Advent One: Sacred Time

Romans 13:11-14       

Matthew 24:36-44      

When we come to the season of Advent we begin again. We begin the cycle of our worship year, and we begin with waiting.

Waiting accompanies beginnings in a natural way.  We wait for the beginning of a new life through nine months of pregnancy. We wait for the beginning of a new school year. We wait for vacations, for promotions, for the release of a long-awaited movie or a new book from a favorite author. We wait for a response to our email. We wait for someone to return our phone call. We are always waiting.

We wait for doctor appointments and dentist appointments. We wait for the furniture we ordered to be delivered. We wait.

We wait for spring and then for summer. We wait for someone to notice us and offer us what we need. We just wait.

We wait for the interminable meeting to be over. We wait for the coffee to brew. We wait for five o’clock to come, for Friday to come. We wait for sleep to come. We wait.

We wait for that person to forgive us, finally. We wait; we are always waiting.

The early followers of Jesus were in a state of waiting for him to return and bring an end to the world as they knew it, and we know it. They waited with the kind of anxiety you and I are familiar with, the anxiety that accompanies our waiting for something important to happen – waiting for the kids to arrive; they are late and we don’t know what is keeping them. Waiting for the lab test results that will tell us: are we dying or not?

They were waiting for the Savior to return – our Savior, Jesus Christ. Waiting for the fullness of time, for the end of suffering and tears, for the lion and the lamb to lie down together, for peace on earth. That’s all.

And it wasn’t coming quickly enough. Jesus was late. He should have been here by now, they said to one another. We have been watching and waiting, like he told us to do. We have said our goodbyes to this world and we are ready for the next one.

They were ready, because they knew just how broken the world was. They walked down roads lined with crosses, the bodies of their friends and loved ones on display. They tried not to look.

They knew how broken everything was, just as we do. We read headlines that say, “7 Mass Shootings in the Last 7 Days.” War in Ukraine rages on. White supremacists and neo-Nazis have dinner together to plan their next moves.

We often try not to look.

So we wait for our Savior. We are peering out the window waiting for his car to pull into the driveway. We imagine his arrival. Jesus, finally; you’re here. We were so worried about you. Because we’ve been waiting.

There is a poem called “The Whole Earth’s a Waiting Room,” by Joseph T. Nolan, which draws an apt picture of our constant state of waiting, always waiting for something to happen; always waiting for something to change.

The whole earth’s a waiting room!
“The Savior will see you now”
is what we expect to hear at the end.
Maybe we should raise our expectations.
The Savior might see us now
if we know how to find him.

What if we did raise our expectations? That is, if we stopped waiting for Jesus to helicopter in and clean things up in one great sweep? And we began looking for the signs of him here and now?

C.S. Lewis wrote the wonderful stories about the land of Narnia, where the lion named Aslan is at the center of it all. Most of the time, though, Aslan is neither seen nor heard. But occasionally someone will say to another, “Aslan is on the move.”

“Aslan is on the move,” they will say to one another in a hushed and reverent tone. Something wonderful is coming because Aslan is on the move. When Aslan, the creator and redeemer of the land of Narnia, is on the move, marvelous things happen.

What if what we are waiting for is already here? As the poem says:

Maybe we should raise our expectations.
The Savior might see us now
if we know how to find him.
Could it be that Jesus, too, is waiting
for us to know he is around?

It is true, isn’t it? He left something of himself here, didn’t he? In all the ways he taught us – in his words and his actions – didn’t he leave something of himself? In the stories we tell of the times he fed the multitudes, seemingly out of nothing there was plenty! We tell the stories again and again and we say, just as he said: Go and do likewise. Didn’t Jesus leave something of himself in each one of us?

Didn’t he leave something of himself in the divine Spirit that permeates everything on earth? That kernel of goodness that is in everything God created – which is to say, everything – don’t we see something of our Savior in it?

We fill our time with waiting, always waiting. But didn’t Jesus say, “Stay awake; pay attention; keep watch.” Didn’t Paul say, “Now is the moment.” Can we see that our waiting must be watching for the sacred that is here right now; that we are living in sacred time?

It’s a matter of perspective. Stop. Pay attention and see the sacred that is around you and in you.

Stop your busyness, your stewing about all the things that didn’t go perfectly and all the people who didn’t do what they were supposed to do. Stop trying to make perfection. Look for the things of God because they are already perfect.

Feed someone. Hug someone. Smile at someone. Assume the best of someone, just as you would want them to do for you.

Listen to someone. Tell them you believe in them. Bless them. And, yes, you need to do it for yourself sometimes just as much as you need to do it for others.

Open your eyes to sacred time. Practice seeing that kernel of goodness that is in everything and everyone. And if you can’t see it in them, then pray for them. Pray for the goodness of their creator to shine through.

And when you are doing these things, you are living in sacred time.

 

 Photo by Andraz Lazic on Unsplash

Jesus Rules

 

Jeremiah 23:1-6 

Luke 23:33-43    

There was a time in my life when I declared myself sovereign ruler of my home, and the kitchen was my throne room.  It was a wide open room in the back of the house, from where I could survey my domain. I had a clear view of who entered or exited the front or back door. I could see anyone coming up or down the stairs. I could stand at my counter peeling apples and maintain command over the household. I called out orders as I kneaded dough. I answered questions while I diced onions. And you can be certain, nobody was getting any forbidden snacks, or failing to clean up their messes, while I was in my place. 

For a time, when they were small enough, I actually extended my kingdom to anywhere I happened to be with my children. They were, the four of them, essentially, my realm. The little ones running down the sidewalk ahead of me would stop on my command. Strangers would look at me, clearly impressed by my power. I simply nodded. Of course. I am the ruler of this realm.

In those days and those places, I was sovereign. At least, that’s how I remember it now.

We don’t have kings, of course, in our nation. No monarchs or dictators for us. We have democratically elected leaders and systems of checks and balances, and that sort of thing, because we have a healthy suspicion of power in the hands of any one person. Absolute power is a dangerous thing in the hands of men and women.

The people of Israel experienced this over and over again. God never wanted to give them a king in the first place, because they should have known God is the only king they would ever need. But they had a serious case of keeping up with the Joneses. Israel looked around and said, everyone in the neighborhood has a king; we want one too. And finally, they got their way.

This is where that old saying, “Be careful what you wish for,” seems apt. For hundreds of years, between the occasional benevolent monarch, they were beset with cruel, careless, and malevolent leaders. The problem with absolute power was absolutely clear. But the only ones speaking up about it were the prophets, like Jeremiah, calling out those shepherds who destroy the flock. A shepherd who destroys the flock! Shameful, isn’t it? To allow the destruction of those you have been entrusted with care of; to abandon the least powerful and most vulnerable of the flock for the sake of your own gain. These are, as the Lord says, evil doings.

No one but the prophets were speaking out about it, though, because no one really wanted to put themselves at risk by challenging the ultimate authority in the land. The one who protests will risk the wrath of the whole kingdom coming down on him.

And when Jesus challenged the authorities of his day, this is what happened. It did not matter that he made no claims to be king of Israel. It did not matter that he voiced no intentions of revolting against kings or emperors. It did not matter that he broke no laws of the empire. It only mattered that he questioned the conventional wisdom. He shone a light on the cracks where evil seeped in. He peeled away the veneer of law and order, showing the corruption that lay beneath. This just would not be tolerated because we all, every one of us, want to believe that the system is ok, that the benefits we carve out from it, however small they might be, are safe. My tax cuts, my job, my cheap goods and entertainment are safe.

So it wasn’t just the empire that could not tolerate someone like Jesus. The Pharisees and the Sadducees and the Chief Priests, who had all carved out their little realms of power could not tolerate Jesus. The people who just lived day to day, hand to mouth, a breath away from homelessness, who had carved out their tiny realms of what little they had, who heard the authorities warn he was a threat to their safety – they could not tolerate Jesus. Jesus had to be cast as a criminal, an enemy of the state. 

So they mocked him as king, oblivious to the truth of what they were saying. They hung him on the cross, alongside two other men who had been charged and convicted in their courts.  One of these dead men joined the taunts of the crowd, but the other one turned to Jesus and said, “Remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

Remember me when you come into your kingdom. This one hanging alongside him recognized him for who he was.  He saw in him what so many others could not see, the kingdom of God. And he wanted to be a part of this kingdom.

Perhaps the only reason this man could speak this way was because he had nothing left to lose.

The truth is that for most of us it is a hard thing to proclaim Jesus’ kingdom because so much of what we value stands as a barrier to it. The truth is that we may not want to recognize the kingdom of Jesus because it bids us come and die along with him. The truth is that if we live in fear we won’t be able to see that his kingdom is not just pie in the sky in the sweet by and by but is also here and now. The kingdom is in our midst.

The kingdom of Jesus is here as well as there. It is now as well as then. The kingdom of God is present to all who can see it and live into it and living into it means dying to all that resists it.

Christ is the king of both heaven and earth, of here and now and always, of this realm and the realm of eternity.  He is the one who would be called, in the words of Jeremiah, The Lord Is Our Righteousness. And we cannot make light of this kingship.  It does not serve us or this world well if we try to reduce his realm in time and place to one hour on a Sunday morning, one room in one building.

It does not do to reduce his rule to the lord who puts Band-Aids on my wounds, the lord who is my cheerleader, I shall not want for self-confidence.  It does not do to pit him against others because he is “my” Jesus. It does not do to claim him as the lord of my needs while ignoring the needs of so many others.

If Christ is our king, we will stand with those whom he stands beside, however much the powers of this world despise them.  We will stand with whom he stands with, however different they might seem from us.  We are being called to do this even now.

There has been a new level of hate unleashed in our land. It has reached an unnerving level, a point where the haters don’t even bother to pretend they are better. This hate is unleashed on all kinds of vulnerable people, but in particular, recently, for reasons I have trouble fathoming, against the Jews.

Words of hate, which lead to acts of hate, have been used by some people with really big megaphones. So many refuse to stand up to them. How will you and I respond? It won’t do to shrug it off and say, it’s just talk, it’s just words. Because words of hate almost always, eventually, lead to acts of violence. We have seen it before.

We must resist it, if we believe in the kingship of Jesus.  We must work for justice if we are citizens of the kingdom of Jesus. Here and now.

Jesus rules in this world wherever there are people who choose his reign over the reign of “might makes right.” Jesus rules in this world wherever there are people who choose to stand where he stands – with the persecuted, the despised, the least, the last, and the lost.

Whenever someone stands with the person who is being taunted or bullied. Whenever someone gives up a privilege so that another might have their basic human dignity.  Whenever someone calls out the authorities who are neglecting their responsibility as the shepherd to all the sheep – Jesus rules.

Jesus rules in this world when he rules in our hearts. And when he rules in our hearts, the world will know it, my friends.  The world will know it.

Photo: ChurchArt.com

What Lasts

Isaiah 65:17-25  

Luke 21:5-19     

We have all known hardship and sorrow and loss, I am sure. Although we might not have known it the way Israel did.

The Old Testament book of Isaiah tells us of the trials that Israel endured during the 6^th century BCE when they were invaded by a powerful enemy – the Babylonians. The city of Jerusalem was protected by strong walls, but the Babylonian army was big enough, powerful enough to wear them down.

They laid siege to the city, surrounded it, trapping the Israelites inside. No one could go in or out. The enemy waited. The people inside the walls went through all their food stores, and the Babylonians waited. They waited until the people inside were starving, and then they waited a little more.

Finally, they attacked. They trampled, they killed, they set fires. They destroyed the holy temple. The temple that Israel had built with the idea that it would last forever. But now it was no more. It did not last.

The Babylonians took the Israelites as prisoners and marched them off to Babylon.

Which is where they stayed for around 50 years. And the painful memory of that time can still be seen in some of the scriptures that came out of that period.

But empires do not last forever; they come and go, and eventually the Babylonian empire was weakened and destroyed by a more powerful ruler. This ruler had a different plan for dealing with its captive Israel.

The plan was to let them go back home. To make them rebuild what had been torn down. And so they did, some of them, 50 years after they have been forced out, return to Israel. They are sent back to rebuild Jerusalem.

The work of rebuilding is arduous, more difficult than anyone could have imagined. Conditions were harsh in every way. The people were still not free of oppression – it was just a different kind of oppression.

Some decades passed, very little progress was made, and the people’s resolve was waning. They fought amongst themselves, and they turned away from God. The rebuilding they had accomplished seemed so much less than what they remembered from the glory days of Jerusalem, before the Babylonian invasion. What they had now was a mere shadow of its former self.

And in the midst of this the prophet offers them hope. Isaiah speaks to them of how God will set to right all things, and it will happen imminently. The deliverance of Israel and judgment on their oppressors. Things so glorious they…well, some might say the prophet went a bit too far, because these things he speaks of, they defy credibility.

He is speaking to them about things that last. And after all they have been through, that might have been hard to imagine. But he gave them hope – hope enough to carry on.

The temple was rebuilt. The religious life of Israel was restored.

Several hundred years later, there is another new oppressor – the Roman Empire now. This oppressor had taken an interest in the temple – they saw it as a fixer-upper. King Herod was keen on rebuilding and refurbishing the temple for his own glory, rather than for the glory of God. But it was indeed beautiful, and the people of Israel appreciated it. Worship, study, sacrifices of all kinds still took place there; it was still the center of religious life for the people of Israel.

But they clearly had a sense now of how things could fall apart. And so they handled their relationship with Rome delicately – treading carefully with the oppressor, so that they might not interfere with their rituals and traditions. The priests, the scribes, the Pharisees and Sadducees went to tremendous pains to maintain a peaceable relationship with the Romans. If they manage it right, they thought, this accommodation, this truce, it might just last forever.

And then Jesus steps up and tells them it will not. This temple, it will not last forever either. The day will come when not one stone will be left upon another. Once again, it will be left in ruins. All thrown down.

But a people who have lost so much, so many times, are alarmed when they hear this. No, they think. This cannot be. “When?” they ask him, “How? What will be the sign?” Can they prepare for it? Can they possibly avoid the calamity this time?

When Luke was writing, these things had already happened. Those things that Jesus described – the destruction of the temple – were already in the past. This beautiful temple, like the ones before it, did not last.

As many times as we build glorious monuments and as many times as we see them go down – in flames or in dust – we persist in imagining that they should last forever.  But they don’t. I have seen churches die – not from enemy attacks, though. What happens now is that people drift away. Members grow older and eventually die. New people don’t join. And one day there are two or three people left, and they begin to wonder if this is the end.

We may find it unbearable, the idea that a church could die, because we believe in eternal things. But sometimes we confuse our forms with God’s everlasting promises.

Nothing made by human hands lasts, no matter how good it is. Temples are destroyed, our church buildings might be emptied, sold, and even torn down to make room for something else.

Nothing of human creation lasts forever. Our steeples and bells, our stained-glass windows. Our pews. Someday they will be gone.

None of our human ideas or preferences last forever. Our orders of worship, our musical styles, the things about which we say “we have always done it that way” – even these things will fade.

The church of Jesus Christ is not immune to loss and hardship. Jesus warned his disciples that it would not be easy, and if anyone tried to tell them otherwise, they had better run away. They best not be led astray by anyone who comes along with false promises.  But do not be terrified, he says to us. All things on earth will come to an end, but this will not be the end because God’s promises are everlasting.

Not a hair on your head will perish, he says. By your endurance you will gain your souls, he says. For God is making a new heaven and a new earth, and it will be filled with things of life and light and joy, with good things to eat and drink, with peace, with love.

We see things end…we sometimes are called upon to rebuild, to make something new, like Israel did after their Babylonian exile. Like Jesus’ disciples did after his crucifixion and the empty tomb. Things come and they go, and the Presbyterian Church USA will not last forever, either, I assure you. But that is alright, because God’s promises are everlasting.

Our church year is about to end. A new Advent is about to dawn, with all its anticipation and hope. The vision of the prophet, the promises of Jesus, these are our hope for all eternity.

Love…peace…joy…hope. These are the things that last. Do not be terrified, because no matter what happens to all our stuff, all our ways of doing things – we know: God’s promises are the things that last.

Forever and ever. Amen.

Photo by Michael Dziedzic on Unsplash 

 

All the Saints

 

Ephesians1:11-23      

It is what we all dread, although we know it is inevitable. No one on earth lives forever, and the end will come for each one of us, even though we don’t know when.

But one day the moment arrives. A loved one dies. It may come so much sooner than was expected that we feel like death has cheated. Or it may come after a long full life – perhaps even as a mercy. In any case, we grieve – for ourselves mostly. We are the ones who will carry the sorrow of the loss.

But yet there is a will to be read. A last will and testament that our beloved has left behind. We are called to the reading and so we go. We sit down in front of the attorney’s desk – or counselor, we might call them – and wait to hear what has been written.

The counselor smiles, looks at us and says, “I am so happy to be able to share this with you today. You are going to inherit something so wonderful, there are no words to adequately describe it.”

And we are thinking: what could that possibly be? a million dollars? Have they left me all their property? What could be so indescribably wonderful?

The counselor proceeds to open the will and begins reading:

In Christ we have obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, so that we might live for the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, you were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; this is the pledge of our inheritance towards redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.

And as we listen to this we begin to think, I guess the counselor is right to say that there are no words to adequately describe it. Because I don’t really have a clue what this inheritance is. Is it really so great?

The counselor can tell by our expressions that we are skeptical, and speaks again: “Your love for all the saints is well-known,” the counselor begins.

But we say, “Wait – I don’t know what you’re even talking about. Saints? I don’t know any saints. Please, look around. Do you see anyone who is perfect? Anyone who is not broken; hurting and sometimes even hurting other people? Do you see anyone in this crazy world who is really getting it right?

“Counselor, my heart is breaking for this world and all the people living in it, because everywhere I see chaos. I see angry people – angry at one another, angry at their circumstances, angry at the world. They are angry about their lost fortunes, their lost dreams, lost hopes. They divide themselves into opposing camps – mistrusting one another completely. They have about given up on everything, counselor. And I am afraid I am just the same.

“People have lost faith. They worship idols of all kinds, they care only about amusing themselves, distracting themselves from their pain. I see people who are addicted to anger and people who are just depressed. People who are always fighting and people who only want to escape, to disappear. And you talk about saints? There are no saints anymore.”

The counselor looks at us for a moment, then begins to speak again: “It is true, you cannot see it now. At best, we can only get a fleeting glimpse of this wonderful inheritance, but that does not make it any less real. It is a matter of vision. Perspective. That is, are you seeing through your eyes alone, or are you seeing with your heart?

“If you see with the eyes of your heart, you will still see the pain, the anger, the sorrow in this world – I cannot take that away. You are right – it is all around us. But if you see with the eyes of your heart, you will see so much more.”

But we interrupt again: “Just stop. That sounds like so much new age hooey, Counselor!”

“There is nothing new age about it,” the Counselor replies, “it’s as ancient as the words of the scriptures. With the eyes of your heart you will see the hope to which you have been called. The hope we have in Jesus Christ. Dear ones, this is not some feeble, frilly hope, like we mean when we say, ‘I hope there is cake for dessert!’ This hope we have as our inheritance in Christ Jesus is the most durable and powerful gift possible. It is the promise that God’s love is greater than any hardships we may experience in this world, the promise that we are never without that love.”

The counselor goes on: “Dear ones, with the eyes of your heart you will see how rich is this glorious inheritance! Do you know what it is? It is freedom – by which you may soar above the brokenness of this world, never fully removed from it but always knowing that it is not the last word. This inheritance is peace – the knowledge of God’s all-forgiving nature, the grace that gives us newness of life.

“With the eyes of your heart you will see the immeasurable greatness of God’s power, and you will see how that power may be at work through you. How, you ask? God’s power works through us when we decide to live not only for the moment, but for the hope to which God has called us. God’s power works through us when we decide to live not only for ourselves, but for our neighbors – all of them.”

The counselor paused, but had more to say. “As for the notion that there are no saints? Open your eyes, dear ones. They are all around you. They do small things to make a small impact in the hope that these acts will be drops of merciful rain in a great ocean of other small things. They feed people, sometimes with food and other times with comfort, encouragement, words of wisdom. They try to make things a little better in this world. They try, they fail, they try again.

“They sometimes lose their patience and get snippy. They have days when they don’t feel like being generous, they just want to go through the McDonald’s drive-through, sit in front of the TV and eat junk. They have real flaws, weaknesses, as we all do. They might at times inflict real harm on people - and when I say "real" harm I mean real harm. Like King David did, the one the Bible describes as ‘a man after God’s own heart.’ Yes, he had plenty to repent of. So do most of us.

“Those of us who try and fail and try again to live for the praise of Christ’s glory, as Paul writes in the letter to the Ephesians. Those of us who get angry, get bummed out about everything, but who nonetheless persevere by the power of the Holy Spirit. These are the saints. You are the saints, dear ones.”

Dearly Beloved. Saints of God: Open your hands. Open your eyes. Open your hearts. Receive your inheritance.

Photo by Mike Labrum on Unsplash