Saturday, December 5, 2009

First Sunday in Advent Year C 2009

01 Advent C 09

Jeremiah 33:14-16
14 The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 15 In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. 16 In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is the name by which it will be called: "The LORD is our righteousness."

Psalm 25:1-10
1 To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul. 2 O my God, in you I trust; do not let me be put to shame; do not let my enemies exult over me. 3 Do not let those who wait for you be put to shame; let them be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous. 4 Make me to know your ways, O LORD; teach me your paths. 5 Lead me in your truth, and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all day long. 6 Be mindful of your mercy, O LORD, and of your steadfast love, for they have been from of old. 7 Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember me, for your goodness' sake, O LORD! 8 Good and upright is the LORD; therefore he instructs sinners in the way. 9 He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble his way. 10 All the paths of the LORD are steadfast love and faithfulness, for those who keep his covenant and his decrees.

1 Thessalonians 3:9-13
9 How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy that we feel before our God because of you? 10 Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you face to face and restore whatever is lacking in your faith. 11 Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you. 12 And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you. 13 And may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.

Luke 21:25-36
25 "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. 26 People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 27 Then they will see 'the Son of Man coming in a cloud' with power and great glory. 28 Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near."
29 Then he told them a parable: "Look at the fig tree and all the trees; 30 as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. 31 So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. 32 Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. 33 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
34 "Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day does not catch you unexpectedly, 35 like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. 36 Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man."

The Buds of Spring

Jesus is coming. Look busy. So reads one of my favorite bumper-stickers.

It’s obvious we all have end-of-the-world anxiety. Left Behind, the 2012 movie, the TV series about the aliens that arrive to change the world. And of course, Jesus’ message this morning sounds like a modern news broadcast. Why are we fascinated with disaster?

What is it that we pay attention to when a disaster strikes? When Katrina hit New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, the world watched while the federal government seemed to do nothing. Meanwhile, stories of heroism and grace competed with rumors of chaotic violence. Sean Penn, the bad boy of Hollywood, might not be someone you’d think of having a spiritual center. But while the National Guard was nowhere to be seen, he was in New Orleans driving a boat around saving people. Who knew?

Religious leaders weighed in on the cosmic meaning of the event, some rather superficially, and others with real depth. A disaster reminds us how fragile we are, how temporary our seemingly indestructible institutions, how vulnerable we are to forces far beyond our control.

In the aftermath of 9/11, while the country was whipped up into a vengeful bloodlust, a very sick man murdered a number of Amish schoolgirls. The reaction of the Amish community, the forgiveness they extended not only to the deceased murderer but to his family as well, was an amazing contrast. Disaster has a way of revealing the truth. The Amish were ready for theirs, but I don’t think we were ready for ours.

A lot of us remember the landing on the Hudson. The word I’d use to describe the pilot would not so much be “heroic” as “prepared.”

In my own life, it wasn’t until my mental illness nearly destroyed me that I was able to see it for what it was. It was only in the midst of a personal disaster, the disaster of my broken life, that I was able to see the truth that was hidden. To paraphrase an old saying from the twelve-step fellowships, “Evil is the disease that tells you that you don’t have a disease.” Or as old C. S. Lewis said, “God doesn’t make demons out of fleas; he makes them out of angels.” What I had passionately believed was my salvation turned out to be a total sham, a demon in a nice suit. Such is the nature of most evil, and we can’t simply trust our conscience to recognize it.

These forces are bigger than the individual human will, incomprehensible to human reason. We can analyze them all we want, we can illustrate how they developed and describe them with great insight, but we can never master them on our own, anymore than we could have said to Hurricane Ida, “Be quiet,” and expect her to listen.

Jesus saw the coming of the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem some forty years before it arrived. Some say this is simply the author reading back something he’d experienced into Jesus’ language. But most serious scholars believe that the prediction of the destruction of the temple was a significant part of the reason Jesus was arrested and tried for heresy. Did Jesus have a vision? Was he granted some supernatural insight? Well, as Willis might say, “maybe yes, and maybe no.”

Someone who had wrestled successfully with his own demons, someone who understood the history of Israel and God’s relationship to his people, someone who had been carefully observing the interaction of the priests, the Jewish king and the poor and oppressed people of Israel with their Roman overlords would have fairly easily been able to predict that the interaction was not going to end well. Rome held all the cards; Israel suffered all the grief. Sooner or later there would be violence, and Rome would certainly win. It took no supernatural insight to see the destruction of the temple in the near future.

On the other hand, we might also say that this deep involvement in the scripture, this careful and honest observation not only of others but of oneself, this regular prayer and meditation, in other words, waiting and watching for the right time, the moment of truth, filled Jesus with the Holy Spirit of God, so yes, we might say that his vision had a supernatural element.

Jesus teaches us to be alert, to stay awake, to watch. It is not a passive activity, waiting and watching for the Son of Man to come on the clouds of glory, watching for the revelation of God.
The reality is that evil hides, and it usually hides behind good. In the same way, good may be hidden, waiting to be revealed, behind what seems to be evil. As evil works toward its goal of destruction and desolation and suffering, it seeks to hide behind what appears to be good.

It’s hard enough even to discern the evil and disobedience in our own hearts, but once we have, it renders it much easier to discern the evil hiding behind the good in the world around us. If we don’t discern the evil in our own hearts, we are much more likely to be duped. The reason why Christians practice careful self-examination and even confess their sins to each other is precisely so they can identify the shadows that are lurking behind the pretty images the world presents to us. Only with the capacity to see the shadows in the mirror can we possibly discern the shadows around us.

Therefore, honesty, and particularly self-honesty, is supremely important when it comes to waiting expectantly for the Lord. Unflinching, sometimes excruciating self-honesty must become for the Christian such an inborn habit that the recognition of evil, in one’s self first of all, becomes a reflex.

Barbara Brown Taylor once preached: “When things get bad we pound on God’s door: where are you? We need you NOW. The threat is not outside the door but inside us.”

With a clear idea of who we really are, Jesus also calls us to observe the world with the same careful eye. I love his direction to his apostles, “Be innocent as doves, wise as serpents.” Jesus asks us to work toward pure devotion to God in our hearts and a healthy suspicion for all the beautiful things the mob is worshipping. Only with open eyes and the wisdom of God are we ready for mission.

My theory of mission, my practice of evangelism, my whole idea of church community-building, is to seek out people in the moment of transition, in which their anxiety and confusion is at their peak. In social issues, I look for the moments when change is possible, when people have no idea what to do, when the threat is looming most powerfully. I’m looking for the disasters, I’m looking for the buds of spring, because it will always be there that God shows up.

Our church has begun to speak on the national level about a concept of global ministry we are calling “critical presence,” which I think captures this way of relating to God and our fellow human beings very well. Critical presence is considered presence, strategic presence, presence determined by a careful study of scripture and a careful analysis of the situation that pertains in any given place and time. Critical presence can only be practiced among people who are carefully watching and waiting for the buds of spring, who see behind the curtain and understand the forces that are really at work behind them. Critical presence is the presence of the risen Christ, coming on the clouds of glory, the flesh-and-blood entrance of God into a given situation at the level of the deepest and truest need.

As the plots and schemes of evil spirits begin to bear the fruit of destruction, the opportunity arises to call them out and name them, to expose them to the light, to reveal what had been formerly hidden. This requires great strategy and timing, and is simply impossible without the wisdom of God as it comes to us through the Holy Spirit. Try to expose the evil too soon, and it will simply slip behind the good and the world will think you’re crazy. It’s when the work of evil begins to really damage God’s creation in ways that simply can’t be denied that the time is right to point and say, “That’s it, that’s the evil one at work!” And so it is that Jesus invites us to lift up our heads when the going gets not only tough, but disastrous. He invites us to see in wars and plagues and floods and earthquakes the buds of spring.

If we watch and wait with patience and discipline, we will be ready when the moment comes. We will say what needs to be said when it needs to be said. We will do what needs to be done when it needs to be done. God will, through us, march into the world and defeat the bloodiest and most powerful of foes without shedding a drop of blood, except, of course, his own.

This is real hope, in all its terror and majesty. Watch for the buds of spring.

Amen.

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