Advent - Year B -- 2008
Indexed by Date. Sermons for Advent Year B
Isaiah 64: 1-9
Psalm 80: 1-7, 17-19
1 Corinthians 1: 3-9
Mark 13: 24-37
Waiting, Waiting and More Waiting!
I hate waiting. Most of us do I think.
They say that “a watched pot will never boil” although I think that theory has no scientific validity. Turning our attention to another part of the meal only seems to make the pot boil more quickly, but it is a helpful strategy all the same.
As rural people our experience of getting stuck in traffic and waiting for the line of cars to move is mostly limited to delays for highway construction - as we know there are really only 2 seasons on PEI - winter and highway construction!
As Canadians, we love to complain about wait times for medical tests. We complain about waiting for the doctor to call us in to the exam room once we have arrived at the office. My doctor in Souris is usually on time but not all doctors are the same. The opthamologist I went to in Moncton almost always keeps his patients you waiting several hours before you can see him. A friend of mine was told by the receptionist at the doctor’s office that all appointments for a certain test are at 9:00 am. The problem is that they can only do one person’s test at a time, so someone will be waiting.
I was looking for something on the internet the other night and because I am still waiting for Robert Ghiz the Premier and Aliant the phone company to come up with high speed at the same rate everyone else on PEI pays, I am still on dial-up. And so on dial-up this is how downloading music goes: Use I- iTunes or Google to look for a title, click on a link, wait for it to “buffer” several times, (whatever that means), listen to the sample, and when it’s not what you want, try again and perhaps again and again. When you finally hear the one you want, click on the download button and wait, and wait and wait. Go get a snack and come back and work on your sermon and wait some more. Then open the file you have downloaded. Somewhere in there you may have to pay some money and make sure the website is trusted and secure so your credit card information wont be stolen by some nefarious basement hacker.
Waiting for Christmas is something with which many children have a problem; although most adults would like AT LEAST another month to find the presents; to pay for the presents (or wait for the credit card to roll over) to buy the food, to decorate the house and to get to all those staff, community and family functions that pop up at Christmas. There is never enough time to fit everything in at this time of year.
We have been hearing Christmas music in the stores since the first of November. Liturgical purists who teach people how to be ministers tell us NOT to sing Christmas Carols in church till December 24 - but its hard to resist the temptation - especially when the world is hijacking our best songs to sell big screen televisions, the newest and increasingly pricier electronics , and holiday foods loaded with fat and sodium which may taste great but certainly aren’t good for you.
However, somewhere deep down we know that the kind of preparation that the Christian tradition asks us to do in Advent has nothing to do with turkey with all the trimmings and a Christmas tree under which the evidence of our conspicuous consumption lies. We know that Advent is really about the “something more” we also search for at Christmas.
Here we are at Advent 1 - waiting, BUT not waiting for the Christ child - not waiting for December 25th; we are waiting for his return at the end of time. We are waiting for the promise of Christmas to finally cone true. That’s the double edged nature of Advent. Like something out of the mind of HG Wells, in Advent we wait in three times - we wait for the past event, we wait for the present event, (Christmas 2008) and we wait for the future fulfilment of the promises of God in Christ - the “peace on earth and good will to all” stuff.
The passage from Isaiah seems to have been written by a person very tired of waiting. “Oh that God would tear open the heavens and come down” - RIGHT NOW. Wouldn’t it be nice if God came and made things right, TODAY. Wouldn’t it be nice.
The desire for change when things are in a mess seems to be underlying the prophetic message for today. Bruce Cockburn, after his visit to a Guatemalan refugee camp and witnessing the suffering
of the people at the hands of a military dictator wrote a number of songs one of which was
How many people have been told that their love of someone else, romantic or not, is not patriotic, or is wrong, or is a crime. But Cockburn sings out, “sometimes ......You have to kick at the darkness until it bleeds daylight.” What an image! What a thought. What a mission.
This leads me to ask the question, “How do we respond to the darkness in our own lives; to the darkness in the world?” Do we even see the darkness that exists beyond our own little world, or are we just unaware of how much of it there is in our own. Do we just ignore this darkness assuming that we can do nothing or that it will go away all by itself?
At this time of year we see the Salvation Army out with their kettles and the Christmas Daddies Telethon is just a week away. In this area some local groups are organizing a drive to raise money to help those who cannot heat their homes this winter. The need seems to be greater than the resources but the tendency to do nothing because we can’t help everyone must be resisted. It is up to us to kick at the darkness, to throw another gallon of furnace oil in the tank and to put a smile on the face of a child or a parent whose life is almost nothing but darkness and cold.
Many charities are worried because it seems that people are holding back on their giving due to the worries surrounding the recession we may or may not be in “technically”. (ala Stephen Harper)
But it’s not just about giving money. On Thursday night at Presbytery we were asked to fax letters, on Friday, to various people in positions of power in the Philippines, to demand the release of James Balao, a defender of human rights for indigenous people in the Philippines. As far as we know Mr Balao has been illegally detained by the police or the miliary. In effect, we were asked to kick at the darkness until light appeared; to kick at the darkness of his illegal detention until he is released into the freedom of daylight.
It may be about volunteering for Habitat for Humanity to help a friend build their “sweat equity hours” or just because we want to get involved, or help with a school breakfast program or the local 4-H club or even help flood the local outdoor rink.
It’s about us not sitting on our hands and waiting for God to fix the things that we can work at ourselves. It’s about us being and becoming ready by putting our faith about the kind of world we want, into action, while we wait. It’s about living our faith that Jesus, the Christ is the light of the world, and being that light in the darkness whenever and wherever we can.
We have been left in charge of many things, but when Advent comes we are reminded that we may have gotten sloppy and begun to assume that we have lots of time to put things right or that they really aren’t all that bad anyway.
We have a message of hope and joy and peace and love. How can we be that for the people we encounter this Advent season? It’s up to us to answer that question.
Amen!
Isaiah 40: 1-11
Psalm 85
2 Peter 3: 8-15a
Mark 1: 1-8
Perhaps entomophagy may become the next food craze! Entomophagy is another word for the eating of insects. Before you say “yech”, just look an honest look at a lobster (as if you had never seen one before) and place it beside a really, really large scorpion, or grasshopper. Is there any real difference?
I am told that over 1,000 species of insects are eaten by humans worldwide. I am also told that by weight, termites, grasshoppers, caterpillars, weevils, house flies and spiders are better sources of protein than beef, chicken, pork or lamb. And for the health conscious among us: I am told they are low in cholesterol and fat.
Not convinced?
As for myself, despite the seemingly overwhelming evidence cited a few seconds ago, I think I’ll stick to finding my protein in more popular and culturally acceptable places such as beef, pork and lobster!
Mark’s gospel begins with telling the readers about John the Baptizer. He was a man who had a rather peculiar diet and a rather peculiar form of dress, appeared in the wilderness and delivered a rather peculiar message - repent and be baptized Make way for the one who is to come. Not - listen to me, I have the truth, but wait for the one who is to come.
Israel had a tradition of prophets delivering messages in rather peculiar ways. Jeremiah wore a yoke, made of straps and bars, to symbolize the people’s need to allow themselves to be yoked to the will of their captors. When the prophet Hananiah broke the bars, Jeremiah continued to proclaim his message, this time with a yoke of iron.
The prophet Isaiah walked around barefoot and naked for three years to represent the humiliation that would come upon those who were to be defeated by Israel.
Ezekiel was commanded to lie on his side for 390 days and at fixed times during the day, eat a bread made of wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt, cooked on a fire of human dung and washed down with one-sixth of a hin of water. (A “hin” is roughly equal to a litre.) I think I’d need more than one-sixth of a litre to get that bread down!
Elijah wore an outfit of camels hair and a leather belt. Many thought that John was the prophet Elijah returned to earth, the similarities were so remarkable. And we just have to recall that Elijah did not die; he was carried to heaven by fiery horses pulling a chariot, so his return wasn’t that outlandish.
John fits in perfectly with these prophets, mostly because he didn’t fit in - with the rest of society. His preaching would eventually cause his death; as he dared to criticize the marital practices of Herod, the Roman puppet who was called “King”. But on this day, in this time and place, the message is about preparing the way. It is about making way for the one who is to come; about making level and straightening the hilly and crooked paths.
In recent years they tried to improve the road through Hunter River by cutting the top off the hill and making the winter slide through that community a little less treacherous. They tried to level out the road in Mt Stewart before they re-paved this summer. Some parts are higher while many have been lowered.
While building the CPR through the Mountain of BC there were places where every foot of track was laid in tunnels blasted into solid rock, and other places where the tracks ran on trestles built over deep gorges.
Robert Munsch is a writer of children’s books; most of them have fun themes and all have great illustrations. In one such book a boy named Jonathan, is left home alone for a brief time and is told not to make a mess. While his mother is gone the child discovers that the city has put a subway stop in his living room. It can get very messy and very noisy when there is a subway stop in your living room. It is hard to get a street or a subway stop moved, and the rest of the book is taken up with the boy trying to convince the city to relocate this subway stop. He discovers that he “can fight city hall”, and his home is quiet once more.
The people of Israel knew all about being in the middle of the road to somewhere else. Their narrow, fertile country was hemmed in by rugged wilderness. On their way to conquer one another, rival nations came upon the small nation of Israel, and took it for their own, or sought to gain control of its resources.
Such a nation could develop a serious inferiority complex or a sense of complete helplessness. The prophet Isaiah is proclaiming that God will have none of this; They will become the strength for which they pray. The soaring poetry speaks of a nation whose prosperity, strength and freedom comes from their allegiance to the ways of their God.
Fast forward many generations and the tiny nation is in peril once again, from without, at the hands of the mighty Roman Empire and from within as the result of a faith which has become more form than reality. It was a faith which values religious practice over justice and true righteousness. Like the prophets of old the rather peculiar John pointed to the power of God, this time in the one who was to come, to bring them out of the darkness of their despair into the light and peace of the new day.
What did they have to do? What was their role? To make the way straight - to build the road. When a king came to town the road would be upgraded and made smooth so too the people were to prepare their lives for the one who was so great John was unworthy to even be a servant and untie his sandals.
We know that this expected One did come and turned the tables on servant-hood by washing his disciples feet and commanding them to be servants of those in need.
This Gospel of Mark with these words, “the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” Some might take that to mean the story of John the Baptizer and his proclamation in the wilderness, is this “beginning”, but what if it is all of the gospel, all of what Mark has written? What if the gospel is only the first volume of a longer work? Where are the other volumes? Where is the rest of the story?
Well folks, the story is close to 2000 years old. The story is still being written, still being told. The story is told every time those who seek to meet and know the One who is to come, make level the road and fill in the treacherous places. It is told every time one, in humility, realizes it is an honour to serve another in need. The story is continued in the lives of those who gathered together over the past 2000 years to tell the stories of Jesus of Nazareth and once again, every year, look at their lives in terms of his upcoming birth.
So much of our Christmas preparations involve the outward preparations - such as cooking and decorating and cleaning and buying and wrapping presents - that we don’t have time to think, let alone set aside time to prepare our hearts, to make conscious decisions about how we will ‘do’ Christmas this year and how we will celebrate the birth of the one whose life changed the course of much of world history.
I think that part of the problem with Christmas is that it is only a day; we have stopped expecting it to make any lasting difference in our lives. Of course Christmas can’t last all year: we would gain 500 pounds and be paying for the gifts well into the next century.
What if though, we believed that the other aspects of Christmas and the power of the one whose birth we await could make a real lasting change in our lives, in our community and in our country? What if the roads we built were permanent ones, not temporary construction that is quickly forgotten for the well worn paths of “how we always do it”. Advent is the real “new year” as far as the church is concerned and “Advent resolutions” are perhaps what is needed to keep that Spirit alive the rest of the year.
Open our hearts to the ways of the servant.
Open our lives to the power of God to truly transform a barren wasteland into vineyards and orchards where justice and mercy are the order of the day.
Slow down, decide what is really important and then focus on that - for the year, not just this one short season.
This is only the beginning; we are called on a year long, life long journey, serving the one who came to be a servant of all.
Amen.
Isaiah 61: 1-4, 8-11
Psalm 126 (VU 850)
1 Thessalonians 5: 16-24
John 1: 6-8, 19-28
To Witness to the Light
Today is sometimes called “gaudete Sunday”, from a Latin word meaning “to rejoice”. When Advent used to be much more penitential, this Sunday was a bit of a break and instead of four purple candles in the Advent wreath this Sunday added a pink one as a symbol of this different focus.
Now we tend to look at the whole season as a time of joyful anticipation; leaving the penitential mood for Lent. So now many churches use blue candles. ADVENT IS A WHOLE SEASON OF JOY; or, at least it is supposed to be. We sing, “Joy to the World”; we open our Bibles and read the words; “Peace on Earth and Good Will to ALL”; and we dream of a “Silent Night, Holy Night” when “all is calm.”
Yet out in the big busy mall you sometimes have to look really hard to see the calm. You have to really listen for the sounds of joy. You glance at the other shoppers. They have watched the same tv commercials you have; the ones that equate a good Christmas with the purchase of their, usually expensive, “must have” products. You see carts piled high with food, some of which is not available at any other time of the year. You see people struggling to carry bags and bags of stuff. AND you see others look at price tags, calculate the sale price in their head, look at the price tag again and then leave it in the store because it still costs more than they can pay. Then there are the children whining to their parents that they want some things that aren’t in the cart. Teens gang together talking of what it is they are expecting for Christmas; what it is they have no hope of getting and how difficult life is when they can’t go to their friend’s house because they HAVE to their grandmother’s! Harried parents hand over their credit cards to cashiers and wonder how they will pay it all off and why it is that Christmas must cost so much and produce so much stress.
We may ask, “where is the joy? Where is the peace?” And just when we think we have things under control we are reminded that there are only so many days left till Christmas (they are all shopping days now). The message this year is: “There’s money in shopping and money keeps the economy moving so do your part and go shopping.”
There isn’t much time left until Christmas, it is true. But what about seeing those days as “sharing days” or “rejoicing days” instead of shopping days? What about seeing them as a time to focus our expectations. (and not on our expectations for iPods and new hockey equipment). We could also ask ourselves, “How many days are there left to testify to the coming of the Light?”
Our passages for today talk of light and of hope; not hope for things under trees and in stockings, but hope for the one who was to come. Hope for the world to be turned on its head. Hope for great social change and for justice to make things right. How else could the words of Isaiah make any sense; what else could they mean? Listen again:
“ The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to provide for those who mourn in Zion— to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.”
What else could this mean than massive social change; a change that meant health and well-being for those who did not know it or had never experienced it. It is a passage that shines light on a very dark world and hope in the midst of despair.
In the beginning verses of John’s gospel we are told that the mission and the ministry of John the Baptizer was to be a “witness to the light.” Unlike those whose message points to themselves and to their own message, he insisted that he was not the important one - he was the witness, the sign. When you think about it, the yellow sign that warns you of a bad bump in the road ahead is not what is important, what is important is the bump itself. You swerve or slow down for the bump, not for the sign. What is always vital in a world of darkness is light, and that was no different back then. What was important was not John but the One who was to come and bring the light.
If you live up north, (and I am not sure how far north you have to live for this to really matter) in the land of the spectacular aurora borealis (the northern lights) you know that the sun almost disappears this time of year, but in the summer you can’t sleep because it is never really dark. They know what we almost take for granted, even at this time of year, the light is so very important. We need light to make the vitamin D our bodies need for proper functioning. There is something about light, and particularly sunlight, that just makes things seem better. For some its more than “seeming better”; they are better. A former parishioner of mine said that her mother became depressed almost every winter, because of the lack of sunlight, until she moved to a care home in which she had a room with a large south facing window and had some sun almost every day and every sunny day enjoyed as much sun as possible.
Where is this light I was just talking about; where is the joy in the picture I painted of the mall a few minutes ago? Well, if you look for it, you CAN find it - even in the midst of the craziness. You CAN find it. And you can find it most easily in the midst of those seeking to point to the light, and to embrace and proclaim the hope.
On Tuesday the CBC set up their afternoon show in the Superstore in Montague to promote their annual turkey drive. You can even put it in the freezer right at the store; you don’t even have to take it anywhere else.
Interviewed on the program were individuals who brought one turkey and representatives of groups of people who were able to bring in whole flocks of them! (Do turkeys still come in flocks when they are dead, frozen and shrink-wrapped - with or without giblets?) They challenged other businesses to match or beat them. Groups of students and young people brought in turkeys that were purchased as the result of fund-raisers, but I gathered that most folks just came by with one from their own family. One person who was interviewed had decided to give their turkey away because they had been invited out for Christmas dinner and didn’t need one of their own at all. Why not? By the way, you have until the 18th to participate! It’s amazing how fast these things accumulate at this time of year.
I used to have a family associated with one of my churches in which the adults, for several years, decided to give the money they would have spent on the grown-ups gift exchange and give a child some presents who might not otherwise receive them. There was another couple who never went to church who gave me money every Christmas for the “minister’s discretionary fund”. I used that for snow-suits, for glasses, for food, for toys, for furnace oil, for smiles and warm hearts.
Yet there are the critics of these kinds of things. One criticism is that the poor are lazy and hard working people who have their own turkeys shouldn’t have to reward laziness. We know that the causes of poverty are very complex. The other criticism bears much more attention.
Turkeys only feed a family for a day, or two or three, and we can give a turkey or two and feel good about it and assuage our guilt for a number of months; unless you notice that people have to eat every day and are still hungry; unless you are a receiver of the turkey and after the soup is gone you begin your trips to the food bank once again to see what is there because of the generosity of others and you wonder how it came to this.
The politicians may donate a turkey or two and think they have done a good thing, and they have, but they are the one with the power to make the changes to reduce and eliminate poverty.
When it came time to make the donation from the customers of Co-op Atlantic, the company found it was cheaper to buy from a farm out west that could produce turkeys cheaper than could be done locally and who could give a better price, even with shipping. This enabled them to purchase 200 more turkeys but left at least one grower here crying fowl.
And that is part of the problem; in the world of mega farming, even a large Island producer cannot compete for the ever shrinking grocery dollar.
Food banks were once seen as a temporary solution to the problem of poverty but they have become part of the landscape.
What does this all have to do with the passages for today? It has to do with the kind of light we are expecting at Christmas - are we looking for a light that fizzles out come January or are we looking for comfort and true and lasting joy the year round. Are we looking for a world that does not need food banks, turkey drives and the like?
Of course this perspective does not give us an excuse for not helping the poor while they are in need but at the same time we have to do what we can to point the efforts of the government and society to the elimination of poverty so that people are not in need.
After his night of terrible dreams Ebenezer Scrooge insisted that his clerk get a raise; how could he support a family on what he had been paying him.
They needed a boy to help on the farm so bachelor Matthew Cuthbert and his spinster sister sent for a boy from an orphanage on the mainland. Somehow the message became mangled and a girl was sent instead.
“She’s no good for us”, said Marilla, of Anne Shirley, the girl who had been sent instead of the boy. The taciturn Matthew responded, “We might be some good to her.” So begins one of the most beloved stories of the last 100 years. And so Anne Shirley did derive great benefit from growing up at Green Gables and the Cuthberts knew they had received considerable benefit from her.
We are called to both seek and receive the light and to be witnesses to the light. We are called to be the light we seek so that the dark corners may be illuminated and the world will arise and know the LIGHT HAS COME.
Amen.
Sorry! No Sermon this week