Sermon preached by Karen Meridith
St. James’s Episcopal Church, Cambridge MA
December 3, 2006  Advent 1C RCL
Jeremiah 33:14-16, Psalm 25:1-9, 1 Thessalonians 3:1-9, Luke 21:25-36  (NRSV)



1 To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul;
     my God, I put my trust in you;

4 Lead me in your truth and teach me,
     for you are the God of my salvation;
    in you have I trusted all the day long.    
                        Amen.


This is the First Sunday in Advent, and what do we find in the appointed reading from the Gospel of Luke—something cheery to start off the new liturgical year? It wouldn’t seem so.
Jesus said, “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with great power and glory.”

Advent, as you probably know, means ‘coming.’ In this liturgical season, as the Church prepares for the coming of Emmanuel, ‘God with us,” there are a number of ways to characterize the themes of the four Sundays. This first one often represents hope, and believe it or not, today’s readings really are about hope. In the readings from the Hebrew Testament, the prophet Jeremiah proclaims that “the day is surely coming” when God’s promises will be fulfilled, when a Branch from the house of David will “execute justice and righteousness in the land”—surely that’s a message of hope for an oppressed people in exile—and the Psalmist finds hope in the love and faithfulness of the Lord. In the epistle, a letter believed to be the oldest extant piece of Christian literature, Paul writes to the Thessalonians of his constant prayer for them and desire to visit them again, surely a message of hope for a fledgling church struggling to survive.

Even the Gospel message, despite its apparently disturbing opening, is also one of hope, for Jesus goes on to say, “Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” Jesus’ hearers would have recognized all those cosmic eruptions as signs of the presence of the divine, of the inbreaking of the promised Commonwealth of God, and not as signs of final destruction as we might interpret them, influenced as we are by Left Behind novels and violent end of the world scenarios on television and movie screens. This message of hope is underscored by the parable of the trees:  “Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near.”

A nice thing about being in a church that uses a common lectionary is that over the course of all the Sundays in the cycle of three liturgical years (this is Year C in the current cycle) we hear readings from almost all of the Bible. Unfortunately, we usually hear these passages read in seemingly self-contained chunks, out of context. That’s not so good. If we don’t consider the textual as well as the cultural context of today’s Gospel reading, we might make some assumptions from our own context that give us a distorted understanding of what Jesus is pointing to—the long hoped for transformation of the world, not the wrath of God. If we read the whole of Chapter 21, we will find that Luke presents this scene as Jesus’ final day of formal teaching in the temple, just before his arrest and execution, where hordes of people have been arriving very early each morning to hear him. Luke also pointedly tells us that after teaching each day, Jesus leaves Jerusalem to spend the night on the Mount of Olives. This probably is not because he can’t find a place to stay in the city, since it’s likely that more than a few in the crowd would be pleased to be his host for an evening, but more likely this is out of his own habit of withdrawal for solitude and prayer that we see in all four Gospels.

In Advent we await the coming of “God with us.” And although we do know the Nativity story, indeed we present it in drama here at St. James’s every year, popular ideas persist that God’s arrival means horrific destruction. Like the people to whom Jesus speaks in the Gospel lesson today, we expect God to show up with scary signs of power. Like Elijah waiting in the cave, we expect to find God in earthquakes, in wind and hail. Such noise and celestial fireworks are impressive, appropriate to the image of an omnipotent God. After all, what's the use in being omnipotent if you don't throw a few thunderbolts around once in a while, if you don’t show people who’s boss? Much too infrequently do we remember that God arrived among us as a powerless infant. Much too infrequently do we remember that Elijah—like Jesus alone on the mountain—found God in silence.

In Advent, those of us in the Church live simultaneously by two calendars. In liturgical time we are waiting; we have hope, but it is not yet time for celebrating. Outside these walls, Christmas is already well underway. During these busiest weeks of the retail year we are constantly in the presence of advertisements, crowds of shoppers, lights and decorations. Christmas music begins playing at Thanksgiving, if not before. In the midst of the Christmas shopping and party season, the Advent call to rest expectantly in the presence of God is absolutely and unabashedly counter-cultural. However much we may find ourselves yearning for it, who has the time to sit around? We have presents to buy, cookies to bake, events to attend, parties to host. Our lists seem endless; we are harried and breathless. Silence, a precious commodity for most of us at the best of times, at this time of year seems most impossible to find. And yet, in the words of Henri Nouwen,
We simply need quiet time in the presence of God….This asks for much discipline and risk-taking because we always seem to have something more urgent to do and ‘just sitting there’ and ‘doing nothing’ often disturbs us more than it helps. But there is no way around this. Being useless and silent in the presence of our God belongs to the core of all prayer.  

Jesus, of course, models this over and over, taking himself off into deserts, across water, or up on mountains, even moving just a little apart from his followers if that’s the only space available whenever he feels the need to rest in God’s presence and recharge his energy for ministry. Make no mistake; it takes an enormous amount of spiritual energy to be present to others as Jesus was—as we also are called to be. And how are we to maintain that level of spiritual energy? In today’s Gospel lesson Jesus reminds his followers, “Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life... Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength…to stand before the Son of Man.” Clearly, Jesus expects that his followers will need to take time to pray if they are to carry on his work. And don’t we?

As Christians we are called to follow the example of Jesus year round. In the Church our liturgical calendar provides seasons—like Advent—to remind us of the need to recognize and rest in hope in the presence of God who is both already and not yet in our midst. To that end, I hope you have read the Advent Quiet flyers in the bulletin and that you will come on the two Saturday mornings, December 9th and 16th  from 9:00 until 11:00, for reflection and prayer here at St. James’s. The first hurdle to overcome, of course, may be simply convincing ourselves that we can spare the time. Once we do, I promise you, the benefits will surely outweigh what initially seems to be the cost: four precious hours away from our to-do lists. And who knows? Those four hours may be just what we need to make us hungry for more sitting there and doing nothing in the presence of God. Then, as Nouwen notes, we may even come to look for ways to schedule more regularly periods of silent prayer, meditation, or reflection into our already overscheduled lives, as
…slowly, very slowly, we discover that the silent time makes us quiet and deepens our awareness of ourselves and God. Then, very soon, we start missing these moments when we are deprived of them, and before we are aware of it an inner momentum has developed that draws us more and more into silence and closer to that still point where God speaks to us.  

3 Show me your ways, O Lord,
    And teach me your paths. Amen.