First Sunday of Advent Year B

01 Advent B 08
November 30, 2008

Isaiah 64:1-9 (NRSV)
1 O that you would tear open the heavens and come down,
so that the mountains would quake at your presence--
2 " as when fire kindles brushwood
and the fire causes water to boil--
to make your name known to your adversaries,
so that the nations might tremble at your presence!
3 When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect,
you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.
4 From ages past no one has heard,
no ear has perceived,
no eye has seen any God besides you,
who works for those who wait for him.
5 You meet those who gladly do right,
those who remember you in your ways.
But you were angry, and we sinned;
because you hid yourself we transgressed.
6 We have all become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth.
We all fade like a leaf,
and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
7 There is no one who calls on your name,
or attempts to take hold of you;
for you have hidden your face from us,
and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity.
8 Yet, O LORD, you are our Father;
we are the clay, and you are our potter;
we are all the work of your hand.
9 Do not be exceedingly angry, O LORD,
and do not remember iniquity forever.
Now consider, we are all your people.

Psalms 80:1-7, 17-19 (NRSV)
1 Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel,
you who lead Joseph like a flock!
You who are enthroned upon the cherubim, shine forth
2 before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh.
Stir up your might,
and come to save us!
3 Restore us, O God;
let your face shine, that we may be saved.
4 O LORD God of hosts,
how long will you be angry with your people's prayers?
5 You have fed them with the bread of tears,
and given them tears to drink in full measure.
6 You make us the scorn of our neighbors;
our enemies laugh among themselves.
7 Restore us, O God of hosts;
let your face shine, that we may be saved.
17 But let your hand be upon the one at your right hand,
the one whom you made strong for yourself.
18 Then we will never turn back from you;
give us life, and we will call on your name.
19 Restore us, O LORD God of hosts;
let your face shine, that we may be saved.

1 Cor 1:3-9 (NRSV)
3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
4 I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, 5 for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind-- 6 just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you-- 7 so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. 8 He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Mark 13:24-37 (NRSV)
24 "But in those days, after that suffering,
the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light,
25 and the stars will be falling from heaven,
and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.
26 Then they will see 'the Son of Man coming in clouds' with great power and glory. 27 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.
28 "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. 29 So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates. 30 Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. 31 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
32 "But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 33 Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. 34 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. 35 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, 36 or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. 37 And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake."


Come On Down

Wouldn’t it be something is the heavens tore open and God came down?

In the Simpsons, God made frequent guest appearances. He was always pictured as a giant old man with a white beard who walks out of parting clouds. In one episode, he and Homer have a conversation about death.

Homer asks, “Can’t you tell me when I’m going to die?”

God says, “No, you’ll just have to wait.”

Homer says, “Aww, I can’t wait that long.”

God says, “You can’t wait two weeks?”

Interestingly, an animated film by a Muslim filmmaker called Persepolis pictured God pretty much the same way the Simpsons did, a giant old man with a white robe hanging around in the clouds.

But I’m not talking about a metaphor here. I’m talking about the real thing. I’m talking about the creator of the universe just saying, “Ok, that’s enough, I’m taking over now.”

To read Isaiah today, it would seem that the bible regards it as a possibility that God could leave. God is able apparently to absent himself, to make himself unavailable, to hide himself. It may even be that God does this quite purposefully, to allow his people to feel the consequences of his absence, to understand what they are rejecting when they refuse his rule.

Some would say that this is an Old Testament thing. It doesn’t apply now.

But let’s just look at this on the most prosaic and factual level, shall we? Isaiah is not talking about little inexplicable coincidences or unexplained spontaneous healings. He’s talking about the pillar of fire and cloud, the thundering voice at Mount Sinai, the rain of plagues on the Egyptian slave-masters, the parting of the Red Sea and of the Jordan, the falling walls of Jericho. He’s talking about powerful displays that were nearly irrefutable, big things that happened in front of lots of witnesses. He’s talking about the big show.

Why doesn’t God come down? Not just in a philosophical or metaphorical sense, but obviously, with all the bells and whistles?

God is hidden. However we may speak of the Father or of Jesus or of the Holy Spirit, God is hidden. We may say, “I talk to him every day,” or “He’s working in my life all the time,” but really, God is hidden. He is hidden enough that it is truly reasonable for some to say he doesn’t exist, or that he is simply the construct of the mind or of a culture. God is hidden.

God is silent. Yes, we have many ways of talking about God’s word, about God’s still, small voice, but in the most prosaic reality, these are all metaphors, images, ideas. The voice of God is not heard overtly or clearly. No thunderous voice speaks from heaven in such a way that all say without any doubt, “That was God talking.”

God is inactive. We speak of inexplicable miracles both mundane and extraordinary, but finally we cannot say explicitly that God has acted in a way that is utterly convincing or even scientifically probable. Even a facile examination of many claims that God has acted yields any number of reasonable alternative explanations. And even completely inexplicable medical marvels, as much as we’d like to attribute them to a loving God, always raise the question of why such a loving God would nevertheless allow so many to remain sick and even die. And always the question comes up that if we attribute good miracles to God, why do we not attribute bad ones to him? If he cures disease, does he not also send plagues?

Where is the pillar of fire and cloud? Where is the thunderous voice that makes mountains shake? Where are the angel visitations? Where are the glowing visions seen by hundreds? Where are the prophets who say “Be healed in the name of God,” and it is done every time?

Isaiah is talking about the crisis of faith. The problem that when God doesn’t show himself in some undeniable and irrefutable way, people begin to doubt he is even there. And when folks doubt God is there, they figure they’re on their own.
We saw a documentary about Romania after the fall of the dictatorship that had overshadowed that country for most of the twentieth century. The economy was so bad that people kicked their children out. As the number of homeless children grew in the country, kids began to run away to join the parentless gangs living in the streets and subways. Violence, drug addiction and disease ran rampant through their ranks. When children have no parents, they have no rules, no hope, no emotional life except fear and the hunger of the day.

Israel in Jesus’ lifetime was very much like a nation of parentless kids. God, it appeared, had abandoned the nation. Leaders of various stripes were proposing all kinds of solutions to the problem. Racial purity, ritual cleanliness, and moral rectitude were all being proposed as ways to entice God back into the life of his people. Everyone was certain of one thing, however, that God would send a Messiah as the first sign of his return, and this Messiah would lead Israel into a new era of independence and prosperity. They saw the solution as political and even military.
But Jesus saw the problem and the solution differently, it would seem. A lot of his teaching, and the teaching of the church that developed after his resurrection, was not about coming up with a solution. It was about opening oneself to God’s solution. It was about waiting, but not just by passively sitting around. It was about waiting with expectation, it was about actively getting ready, it was about letting go of all the things we think we can trust in, so that we can be ready for his surprise.

In the twelve step fellowships, there’s a book on the twelve steps used by millions as a pathway to recovery. About midway through, there’s a process involved regarding character defects. First, in step four, recovering people inventory their character problems, all those things they think might be standing between them and God. In step 5, they admit to God and to another human being the exact nature of their wrongs. Step Six reads, “We became entirely willing to have God remove these defects of character.”

The essay on Step Six begins with this sentence. “This is the step that separates the men from the boys.”

Interesting, huh? You’d think just facing oneself honestly would be hard. But experience had shown thousands of recovering people that the hardest thing is to be willing to change. This willingness is what separates mature spirituality from immature spirituality. In other words, growing up doesn’t just happen. One only grows up if one is willing to. The step, just to make that clear, adds the word “entirely.”

To be willing is not to be grudgingly open to a vague possibility. It’s not enough to say, “Nobody’s perfect.” To be willing is to want to grow, to want to change, to want to be better, actively, passionately, entirely. But most of all, it’s being willing to let go of the dearly held preconception. It’s about giving up on the things the world holds in such high esteem. It’s about being willing to live in the question.

Jesus says the stars will fall from the sky, the moon will be no more, and the world will fall into darkness.

There comes a time when the things we believe in and count on suddenly prove themselves untrustworthy. Many of us experience this in the normal course of our lives. The older we get the more we comprehend that the world is in constant flux, and the seeming stability we believed in so strongly when we were children proved to be nothing but vapor.

As we begin this new church year, God invites us to stop and step back and take the long view. And the long view is this, whatever it is we put our trust in, whatever we think is unchangeable and eternal, whatever we imagine will keep us safe and secure, if it is not Jesus Christ, it is a false hope that is doomed to just the same dissolution and disintegration that every power claiming our allegiance will eventually suffer. Even the stars that we thought were so permanent, will fall from the sky. Even the moon that so faithfully rises will not always rise. Even the powers of the earth, the nations and the armies and the great economies, will not last, but will dissolve, just as they always have.

To learn this lesson is to begin the journey right. It is the farmer who doesn’t even look back at his plow or the fisherman who walks away from his boat or the mourner who doesn’t even stop to bury his dead. It is the child who delights in her parent without question, and who opens herself to whatever her parent wishes her to learn. It is the priest who looks forward to the temple being torn brick from brick. It is the rich man who sells all he has for that one perfect pearl. It is the Messiah who nevertheless submits to being baptized.

What if God came down from heaven?

Keep awake.

Amen.