, the Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles.

Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us, 2just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, 3I too decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4so that you may know the truth concerning the things about which you have been instructed (Luke 1:1-5, NRSV).

We saw Luke’s attention to detail in the Gospel reading last Sunday when he introduced the ministry of St. John the Forerunner.

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, 2during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness (Luke 3:1-2, NRSV).

Luke gives us a detailed accounting of time, after the fashion of his day; this is Luke the historian at work. A new ruler comes to power and the calendar resets and future events are measured from the beginning of his reign. Luke is thorough here; he mentions the powers-that-be at almost every level: Tiberius, ruler of the world; Pontius Pilate, his governor over Judea; Herod, the Idumean puppet-king of Galilee, and his co-regents Philip and Lysanias; Annas and Caiphas, the religious authorities in Jerusalem. Time and power are inseparable in this accounting. Time is a measure of power.

Now, let’s go back in the story of Advent some three decades to watch Luke address another measure of time. This time it’s not Luke the historian, but Luke the theologian.

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, 27to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary (Luke 1:26-27, NRSV).

In the sixth month: that’s all Luke writes to specify time – nothing about Caesar, nothing about Herod, nothing at all about any of the powers-that-were at the time. In the sixth month. What does this mean: in the sixth month of what, or in the sixth month since what? Since you know the big story, you know this detail: in the sixth month since the angel Gabriel announced to Zechariah that his barren, old wife would conceive and bear a son and that her son would be the forerunner, the herald, of God’s messiah. Now this is a different way to measure time: not from the ascension of a new world power like Caesar, but from the exaltation of a faithful old couple and from the in-breaking of God into human history.

God’s sense of time is not like ours. We operate in chronos time – the ordinary sequence of events that marks the passing of our seconds and minutes and hours and days until our time runs out. God operates on kairos time – the right season, the fullness of the times, the sudden interruption of chronos with an advent, a coming, of God into our midst. Luke the historian marks time from the beginning of Caesar’s rule – the fifteenth year of Tiberius – marks time based on human power. Luke the theologian marks time from the appearance of an angel, from the answer of prayer – the sixth month – marks time based on human weakness and God’s power.

This detail of Advent – this difference in God’s way of marking time – is a challenge to us: find God’s time – kairos – in the midst of the pressing rush of world time – chronos. Do you sometimes feel powerless, sometimes old and barren? That’s just chronos ticking away, of no consequence whatsoever. Look for God’s moment, God’s season – look for in-breaking kairos – in the midst of this. Look for Advent. God still answers prayer. God still sends angels – of all sorts – with his good news. God still prepares the way for his coming – and he is always on the move, always coming to us. Tell time not as a historian, but as a theologian. Look for God in your seconds and minutes and hours and days and lives.

A demon disguised as an angel of light came to one of the desert monks. “I am Gabriel,” the demon greeted him, “and I have been sent to you by God.” The old monk scarcely interrupted his prayers as he replied, “You must have the wrong person. I’ve done nothing to deserve a visit from an angel.” Immediately the demon disappeared.

Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And having come in, the angel said to her, “Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!”

But when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and considered what manner of greeting this was (Luke 1:26-26, NRSV).

These two stories aren’t so different, are they – except, of course, that it really was Gabriel who appeared to Mary? She is troubled by the angel’s greeting: highly favored one, blessed among women. Mary knows that, in the society of her day, she is ordinary, at best; she even describes her state as lowly, describes herself as a maidservant. And it would be difficult to imagine anyone apparently more powerless than Mary. But, a detail in the story changes all that. Unlike the desert monk Mary doesn’t say to Gabriel, “You must have the wrong person.” She says instead, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.” Then Gabriel departs, having received the assent, the faithful yes, of this ordinary woman who has become the most blessed among women. “Blessed is she who believed, for there will be a fulfillment of those things which were told her from the Lord,” Elizabeth tells her just a bit later.

This is the detail in the story, this one phrase: “Let it be to me according to your word.” When in God’s time – in kairos – it was time to step into history in the person of his only begotten son, when it was time to redeem the world, when it was time to put all things to rights again, God didn’t seek the help of the high and mighty or the rich and powerful. God sought only the “yes,” the faithfulness of one powerless young woman, the complete surrender of herself to the will of God. And that simple “yes” changed the world.

God’s sense of power is not like ours. I recently heard Barak Obama described as the most powerful man in the world. Really? By whose estimation and by what token? Was Caesar really the most powerful man in the world the day Gabriel appeared to Mary? Did he really hold in his hands the future of the world? Or was this lowly maidservant, this peasant woman more powerful in that moment than all the emperors Rome would ever know? The essence of human power lies in the simple, faithful yes to the will of God spoken by a lowly servant of God.

This detail of Advent – this difference in God’s sense of power – is a challenge to us: say yes to the will God. Though it may disrupt your plans, though a sword may pierce your heart, say yes to the will of God and release his incarnate power in your life and in the life of the world. True power lies in this small detail: in saying yes to God.

After she says yes, after she gives flesh to God, after she is hailed by Elizabeth as the mother of the Lord, Mary sings.

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior; *
for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed: *
the Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.
He has mercy on those who fear him *
in every generation.
He has shown the strength of his arm, *
he has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, *
and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things, *
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has come to the help of his servant Israel, *
for he has remembered his promise of mercy,
The promise he made to our fathers, *
to Abraham and his children for ever (BCP 19-20).

I’m neither an English teacher nor a Greek scholar – barely competent in only one of those languages, really – but I do find a striking detail of language in Mary’s Magnificat. It’s all there in the verb tense. Consider first the context of Mary’s song. Gabriel has spoken the word of God to Mary and Mary has conceived the Word of God in her womb. She hurries to see her kinswoman, Elizabeth, to make certainly all this is real; she needs to see the swelled belly of this old, barren woman. Upon her arrival Elizabeth greets her much as Gabriel had earlier: 42 Then she spoke out with a loud voice and said, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! 43 But why is this granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44 For indeed, as soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy. 45 Blessed is she who believed, for there will be a fulfillment of those things which were told her from the Lord” (Luke 1:42-45). Then Mary is sure. Then Mary sings.

He has shown the strength of his arm, *
he has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, *
and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things, *
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has come to the help of his servant Israel, *
for he has remembered his promise of mercy.

All these verbs show past action. Mary is singing about what God has already accomplished through the proclamation and fulfillment of the incarnation. Outwardly, nothing in Mary’s life has changed. The proud still disregard her lowly estate. The mighty – Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate, Herod, Annas and Caiaphas – still wield power. Dives still feasts while Lazarus begs. Israel is still in exile under Roman occupation. Or so it seems to everyone but Mary, for she has been shown the new reality that God has spoken into being – which brings us round again to the final words of Isaiah’s Second Song:

For as rain and snow fall from the heavens *
and return not again, but water the earth,
Bringing forth life and giving growth, *
seed for sowing and bread for eating,
So is my word that goes forth from my mouth; *
it will not return to me empty;
But it will accomplish that which I have purposed, *
and prosper in that for which I sent it (BCP 15).

The proud, the mighty, the rich, the oppressors: these do not create reality; God speaks reality into being. From the moment the words go forth from God’s mouth they are a fait accompli – a thing accomplished and irreversible. So what if our eyes do not yet see God’s reality; that is what faith is for. So what if our ears do not hear God’s new reality; that is what singing is for. So what if pride and might and wealth still seem to matter; that is what the incarnation is for. It’s all there in the details of the language – a new reality, a new creation, already spoken into existence by God Almighty, already “fleshed-out” in the incarnation.

This detail of Advent – this subtle use of language and the light it sheds upon reality – is a challenge to us: live by faith and not by sight. Confront every oppressive power in your life and in the life of the world with the good news that God has spoken a new reality into being, a new reality in which Jesus – the Word incarnate – is Lord, a new reality in which the Kingdom of God is among us even now and will one day be apparent to all.

These are just details of course, but what details.

Amen.

Coming and Going

Sermon: 3 Advent (13 December 2009)
(Zeph 3:14-20/Is 12:2-6/Phil 4:4-7/Luke 3:7-18)
Coming and Going

Blessed be God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
And blessed be his kingdom, now and for ever. Amen.

Following are the sermon notes for 3 Advent and not the full text. I hope
they are sufficient to point you in the same direction we will travel that day,
and I pray that the direction is a fruitful one for us all. May God grant
you a blessed Advent as you prepare the way for his coming.

Advent God and Advent Faith
Advent is a good name for the first season in the church year; it is a good description of our God and of our faith: Advent – coming. Our God is always on the move, always coming to us where we are. The notion that our God is distant and remote, that God is uninvolved and “stand-offish,” is strictly a non-Christian notion; that is neither our God nor our faith. Our God is always on the move, always coming to us where we are. Our God steps into history. Our God steps into creation as both Creator and – through the incarnation – part of creation. Our God is not afraid to get his hands dirty in the muck and mire of messy humanity. Our God is always on the move, always coming to us where we are – more often than not coming to us to rescue us from the mess we have made of things. We stand on the brink of the abyss of nonbeing (Athanasius, On the Incarnation), and our God comes to us there, comes to us to rescue us.

When our God comes to us, he comes to take us somewhere with him. Advent is both “coming and going.” God comes to us; we go with God. That is the consistent story that Scripture tells.

Abram in Ur of the Chaldees
Jacob in Haran;
Joseph in Egypt
Moses in Midian
Israel in Egypt
Israel in Assyria
Judah in Babylon

Our God is always on the move, coming to us where we are and taking us somewhere with him.

Where does God take us? God comes to us in our exile to lead us back to our true home; he comes to lead us back to himself. See Zephaniah 3:14-20 and Isaiah 12:2-6. Both are return-from-exile prophecies; God comes to us to take us home, to claim us again as his own. Advent is salvation: God on the move, God coming to us where we are in our exile and taking us with him to be with him.

All this coming and going is God’s initiative and not our own. But, we do have our own role to play in Advent. Coming and going requires having a road to travel. It is our Advent role to prepare the road. See Luke 3:1-6. The road by which God travels to come to us is filled with deep valleys, high mountains, crooked stretches, and rough ways. It is the path to our heart and we have failed to maintain it; so, there is much work to be done. This is where the Advent story becomes our story; we have a road to prepare into our hearts and lives, so that God might come to us where we are and take us to be with him.

What must we do to prepare the way for the Lord? What work is required?

Repentance (metanoia) – not just sorrow and not guilt, but a work that transforms our perception, a fundamental realignment to God’s truth and presence. Metanoia is work – hard work; it is the product of prayer, fasting, and obedience. It is a lifelong commitment.

Humility –“ God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble” (1 Pe 5:5). The falls of both Satan and man were caused by pride. Of all Advent virtues, the desert fathers valued humility most highly. See “It All Boils Down To This.” What is humility? See “Humility.” Pride is making yourself the subject of every thought sentence: “I want,” “I plan,” “I think,” “I will.” Humility is making yourself the object: “God wants for me,” “God’s plan for me,” “God reveals to me,” “God’s will for me.” Humility clears the biggest obstacle from the road: ourselves.

Joy – “Rejoice in the Lord always; and again I will say rejoice” (Phil 4:4). Rejoicing is the proclamation that God is good, that we wish him to come to us, that we wish to go with him. See Ps 126. This is a perfect Advent psalm: God coming to us in our exile to take us home to be with him, along the way we have prepared through repentance, humility, and joy.

Let us pray.

Lord God Almighty, you come to us in grace, with power and great glory: Grant us true repentance, genuine humility, and abundant joy that we might make straight and level the path of you coming in the time of your advent; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Temple Tales: Sermon (2 Advent 2009)

Sermon: 2 Advent (6 December 2009)
(Malachi 3:1-4/Luke 1:68-79/Philippians 1:3-11/Luke 3:1-6)
Temple Tales

Let us give thanks to the Lord.
For he is good, and his mercy endures forever. Amen.

Advent is the time for stories. I come today to offer three – temple tales, all.

First things first: the first temple tale of Solomon’s temple. Israel assembles in holy convocation before the Lord and before the newly completed temple in Jerusalem. In their hearing Solomon concludes his magnificent dedicatory prayer (2 Chr 6) with an invocation of God’s presence.

41 “Now therefore, arise, O LORD God, to Your resting place, You and the ark of Your strength. Let Your priests, O LORD God, be clothed with salvation, and let Your saints rejoice in goodness.
42 “O LORD God, do not turn away the face of Your Anointed; Remember the mercies of Your servant David” (2 Chr 6:41-42, NKJV).

And then God acts; God appears with power and great glory.

1 When Solomon had finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices; and the glory of the LORD filled the temple.2 And the priests could not enter the house of the LORD, because the glory of the LORD had filled the LORD’s house. 3 When all the children of Israel saw how the fire came down, and the glory of the LORD on the temple, they bowed their faces to the ground on the pavement, and worshiped and praised the LORD, saying: “For He is good, for His mercy endures forever.”4 Then the king and all the people offered sacrifices before the LORD (2 Chr 7:1-4).

The Shekinah Glory, later Jewish writers call it: the glory of God’s presence dwelling among his people in his temple, in the Holy of Holies, between the outstretched wings of the cherubim, over the ark of the covenant. And there it remains through the reign of Solomon, through the division of the kingdom in his son Rehoboam’s day, through the moral and social decay of successive generations in Judah until, as Ezekiel witnesses in a vision, the glory of the Lord departs from the threshold of the temple (Eze 10).

And then come the destroyers, the Babylonians. Someone who saw, or someone who heard, laments the destruction of the temple following the withdrawal of the Shekinah Glory (Ps 74).

O God, why have you utterly cast us off? *
why is your wrath so hot against the sheep of your pasture?

Remember your congregation that you purchased long ago, *
the tribe you redeemed to be your inheritance,
and Mount Zion where you dwell.

Turn your steps toward the endless ruins; *
the enemy has laid waste everything in your sanctuary.

Your adversaries roared in your holy place; *
they set up their banners as tokens of victory.

They were like men coming up with axes to a grove of trees; *
they broke down all your carved work with hatchets
and hammers.

They set fire to your holy place; *
they defiled the dwelling‑place of your Name
and razed it to the ground.

They said to themselves, “Let us destroy them altogether.” *
They burned down all the meeting‑places of God
in the land.

There are no signs for us to see;
there is no prophet left; *
there is not one among us who knows how long.

How long, O God, will the adversary scoff? *
will the enemy blaspheme your Name for ever (Ps 74, BCP)?

It will be some forty years before the exiles return to worship God again on the temple mount – until a second temple tale can be told. Under the leadership of Zerubbabel the repatriated exiles lay the foundations for a second temple – lay the foundations and weep.

10 When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the LORD, the priests stood in their apparel with trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals, to praise the LORD, according to the ordinance of David king of Israel. 11 And they sang responsively, praising and giving thanks to the LORD: “For He is good, for His mercy endures forever toward Israel.”
Then all the people shouted with a great shout, when they praised the LORD, because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid.12 But many of the priests and Levites and heads of the fathers’ houses, old men who had seen the first temple, wept with a loud voice when the foundation of this temple was laid before their eyes. Yet many shouted aloud for joy, 13 so that the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people, for the people shouted with a loud shout, and the sound was heard afar off (Ezra 3:10-13, NKJV).

The old men who had seen the former glory of Solomon’s temple weep with sorrow and shame for their loss. Much is missing, as the tale of the temple’s completion makes clear by omission.

15 Now the temple was finished on the third day of the month of Adar, which was in the sixth year of the reign of King Darius. 16 Then the children of Israel, the priests and the Levites and the rest of the descendants of the captivity, celebrated the dedication of this house of God with joy. 17 And they offered sacrifices at the dedication of this house of God, one hundred bulls, two hundred rams, four hundred lambs, and as a sin offering for all Israel twelve male goats, according to the number of the tribes of Israel. 18 They assigned the priests to their divisions and the Levites to their divisions, over the service of God in Jerusalem, as it is written in the Book of Moses (Ezra 6:15-18, NKJV).

Where is the fire from heaven? Where is the Shekinah Glory? Neither is to be found. God does not come to dwell in his temple as he did of old; so our tradition teaches us.

A century later and the people are still waiting, still longing for the glory of God to come to his temple. The land is devastated with famine and drought; crops and flocks fail. Israel is under constant military threat from surrounding enemies. Survival is precarious. If only God would come to his temple, come to vindicate his people. And there arises in answer to the people’s longing a prophet – the last prophet – with a burden of the word of the Lord to Israel. “You want the Lord to return to his temple? You do not know what you ask. For when he returns, it will not be to vindicate Israel, but to judge Israel for its polluted offerings, its corrupt priests, its marital unfaithfulness, its perversion of justice (Mal 1-4). Yes, God will return as you wish:

But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire and like launderers’ soap. 3 He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver; He will purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer to the LORD an offering in righteousness” (Mal 3:2-3, NKJV).

The Shekinah Glory will return to the temple, but in judgment; God will come, but he will come to cleanse and to purify. And, before he comes, to warn and to prepare the people, he will send a messenger.

“Behold, I send My messenger, and he will prepare the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple, even the Messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight. Behold, He is coming,” says the LORD of hosts.

5 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD. 6 And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse” (Mal 3:1; 4:5-6, NKJV).

And thus we come to the third of our temple tales, to an old, childless priest offering incense before the Lord in Herod’s Temple. An angel of the Lord appears to him – Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God – and assures priest Zacharias that his prayers – his secret prayers for a son – have been heard and will be honored. And in the answer to this prayer lies the fulfillment of Malachi’s prophecy; the messenger of the Lord is coming, as Gabriel says:

“Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your prayer is heard; and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. 14 And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth. 15 For he will be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink. He will also be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. 16 And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. 17 He will also go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, ‘to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,’ and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord” (Luke 1:13b-17, NKJV).

Some thirty years later this messenger, this Elijah, bursts on the scene calling Israel to repentance – calling Israel to be cleansed and purified – before the Lord returns to his temple.

And so the Lord comes to his temple once again – the Shekinah in flesh and blood.

14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. 15 John bore witness of Him and cried out, saying, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me is preferred before me, for He was before me.’” 16 And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace (John 1:14-16, NKJV).

The glory of God in the face of Christ comes to his temple: as a baby received by righteous Anna and holy Simeon, as a teacher rejected by Pharisee and Sadducee, as a savior crucified by all men. He comes just as Malachi foretold – to cleanse and to purify, with fuller’s soap and refiner’s fire: to cleanse and to purify not by judging sinners such as we, but by judging sin itself, in his own body, by embracing sin to the death and by rising again victorious. Such is the third temple tale.

And though I promised only three tales, there is a fourth which must be told. For there is yet another temple.

Throughout Advent we say or sing in one form or another, “Come, Lord Jesus,” or “Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” Come, return to your temple; shine the light of your glory upon us. As we speak or sing these words we look to the past, to the first Advent: to dreams and prophecies, to angels and promises, to stable and manger, to a child in Bethlehem, to hidden glory in flesh and blood. As we speak or sing these words we look to the future, to the final Advent: to white horses and white thrones, to books and scrolls, to the Lamb who was slain coming in power and great glory to judge and to vindicate. But, surely, as we speak or sing these words we look also to the present; we look for a present Advent: “Come, Lord Jesus, to the temple of our hearts and lives. Come to cleanse us. Come to purify us. Come to make us fit dwellings for your presence.” Surely, as we speak or sing these words, we hear the voice of Malachi’s messenger Elijah – John, son of Zacharias and Elizabeth – call to us all, “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand,” and the glory of the Lord is even now returning to his temple. And remembering these temple tales, we offer a most fitting Advent prayer:

O Heavenly King, Comforter, Spirit of Truth,
Who art everywhere present and fillest all things,
Treasury of good things and Giver of life:
Come and dwell in us, and cleanse us of all impurity,
and save our souls, O Good One.
Amen.

Stories and Hope: Sermon 1 Advent (29 Nov 2009)

Sermon: 1 Advent (29 November 2009)
(Jeremiah 33:14-16/Psalm 25:1-10/1 Thessalonians 3:9-13/Luke 21:25-36)
Stories and Hope

In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit:
As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.

I believe that story has power to form people – more power than reason or will or fear or shame. It is not incidental that Scripture is, first and foremost, story. Yes, there is law and prophecy and theology, but these are always embedded in story and are always at the service of story. When the gospel is proclaimed it is not with the wisdom of philosophers or the logic of mathematicians, it is not with the arguments of lawyers or the methods of scientists; it is with the poetry and plot and character of story: the story of creation, fall, and redemption – of God our creator, Jesus our Redeemer, and the Holy Spirit, our Sanctifier. The story we hear, the story we believe, the story we live: this story makes all the difference in this world and in the world to come.

I think a lot about the stories we tell today, about the stories that form us as a people. These stories are not always explicit – rarely does anyone say, “Let me tell you a story.” – but they are always there and may be inferred from the behaviors and lifestyles they form. Does anyone else find it ironic that the day following Thanksgiving – a holyday set aside to reflect on our multitude of blessings – is Black Friday, the day which encourages and celebrates conspicuous consumption, as if the blessings for which we gave thanks some 12 hours earlier were not nearly sufficient? There is a story there that underlies that bizarre behavior – a story that tells us that we are primarily consumers, that our worth is measured by our buying power. We have been told that story in thousands of subtle and not so subtle ways until we accept is as true and act on it unthinkingly. I watched a bit of the American Music Association (AMA) Awards recently and took it as a commentary on modern youth culture. The blatant and often aberrant sexuality of the performances obscured any musical quality and told another story, that we are primarily sexual beings and that music and art have nothing to do with truth and beauty but are mere aphrodisiacs. Our country is at war on multiple fronts, and whatever you think about those engagements, there is a story that justifies them, a story that says our security depends on power and violence. I think a lot about the stories we tell today, about the stories that form us as a people, and I wonder.

I wonder what stories Israel told in Egypt: slave stories or covenant stories, bondage stories or deliverance stories? Did they tell of Noah, who alone was righteous in his generation, and who was delivered by God from the destruction of the world – delivered to bless all mankind with life and knowledge of God? Did they tell of Abram, elect of God: called to leave his father’s house, called into covenant with God Almighty, promised children as the stars of the heavens, given a land, and delivered time and again – from pharaoh, from Abimelech, from Chederlaomer? Did they tell of Abram’s line, of Isaac and Jacob, each of whom received the covenant in his turn and each of whom was delivered by God? Did they tell of Joseph: of his fall from beloved son to foreign slave, of his rise from powerless prisoner to the right hand of pharaoh – yet another tale of God’s covenant faithfulness and the deliverance of his elect? Did Israel in Egypt feed its children on the bread of slave stories or on the manna – though it lay in the future – of these stories of hope and deliverance, stories of their God who always comes in deliverance of his chosen? I wonder what stories Israel told in Egypt.

There will be other stories for Israel, told not in words but in deed of power, acts of deliverance: water turned to blood, frogs, gnats, boils, darkness, hail, and the terrible death of Egypt’s firstborn sons. There will be stories told not in words but in sacred symbol: blood on the doorposts and lintels, a lamb roasted whole and eaten while standing, unleavened bread. There will be stories told not in words but in awe and wonder: a pillar of cloud and fire, a sea parting for one people and closing in over another, a mountain quaking with the presence of God – with thunder and smoke and darkness, a tablet of stone become Law. There will be stories told not with pride, but with shame: a golden calf, fear of giants, wilderness wandering, disobedience and death. There will be stories told not in whispers, but with shouts of victory: Jericho, Ai (the second time), and city after city given into Israel’s hand by their God Almighty. There will be stories of priests and prophets: Eli and Samuel. There will be stories of the kingdom – At last! – and its great kings Saul, David, and Solomon. And there will be stories of civil war and secession: rival kings Rehoboam and Jereboam – and rival kingdoms Judah and Israel, and the nation rent asunder. There will be stories of idolatry in Israel and social decay in Judah. There will be stories of Assyria and Babylon and destruction and captivity and exile until Israel is no more and Judah is a memory.

I wonder what stories the Jews told in exile, what stories they told by the river Kebar in Babylon: exile stories or covenant stories, captivity stories or deliverance stories? Did they tell the story of Jeremiah the prophet, the story of his oracles?

14 ‘Behold, the days are coming,’ says the LORD, ‘that I will perform that good thing which I have promised to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah: 15 ‘ In those days and at that time I will cause to grow up to David A Branch of righteousness; He shall execute judgment and righteousness in the earth. 16 In those days Judah will be saved, And Jerusalem will dwell safely. And this is the name by which she will be called:
THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS’ (Jer 33:14-16, NKJV).

This is a story worth telling, a story of hope for captives and exiles. It is a story of the once and future king. Long ago God had made covenant with his servant David, king of Israel.

‘Thus says the LORD of hosts: “I took you from the sheepfold, from following the sheep, to be ruler over My people, over Israel. 9 And I have been with you wherever you have gone, and have cut off all your enemies from before you, and have made you a great name, like the name of the great men who are on the earth. 10 Moreover I will appoint a place for My people Israel, and will plant them, that they may dwell in a place of their own and move no more; nor shall the sons of wickedness oppress them anymore, as previously, 11 since the time that I commanded judges to be over My people Israel, and have caused you to rest from all your enemies. Also the LORD tells you that He will make you a house.12 “When your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 14 I will be his Father, and he shall be My son. If he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men and with the blows of the sons of men. 15 But My mercy shall not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I removed from before you. 16 And your house and your kingdom shall be established forever before you. Your throne shall be established forever”’” (2 Sam 7:8b-16, NKJV).

Israel’s hope in exile is this: that the story told by Jeremiah is true, that God will fulfill his covenant to David, that God will raise up a king – a Righteous Branch – from the lineage of David, that this king will judge the enemies of God’s people and vindicate the elect in righteousness, that Judah will be saved and Jerusalem restored, and that God – in the person of the righteous king – will reign over his people forever. This is Jeremiah’s story. This is the exiles’ story. And, this is our story.

We gather today to tell the story once again as we have year after year for two millennia. God fulfilled his covenant with David and his promise to Israel – and through Israel to the world. God raised up a Branch of Righteousness from the house of David and gave to him an everlasting kingdom over all the earth. And when this branch, Jesus of Nazareth, was cut down, God raised him up again and exalted him to God’s own right hand and gave him a name above all names, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow – whether in heaven, or on earth, or under the earth – and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father (cf Phil 2:9-11, NKJV). And this same Jesus who now reigns in heaven will one day bring his kingdom fully to earth – the holy city, New Jerusalem, descending from heaven to earth, adorned and gleaming like a bride prepared for her husband. And thus we shall be forever with the Lord.

Advent, we call this story: coming. It is a story that stands in the middle of time and looks in both directions: past to angel and maiden, to shepherds and magi, to stable and manger, and future to clouds and power, to great glory and redemption.

25 “And there will be signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars; and on the earth distress of nations, with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring; 26 men’s hearts failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 27 Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. 28 Now when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near” (Lk 21:25-28, NKJV).

To those of us who live as exiles, as resident aliens in a land not our own, this story is good news; this is a story of hope. And so we watch and wait and pray to keep the hope alive. We watch and wait and pray that we may be found worthy to stand before our coming king (cf Lk 21:36, NKJV). We watch and wait and pray that the Lord may establish our hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints (cf 1 Thess 3:13, NKJV). We fast in hope of the feast to come. We light candles in hope that we will see the light of Christ and that the light will shine forth through us into this dark world. We sing, “O Come, O Come Emmanuel,” in hope that our longing will soon be fulfilled. We tell the story in word and symbol and sacred action, in hope.

The world has its stories: money, sex, and power. It shouts them in every venue. But the stories are lies; the stories are without hope. Thanks be to God we have a different story: creation, fall, redemption. This story is true; this story is hope incarnate. This story is advent past and advent yet to come. And so we say in the cry of the early church: Marana tha! Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

Let us pray.

Stir up thy power, O Lord, and come, that by thy protection we may be rescued from the dangers that beset us through our sins; and be a Redeemer to deliver us; Who livest and reignest with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

Sermon: 3 Advent (14 December 2008)

Sermon: 3 Advent (14 December 2008)
(Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11/Psalm 126/1 Thessalonians 5:16-24/John 1:6-8, 19-28)
A Certain Style

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

He comes fresh from his first preaching tour of Galilee. Following hard on the heels of his baptism and victory over Satan in the wilderness, the tour was wildly successful; his reputation as rabbi and wonder-worker has spread throughout the region and now precedes him from village to village. And now he comes home to Nazareth. It is the sabbath and, as is his custom, he attends the synagogue; but, he attends now as a celebrity, as a hometown boy made good. Jesus is asked to read Torah and speak to family and family friends that day. Luke takes up the story.

16 When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: 18‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, 19to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’ 20And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing’ (Luke 4:16-20, NRSV).

The text chosen by Jesus that day – or perhaps the text chosen for Jesus that day – is a portion of the Old Testament lesson chosen for us this day: Isaiah 61, in which the prophet looks to the future and sees an anointed one, a messiah, sent by God to bring good news to his people, to announce Jubilee, to heal what is broken, to release what is bound, to open blind eyes and deaf ears, to dry tears and to comfort mourning hearts. How many times has this passage been read in the little synagogue in Nazareth? How many years have the people longed for the one to come, for the anointed one? “Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing,” Jesus says. Today, your wait is over. The one speaking in the midst of you is the anointed of God, the Holy One of Israel.

Sitting in that little synagogue in Nazareth that sabbath morning Jesus is absolutely certain of his identity and his vocation; he knows who he is and what he is called to accomplish. Throughout his ministry others get confused and try – sometimes inadvertently, sometimes intentionally – to redefine Jesus or to substitute their agenda for his. Satan in the wilderness: “If you are the son of God.” Jesus’ mother at the wedding in Cana of Galilee: “They are out of wine.” The Samaritan woman at the well of Sychar: “I see that you are a prophet.” The multitudes everywhere: “Feed us bread as you fed the thousands.” The scribes and Pharisees and Sadducees in Judea: “Give us a sign.” And Peter, time after time and place after place: “Surely, Lord, this shall never happen to you,” or “Surely, Lord you shall never wash my feet.” Well, no matter the others: Jesus was absolutely certain of his identity and his vocation. They came from his Father, through the words of the holy prophets.

This is important, I think. Jesus did not define himself; he was no self-made man in that sense. His nature and vocation were determined by his God and Father. “For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me” (John 6:38, NIV), Jesus said to the crowds. And to the Father, at his moment of greatest trial, “Yet, not as I will, but as you will” (Mt 26:39b, NIV).

Because Jesus allowed God to define his nature and determine his vocation, Jesus’ life had a certain – and here I’ve struggled to find the right words – his life had a certain style or character to it – a flavor or aroma, in sensual terms – seldom experienced in his time or in ours. You see it in the unwavering trust he had in his God and Father and the resulting lack of worry. Read the Sermon on the Mount again; it is a manifesto of trust.

25 ‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? 28And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, 29yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. 30But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31Therefore do not worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear?” 32For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
34 ‘So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today’ (Mt 6:25-34, NRSV).

Or again,

7 ‘Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. 8For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. 9Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone? 10Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake? 11If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him’ (Mt 7:7-11, NRSV)!

Because Jesus allowed God to define his nature and determine his vocation, Jesus lived carefree in the care of God (from Luke 22:24, Message) – total trust in the Father, total rejection of worry – and he wanted the same for his disciples.

You see the style and character of Jesus’ life in his leisurely attitude toward ministry. Did anyone ever have so much to accomplish in so short a time? And yet, Jesus never seems hurried. Do you remember Jesus’ reputation among his detractors? They declare him a glutton and a wine-bibber – isn’t that an interesting phrase – because of the significant amount of time he spends at banquets and parties, time spent largely in the presence of notorious sinners. And though his disciples think he is too important and his time too valuable to waste on children, Jesus – on more than one occasion – holds children up as model disciples and takes time to touch and bless them. He spends quiet evenings with friends and disciples in Bethany at the home of Mary and Martha and Lazarus – and this during his last week of earthly ministry. He travels extensively, walking throughout Galilee and Judea, but there is no record of him running or rushing from place to place. Because Jesus allowed God to define his nature and determine his vocation, Jesus knew that ministry was not what you did in another place and another time, but what you do right here and right now. Wherever he was, Jesus was Isaiah’s anointed one, bringing good news to the poor and proclaiming release to the captive. Wherever he was, that was the very center of God’s will. Larry Huntsperger, in his novel of St. Peter – The Fisherman – has Peter voice this description of Jesus’ ministry.

His approach to Israel was simple: He stepped into the center of our world. Through his words and his actions he enabled everyone to see exactly who he was and what he was like. Then he allowed us to decide for ourselves what we would do about it.

Jesus could allow everyone to see exactly who he was and what he was like because he knew exactly who he was, because he allowed God to define his nature and determine his vocation.

There is so much more. We could speak of Jesus’ integrity – never the hypocrite, always true to his nature. We could speak of his authority, which even his detractors grudgingly acknowledged. We could speak of his power. But all these – everything Jesus demonstrated himself to be – hinged on this one thing: Jesus allowed God to define his nature and determine his vocation.

It was the same with John the Baptizer. He wasn’t his own man; he was a man under authority, a man defined by God’s will. And because of this, he knew exactly who he was and what he was to accomplish.

1:6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.
1:7 He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him.
1:8 He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.
1:19 This is the testimony given by John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, "Who are you?"
1:20 He confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, "I am not the Messiah."
1:21 And they asked him, "What then? Are you Elijah?" He said, "I am not." "Are you the prophet?" He answered, "No."
1:22 Then they said to him, "Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?"
1:23 He said, "I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, 'Make straight the way of the Lord,'" as the prophet Isaiah said (John 1:6-8, 19-23, NRSV).

Who are you? the authorities want to know, and John can tell them. Here is a man absolutely certain of his identity and vocation. They came from God Almighty, through the words of one, old priest, and the words of the holy prophets.

76And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, 77to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins (Luke 1, 76-77, NRSV).

Zechariah made certain John knew who he was and what he was about – and that he knew these things came from God.

Because John allowed God to define his nature and determine his vocation, John’s life had a certain style or character to it – a flavor or aroma, in sensual terms – seldom experienced in his time or in ours. You see it in his willingness to be just a voice – not a complete person even, just a voice – a voice speaking a script not even its own. You see it in his willingness to fade away, to decrease so that the bridegroom might increase. You see it in his refusal to be silent when being silent was the safe thing to do, the expedient thing to do, but not the righteous thing to do. There is so much more. We could speak of John’s impartiality – his willingness to accept the pious Jewish Pharisees and the pagan Roman soldiers on, and only on, the same condition of repentance. We could speak of his humility when contemplating Christ and especially on meeting Jesus: “I should be baptized by you, and you come to me?” We could speak of discipline and asceticism, of time alone in the wilderness and the life-long nazirite vow. But all these – everything John demonstrated himself to be – hinged on this one thing: John allowed God to define his nature and determine his vocation.

This really makes all the difference in this world and the next, doesn’t it? Thoreau once said that the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation, and my experience doesn’t lead me to challenge him. We wake in the morning and drag ourselves out of bed to do something that someone else says is important – or even that we think is worthwhile – something to pay the bills, something to fund a retirement account that will allow us one day to do something we really want to do. And we wonder what that will be. If we could do anything with our lives we wanted, what would we do? How many of us can even answer that question without much soul searching? We move through the day largely on autopilot, mindlessly doing tasks that can be done mindlessly or else so caught up in the challenging tasks at hand that we don’t have time to breath or think or reflect. We wear ourselves out and wear ourselves down in the service and name of – what? At night we eat a meal – or grab a bite – scarcely pausing to think of the holiness of the bread we have received. We fill a couple of hours with – well, we fill a couple of hours – and then drop into bed, wondering what’s become of our days and our lives.

Admittedly, this is an overly dismal picture; our days aren’t really so bad – they are punctuated with excitement and meaning and joy and love. But not many of us – at least not many of us from my experience – lead lives of style and character like Jesus and John the Baptizer. And why not? Because we are still holding on, still trying to define ourselves and determine our own vocation. We, too, can have lives like Jesus and John; but, there is a price to be paid. We must relinquish hold of our lives. We must let God, and God alone, define our nature and determine our vocation: tell us who we are and what we are to accomplish.

“See what love the Father has given us,” St. John writes,

that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now (emphasis added); what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure (1 John 3:1-3, NRSV).

Start here, start now, with the knowledge that God declares you to be his beloved child in Christ Jesus. The world may – the world almost certainly will – tell you otherwise to suit its agenda. No matter: we are determined to let God, and God alone, define our nature, and he calls us sons and daughters.

And what of our vocation? Paul gets us started – those of us in Christ Jesus.

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you (emphasis added). Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise the words of prophets, but test everything; hold fast to what is good; abstain from every form of evil (1 Thessalonians 5:16-23, NRSV).

Start here, start now, with the knowledge that God has called you to a holy vocation: to rejoice, to pray, to give thanks, to embrace the good and reject the evil. The world may – the world almost certainly will – tell you otherwise to suit its agenda. No matter: we are determined to let God, and God alone, define our vocation, and he calls us to holy work, to kingdom work, to work of eternal value. Not some of us, but all of us. Not somewhere else, but anywhere we are.

If we are resolute in this commitment to let God define our nature and determine our vocation then we have this blessing and this promise:

May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do this (1 Thessalonians 5:23-24, NRSV).

Amen.

Sermon: 1 Advent 2008

Sermon: 1 Advent (30 Nov 2008)
(Isaiah 64:1-9/Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19/1 Corinthians 1:3-9/Mark 13:24-37)
Advent: Stories and Lessons

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

St. Irenaeus, the second century bishop of Lyons and vigorous apologist for the faith, was only once removed from the apostle John: Irenaeus was mentored by John’s disciple, Polycarp, whose own faith was crowned with martyrdom. What Irenaeus has to say about the apostles, then, has about it the mantle of authenticity, the ring of truth.

So, recently I read with interest one of Irenaeus’ few surviving works: On The Apostolic Preaching. I’m not certain what I expected to find there: a theology of preaching, an apostolic how-to manual on sermon construction and delivery, transcriptions of great sermons by St. John? What I did find there was the story. Starting with creation, Irenaeus tells the story: the rebellion of man and the introduction of sin and death into creation; the calling of a man, Abram, and the creation of a people, the Jews, through whom God would redeem and restore creation; the making of covenants and the giving of Law. Irenaeus tells the story of judges, kings, and prophets; of a kingdom lost and restored; and of Jesus – first and foremost of Jesus, the fulfillment of the story.

What has this to do with the apostolic preaching? This is more creed than sermon, more catechesis than oration. And yet, it is the apostolic preaching – the content, the essence of the apostolic proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. When they preached, the apostles told the story; Acts makes that clear – Peter, Stephen, Philip, Paul. The early evangelists told the story of what God had promised through Israel to the world, and of how God had fulfilled those very promises in Jesus of Nazareth: born of a virgin, crucified under Pontius Pilate, raised to new and everlasting life through the power of God, ascended to glory at the right hand of God Almighty, and coming again to judge the living and the dead. Apostolic preaching, Irenaeus reminds us, is the telling of the story – the telling of this particular story and no other.

So it is that the church today – the one, holy, catholic and Apostolic church – continues to tell the story. Our scriptures tell the story. Our hymns tell the story. Our prayers – most fully our Eucharistic Prayers – tell the story. And – please, God – our lives tell the story.

We tell the story in time: in daily and weekly and yearly cycles. We rise in the morning and it is the dawn of creation. We pass our waking hours in toil, earning our bread from thorn-infested ground, sure sign of the fall. We live and laugh and love and sin. And each night we lay ourselves down to die, confessing our sins, committing ourselves into God’s keeping, and hoping for resurrection in the morning, for new life in Jesus Christ – the story told in a day.
For six days each week we remember the old creation, pronounced good and very good by God Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, and ruined by our father Adam and our mother Eve and by every one of their descendants since – everyone save one. On the seventh day, which is for us the first day of the week, we celebrate new creation, the restoration of all things through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the new Adam in whom and through whom the curse of sin and death is destroyed, in whom and through whom all things are made new and pronounced once again good and very good – the story told in a week. Week after week, season upon season, we celebrate the feasts and keep the fasts of the church: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, Easter, Pentecost and back around again – the story told in a year. Days make weeks, weeks make seasons, seasons make years, and years make lives: our lives tell the story in time.

We tell the story, in part, because it forms us: it tells us from whence we’ve come, who we are, and where we’re headed. There are other stories, of course, and all of us are storied people – no exceptions. There is no truly self-made man or woman; each of us is the product of a culture and therefore the product of the culture’s stories. We believe this story, and so we tell it again and again. We believe it is true. We believe that it is life giving. We believe that it gives order and meaning and direction to the smaller stories of our lives.

A story is always on the move, always going somewhere. It not only has characters; it has plot – purposeful movement toward its climax. But, there is always some danger of getting stuck in a story, of refusing to let the story carry you along. If you know where to look, you see evidence of this in the church. There is the man who has reduced the faith to keeping the rules, who seeks to establish his own righteousness by strict obedience to the “law of God” – a harsh, rigid, fearful man. Such a man is stuck on Mt. Sinai, stuck in the wilderness, stuck with the Pharisees. He has not let the story carry him along to the grace of God in Christ Jesus. There is the woman who keeps Jesus in the manger in Bethlehem, who is so captivated by the gentleness of the holy infant, meek and mild, that she refuses to move with Jesus to the cross and beyond. Life is always Christmas and never Good Friday; worse still, never Easter. There are groups – like the Corinthian Christians to whom Paul wrote – who get stuck in Pentecost, constantly demanding charismatic proof of God’s presence, and who never move on to love, the greatest of the Spirit’s gifts. And, perhaps worst of all, there are Christians who become mired in the Ascension, who see Jesus as absent and so very distant, who have lost all hope of his return.

There is always some danger of getting stuck in a story, of refusing to let the story carry you along. That is one reason the church tells the story – the whole story – each year, time and again. Mother Church refuses to let her children get stuck; the worship of the church forces you along in the story, sometimes against your will, sometimes kicking and screaming, but moving nonetheless.

Today, the church begins the story anew with Advent. It is a chapter of characters: the great epic prophet Isaiah, the elderly and dubious priest Zechariah, his barren wife Elizabeth, and their seriously odd son John, the forerunner and herald of Jesus. Characters, yes, but there is plot, too; in the story, the chapter we call Advent takes us somewhere. Advent always looks beyond itself toward the coming of God Almighty.

O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence— 2 as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil—to make your name known to your adversaries, so that the nations might tremble at your presence (Is 64:1-2, NRSV)!

This is the Advent for which Isaiah longs: God’s return to a desolate Israel, to an exiled people; God’s return to deliver and vindicate his chosen people and to judge the nations. “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down!” And yet Isaiah’s advent longing is filled with trepidation: Israel, too, is filled with iniquity and, like the nations, deserves God’s judgment. So, while Isaiah calls upon God to tear open the heavens and come down, he does so with a plea for mercy:

8Yet, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. 9Do not be exceedingly angry, O Lord, and do not remember iniquity for ever. Now consider, we are all your people (Is 64:8-9, NRSV).

This is Isaiah’s advent lesson to us today: any invocation of God – every invocation of God – must also be a plea for mercy:

Holy God, Holy and Mighty,
Holy Immortal One:
Have Mercy upon us.

“For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us,” we pray: and well we should.

We listen to Isaiah and learn his advent lesson, but the story moves on and we are swept along with it; there are other advents.

It is Holy Week as Jesus and his disciples exit the temple.

As he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!’ 2Then Jesus asked him, ‘Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.’
3 When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, 4‘Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished (Mark 13:1-4, NRSV)?’

This is the advent that brought tears to Jesus eyes as he approached Jerusalem – an advent of immanent judgment and destruction.

41 As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it, 42saying, ‘If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. 43Indeed, the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up ramparts around you and surround you, and hem you in on every side. 44They will crush you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave within you one stone upon another; because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God (Luke 19:41-44).’

What can one do in the face of such an advent? Simply this: be ready. Be found faithfully about the Master’s work when the Master returns.

33Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. 34It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. 35Therefore, keep awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, 36or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. 37And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake (Mark 13:33-37).’

This is Jesus’ advent message to us today: keep awake, keep alert, watch, work. Then you will be among the elect gathered by the angels from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.

We listen to Jesus and learn his advent lesson, but the story moves on again and we are swept along with it; there is yet another advent.

“Grace to you and peace from God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ,” our brother Paul writes to the church in Corinth. Unruly, undisciplined, outrageous, but enthusiastic and faithful: Corinth was the worst the church had to offer, and the best. And Paul gives thanks for them always, for the grace of God given them in Jesus Christ.

5[For] in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind— 6just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you— 7so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor 1:5-7, NRSV).

This is advent future – the advent yet to come – the revealing, the apocalypse, of our Lord Jesus Christ. More than any other, this is the advent chapter of the story in which we live. Isaiah caught us up in the story and Jesus swept us along. Paul incorporates us and gives us our script as we wait for the final revealing of the Lord Jesus Christ. And what is Paul’s advent lesson for us?

8He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord (1 Cor 1:8-9, NRSV).

Paul’s advent lesson is a promise to us and to all who believe: The God who called us into the fellowship of his Son is faithful and will preserve us, strengthen us, and present us blameless on that great day of the Lord’s appearing – on the great day of that final advent when the dead in Christ shall rise and we shall all be forever with the Lord. What, beyond this, the story holds, no eye has seen, no tongue can tell, no heart can imagine.

So, let us once again enter the great story this Advent season – a story of longing and repentance, a story of waiting and watching and working, a story of promise.

Let us pray.

Faithful God,your promises stand unshaken through all generations:Renew us in hope, that we may be awake and alert,ever watching for the glorious return of Jesus Christ, our judge and savior,who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,one God, now and forever. Amen.