Advent - Year B -- 2017
Indexed by Date. Sermons for Advent Year B
Isaiah 64: 1-12
Psalm 80
Mark 13: 24-37
Happy New Year! Welcome to Advent 1 - the first Sunday in the “church year.” As you may know, a series of Scripture readings, called “the Revised Common Lectionary,” used on Sundays, runs in an organized pattern from “Advent” to the “Reign of Christ”, a 52 week cycle. Advent is a season of hope and expectation in which we await the fulfilment of God’s promises. In Advent we await not only the birth of a special child but also the fulfilment of the promise of a completely restored creation.
Last week we heard what is often called, the “parable of the last judgement,” but today we begin once again in a new cycle of hope and fulfilment. It is hoped that we have grown and been changed by our journey in the last year and that we are not the same people we were 52 weeks ago. In just a few weeks we will celebrate Christmas but we must remember that the birth of this child of promise is not the end of a journey but only a brief stop along the way.
Here, on this day, at the beginning of the journey, we look to, and hope for, its ending. The passage begins with a heartfelt plea, “God why don’t you show your power like you did in ages passed: why don’t you tear open the heavens in a great show of power and fix what is wrong with the world?”
This is more than the “classic spat” that might happen between siblings, where the kids are in the basement and one is calling up to the heavenly parent, “mom/dad come down here, he wont give me the remote!” This is more than the “classic situation” in which God is standing at the top of the stairs, yelling down at the squabbling creation, “If I have to come down there, you’ll be sorry, ” This entire passage is a heartfelt lament, from deep in the soul of God’s prophet. The deep question for the people and for the prophet, is, “Why is God hidden when we need God so much?”
We know, of course, that sometimes, it’s the one who has called on mom or dad to “come down,” who ends up being seen as the cause of the altercation. Ouch! Wrapped up in this passage is the answer; human beings have done this to themselves!
In many cases, in our modern world. we have created our own mess!
For example, we believed for generations that we could do anything we wanted to the earth and the planet could and would absorb our excesses or fix our mistakes through its own natural processes. We would be okay; there would always be more trees, more clean water, more of what we need to sustain us and our careless or consuming lifestyles.
We know now that scientists are saying that this isn’t true. Adverse weather events of all kinds are becoming worse and we know that those most affected are those in developing countries.
Many people in countries whose economies are tied to the consumption of fossil fuels, such as Canada and the USA, are worried about the cost of the solutions that have been presented but also about the longer-term cost of not doing anything.
We look at the nightly news and we see the arrogance of uncaring governments world-wide and the suffering of both individuals and entire groups of people.
We look around our own community and circle of friends and see people without adequate work and the increase in use of the food bank. We see people who are taking treatments for serious illnesses and those whose treatments are not working or for whom there is “nothing that can be done”.
On this World AIDS day we have to realise that what is now a manageable illness in North America is still devastating entire countries.
Sometimes we may think that it would be nice if a cosmic Harry Potter would just wave his magic wand and fix everything with one spell and a flash of light. Along with Isaiah, we wish that God would come “down” and fix it.
I think that we tend to think that we can do just fine on our own, for most things, and only need God when we run out of options. The prophetic answer is that true faith does not work this way. The prophets were continually having to tell the people that they had to place their entire lives in a faith context. Hope for a reality more in tune with God’s vision always involves human change. The prophets told the people that they could change and that this change could make a difference. The message for us is that there is always hope for a better future when we embrace God’s possibilities.
At the last Presbytery meeting we all received a packet of information on Alcoholics Anonymous. AA is often called a “self-help” group, but after deciding that one wants to stop drinking, the first steps someone has to take are to 1, acknowledge their powerlessness over alcohol, 2, realize that a higher power can restore them to sanity and 3, to turn their will and their lives over to this power. Two groups meet in this building.
At the conclusion of today’s passage from Isaiah is the image of the “potter.” The 40th General Council, the national governing body of the United Church, met in Kelowna BC a little more than 8 years ago and its theme focussed on another of the biblical passages in the Older Testament which employ the image of a potter. During our opening worship a potter worked on a wheel, fashioning a piece of pottery - a moving visual for our worship.
I love pottery - I don’t have a lot of it because its pricey. It takes effort and skill to make. I brought some pieces to church today - one is a communion cup which was a gift to me as a Commissioner of that General Council. We all received one! It is made from clay but, unlike “regular” pottery was not thrown on a wheel. It looks like it was cut out and then folded and pressed together! Of the hundreds made for that event, no two are precisely the same! The second is a chalice made on a wheel in the regular way as far as I know. The last two pieces are mugs which look to be the same size and shape but, upon closer inspection are not exactly the same, even apart from the decorations. No two pieces of pottery are ever exactly alike.
While this might sound like an “off the wall”, I wonder what it is like for the clay to be formed into a pot or bowl or mug? Of course clay, as far as we know, has no “life,” but it we are to take the image of ourselves as clay, then it does become very relevant. As human beings we are sentient and have autonomous existence. If someone “pushes” on me, I feel it. As to “change”, I may decide to “go with it” or “resist it.” There is a sense in which raising children involves moulding them in certain ways - yet the wise parent respects individual differences and does not try to force their child to become something for which they have no interest or aptitude.
Lets go back to the passage for a minute. Isaiah’s world was in turmoil; they were at the mercy of the nation of Persia who had defeated their enemy, Babylon. Even though they were “home” things were not the way they had been “in the good old days.” For this they wanted a sudden intervention of divine power.
Given all the uncertainties of our lives, what do we hope for?
9/11 was a watershed event for North America. Even before the dust had settled on 911, Americans dazed by the destruction at the heart of their country, were told ”to show the terrorists they had not succeeded and go out and SHOP.” It seemed as if the sorrow and anger could be solved by “retail therapy”. It seemed to be presented as the antidote to despair. Keep the economy going. Shop. Spend money.
In the season leading up to Christmas, Canadians are not immune to the pressure to shop as a way of fulfilling our hopes and ensuring happiness. Influenced by our American neighbours, Canadians now see ads for sales on “Black Friday” and “Cyber Monday.”
If Advent and Christmas are about “God’s answer to human hopes for a better world,” as a people of faith we need to decide if we want greed and commercialism to be our answer, to shape us and be our potter or if we want God to be.
The hope of Advent is not something we can “put on plastic.” We can’t solve the problems of our own lives, our communities, or the world by buying “stuff”.
As I read this passage, the message, is that God does not break in and wave a magic wand and make everything ok again! God asks that we participate in the healing of the world and be willing to be transformed by the hope that is inherent in Advent. With this hope, people of faith can make a difference.
I read a tweet by Pope Francis a while ago. It went something like this: “As Christians we pray for the poor. Then we feed the poor. That’s how prayer works”.
In the context of increased polarization and mistrust among ethnic and racial groups we must realize that our God is not just OUR God, but the God of all peoples. God is not just the God of the West but of all nations; no hope can be true hope unless it involves seeking the well being of all people. It involves looking after our world so that what our children inherit will be able to sustain life. The future of the human all life on this beautiful spinning blue planet depends on this!
Moulded by the hand of a skilled potter - we can live into that hope that is at the heart of the creation, at the heart of the Christian message, “I come that you might have life and have it in all abundance”.
Amen.
Isaiah 40: 1-11
Psalm 85
Mark 1: 1-8
“It’ll be over soon. I’m almost done!” Now that’s the news I want to hear from my dentist! Even though I am feeling no real pain, thanks to the xylocaine injections, getting any dental work is still an uncomfortable process. You know how it is: lying there on a hard, uncomfortable chair, tipped almost upside down, with two people hovering over you, a dental dam in your mouth and attached to it, various pieces of stainless steel to hold it in place, the dentist and assistant, using drills, picks and shovels, mirrors, suction hoses, lights and other paraphanelia, all the while trying to have a conversation with you but also not wanting you to move your jaw! Its not a pleasant procedure but much better than the days before routine freezing and ceiling mounted televisions to distract you! If only the dentist wouldn’t block your view of the screen!
We’ve all been on a long trip with children in the car. The choruses of “are we there yet?” are only slightly less annoying than the fact that we adults know we STILL have a long way to go. Monday, on CBC Radio, one of the hosts noted that it was two weeks to Christmas. Panicking, I thought, “What? Time has flown” at about the same time as she was corrected by the co-host, “relax everyone, there are THREE weeks before Christmas!” I was relieved, as I suppose most of the listeners were; whew, more time for shopping, parties, preparations, and, for me, getting the various church services ready.
How many of you get more and more frazzled as the 25th comes closer? NOW, its two weeks. Two weeks. But you can’t say that you weren’t warned; you’ve had lots of notice. I can tell you, with some degree of certainty, that in 2027, 10 years from now, Christmas will come on December 25th! So, please DON’T say it crept up on you!
We all know what the world tries to get us to do at Christmas. As I started writing this sermon I was out and about and noticed that Tim Hortons already had their holiday hours posted! So, if your day is not complete without your daily “medium double-single. dark roast”, pay attention to the shorter hours over the week between the 25th and the new year or you may find a “closed” sign!
I’ve told you before that I’m not much for concerts and classical music and that I find the idea of going to a classical music concert to be about as exciting as having to watch paint dry! However, George Frideric Handel’s, “Messiah,” almost tempts me to sit down, sit up and take notice. Its soaring music lifts my heart and soul and its message is one of profound hope. In the midst of despair, darkness and confusion, what could be more soothing to a weary soul than, the plaintive, the far away, yet oh so near, strain of the tenor’s voice singing, “Comfort ye, Comfort ye.”
The good news on this second Sunday of Advent is that God’s people have been this way before and God’s people have found that they were NOT abandoned. God’s people found that they were indeed comforted.
This past week was the 100th Anniversary of the “Halifax Explosion.” When the two ships, the Norwegian SS Emo and the French SS Mont-Blanc, loaded to the gunwales with explosives destined for the war in Europe, collided in the “Narrows” of Halifax Harbour which caught on fire as a result, the resulting explosion would not be equalled until the invention of the atomic bomb.
I gather that three factors made the toll of death and injury worse. One was that many people with a view of the harbour were looking out their windows at the spectacle of a burning ship and were then blinded or killed by the flying glass when the ship finally exploded! Second was the fact that most houses were heated with wood burning stoves which set the rubble on fire. Third, the city was then hit by a winter storm depositing 40cms of snow which prevented people from being rescued before they froze to death in the rubble. There are many stories of heroism and miraculous survival among all the tragedy of those days. “Ash Pan Annie” was found in the rubble, warmed by the heat of the stove in her house! Several survivors are still alive, but none, as far as I know, old enough to have memories of the event.
What is most often remembered though is the kindness and generosity of others. The “Nova Scotia Christmas Tree” is sent to the city of Boston every year is a thank-you for their kindness in response to the long ago disaster. Of course many Martimers had relatives in the “Boston States.” Help came from all across the country though, the Empire itself and even as far as Australia.
In the midst of tragedy the knowledge that you are not alone and that people are willing to express their care in tangible ways, makes a difference in the spirit of the people, if not the actual outcome. The knowledge that we “will rise again” gives people the hope and will to get up in the morning and move forward.
The prophet whose words were read earlier in the service was speaking to a people caught between international forces. Back in the far reaches of history their ancestors had been slaves in Egypt and Moses had led them on a 40 year journey to live in their own land. The people to whom this prophet called Isaiah was writing had just been released from captivity in Babylon and they came “home” on good roads, straight through the desert from Babylon. They had King Cyrus of Persia to thank for this. While they were, in effect, a colony of the Persian empire, they were home and reasonably free. I suspect the return of the exiles caused no small amount of disruption for everyone involved, but they were home!
The strains of “comfort ye”, either direct from Isaiah or filtered through the voice of a tenor, in Handel’s version is haunting, yet comforting. It is tender, yet powerful, good news for those in distress. It is astonishingly joyous news. Comfort. Comfort.
We all know how much difference a good road makes to our travelling lives. “I just wanted to let you know. A road has been built, a road will be built so that the people can once again take possession of and know God’s promises.”
How do we go though, from the roads between Israel and Babylon, to the highway we need to build for God to come to us. How do we build the roads to a tender, yet powerful expression of true comfort!
The world will tell you that you can buy it, and, IT’S ON SALE this week!
Yet, we know that some things can’t be bought, at least not like that! Writer Sue Monk Kidd, in an anthology of poems and stories, I have had on my shelf since for over 25 years, writes about the time her young daughter found a couple of cast off items in an old trunk and gave them, all wrapped up, to her parents for Christmas. Her small daughter knew about wrapping and giving but not about “the buying of new things in a store” part of Christmas! Kidd later reflected:
“Christmas should not be simply the experience of getting more, but waking up to what we already possess. For God has already given us everything we need: A Saviour, love, hope, eternal life, beauty, peace of mind, joy, faith, community ..... so much. Only we don’t always experience them. With time and familiarity we tend to lose touch with God’s abundance. So this Christmas lets not just open what is new beneath the tree, but reopen what is already ours”. (Sue Monk Kidd, “The Familiar Christmas Gift.”)
This leads me to ask the questions: “What is it that has lost its shine for us?” “What do we need to dust off and polish up?” “What do we need to give and receive this Christmas that can’t be bought with any amount of money?” “What do we need to exchange, that is already our own?”
The good news of the prophet Isaiah is that our God continues to seek to be in relationship with us. No matter what we have done, or how far we have strayed in the past, God is waiting to don a hard hat, climb on an excavator or bulldozer and build us a road back home.
In the wake of the anniversary we have celebrated this week; in the light of the daily newscasts; and in our own lives, we know all about the fragility of life; we know the grass withers and the flowers fade and we long for something more lasting, something to give us hope.
Deep in the message in the scripture is that part of all of that hope is human response it involves. While God loves us unconditionally, we have to respond in order to fully feel this love and we respond, not just by coming to church and singing love songs to God, we respond by doing loving deeds for and with.
What good are all the warm wishes and the big meals WE enjoy at Christmas when we have not tried to help at least one other person feel warmer or more merry this season?
There’s just something about the Christmas message that compels people who aren’t normally into the things of the church to come and get their yearly fix - the trick is to keep that hope alive, to make it real, the other 51 weeks of the year.
The message of Isaiah gave hope to a people in exile thousands of years ago. The message of John, the Baptizer, was so compelling that they flocked to see and hear him in the desert and to be baptized by him as a sign of their readiness to embrace this hope. The message of Christmas has given hope to a weary world in all of the times since Jesus was born in a stable in Bethlehem long, long ago.
So let us trust that the mesage is true and will become truer (if that’s actually a word) this year. Let us dust off some of that stuff we put away because we thought it was dated or not relevant! Let us believe the truth of Christmas into being by focussing on spreading this good news around, even if it is just to one person outside our own family. Let us help the angels to sing, the shepherds to hear and the Marys and Josephs to open their hearts in love and trust.
“Arise, shine, for thy Light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.”
NO SERMON. It's our Carol Service Evening!
2 Samuel 1-11, 16
Luke 1: 47-55
Luke 1: 26-38
Even though tonight is Christmas Eve, I’m trying to hold us to Advent IV for just a little bit yet. When we are planning a big celebration, at home or in the church, it is useful, before we open the doors, if we take one last look around to make sure everything is in order. Are we really ready?
Last Sunday we were given a lovely, intricate gingerbread church and it was beautiful. It took its creators a lot of advance planning, including intricate diagrams, and some hot-glue, to build the little structure of flour, sugar and spice.
In today’s passage from the Hebrew Scriptures, we are told that King David felt guilty that he lived in a lovely cedar palace and God had been in a tent since the law was given to Moses on Mt Sinai. We are told that he wanted to build a house for God, one to rival the royal palace, and that the prophet was initially in favour. Yet, as he “slept on it,” Nathan was given a different answer. It turns out that the palace of wood and stone would have to wait; God wanted something more important for David; a “house” of flesh and bone. It was through this house of flesh and bone that God’s name would be praised and the people would become great.
Of course, the church has long seen Jesus as the ultimate fulfilment of this promise of God - a house of a different kind for King David. For this reason the prophesies relating to the “house of David” are read in Advent as we wait for the birth of Jesus.
In today’s Gospel passage we hear the initial announcement to Mary - that she would become the mother of this awaited one. There were so many reasons, in her mind, that she could not, but she was persuaded to trust in this grand promise.
As we come here on this Sunday morning, as we do on most Sunday mornings, we need to realize that observing Christmas is not just marking a past, “historic” event. It is much more than that! It is a celebration of something that can happen, in the present, and change us, in some way, as we go forward into the next year! Christmas can make a difference in our lives here and now and it can make a difference in us into the future. That’s why we are here!
We all know how it is with small children at this time of year. One, count it, ONE more sleep, and then HE comes. Who is he? Santa, of course. “Down the chimney he comes, with a bound.”
But here we (adults) are, IN CHURCH, and we’re waiting for Jesus who comes, TONIGHT, not in a sleigh pulled by reindeer and a bag full of toys, but accompanied by angel choirs and in a stable because no one could, or would, give his parents a room for the night.
One of the phrases I am hearing more and more these days is about a supposed “war on Christmas”. There was a war on Christmas, once - in the 17th century! And it was waged by church leaders!
Why, you might ask? Well, while Jesus’ birth is recorded in the Bible, there is no biblical record of the early church celebrating Christmas! Other celebrations were much more important.
In the 17th century, Puritans in England and in Massachusetts, attempted to outlaw any form of Christmas celebration which were usually marked by eating too much, drinking too much and partying too much, activities which were all thought to interfere with religious disciplines! There was, in their minds, nothing good about celebrating Christmas!
What is the role of religion in the public sphere? Who is responsible for practising our religious faith? Some feel that religion is a “private matter” and does not belong in public life. Some feel that since the majority of Canadians are, at least nominally Christian, our society should be seen to celebrate Christmas in obvious ways.
Of course, we spend most of our time outside of church and even outside of our own homes. It’s nice to see signs of the importance of Christmas in the world around us. In one city, council had a debate the other day about uneven distribution of Christmas decorations; one councillor felt his ward was not getting its “share”.
I don’t think we should be leaving it to others to show that Christmas is important. As people of faith perhaps the problem is that we don’t expect enough from Christmas. Perhaps we don’t leave enough room for the Christ Child to work true change on our hearts. In the message to Mary, the birth of Jesus was going to bring about all sorts of change, a grand and idealistic restoration! The throne of David would be restored! Things would be perfect once more. Many people long for the “good old days”; we’re just not in agreement about when exactly those days were! Mose of those days had their own flaws, their own “contemporaries” who wished for other times!
We need to be grounded in the biblical message but to live forward, to a time when these promises will be taken seriously - when Christmas promises will be lived more fully, all 12 months of the year! It’s not something society can do for us; we have to do it for society - and do it properly - not with “fluff” and ornaments and stuff from a store but with changed hearts and the will to allow Christ to make a difference.
True Christmas should not be something that can be packed up in a couple of boxes and stored away again, come January. It’s not something we can drag to the curb and wait for Valley Waste to take away.
The Puritans wanted to ban Christmas because it involved too much frivolity. In the United Church we don’t think that frivolity is all bad, but Christmas is more than an excuse for a good time. The Christmas message is not a frivolous one. The Christmas message is about building a house for God. This is a house where love can dwell, where all people can live in safety, where the prophetic word is allowed to challenge power, where outreach is second nature and where the good news is for ALL PEOPLE.
Amen!