Isaiah 64: 1-9
Psalm 80
1 Corinthians 1: 3-9
Mark 13: 24-37

Don’t Make Me Come Down There!?

Happy New year!

Yes, you heard me. Happy New Year.

Now, I KNOW it isn’t January 1 - and just to give you fair warning, You get Christmas Day off from church; Christmas day is a Sunday. New Year’s Day is also a Sunday but I expect to see you all back here on that day - coffee at 9:30, worship at 10! Start off the new year on a good foot.

As church people we get to celebrate New Year’s twice. Advent 1 is the beginning of a new year in the Church Calendar - the annual cycle of hope and fulfilment! Advent is about waiting for the one who is to come. We usually think of that “one” as ‘baby Jesus’, but Advent is also about the Reign of God being accomplished. Our liturgical year goes from Advent to Reign of Christ; year in and year out. One year, Year A we read mostly Matthew texts for the Gospel - that was last year - ending last Sunday with the text sometimes called the “Parable of the Last Judgement” which I told you wasn’t really a parable at all. In year B, this year, most of the gospel texts come from Mark’s gospel and next year, year C, starting at the end of next November most of the gospel texts are from Luke’s gospel.

So we are beginning again, to look at what its all about; the reign of God. The reign of God is a concept that is found in the teachings of the prophets and was fully developed by Jesus of Nazareth in his ministry. The Reign of God is not about “getting to heaven” when we die; rather it is a quality of life lived here on earth where God’s intention for creation is fulfilled.

We all know though that life on earth is sometimes filled with many blessings, but sometimes, as we know, has heartbreak and tragedy, and some of this, a lot of this is caused by the action or inaction of other human beings. We KNOW we aren’t there yet so we cycle from one year to the next seeing to know and understand more and to live more fully in our understanding of this reign.

As Christians a large part of our understanding of God and God’s ways come from the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. Just like all human families, the “expecting a baby” time is filled with preparations and wonderings. These days, when couples are expecting a little addition to the family, cribs and bought, baby seats are installed in cars and you go to the drug store and spend a small fortune on diapers and baby powder and soap and baby wipes, and, and. It is an age of anticipation and worry as well. In an earlier age, every parent wondered if this baby would be one of the ones who lived - when so many did not. Parents and grandparents wonder, who will this baby grow up to be? Will this baby do us proud as parents, or break our hearts? Will our baby grow up and become the one who finds a cure for cancer or negotiates world peace. William and Kate know their first baby, whenever that happens, will one day be king or queen but most of us have much more common hopes for our children.

For what do we hope in Advent? For what do we hope this Advent?

I think I saw this in a cartoon somewhere! Picture this! PANEL ONE: The kids are playing in the basement and they start to fight and it sounds as if they are breaking things or that someone is about to be murdered. Mom is busy cooking supper so she stands at the top of the stairs and yells down the stairs to the kids, “Stop it now! If you make me come down there, you’ll be sorry!”

PANEL TWO: People on earth are squabbling and are sometimes ACTUALLY killing one another over trivial matters; some people are pigging out on rich food and others are starving and the heavens boom with these divine words, “Stop now! If I have to come down there, you’ll be sorry!”

Yesterday someone posted a two panel graphic on Facebook. One was a picture of a crowd of hungry people grasping for bags of rice and the next one was of crowds of people grabbing various electronic items as fast as the harried staff could unpack them. The caption indicated that something was seriously wrong in the world when both things could be happening on the same day.

The Occupy movement which took up a lot of press in October and November seems to be winding down. The movement, in its ideal form, was a representation of the 99% of people who are being disenfranchised by the fabulously wealthy and powerful. The reality is that while most of us fall into the 99% in relation to the ultra-wealthy and powerful in North America, but when compared to the world as a whole, most of us are in the 1%. We have food; we have running water; we have electricity - every day; we have schools to which to send our children; we have modern hospitals and access to prescription medication and our children are all vaccinated against those diseases our grandparents dreaded but which still kill children in developing countries.

Wouldn’t it be great if someone could do something about that! Wouldn’t it be great if Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ronald Weasley could come and wave their magic wands and eradicate poverty, violence, hunger and illness. Wouldn’t it be great if God came and did something. Back when the passage from Isaiah was written people believed that the earth was flat and the sky above the earth was like a bowl over a cake, which separated the earth from the place where God lived. In order for God to come to earth, God would have to tear the curtain that separated God’s dwelling place from the place where human beings lived. The image in Isaiah is very vivid, violent, loud and even frightening - imagine the sound of fabric tearing - the very fabric that separated the sky from whoever was up there!

Imagine the sound and tremor of an earthquake. Imagine the rushing sound of a wildfire; not the warm crackling kind to which we look forward on a cold night but the insatiable kind that devours everything in its path. Imagine the world being turned on its head.

Of course these are just images, but just because we do not believe that God is “up there” and we are “down here” - 3000 or so years later, the hope for God to break into our lives and turn things upside down so that they are right again, is just as real, just as compelling and, we must admit, just as frightening!

This may be a case of being careful what we pray for, because not only will “those people” have to change, “WE” will have to change as well.

I go to the Credit Union looking for money and the teller asks me if I would like to have it taken from my chequing account. I ask for it to be taken from the manager’s slush fund - and since I say that every time - the teller takes it from my own chequing account. If you have found another legal way, other than a loan, to get money from the bank, let me know!

If we are looking to feed the poor or right some kind of economic imbalance it has to come from somewhere - someone has to take less so that those who have nothing can have enough to live a decent life. We know now that planet earth has a finite amount of resources and its no longer realistic to hope that the poor can climb out of poverty by getting more of the world’s resources while we still take the same amount.

In our Advent journey we must each struggle with the ways in which God is calling us to change, to be people of justice, to live more simply, to care for all of creation more fully.

To truly experience the joy of Christmas when it arrives a month from now, we must become aware of the broken-ness of our lives; the turmoil of our hearts and the degree to which we and our world are separated from the will of God. When we become aware of this and open ourselves to the power of God to effect change, we will begin to know the joy of Emmanuel.

Amen!

Isaiah 40: 1-11
Psalm 85
2 Peter 3: 8-15a
Mark 1: 1-8

When God Is A Child!

In wartime, it is a sad but common occurrence for children to be left orphaned. I am told that during the bombing raids of WWII, thousands of children were orphaned and would have starved were it not for the refugee camps which gave them a safe place to stay. There they received food and good care. Many of these children who had lost so much could not sleep at night. Their greatest fear was waking up and finding themselves once gain homeless and without food. Northing seemed to reassure them. Finally someone hit on the idea of giving each of them a piece of bread to hold at bedtime. Holding this piece of bread, these children could sleep in peace. All through the night the bread reminded them of people who cared and would feed them once again tomorrow.

In any society, children are the most vulnerable. Even in our society some children suffer unimaginable abuse or neglect, but the hope is that, when such abuse is discovered, we have rules and a safety net the children can rely on.

Foster parents provide a welcome respite for children who cannot, or should not, be in the care of their own parents. We have lots of checks and balances in place to make sure children have the best lives possible. We have schools which provide a basic free education from Kindergarten to Grade 12.

In some countries children have few, if any, rights. Child labour and severe abuse is common and almost unquestioned.

We all know the name Craig Kielberger. While still a teenager this Toronto area man started an organization called “Free The Children”, after hearing the story of a boy who was sold as an indentured servant at the age of four and murdered before he was a teenager because he was an activist against child labour. He is still active as an advocate for children’s rights and was made a member of the Order of Canada for his work.

When we think of children we have a very different picture in mind than people did in previous generations. When someone once told me that childhood was a relatively modern invention, I looked at them like they had two heads. I thought - we have always had children - ( despite the fact that I once doubted that my parents were ever children - or my grandparents! )THEY were ALWAYS grownups!

Of course everyone - even in my family- started life as a baby - but the concept of childhood as a separate and unique stage in life is relatively new. Prior to modern times children were more or less, just ‘little people” and were depicted in art as small adults with none of the physical characteristics of children. They were sent out to work as soon as possible. Children and adults were only valued for the work they could do - to contribute to the family or to society as a whole. Any idea of special treatment or the need to play was quite foreign to ancient people.

These days we know all about rules and special treatment. Educators learn about child development and how to teach young children through play. We know how the mind develops from childhood through to young adulthood through to the more mature years. We mandate car seats for babies and small children and booster seats for medium sized children. We have regulations for the spacing of rungs in cribs and all sorts of regulations for baby bottles, and toys, and sports and playground equipment and the list goes on.

We know how important play is to a child. Some of my favourite pictures are of children at play - pictures of children doing nothing particularly useful at all - often getting in the way of, or slowing down, adults work - often requiring special equipment to keep them safe. Small children make up their own games and find enjoyment in the simplest of activities. Small children enjoy mimicking adults but sometimes their play involves things adults would not do at all, or rather, have not done since they were children!

I am taking part in an Advent retreat, these first few weeks of advent and we hold this retreat meetings over the internet and the telephone. (This is the 21st century after all!) One of the pictures on which we reflected this past week was one of three boys playing soccer, or something similar, in the bombed out and dusty city of Kabul. Even in the midst of devastation these children found purpose and meaning in the interaction of play - even in the midst of destruction, their play brought them joy.

Here we are - in the midst of Advent and our first text, the one from Isaiah, is about hope in the midst of destruction - it is a passage about waiting for the promised one - the one who will make everything good and holy once more.

That is the place where we are now - waiting once more for the coming of the holy one. Waiting. Hoping. Looking for Joy.

I don’t think that the birth narratives were important in the very early church, but by the time the gospels were written down there was a need to flesh out this part of Jesus’ life; there was a need to go back to the beginning; there was a need to talk about this one who began life, like the rest of us, as a child. Unlike the rest of us though, there were many more hopes placed on his shoulders. The stories tell us of the heavens themselves changing by the appearance of a new star. Heaven changed in that angels were sent to announce to a group of shepherds - and before that to Zachariah and to Mary and Joseph. The gospel writers want us to know that this birth was surrounded by careful planning - not just by the immediate family - but by the very cosmos. And not only did the friends bring gifts and visit so did total strangers from next door and from far, far away. This baby would change the world.

And we celebrate his coming as a baby. Why? I think that it is because it is so common, so natural, so like everyday life. We look at a baby and in that baby, that ordinary baby we see hope for the world.

Even those of us who have no children know something of what it takes to prepare for a baby - and parents will tell me that nothing could really prepare them for the profound changes it can bring.

And there is always something that will surprise! I recall going to the hospital one day on a regular visit and I caught a glimpse of someone trying to get something into his car - I really didn’t pay any attention. Until I went inside and saw a friend sitting in the lobby with a baby carrier on the floor in front of her and in the carrier her two day old baby. I realized that it was HER husband, out in the bitter cold, trying to fasten the bottom part of the baby carrier into their car so he could drive them home from the hospital. I know their nursery was ready. I know that there were scads of “baby things” in the house. I know that he had known about the baby for many months - I know he was and is a competent professional, but I guess he never got around to it - there would always be another day!

The thing about Christmas and about babies and about Advent is that the most profound experiences of the holy come when we least expect them. I love the British comedy show, The Vicar of Dibley. One year on that show they had decided to have the Christmas pageant in a real barn and the woman who played Mary in the Christmas pageant was really pregnant and her baby decided to make her appearance DURING the pageant. Almost everyone thought that she was just a really good actor.

Next week we will have the hanging of the greens and the week after the children will be doing the white gift service and at the end of that week, we will have Christmas Eve - none of those services give me an opportunity to preach!

This time of year calls us to be people of hope. When we hear gloom and doom all around us, it will do no good to ignore it, we are called to meet it with a message of hope. We do not prepare for anything important by putting our heads in the sand and wishing that someone else will do our work for us - that wont work either.

We must prepare diligently. We must clean the dust and the cobwebs out of our lives and get ourselves ready. BUT

We must also be open to the unexpected - to the ways we never imagined for God to appear to us -

Find a photograph of a wide eyed child - a child who is seein something marvellous beyond his or her memory or experience, and imagine that look on our own faces. Imagine what it would take to put that look on our faces. Now, like those children in the war torn and bombed out cities of Europe, put that photo under your pillow and dream -

When God is a child there’s joy in our song.

The last shall be first and the weak shall be strong.

and none shall be afraid.

Amen!

NO SERMON

NO SERMON