Isaiah 2: 1-5
Dundas Psalm 122
Romans 13: 11-14
Matthew 24: 36-44

When I was a child I read almost every one of the Bobbsey Twins Series. If you are familiar with the books you know that the Bobbseys have two sets of twins and that they all manage to go along on all of their father’s business trips. On each trip they manage to become involved in, and then solve, a mystery. In one of the books their travels take them to England and being lovers of animals the younger twins simply couldn’t wait until they saw Piccadilly Circus. Imagine their disappointment when they discover that the famous Piccadilly Circus has no animals at all; it is a traffic circle at the conjunction of five major streets.

We know that what we expect to see when we go somewhere has a great deal to do with how satisfied we will be when we leave. Sometimes something has been surrounded by so much hype and build-up that it can’t possibly meet our expectations.

Sometimes we think that this or that event will come and go without much overall change and we discover that we are very much mistaken!

One day, a young fellow I know was commenting to a group of friends that he didn’t realize how much a baby would change their lives. I think his wife and a few others had been trying to tell him that, but he needed to experience it in order to know what they were talking about. Another friend just didn’t get around to installing the car seat in the family car, until the baby was born and they needed it on order to take her home from the hospital.

Christmas comes every year and every year when the season had come and gone and we feel frazzled, disappointed and simply worn out - we vow once again to “start earlier” next year or to “not try and do so much”, and every year the season seems to get away on us or take over and we end up in the same predicament the next year.

Welcome to the season of Advent. Welcome to the first Sunday of the new year. Advent is a time of waiting and a time of preparation. Advent is a time of the “church year” in which we “wait” on three levels:

ONE - we wait for the birth we celebrate on Christmas eve; the baby of Bethlehem;

TWO - we wait for the birth of the Christ Child in our hearts and lives once again this year; and

THIRD - we wait for the fulfilment of God’s age old promises which are contained in the prophetic passages which speak of the coming of the Messiah and of the world being made right once again.

Yet the waiting of Advent is not like waiting in the doctor’s office - on those days all you can do is read an old magazine, sigh, look at your watch or play games on your cell phone or Palm Pilot until the batteries die.

Advent waiting is an active kind of waiting, it is the kind of waiting that is filled with both active preparation and quiet contemplation. In some ways it is like the kind of waiting that a woman does while she is waiting for her own child to be born. There is plenty to do, but much of the really crucial changes and developments go on by themselves with little intervention on the part of the mother to be. The mother hopes that she will be ready when the baby decides that she or he is.

In Canada Christmas is surrounded by all sorts of expectations and we are led to believe that most of those expectations can be met at the mall or at Canadian Tire ( to the tune of “A Partridge in a Pear Tree”). The world would have us believe that Christmas is a grand time - and is made by the gathering of family, the giving or presents and the eating of large amounts of food.

Yet, there are many for whom this kind of Christmas is impossible, for a variety of reasons. Christmas is a time of increased domestic violence for many. Christmas is a time of loneliness for those mourning the loss of loved ones, or for those far away from family. For many, Christmas is a time of bad childhood memories; memories which overshadow the present. Some people have no money to put food on the table, let alone buy the “you’re the best dad ever” present for their children. And some people are just tired of spending hundreds or even thousands on toys and gifts when those gifts are forgotten by their over-indulged children in weeks, days or even hours.

We all know that gift giving is not “the reason for the season”, yet we get caught up in all the hype.

So we come to this First Sunday of Advent to seek a “word from the Lord”. What we find is not a passage talking about the birth in Bethlehem. The church leaders who chose he passages for the lectionary have chosen passages which speak of the prophetic hopes of a world made right once again.

The prophet Isaiah was writing in a long ago age - he did not know anything of the complex issues that occupy us such as climate change and nuclear weapons but he did know about wars and occupation and oppression and fear. He did know that the people were in need of a word of hope to enable them to get through the times that were ahead.

By far the best well known of the verses from this passage of Isaiah is the one about beating swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks. While it seems that war has always been a part of human existence since the dawn of civilization, the prophet Isaiah clearly states in those days there will be no need to learn war anymore.

This is not something that will happen by magic, through no effort. How much effort would it take, I wonder, to beat a sword into a plowshare. I’ve watched blacksmiths pounding out horseshoes and I see the flexing muscles and the sweat pouring off of them. I can feel the heat of the forge and I know it’s not the place for me. Yet, says Isaiah, there will come a time when this can and will be done - if we commit ourselves to it.

Now you might be saying that these expectations are far more unrealistic than the ones we can’t meet around Christmas, which only apply to our own families or communities - but here these verses are - beckoning us onward, into a new and an exciting future.

I think that the main difference between seeing Advent as a preparation for our own Christmas and Advent as preparation for world changing power of God is that the first is focussed on ourselves and the second is focussed on the power of God; the first is focussed on the immediate and the second is focussed on the long term, the very long term.

The promises of God in Advent are not just for us and not just for this year - but are focussed on that time which is both present and future at the same time; and to you and me as individuals at the same time as it is world-wide and universal.

The promises of Advent do not deal with nostalgia, with Norman Rockwell scenes of by gone days, but dealt with real flesh -15- and blood issues of a future present in which the Holy One was intimately involved.

Perhaps we have a problem with Christmas because we have planned for the wrong things and we have planned expecting that whatever we want must come, in full, this year.

We are called to be in this for the long haul. Maybe we won’t see a lot of swords being beaten into plowshares. Maybe all we see are little baby steps. Maybe all we see are those who try and ensure that the poor of this land and the world have more of the necessities of life. Maybe all we see are those who take time to plant a row of vegetables or a few acres of barley or potatoes for another.

The angel came to Mary and told her that she would be the mother of the Saviour of the World. IMAGINE.

It was no small task. Maybe our problem with Christmas is not that we take on too much, but that we are not aware of the power we have when we take on the right things together.

When we walk the path to the mountain of the Lord we are saying that the ways of Our God are more powerful than the ways of evil, death and destruction. Even though this God chose to come in the voice of prophets who were more often that not ignored, this God calls us to believe. Even though this God came in a helpless infant, this God calls us to believe.

It’s not that all of our Christmas traditions are wrong or unimportant, but it is that our approach to Christmas through the lectionary asks us to focus on God’s promises of a world made new and a creation transformed by the power of the one who said LET THERE BE LIGHT and it came to pass.

It’s not all about us. It doesn’t all depend on us. BUT we are called to walk the walk of faith and to believe that in time the promises of God will indeed come to pass.

Let us walk into Advent in the Light of the Lord.

Amen.

Isaiah 11: 1-10
Psalm 72: 1-7, 18-19
Romans 15: 4-13
Matthew 3: 1-12

Listening to Cousin John

No one in the family wanted to invite weird cousin John to the party. He was odd, and I mean ODD with a capital O – - Odd. He was in the habit of insulting the other company, particularly the ones with some social standing. He had absolutely no concept of “dressing for the occasion” and was hard to feed, and most often he didn’t smell very nice. He was always going on and on about repenting as if most of his family needed to repent. The Romans saw to it that you couldn’t get into too much. Really, how much wrong could you do out in the sticks and especially when it took all your energy to keep food on the table, the donkey fed and the taxes paid.

However, when you got right down to it, no one wanted him in the room because he made people uncomfortable. He told it like it was and he didn’t take any prisoners. Like many “men on a mission’” he acted as if there WOULD BE no tomorrow and that he had only a short time to “make his mark” on society, and make it he did! Can you imagine the kind of Christmas cards he might have sent, if the celebration of Christmas had been invented back then? A picture of a star or a manger with the word, “REPENT” in bold and gold letters on the top. That would not be one to warm the heart for sure. Thanks to a sermon by Roger Nicols and posted on the PRCL-L preaching list for this last thought

Yet, Jesus’ cousin John had a real following. It was almost like he was the reincarnation of the prophet Isaiah. Yet, cousin John could go anywhere, out in the country, and people flocked to him. They saw that their lives needed changing, they were baptized and tried to live in a new way. He must have given them hope.

On the other hand, it seemed as if this strange man didn’t really want a personal following; he kept talking about someone else; someone “who was to come”. That’s hardly a way to make a name for yourself, nos is it?

We are told elsewhere that Jesus, the son of Mary and John the son of Elizabeth and Zachariah were relatives. It is possible that Jesus spent some of his young adult years with John in the wilderness, but we can’t know that with any certainty.

What seems clear from today’s passage is that Cousin John saw it as his mission to prepare the crowds for Jesus and his preaching.

Maybe, as uncomfortable as it makes us, we need to sit down and listen to Cousin John. I am told that soap box preachers in modern Greece stand in the parks and on the street-corners shouting the same Greek word that is recorded in today’s gospel - METANOEITE - and it’s a word in the imperative mood. It’s a command. It’s not presented as a choice or as a good idea. But that’s preachers!

I have been told that preachers have to act as if they are in sales! You have to sound as if you believe in your product — THIS IS the BEST knife you will ever buy - and you can buy it from me! Life will be better for everyone if you vote for me and our party wins!

“REPENT” is a verb, not an idea or a belief- Repent - Go - and live your life pointed in a new direction.

There was once a church which had fallen on hard times. The church needed a paint job but the congregational members were not able to climb the tall ladders like they used to be so they called for tenders and gave the job to the lowest bidder. Wanting to make a quick profit, the painter diluted the paint. The afternoon his crew put the finishing touches on the steeple the dark clouds rolled in and the skies opened - and in the words of my sister, it rained “cats and dogs and giraffes”. After the deluge the painter looked up and saw that ALL of the paint had been washed off of the church and was lying in white puddles around the foundation. Just then a voice from heaven boomed out, “Repaint - and thin no more”. (Pause)

One of the most important thing I learned in Driver’s Ed many years ago was that my arms were connected to my eyes. If I was gazing at the things in the store windows, or waving at friends on the sidewalk, I was going to have a much harder time staying on the road than if I was looking at the road ahead of me.

To repent is to have a change of vision, to have a place to look that draws us onward. In many ways John was like the prophet Isaiah and we have heard some of Isaiah’s teachings today as well. In today’s reading from Isaiah we have a vision of a world that is very different from our own. It is a world where there truly is “peace on earth” and good will among all - even the animals. And just to make sure you get it - he’s not really talking about lions and lambs, or cats and mice; he’s talking about neighbours and nations, about you and me.

Yet, it’s a great metaphor. I’m sure we are all familiar with Peanuts - you know – Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus and, of course, Snoopy! In one Peanuts cartoon we have a vision of a world in which the bunnies and the beagles will lie down together. We know that beagles are more likely to chase bunnies than for them to lie down together - and we know what a lion or a coyote is likely to do to a lamb, BUT how often have we looked at a problem and said, “We’ll never change that, it’s always been that way and always will be”. How often have we failed only because we did not try anything at all. As people of faith we are called to envision a new way and then go toward it.

December 6 was a sombre anniversary. The Montreal Massacre is remembered each year on that date - and we remember the violent hatred of one man for women who were entering a previously male-dominated profession. The death of those 14 young women reminds us that many women live with violence and the fear of violence every day of their lives.

The various turns and twists of the Robert Picton trial have highlighted the precarious existence of those women who are forced to work in the sex trade. Before the investigation began local and provincial politicians could not have cared less about the increasingly long list of “women who had disappeared”. Now their lack of concern seems appalling in the extreme. Yet, the streets of our cities are far from safe and we are no closer to solving the social problems that force people to live on the streets and lead to others working in one of the county’s most dangerous professions.

Closer to home we need to work much harder at home and in school to teach girls and boys about what is appropriate and inappropriate in relationships. We need to tackle poverty and family violence and substance abuse at their roots so that real change will occur and people can live in safety.

We learn - we grow by our mistakes and the mistakes of society. We learn what indifference does and what a difference concern and looking out for one another makes.

When Israel left Egypt during the Exodus they became a new people when they crossed the Red Sea. Passing through the waters gave them new hope - a new start. So too did John’s baptism. So too does own baptism and so should our remembrance of it.

We are a people who are gathered around an impossible dream - the dream of freedom from oppression - the dream of being able to follow the God of our ancestors - and the God of our collective future - the dream of peace on earth and good will to all.

We are a people of big hopes and dreams. We don’t have to do it all by ourselves - but we do have to do something. Cousin John tells it like it is. Isaiah’s vision is still worth striving for, Isaiah’s vision still has sufficient power to draw us forward.

Let there be peace on earth and let it begin here, with us, today.

Amen!

Isaiah 35: 1-10
Luke 1: 46-55
James 5: 7-10
Matthew 11: 2-11

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Deep Questions

We’ve all been through it! We’ve all experienced the build up, and the ensuing disappointment! We have all fallen for the hype! It may have been the “sea monkeys” you used to be able to order from the back of comic books. It may have been the story about the mother giving birth to the Sasquatch Baby that we fell for while standing in the checkout line at Sobey’s ( A large “family owned” Canadian grocery store chain and continued with some kind of “you simply cannot do without this” gadget for the kitchen or the workshop. It may have turned out to be a complete flop or it may have worked well for a while and then just “given up the ghost”. I get a kick out of the commercial which begins with a fictitious customer warning about a product called the “Robo-Barber”- which causes a family to, all of a sudden, worry about “Grampa”, obviously a recipient of this gadget with an apparent history of maiming its users. “ Poor Grampa!”

Or it may have been your work on the election campaign for the member who was indeed elected but who proved to be an all-round disappointment, or was that the party that was the disappointment? Just the same, we achieved the results we worked for, but after a while we realized that we didn’t really want who and what we had worked for.

The gospel lesson for today is about similar dashed expectations. Not all that long ago, in our lectionary readings, we heard John the Baptizer proclaiming the coming of the “one who was to come”. Patterned after the words of the prophet Isaiah, in the work and ministry of “this One”, the world would be set right - valleys would be exalted and hills brought low- and all of that other good stuff.

Yet John, from his prison cell, felt that something was missing in Jesus’ ministry. The political landscape had not changed. This Son of David had not even tried to overthrow the Romans. This Son of David had not tried to change the world, on a massive scale. Israel was still a poor, small, oppressed nation. No doubt John had begun to wonder if he had been wrong in his proclamation of Cousin Jesus as this “long awaited one”. What if he had wasted his whole life’s work on the wrong man?

The question he sends to Jesus is pointed: “are you THE ONE, or should we wait for another?”

Have I wasted my time? Have I wasted everyone else’s time?

Like many of Jesus’ responses to questions of doubt, the answer is neither yes or no, but a kind of ‘decide for yourself’ response. Like many of Jesus’ answers, the question is turned back on the questioner.

Jesus may not have met John’s expectations of cosmic and world altering change, he was doing something. Jesus asked him to focus, NOT on what wasn’t happening but on what WAS. Jesus was giving sight to the blind, enabling the lame to walk and the deaf to hear, cleansing lepers, raising the dead and bringing good news to the poor. We should note that Jesus does not take this as an opportunity to malign John’s faith and ministry, but to proclaim that he was the appointed forerunner.

What do you see when you look at the work of Jesus? What do you see when you look at the work of those who bear Jesus’ name?

Unless you have been totally and completely out of touch with the news you will know something of the trial and conviction of Robert William Picton of Port Coquitlam, BC. Picton is the man who was accused and now stands convicted of Second Degree Murder in the deaths of a number of women from Vancouver. We also know that an even greater of number of charges are being prepared in relation to the deaths said to have happened on the Picton farm. We are told that women who work in the sex trade are among the most vulnerable in our society, and particularly vulnerable are those who are also addicted to drugs.

A number of churches have outreach ministries for people who live on the margins of society - runaway kids, people turfed out of mental hospitals but unable to maintain an independent existence in polite society, ex cons who can’t get work, and the list goes on AND the churches do so because of the belief that this is what Jesus’ call asks of them. One of the most well known in Maritime Conference is the Brunswick St Mission in Halifax. There is one equally well known in Vancouver which is part of the ministry of First United Church which is located in the notorious Downtown East Side.

However, not everyone agrees that this should be the mission of the church, or at least the mission of their church, or the church that sits on their block! I was listening to CBC Radio One the other day and a United Church minister from Fredericton was being interviewed. He had worked in another Vancouver Church for some time and part of his work had involved outreach to “street people”. They provided breakfast, coffee and conversation, moral support and for some, a place to store their belongings while they walked the streets. For various reasons the church’s neighbours and, no doubt, some disgruntled parishioners, got the Presbytery and then the police on their side and the outreach ministry was effectively halted. Eventually the minister had to move. Of course the story was about the support systems available to those who live on the streets in Vancouver. Of course the story was in response to the Picton trial and conviction. Of course there are always two sides to any story and we only heard one. But maybe some of the people with power and money did not want “those people” hanging around the church doors, or sitting in the church parlour, talking to the minister and taking his time away from the parishioners paying his salary?

Maybe they were worried abut their property values or the condition of their church building? Maybe they thought such work should be left to social agencies, or to another church or maybe they thought the people would just “go away” if they were ignored and further marginalized.

Maybe they thought if the church preached morals and family values, these people would clean up their act and the problem would solve itself.

Yet when people from outside the church look at the church, what they often see are buildings used only a few hours a week and locked up tight so that trespassers will not walk off with their valuables.

Of course we need to exercise good stewardship of our resources. In this day and age it is a sad reality that we need to lock buildings and install burglar alarms, but the reality is also that we are church in the midst of a needy and hurting world - and the question of John is asked of us (slightly revised).

Is this the church of Jesus of Nazareth, or should be go somewhere else?

Can we, with all confidence answer that question in this way - what do you see?

Do you see the gospel proclaimed in word and action?

Do you see the lonely visited?

Do you see resources contributed to mission or people participating in mission.

Are we a community of welcome and hospitality?

Do we proclaim words of healing, love, support and joy as we try and be the church in this place and time?

Keeping the doors of the church open takes a great deal of time and resources these days - but we need to ask ourselves what we are doing inside those doors when they are open. And since we really know that the church is not a building, but a people, we need to ask how our words and actions proclaim the gospel from Sunday afternoon till Saturday night.

Sometimes we simply have to name those things we are already doing as ‘gospel actions’ - and there are lots of those going on - the nursing home visits to people who aren’t really our relatives - the Christmas baskets taken to the local shut ins - the cards to those in hospital - the growing of grain and potatoes for those we will never meet in far away lands - these are all actions that go on regularly in rural communities but we hesitate to name them as gospel actions.

And then, when we have named what we are doing we have to look and listen for the call to participate in those other actions that will proclaim the Good News of the One whose birth we celebrate at Christmas.

For being the church is a seven day a week calling. And celebrating Christmas and the expectation of Peace on Earth is a year round vocation.

Can we say with Mary that God has done great things for us and is doing great things through us?

Let it be so this Christmas season.

Amen.

Isaiah 7: 10-16
Psalm 80: 1-7, 17-19
Romans 1: 1-7
Matthew 1: 18-25

Plans Disrupted

The Christmas story is about many things, but one of the things it is most certainly about is disrupted plans!

Of course the people had expected the Messiah for generations - but you know what its like - its like that long lost relative in Edmonton who says “Ill come next summer”, but says this every spring. Eventually you stop arranging your summer to accommodate this elusive guest. Eventually you stop believing the promise. So when they say, “My flight will land in Charlottetown on Friday at 4:00 pm, you aren’t at all prepared. The people has been expecting a messiah for generations, but for most it was one of those promises that they had really given up counting on. So when Mary and Joseph found out that it was happening through them you can imagine the disbelief.

No doubt Mary and Joseph were like most couples: they had plans for their married life and no doubt it included children, but not like this, not this soon. Joseph knew what he had to do but the assurance of the angel changed all of that! The angel assured him that he could have a part in God’s great plan of salvation for his people.

We humans love our schedules and our plans, we like things to happen on our terms, and when we are ready, but Christmas is about the plans of God blowing ours to smithereens. Christmas is about dropping everything to go on a wild-goose chase to follow the directions of some singing angels or embark on a crazy and dangerous quest to follow a star.

No doubt everyone had better things to do; but in the end no one had anything that was more important.

Part of our problem with our busyness is that we are so programmed, so scheduled and so tied down to our date books that we have no room or time for the unexpected until it hits us over the head and forces us to stop and deal with it.

As our Advent journey comes to an end we are called to be open to the angels who bring us good news and the shepherds and the wise ones who come seeking to see what is going on. We are called to open ourselves to the re-birth of “Emmanuel” this year -

in our hearts and lives- in our communities -

in our world.

And when that happens;

when the hungry are fed

the sorrowful are lifted up

and the downcast believe in the good news-

then, of course all will want to come and see-

So - let US be open to that unexpected sign that the holy God is about to be born in our midst;

that the holy God is about to call us on a mission to show that Love itself has come to us;

that the Holy God will be manifest in our lives, HERE in Kings County, Prince Edward Island in the year 2007 and 2008 and not just some long ago and far away place -

When we can get our heads around the idea that Christmas can happen here and now, it will.

Amen.