We have
come to that wonderful time in the season we call Advent IV. It’s that time when the world around us is
full into Christmas mode. Heck, who are
we kidding, even the men among us have decided it’s almost, almost time to get
serious about buying presents. I learned
this week from some colleagues in non-liturgical churches that this is actually
Christmas Sunday. Some churches celebrate
Christmas today so that folks can spend time with family on Christmas Eve and
Christmas Day. I know. It seems to miss the point for me, too. As a December child and the father of a
December child, it smacks a bit of “hey, Jesus, here’s your combined birthday
and Christmas gift.” But it works for
them.
We, on the
other hand, have one more opportunity, before the families descend or we
travel, to remind ourselves of our calling as Adventers, before we dive full
into the “remembering His coming among us in great humility.” So what is going on?
One of the
chief takeaway’s we should have as a result of the season is that God is at
work in the world around us making old things new, that He is using the common
and ordinary to reach us, to instruct us, to woo us. We argued a bit about this Thursday night at
Wrestling with Faith. Some think God
should do more impressive miracles to catch our attention; others, of course,
think we should get rid of the miracles in the Bible, a la Marcion, because God
is bound by the systems He set up. Among
the various problems with that argument, of course, are the anecdotal
experiences of those who have witnessed or been blessed by miracles but notice
the world continues on without being destroyed.
But that is a sermon for another day.
Today, we
are focusing on our unique perspectives as Adventers. Nothing is as it was, and nothing is as it’s
going to be. To use the language of
Carola when she was your preacher and teacher, we are living in that tension
between the already and the not yet. I
see some nods. You remember her teaching! I’ll tell her. It might help her heal more quickly! How do we know things have changed? The Incarnation of our Lord Christ! God came down as a fully human baby, born of
a virgin in an outward province of the super power of the day. He lived among us, taught among us, worked
signs of power among us that testified to Who He was, He suffered and died
among us, and gloriously He was raised among us. Nothing is as it was before that magnificent
and glorious event.
And yet, we
understand that the re-creation begun in the work and person of our Lord Christ
is not yet completed. We live in a world
that is still not the way it will be.
Death still stalks us. The
consequence of sin still plays out in the world around us and in our
lives. Nature itself testifies to the
collective sin and the weight of its guilt in the world around us. Even as we gather to begin to turn our focus
to the Incarnation, our brothers and sisters in Australia live in a modern Gehenna,
of sorts, where wildfire rage and air quality is horrible, our brothers and
sisters in California are bracing for a rainy season that will likely become
mudslide season because of the burn scars from the late summer and early fall,
droughts are still happening, tornados are still happening – pick your natural
disaster. In short, nothing is as it
will be.
But it
falls to Christians, and especially to Adventers who are called to be looking
back at the Incarnation even as they are looking forward to the Second Coming
of our Lord Jesus, to see the impact of grace in the world around us. You and I as Adventers, but as Christians in
particular, are tasked with pointing out to the world how God is using the
ordinary and everyday and re-purposing them for His glory.
Our chief
example this day, of course, is Joseph.
The story of Joseph is an amazing story, borderline heroic, yet he kind
of fades from the story as a nondescript figure. As we learn today, Joseph got the ultimate
“dear John” “I think this will be better for us in the long run” confession
from his betrothed. Those of us who have
had a spouse or prospective mate cheat on us understand all too well the
emotional baggage that comes with such revelations. John’s version is just a bit less
common. Uh, John, uh, this angel
appeared to me and greeted me and asked if I was willing to bear God’s
Son. I said yes. So, guess what. I’m pregnant.
Those of us
who have had to deal with cheating spouses and the corresponding implosions
that come from such revelations understand all too well how this story should
have played out. Reality television and
various blogs, as well as morning television shows, demonstrate to us the human
response to such revelations all the time.
Matthew himself points out that Joseph, because he was a righteous man,
determined to handle this quietly. It
would have been well within his rights to demand the trial of adultery as
revealed in the torah and had young Mary stoned to death. That we could all understand. That is getting even with a cheater. But Joseph determines to handle this quietly.
It’s then
that the angel appears to Joseph. The
angel appears to Joseph and tells him to believe Mary’s story. Gentlemen, I want us to think about this for
just a second. Which would be more
mind-blowing, finding out your fiancé had cheated on you and gotten pregnant or
that you were going to be raising the Son of God? I mean, on the one hand there is the
emotional hurt and baggage that comes from betrayal, and on the other hand we
get tasked with the ultimate responsibility of raising our Lord’s only begotten
Son. If ever there were a Scylla and
Charybdis . . .
Joseph, as
we would expect of a righteous man, a man who depends upon God for teaching him
how to live in right relationship with God through the torah, accepts the
angel’s reassurance and honors the decision to marry and the responsibility to
raise our Lord Jesus.
In one
sense, it’s an unremarkable story. We
have reality shows that speak to teen pregnancy and adulterers. Heck, there’s a couple popular social media
sites that make good money by showing how betrayed partners and spouses get
even for the cheating. This story, on
the one hand, is rather trite, so far as the details are concerned. Yet it was the Lord who used the common to
begin to demonstrate His love of the world and all those in it, to tell a new
story, to begin to remake those things that had grown old.
So many of
our biblical heroes have all kinds of fatal flaws. Abraham and Sarah. Not to mention Adam and
Eve, have some trust issues. Jacob
trusts a bit too much in his own conniving and strength. David, well, among David’s faults is that he
never met a woman he did not want “to know,” if you take my meaning. Elijah is a bit to whiny to be considered
heroic by most standards. Peter takes us
on a rollercoaster ride of faith, right?
Poor Thomas becomes the “doubter” when he was the one who encouraged the
other Apostles and disciples to go with Jesus to Jerusalem to die with
Jesus. My list could go on and on. No doubt you have your favorites. Those stories exist to remind us, though,
that God works through men and women and boys and girls just like us, flaws and
weaknesses and other bits not to be esteemed or valued by others. What makes them and us special is not
something internal to them or to us.
What makes them and us special is that the Lord God chooses to work
through us, that our Lord God calls us into relationship and then sends us out
to point others to Him! And it’s Him
using us, Him dwelling in us, that gives us eyes to see and ears to ear how the
old is being renewed and re-purposed.
And because
we know He has conquered the world, because we KNOW He was raised from the
dead, we are fit heralds in a world whose cacophony seeks to drown out our
voices, we little candles in a dark world pointing others to the Light who
gives Life to the world!
How does
that play out in our lives? There are as
many different stories as there are Adventers in this congregation. This week, I was reminded of two great
stories. One was from a woman we served
through Body & Soul. She lives in
our neighborhood but lost her job.
Companies being companies and the compassionate places to work they are renowned
to be, she did not get her last check.
Fortunately, she was overpaid for her work and had tons in savings,
right? Think about her plight for a
second. What if your employers ceased
operations mid-December? What would be
its impact on you and yours? Do you have
enough saved to cover the mortgage? To
cover medical expenses? To make you car
and insurance payment? To buy Christmas
gifts for your loved one? To pay your
utilities? To buy food?
Fortunately, she heard about our work through my wife. I know, crazy, isn’t it? My wife, who is a huge introvert, heard her
need and reached out. The lady, of
course, worried about whether she was in the right zip code, or needed an id to
make sure she was not using us too much, or needed to be Episcopalian, or how
she’d ever repay the help. I heard the
story, of course, from her perspective.
One of her rude discoveries is that people treat unemployment around
here like a moral failing. When asking
for help, she felt judged. Are you
sure you really need this? Your car is only a couple years old. Have you been here before and taken food? She asked me why we don’t run our pantry like
others? I told her Hilary and Nancy and
those most involved with it were trying to be intentional in mirroring or
reflecting the grace that God had shown to us.
She asked if I was worried we’d get ripped off? I told her not at all. I lead people in the worship of the Creator
of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen. Everything is His; we are simply
stewards. What kind of God would I be
following if I thought He could not provide something as simple as food? She asked if there were people who abused our
offer? I told her I thought there were a
few, but that I did not know the full story of those I thought might be abusing
our pantry. She asked how I justified
that to my church. And I told her that I
did not need to. We all knew ourselves
to be sinners saved by grace and that we knew we had abused God’s grace in our
own lives. Make no mistake, I told her,
I point out the spiritual danger of such attitudes toward cheap grace, but I
was an equal opportunity teacher or offender or whatever she wanted to call me.
Our
conversation ended with her commenting that, if she were going to attend a
church and worship God, this was that kind of church where she would want to
go. I smiled and apologized. She asked why. I told her that we were a terrible bunch of
hypocrites, beginning with the pastor, and that if she strolled in here
expecting us to be supermen or superwomen of faith, she was going to be sorely
disappointed. But if she wanted to join
us on this faith journey, if she wanted to begin to plumb the depths of God’s
love for her and those whom she loves in Christ’s work, we’d love for her to
join us. Y’all know she is not here as I
am using her story. SO much for humans
lapping up God’s grace in a fairy tale way, huh?!
My other
illustration was far more grand and far more oppressive. A colleague who left the Episcopal church and
Anglican Communion and I were having a spirited discussion about politics. Our discussion was about which party tries to
be the party of God. Now, I get that
some liberals have no use for God and want no association with Christianity, I
get it; but I also understand that there are many Christians drawn to some of
the platform of the Democratic Party, or at least the platform that defined the
Democratic Party two or three decades ago.
Living wages, accessible healthcare, a safety net for those on the
margins – those are just a couple of easy touchstones to the Gospel, in my
estimation. But, some Democratic party
leaders do try to blur political and religious theater to pander to voters.
My
colleague and I had a spirited discussion until one of the members of his
congregation chimed in. He decided to
chastise me for being an apologist for Trump supporters and for comparing the
sins of Democratic leaders with the sins of Republican leaders. He was exceptional in his lecturing. He knew who I was without needing to ask any
questions. I learned I was a stooge of
the Republican party, which might amuse those Adventers who preferred Trump to
Hilary in the last election, as they have wondered if I am a secret
liberal. I learned that it’s my job to
judge the salvation of peoples’ souls based upon how they voted, and NOT leave
that tough decision to the Man who died for all of us. Heck, I even learned that calls to vote
consciences, to really demand our Christian politicians govern as God would
have them govern was naïve and stupid and part of the problem of letting so
many people in small towns vote.
In short,
his lecturing testified to me and those in that thread that the Two-Party
system had done precisely what it intended to do. It had effectively divided a group of people
called to testify to unity. From many
one used to be a description of America.
A melting pot. Now we are effectively
divided. Here was a seemingly serious
Christian publicly declaring that a priest was clearly not a good Christian
because I dared to point out the moral flaws of those whom he followed. When I reminded him later that God had
reminded us repeatedly not to put our trust in other human beings, He was
enraged. What kind of moron claims we
should trust God and think that things will improve? It made folks uncomfortable on that
thread. The pm’s were illustrative of
his temperament AND the sense of hopelessness some folks have about our divided
state.
But you and
I have ultimate hope. Which is harder,
reforming a political system or raising someone from the dead? If we believe He was raised from the dead,
why should we not expect our politicians who claim the same faith to govern to
live as if Jesus was serious about those things He taught, serious enough that
He was willing to die for us and be raised, that we might know He was and is
Who He claims to be! That does not mean
we agree on every jot and tittle of the laws passed to govern us, those are our
creation and not God’s, after all. But
what if we allowed that people of the other parties, and yes there are more
than two among us at Advent, were, indeed, making decisions based on their
faith? What if we allowed that countries
had a right to protect their borders AND had an obligation to help those less
fortunate than themselves? What if we
allowed that citizens were entitled to specific rights such as education,
medical care, and living wages AND that people who made fortunes through hard
work or great inventions or the luck of the lottery were not evil and entrusted
to use their funds as they saw fit?
And the
benefit to public discourse? Can you
imagine? I have a hard time watching what
passes for news today. I will listen to
CNN yell about how stupid and evil Republicans are and to FOX yell about all
the vast liberal conspiracies to empower deep state for about ten minutes
before I have had too much. How about
the benefit to the Christian testimony to the world? One of our Lord’s last prayers before His Passion
and Death was that we would all be One even as He and the Father are One. How are we doing living into that prayer of
His? How well are we modeling the
relationship revealed in the Trinity?
And I’m not talking about the sycophants who claim the mantle of
Christianity to be near the halls of power, I’m talking about our neighbors
down the street, who attend whatever other normal Tennessee church and who
should differ, really, only in the form of worship used. How well do we relate with our Baptist
neighbors, our Church of Christ neighbors, our Roman neighbors, or our Presbyterian
neighbors? How well do they relate with
us? The world watches and sees, even if
we do not.
The great
news, the Gospel news, of course, is two-fold.
These injustices, these divisions—they are things about which God cares
deeply. He has revealed those cares and
concerns to us over and over in His written word. Better still, He demonstrated that care and
concern in His work among us. We do not
have to guess what He thinks about the “other;” He has already told us! And even when that other is an enemy, one
truly committed to working against God and His purposes, we are instructed
what? That’s right, to pray for them and
us. That’s not exactly divisive
activity, is it? It’s not the ad hominem
attack demanded by our current political discourse. It’s an intentional conversation with
God. And if we use our two ears a bit
more than our one mouth, we might learn something from God about our “enemy.” We may learn that our enemy is not His enemy.
The other
fold in this Gospel reminder is that God did, indeed, raise Jesus from the dead. We have that inescapable proof of God’s
redeeming power in the Resurrection of our Lord. If He can raise the dead, what can our Lord
not do? As messy as our systemic
injustices are, their mess pales in comparison to the mess of death. As divided as our politics are today, they
pale in comparison between the division between life and death. As breathtakingly unjust some of our systems
are, their complexity pales in comparison to raising the dead to new life! As hopeless as the idea is that we can be
fit vessels for speaking God’s truth, acting as God’s feet or hands or whatever
else is needed, as impotent as we are before all the evil and hopelessness in our
own pathetic spheres of influence, even that pales when we confront the sin of
the world or hopelessness we discover when we mistakenly think redemption is up
to us. God raised Jesus, in part, as a
display of His power, that we might know He can do anything He purposes, even
when it involves ordinary, plain old, flawed, and sinful us. All He asks is that we trust and follow. He will take care of the heavy lifting. He will give us what we need to do His work
in the world around us.
Advent is a
wonderful re-set in the Church year. You
and I are intentionally called to look back on God’s Incarnation and
expectantly to His Second Coming. Those
events ought to encourage and compel us to do the work He has given us to do
each and every time we leave this building.
How much does He love us and those whom we serve in His Name? Enough to come down and dwell among us and,
ultimately, to redeem us. When we begin
to buy into the myth of the Enemy that this is all that there is or that the
problems are too complex for lil old us to make a difference, we forget our purpose
as Christians and, especially as Adventers.
The world, my brothers and sisters, is dark. It is incredibly dark and full of vitriol and
hopelessness. But you and I and all
those who pay attention to the rhythm of the Church year realize that we are
the ones sent out like candles into that world as heralds of His grace. Were the candles or even the flickers of
light our own, we would quickly be extinguished, and we, and the world, would
be forced to stumble in darkness. But
God has given the privilege and the responsibility, fit for sons and daughters,
to be His vessels of His redeeming love.
And we are called to carry those flickers of hope, of peace, of joy, and
of love into that world around us, trusting that our flickers will point those
around us to the Light that came into the world and to the Life that He calls
each one of those whom He created!
In Christ’s Peace,
Brian†
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