Let Us Begin

Sermon of 31 December 2017, “New Year’s Eve,” at First Christian Church in Hampton VA. A most blessed and happy new year!

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GOSPEL OF LUKE 2:(1-7) 8-20, New Revised Standard Version

In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,

“Glory to God in the highest heaven,
    and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

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INTRODUCTION

Timing is everything, isn’t it?

In the reading from the Gospel of Luke there is an indelible image of timing that at first glance seems to have been all wrong.  It isn’t like the mere string of green lights or red lights on the way somewhere that leaves us happy for one or muttering for another, about this thing called “timing.”  It’s a lot more intense.

There is the young woman who is engaged that’s found to be with child, and Joseph wasn’t the father.  In spite of being noticeably holy or perhaps because of it, one can only imagine the looks Mary received or under the breath comments she heard.  People being who they so often are, unfortunately.

There is this couple who found themselves displaced by a mandated governmental census wholly designed to ensure robust taxes by the far off city of Rome.  An experience which only served to make the hard life of the working poor harder, by forcing them to bear the costs of travel and lodging amid this massive movement of people.

There is that dusty journey itself that required traveling in the very window of the mother’s due date, to a place her husband did not call home except by ancestry, where it’s likely she had no relatives and no support system, upon their arrival and certainly there was no room for them.  Just the chaos of a village already swollen by others forced to travel for the census.

There is their temporary home being a stable, little more than rough cave cut into the rock, now filling in as a birthing room.  And unspoken by Luke, having myself watched a mother die in childbirth leaving a newborn behind, I would think there would have also been the thought of the “what if” during an age of high infant mortality and first time mothers who did not always survive.

Let’s face it, these are the only circumstances Luke addresses or that we can reasonably speculate upon.  I would imagine there were others.  It is in the midst of crisis or major decisions, that we invariably wonder how God operates amid such circumstances.

WHY I BRING THIS UP

While God is doing “a new thing” for humanity, or as Paul puts it in his letter to the Galatians “in the fullness of time Christ appeared,” it seems to me that God’s plan itself is more often than not carried out by the unassuming, like Mary, and the initially reluctant, like Joseph, and in ways not understood at first.  In a lesser way, I suspect it is the same for us.  Perhaps, more than we realize.

FOR INSTANCE

When we consider the Lukan portrayals of Mary and Joseph, a seemingly unlikely two finding themselves with each other at the very center of the God’s greatest gift to humanity, we see a very Jewish family intent on keeping all the Jewish laws blamelessly.  As we might say, they colored inside the lines, as they acted to ensure completion of the three rituals that would be expected of them: Circumcision, performed on the eighth day, for all male children; Purification from childbirth for Mary, 40 days after her son’s birth, and Consecration of the firstborn, in recognition that the firstborn son belongs to the Lord.  But things had changed.  God was now coloring outside the familiar lines, in an act of liberation, for as the Apostle Paul observed: “But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law…” [Galatians 4:4-5].

Making the two to three hour walk from nearby Bethlehem, and passing through the western gate of the Temple Mount, I expect, the glory of the Temple stood before them as the crowd pressed past them.  Not destitute, but decidedly low on funds, they purchased the minimum offering set forth in Leviticus 5:7 for those of tight economic means.  Then the steps of Mary and Joseph are interrupted by a man who scooped up Jesus and spoke of how he could now die in peace, for “My own eyes have seen the salvation which you have prepared in the sight of every people: a light to reveal you to the nations and the glory of your people Israel.”

Imagine how you would react if confronted by someone saying he is ready to die having seen your son; going on to say that your son’s life destines some to rise and others to fall to the extent that the negative inference hangs over his words “the inner thoughts of many will be revealed” and finally, (3) the unhappy thought that  “a sword will pierce your own soul” as well.  Only then for the aged Anna, interrupting the moment on a more positive note, praising God and speaking to the deeper meaning of the Messiah’s true role and the new thing God was doing through Jesus.  There must have been a swirl in their minds, as these words rained on Mary and Joseph, this on the heels of the preceding months that took them from when Mary first encountered an angel of the Lord to the more recent experience of having angels and shepherds intruding into their lowly “no room in the inn” stable.  I think most folk would be looking for a chair to sit down on, while trying to process this now unexpected carol.

Buried in my copy of the classic devotional book “My Utmost for His Highest,” which while not a commentary on this event in Luke, it nevertheless offers this keen insight.  Oswald Chambers writes:

“We are not taken into a conscious agreement with God’s purpose — we are taken into God’s purpose with no awareness of it at all.  We have no idea what God’s goal may be; as we continue, His purpose becomes even more and more vague.  God’s aim appears to have missed the mark, because we are too nearsighted to see the target at which He is aiming.”

As a social worker and friend of mine, once said to me in an offhand comment: “I don’t believe in accidents.”  Thirty years later, it continues to turn over in my mind, and while I have long lost track of Mark, I think he was onto something as to the invisible means of our unique roles within the larger plan of God.  Events and personalities shape us and guide us, and yet so much seems largely hidden.  Most of the time, I would submit, we at best glimpse the interconnections of the kingdom of God.

In the reading from Galatians, Paul suggests a dynamic is in play, one in which God is at work through the events of history and circumstances of our lives.  And yet, so easily we can miss the point.   Chambers adds:

“We have the idea that God is leading us toward a particular end or a desired goal, but He is not.  The question of whether or not we arrive at a particular goal is of little importance, and reaching it becomes merely an episode along the way.  What we see as only the process of reaching a particular end, God sees as the goal itself.”

In the paradoxical way that the Kingdom of God operates, let me repeat, “What we see as only the process of reaching a particular end, God sees as the goal itself.”  For, as Chambers puts it plainly:

“At the beginning of the Christian life, we have our own ideas as to what God’s purpose is.  We say, ‘God means for me to go over there,’ and, ‘God has called me to do this special work.’  We do what we think is right, and yet the compelling purpose of God remains upon us.  The work we do is of no account when compared with the compelling purpose of God.  It is simply the scaffolding surrounding His work and His plan.”

The Psalmist declares, “when I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?” [Psalm 8:2-3]  It is within that very dimension of humility that I see Mary and Joseph willingly operating, as that “compelling purpose of God” operated within their lives.

SO WHAT?

So the question that remains before us, is what do we make of this day, when the “fullness of time” touches our own lives?  That we, who as another has put it, “live in a world that seduces people’s best intentions,” what do we choose this day to do with God’s timing in our lives?  On this first Sunday in Christmas, appropriately enough New Year’s Eve, I think of the words of Mother Teresa: “Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come.  We have only today.  Let us begin.” 

Amen.

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Credit where credit is due.  It is always a delight to visit the classic devotional book by Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest.  I am blessed with a treasured copy, a gift from a very dear friend and first spiritual mentor, Ella Mae Felton.  An amazingly spiritual woman, the postmaster of a village I lived in from age 9 to 11, church member of my Dad’s congregation, my friend and sage counsel from 1968 until her death in 1987.  She told me I would be in ministry when I was but ten and I thought was ridiculous.   Ella Mae was insightful, fearless, and loving.  She modeled for me, how to speak with people in a way that transcends boundaries.

©2017 by Vinson W. Miller, Hampton VA.

Well, here I am… Starting a Blog

OK, I have set up a blog.  I’m not sure, yet, how this will play out, but my purpose is to use this blog as a way to support my ministry at First Christian Church, in Hampton, Virginia.  Right up front, all opinions are mine, which is why this isn’t a blog under the church’s name, even though some posts will be shared to the church’s social media accounts.

Why “Sea & Anchor” as a blog title?  I am a retired Navy Chaplain who having gone to sea created an appreciation for how one of the ancient symbols of the church was a ship, so there is that nautical theme.  My new church is also blessed with old stained glass that are surprisingly contemporary and include a ship at sea and an anchor–symbols of the church and of faith–that were brought with the congregation in 1961 from its former location near the Newport News shipyard.  Whatever works for either of us!

So welcome to me!  And to you!  I hope to meet you here once or twice a week.  It may be to share a funny story or something serious, or just it may be to get at something I cannot wedge into a sermon but is worthy of wrestling with.  I’ll find out.  Maybe you will, too.

Amid this most Holy Season of Christ,
Vinson.

Game On! A Christmas Sermon

Sermon of 24 December 2017, and posted without edit, although I think I made a few on the fly, last Sunday morning!  I rarely do the traditional “2-point” or “3-point” sermons taught in seminaries.  Instead, I use a structure that I learned from one of my mentors, a renowned speaker in his age but no minister. His book, “As Listeners Like It,” was published in 1930.  It works for me and seems to work for those who graciously listen to me on Sunday mornings.

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GOSPEL OF JOHN 1:1-18 (New Revised Standard Version)

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. (John testified to him and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’”) From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

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INTRODUCTION

We are blessed to have our cherished hymnals, the majority of the hymns familiar ones, at least to most of us, even if some we only get to pull out for certain seasons of the church year… such as our beloved Christmas carols.  My late mother had a collection of hymnals, dozens and dozens of them which my Dad scrounged in various book sales or churches along the way, some songs familiar and others I never heard sung.  So it goes with hymns, most become less popular over time, as the style of music changes.  One that I came across while in seminary is still sung, but isn’t in our hymnals – I checked.  Known as “Hail Gladdening Light” or more commonly “O Gladsome Light,” it is the earliest known complete hymn and thought to date to sometime around 200 A.D and widely known within a century, it was meant to be sung in the evenings, at the lighting of the candles, as Sundays were regular workdays in the Roman Empire and services thus had to be held at night.

I think about its words echoing off the stone in the underground cemeteries of Rome, while Christianity remained banned and persecuted, and Christians met in secret amid the chilly, rank, and dark spaces as that light was brought in unconquered by the darkness.  I think about Christmas, when those words take on a more potent reminder of the words of John, that “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it,” as the first verse rang out:

O Gladsome Light, O Grace
of God the Father’s face,
th’eternal splendor wearing;
celestial, holy, blest,
our Savior Jesus Christ,
joyful in Thine appearing

WHY I BRING THIS UP

Unlike the nativity scene of the Gospel of Luke or the long genealogy of the Gospel of Matthew, by John’s introducing Jesus with the words “In the beginning…” the message of the Christmas story is held forth as a reminder that while Creation is a long ago event, the relationship of God with humanity is ongoing and unfolding.  No small wonder that St. Gregory of Nyssa wrote, Christmas is the “festival of re-creation,” it is a festival whereby God gives God’s own life to his people.  God in the flesh, the divine human and holy humanity – a beacon of light in a sometimes gritty world.

FOR INSTANCE

Yet I think that the rub of the story of Christmas is that we have sanitized it into a pretty solid feel-good moment and in some ways, our carols, as lovely as they are, can reinforce that image.  Hallmark-friendly, Christmas has become an escape from the craziness of our world, instead of a moment that equips us for the world.  Let’s face it, we would be horrified if our crèches had the pungent scent of a barn stall sprayed on their idyllic scenes and a King Herod figurine stood with a blood-stained knife in a castle placed across the room, at some distance from the Wise Men.  The authentic story is all there because only then does it make sense as to why Jesus was sent to live among humanity and to die because of us.

This brings me to an interesting opinion piece I read this past week, in which Rev. Clare Johnson speaks to how God’s giving himself in Jesus, sometimes gets lost among the churched, and how it plays out in attitudes that amount to “A theology that is only for the powerful and those who feel guilty (that comforts the child trafficker but not the child, the exploiter but not the exploited, the sexual predator but not the victim, the rapist but not the raped, the con artist but not the conned).”  This “is harmful to a world full of trafficked children, exploited people, and victims of assault and abuse,” among others, because as she noted, “It allows sinners to alleviate their feelings of guilt without acknowledging the pain they have caused in other people’s lives,” because it is believed that “the only forgiveness that matters comes from God.”

“This theology presents the mask of humility” saying God has forgiven the wrongdoer, so who am I to judge?  All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, “while completely removing the human victim of sinful behavior from the spiritual conversation.  In fact, victims of sinful behavior are often admonished to ‘forgive as God forgives,’” for “once a sinner asks for forgiveness, the onus falls completely on the sinned against to forgive, lest they become a sinner themselves for refusing to forgive.”  The result is that real suffering is ignored, glossed over and unintentionally justified.

With the coming of Christmas, we “herald the incarnation of our own Creator into the smallest, most vulnerable human there is: a newborn baby.  And a pretty pitiful baby, too — born in a barn to a mother with a bad reputation,” writes Johnson, therefore “If we take the incarnation seriously, it has to inform our understanding of Jesus’ death.  Jesus lived on earth as a poor, homeless carpenter with questionable parentage.  He lived among the poor, inviting outcasts into his circle of closest friends.  Did he die on the cross only so that King Herod wouldn’t have to feel guilty about being so cruel and oppressive?”  “Does Jesus’ sacrifice only mean that people who do… evil are forgiven by God and therefore cannot be” held accountable?

In my observation, while the 12-step program of “AA” and other recovery groups address the spiritual component to healing by specifically including a step about making amends for the wrongs one has done….  it begs the question:  Are we doing enough in our faith walk to speak to that part two of our seeking forgiveness?  Is that something we ponder when we partake at the Lord’s Table – not just seeking forgiveness for ourselves, but also seeking to bind up the very wounds we have inflicted upon others and God?  I admit, that is something that hits home to me, as much as anyone because the washing away of our sins by the grace we experience in Jesus Christ doesn’t wash away the impact on those who were injured.  That comes SOLELY from our taking ownership.  Only Then can we truly become the visible and tangible carriers of God’s inward and spiritual presence.

In Judaism, there is a rabbinical tradition, a story told, that each person has a procession of angels going before him or her and crying out, “Make way for the image of God!” because we were created IN the image and likeness of God [Genesis 1:26-27].  The angels surrounding us declare that to honor the image, the human being, is to honor the Creator, the Holy One.  What we do, say, or give to another we do, say, or give to God.  Likewise what we fail to do, say, or give to another we fail to do, say, or give to God.

Imagine how different our lives and world would be if we lived with this as our reality and the truth that guided our lives, with its profound ethical and relational implications:

• Reverence for God is shown in our reverence for each other;
• Our fear of offending or hurting another human being must be as ultimate as our fear of offending or hurting God;
• Violence against another person is an act of desecration against God;
• Arrogance and condescension toward another person are blasphemous of God;
• The denial of another’s humanity is akin to the denial of God’s divinity; and
• Our love of neighbor mirrors and reveals our love of God.

Everywhere we go the angels go with us announcing the coming of the image of God and reminding us of who we are.  It changes how we see ourselves and one another, the way we live, our actions, and our words.  It means that Christmas cannot be limited to an event on our jammed calendars.  Christmas is to be a life lived, a way of being.  It means that Christmas is more properly understood as a verb rather than a noun, where we stop asking each other “How was your Christmas?” and instead ask “How are you ‘Christmassing?’”

Are you and I recognizing the Word become flesh in our own lives, as much as the Word become flesh in Christ?  Are you recognizing the Word become flesh in the lives of others?

Do you see the procession of angels and hear their voices?

In the festival of re-creation that is God celebrating humanity in a stable in Bethlehem, the Son of God became the son of man so that the sons of men might become sons of God.  Divinity was clothed in humanity so that humanity might be clothed in divinity.  It means we are holy and intended to be holy, not as an achievement on our own but as a gift of God.

SO WHAT?

This is the gift of Christmas.  We have been given the power to become children of God.  This happens not by blood, or the will of the flesh, or the will of people, but by God – for us, for the person living next door, for those we love, for those we fear, for those who are like us and those who are different, for the stranger, and for our enemies.

“And the Word became flesh and lived among us.”

Amen.

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NOTES:  Credit where credit is due. Thanks for inspiration and awesome quotes by the following sources, which were “stumble across” articles.  The first one I ran across from a friend’s Facebook post and found fascinating and quite powerful, the second is from a blog upon which I drew in writing the last part of this sermon, and the third is probably more than anyone would want to read about angels and buried in it is an outstanding insight that I needed.  Hopefully it offends no one that I draw when needed, upon the marvelous insights of others, rather than having every profound thought myself.

Preaching an atonement that really is good news

Make Way for the Image of God!

http://theinfluence.angelfire.com/angels.htm

©2017 by Vinson W. Miller, Hampton VA.

Laughing Jesus

Sermon of 17 December 2017, preached at First Christian Church of Hampton VA.

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BOOK OF ISAIAH 61:1-11 (New Revised Standard Version)

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 brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, 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. They will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, to display his glory.

They shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations. Strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, foreigners shall till your land and dress your vines; but you shall be called priests of the Lord, you shall be named ministers of our God; you shall enjoy the wealth of the nations, and in their riches you shall glory. Because their shame was double, and dishonor was proclaimed as their lot, therefore they shall possess a double portion; everlasting joy shall be theirs.  For I the Lord love justice, I hate robbery and wrongdoing; I will faithfully give them their recompense, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them. Their descendants shall be known among the nations, and their offspring among the peoples; all who see them shall acknowledge that they are a people whom the Lord has blessed.

I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my whole being shall exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. For as the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations.

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INTRODUCTION

In the Fall of 1983, having started seminary in Kentucky a week after Julie and I were married, which at the time seemed like a good idea(!), I went to one of my professors to talk through some challenging news.  Just a few months into serving as a part-time pastor, one of my parishioners had shocked me with news of a major church embezzlement that needed to find a healthy solution. 

Serious stuff indeed. 

Amid my conversation with Loren, something caught my attention, for hanging above his desk was a portrait of Christ, unlike any I had before seen before.  Jesus was raring back and clearly having a really good belly laugh.  An odd thing to see while tackling a tough issue.  It was only then that it occurred to me that every portrait that I had ever seen before, whether in Bibles or churches, was of a serious, contemplative Jesus without any trace of a smile – basically, all business.  The laughing Jesus caused me to look beyond the 2-dimensional one I had been used to… and seeing a glimpse into the fuller humanity of Christ and the joy into which we are invited – regardless of circumstance. 

I loved it!

WHY I BRING THIS UP

As a comedian [Grady Nutt] back in the 1970s was fond of saying, “Laughter is the hand of God on the shoulder of a troubled world.”  I think that is something to which we don’t readily connect, but if we have any doubt of how this works with God we merely need to remember Isaac’s name means “He laughs” – for how God laughed when Sarah and Abraham thought a child for them was impossible.  Not with God!

FOR INSTANCE

If laughter is a gift of God, it is surely a gift that we need in every age and certainly our own as we live amid:

• tremendous anxiety – economic, social, and relational as they play out in our homes, work, or even just driving down the road,
• self-sorting estrangements – dividing our society and even God’s people into “us” and “them” on matters of politics, race, wealth, religion, and gender identity;
• tensions between nations – where hatred sows seeds of war and suffering.

Into this scene, where the words of the hymn are twisted into “all is [NOT] calm and all is [NOT] bright”, we hear the words this morning of Isaiah, and I have to ask:  Do they resonate?

I think part of the rub of Advent and Christmas is that they do not exempt us from the difficult stuff that goes on year-round, nor the ways this season may touch upon unhealed moments which aren’t easy… of struggles and losses of one kind or another along with their resulting grief.  In this rings true, while “…in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting Light; The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.”  It can be a real mix, if we are spiritually honest with ourselves and God.

I imagine those first hearing the words of Isaiah wrestled with them, when they were first pronounced.  Decades before Israel had been defeated and the Israelites taken in captivity to Babylon.  The “great bronze sea” some 9 feet across which stood before the Temple in Jerusalem like an oversized birdbath, a symbol of God’s creative act in separating the land from the sea – bringing order to chaos – had been destroyed.  Then, as the Psalmist wrote, chanelling the prophets, “by the waters of Babylon (the people) wept” [ Psalm 137:1]. Having left known as Israelites, those who returned were now known as Jews.  They were home, but they were not the same.  They were home, but not all was well.

The message of the prophet Isaiah is relevant for us because it acknowledges pain, loss and devastation and yet it points to something beyond.  When most pressed and stressed, what is needed is not the serious and the somber, but something else:

• The creation will be renewed, the exile will end.
• The sightlessness of spirit will be restored.
• The oppressed, afflicted, poor, humble, weak, and needy will hear the good news amid their sense of powerlessness.
• Those who mourn will be comforted, with God’s “day of vengeance” not about being punitive or vindictive, but leading people through their mourning until they experience joy.

Jesus gathered his disciples and said to them, “You will weep and mourn, you will have pain, but your pain will be turned to joy.  No one will take your joy from you…  In the world you will have persecution,” as he adds “But be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world.” [John 16. 20, 33]

As one commentator [Jim Harnish] has noted: 

“The resonant laughter echoing from heaven is not (a)… shallow; it is (a) rich, deep, vivid joy.  It is gladness that comes from the same place as suffering; joy that comes from the same place as tears.  It is the joy of men and women who face the suffering, injustice and pain of the world in all its fury, but have taken hold of something stronger, deeper and more powerful.  They have grasped the assurance of the ultimate triumph of the goodness of God.  They are of good cheer because they know that the power of God in Jesus Christ has overcome the world.”

Joy is at the center of a life lived in Christ, as one such as Paul wrote repeatedly, whether to the Philippians [4:4-5], in saying:

“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.  Let your gentleness be known to everyone.  The Lord is near,”

or to the Thessalonians [I Thessalonians 5:16-19], writing:

“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.  Do not quench the Spirit.”

Even in the toughest times, and perhaps most especially so, we need to laugh, to smile, to have fun as the people of God, as this congregation seems to grasp pretty well without much need of encouragement!  Like it was once said [C.K. Chesterton]:  “Angels can fly because they take themselves so lightly!”

Our joy is about who Jesus is, the same Jesus that after his time of testing in the desert, worshiped in the synagogue in Nazareth and “and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him.  He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.  Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’”

SO WHAT?

This is the moment when we hopefully get it, the moment when we know what it is to rejoice, to laugh, even in the midst of pain and loss and devastation, to echo the psalmist who sang:  “Our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy.”  In the Christ, we hear the deep resonant laughter of when God’s hand rests on the shoulder on a troubled world.

So, people of God:  be joyful!

Seek out opportunities for laughter.

Do not quench the spirit.

Let the waters flow in the desert.

Let the weeping turn to laughter.

Let the desert become a garden.

Rejoice!  You are not alone.  “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”  [John 1:5]

Enough Time?

Sermon of 03 December 2018, on the first Sunday of Advent, at First Christian Church of Hampton VA. Posted much later, and some edits were made in the moment of delivery at the end.

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GOSPEL OF MARK 13:24-37  (New Revised Standard Version)

“But in those days, after that suffering,

the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light,
and the stars will be falling from heaven,
and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.

Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in clouds’ with great power and glory. Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.

“From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates.  Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place.  Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

“But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come.  It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. Therefore, keep awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly.  And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.”

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INTRODUCTION

In a commentary on Mark 13, it is noted that “most of us have come to think of (Advent) as a season preparing us for the birth of Christ, (but) it originally had quite a different emphasis.  In the early church, Advent began a time of repentance and preparation for the church’s second most important time for baptisms,” held on Epiphany, while Christmas celebrations themselves didn’t begin to take hold until the fourth century.  So reading the Gospel of Mark, the first of the Gospels to be written, actually brings us a bit closer to the perspective and practice of the early days of the church, when “Christians renounced the sin over which God’s judgement stood while preparing to accept the new birth in Christ”.

I suspect the early Christians were more aware than we, for all of our cultural obsession with time, of how both the Old and New Testaments  understood time as lineal – it moves forward, not in a circle.  So, when they heard these words read to them, of the “Son of Man coming in clouds, with great power and glory,” they saw themselves as truly called to live a life expectant of Christ’s return.

WHY I BRING THIS UP

Which brings me to ask, in light of today’s scripture, WHAT are our expectations of Advent?

FOR INSTANCE

The word “Advent” comes from the Latin “Adventus,” meaning “coming”.  In contemporary English, most of us understand an advent as a beginning.  It is a season the Church has used to focus not only on the Incarnation of Jesus Christ some two millennium ago, but a season when strong reminders are issued through Scripture that give us a chance re-engage ourselves in the Biblical story and the hope of Jesus Christ.

The Second Coming of Christ is a central theme that runs throughout our Judeo-Christian story.  The Old Testament prophets, the Gospels, the Epistles, the Books of Daniel and Revelation – each has spoken of the day when the world as we know it will pass away and the perfect and completed Kingdom of God will be ushered in.  Said Jesus, “But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”  This raises an interesting question as to the purpose of Jesus telling His followers about this “last day,” when he added: “…keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come.  It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch.  Therefore, keep awake!”

I do not see that Jesus’ word was designed to prompt us to a life of anxiety or fear, as any reading of I John 4:18 would clarify.  Far from it.  I do believe it is a call to a life of action, in whatever form that takes within the limitations of our frail frames – always confident in one’s relationship with Jesus Christ.  This notice reminds us that NOW is the time to put forth renewed energy, prodding us toward the servant’s duty to care for the house in such a way that if the Master were to return today – or a thousand years from now – he would be pleased to find our good stewardship of his message.  If we are told to watch for the master’s return, we need not wait in fear, for he who is returning is the same loving Lord who went on ahead of us.  The one who has loved us to death on a cross, opened the future to us through his resurrection, and will accompany us to the judgement seat of God.

The new church year is a cyclical re-enactment needed to teach and reteach the message of Christ by immersing ourselves once more in the holy story of our beginnings in Christ Jesus.  Our connection to the immediacy of Advent can become dulled if we fail to re-immerse ourselves in the Advent story, wherein we express our yearning for what Jesus proclaimed was breaking forth in Luke 4 [4:16-21] echoing the prophecy of Isaiah, moving us toward the hope of the second coming of Christ when in the Jubilee injustices are righted and Creation healed as divisions caused by race, nationality, greed, hostility, sickness, and sorrow are finally set aside.

When I think about such a gentle sense of urgency, what comes to my mind is what I saw in my Dad bringing a recluse out into the light and from isolation into family, which at first may seem an odd story for Advent, but in reading the passage from the Gospel of Mark, I think such urgency to lift up others as much as ourselves is at the very heart of Advent.

Dad was done with leading the service at his student church: the only remaining church in a crossroads village out among the wheat fields of southern Kansas.  We had dined at the village café before starting home on the 96-mile drive back to Oklahoma.  Many times, Dad would stop to visit a farmer who lived in a shack pretending to be a house.  We never saw the man, as Dad would knock on the door and disappear inside.  About an hour later, Dad would emerge and we would continue on our way.  One day Dad took me in with him, as all of 3 or 4 years old, I stepped out of the bright summer day into what seemed to be the night.  There was but a string light hanging from the ceiling and the light appeared to be absorbed into the blackness, as the walls, ceiling, and even the old man himself were coated by the flat soot of the coal stove he used to both heat and to cook.  I could only see his eyes and his teeth, like a coal miner living in a mine.  But it really wasn’t living.

Spring had moved to late summer.  Dad once more disappeared into the house on one visit, but this time was different as after a while both he and the man came outside and he was introduced to my mom and siblings.  For the first time, we all saw him in the light, coal black from the dirt and soot that clung to his unbathed skin.  I remember sensing a kind man as he asked me to pick out a watermelon from his patch.  “Make sure it is a big one,” he said.  The sweet feast began as this formerly isolated man invited us to be his family, the new addition whom Dad soon baptized into Christ.

Back when I was in seminary, I remember reading a book by Morris West, an amazing novel telling the story about the imminent return of Christ.  In ‘Clowns of God’, he wrote of how the pope has a revelation that Christ is returning for the final judgement.  After sharing this news with the cardinals, they decide that it is best to say he is senile and exile him to the monastery. But he still gets the message out to some people in Europe and tells them to start forming cell groups of Christians all over the world.  

As time passes and Christmas Eve approaches, while the world brutalizes itself with wars even as it treats itself with excesses, one cell group meets in the hills of Bavaria to share the celebration of Christ’s birth.  An interesting Middle Eastern type joins them for the celebration and when he is asked if he is a believer, he says: “I am not a believer; I am he.”  “Give us a sign,” they say.  “If you were really he, you would say, ‘Ask and it shall be given.” “ Ask,” he said.  “Time,” they said.  “Enough time to change a world, to beautify it, to cleanse it, to prepare it for you.”  “I accept,” he said.  “How much time do we have,” they asked.  “I won’t say,” he said. “Not much—but enough!”

Is that not Advent? 

Is it not wanting to know that we have enough time to say, “I’m sorry.”  To have enough time to heal an old wound, to change course in mid-stream, to say “no” instead of “yes,” to say “yes” instead of “no.”  

Is it not wanting needful time to BE AWARE: to notice His presence every day in those around us, to be His presence in this hurting world which we inhabit, to be alert for where we can facilitate kindness, generosity of spirit, forgiveness, or perhaps sometimes as humbling as a smile? 

Is there time to decorate the manger of our hearts with repentance, with new determination, with a more constant and focused love?  

SO WHAT?

How much time do we have, not much time – but enough!  And that is Advent.

Amen.

©2020 by Vinson W. Miller, Hampton VA.