"Head in the Clouds, Feet on the Ground"
December 3, 2006: 1st Sunday of Advent, Year C
The Rev. John MacIver Gage, senior minister
United Church on the Green, UCC: New Haven, CT
www.unitedchurchonthegreen.org
Scripture:
Jeremiah 33:14-16
(Introduction:) "Our first reading comes from the book of the prophet Jeremiah, chapter 33, verses 14 through 16. These verses come at a dark moment in the prophet's life and the life of the nation of Judah. Many have been taken off into exile in Babylon already, and the city of Jerusalem is under siege. Jeremiah himself is under suspicion of treason for undermining the war effort by speaking out against the moral bankruptcy of the government. But even in the midst of all these troubles, Jeremiah speaks a word of hope based on God's faithfulness. All is not lost. So listen to these words from the prophet this morning:"
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. 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. 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."
Luke 21:25-33
(Introduction:) "Our second reading comes from the Gospel According to Luke, chapter 21, verses 25 through 33. This passage comes from Jesus' last free days, as he is preaching and teaching in Jerusalem and so coming into direct conflict with the religious and political authorities there. What follows is an excerpt from his last public speech, about the coming of the Son of Man, the divinely appointed messiah who will sweep away the status quo and usher in God's realm of justice, peace, and compassion. The crowd gathered around him asks, 'Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?' And Jesus answers them, saying:"
"In those days] 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 power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near." Then Jesus told them a parable: "Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves 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. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away."
"May God speak through these words and make from them a holy word for us today. Amen."
Sermon
This morning, I want to begin by quoting from my lead letter in the United Church Newlight newsletter for December. I hope you all received yours last week. (And if you didn't, a reminder: Just fill out one of those red slips in the bulletin, and we'll see that you do.) In response to a perfectly understandable question from one of our members, I wrote:
What is Advent? Advent is the four Sunday-long season that precedes Christmas in the church calendar. It is a time to reflect on God's gift of love to the world in Jesus and to prepare ourselves once again to receive that gift in our lives. It's a way of pacing ourselves over four Sundays, with four candles in the Advent wreath and Advent hymns rather than Christmas carols, to help us concentrate on the meaning of Christmas, rather than just the trappings. In world where Christmas shows up at the drug store in mid-October, observing Advent can be a profoundly countercultural statement.
In other words, Advent, which begins this Sunday, is a season only a minister could love. I mean, everybody loves Christmas, or almost everybody. Christmas is parties and presents and pageants. It's cards and carols, food and family. It's A Charlie Brown Christmas and The Grinch Who Stole Christmas and The Night Before Christmas. Advent, meanwhile, is none of those things. As any minister worth their salt will remind you early and often, Advent is not Christmas, and that's a good thing. It's a season of waiting, of preparation; in fact, Advent is, on its own, nothing, not anything. So it's not so much a season in itself as a sign that points us to Christmas.
In seminary, we good Protestant ministers are taught that Advent should be the liturgical equivalent of a cold shower, a 4 week-long cold shower that says "Whoa there, mister! Where's the fire? Something important is about to happen. Slow down and get ready." Really, what could be more Protestant? Once we graduate into the ranks of the ordained ministry, we tend to carry this militant Advent agenda with us out into the parish, determined to beat back the encroaching forces of premature Christmas celebration. And we shall meet them in the mall! We shall meet them on the radio! We shall meet them in the hymnal, in the pulpit, and in the pew. And we shall never surrender!
Now, I want to go on record as saying there's nothing wrong with waiting. Waiting really can be a spiritual exercise. With a little restraint, we can clear a space in the heart of our community to meditate on the miraculous gift coming to us in the birth of Jesus. As one of my favorite hymns of the season puts it, Advent is a time to "make your house fair as you are able, trim the hearth and set the table" because Love, the guest, is on the way. And, I don't know about you, but my house usually needs more than a little light housework to get ready—I mean, really ready—for love. And, as for the rest of the world, God knows, all we're asking is that the drugstores hold off on putting out the Christmas decorations until after, say, Halloween? Is that so wrong?
No, of course not. But there's a point at which all this well-intentioned ministerial self-restraint can tip over into self-righteous self-indulgence. I'll be the first to admit there's a certain satisfaction in holding the moral high ground, but if your idea of "moral high ground" is denying folks the pleasure of singing their favorite Christmas carols in church a couple of weeks early even though there are only two actual Sundays in the strict Christmas season, and most folks aren't around for those, anyway—well, friend, I suggest you may need a new map. It's the same sort of sick thrill I imagine a dentist would get snatching candy away from a baby. Sure, we all know it's bad for our teeth and we wouldn't want to eat nothing-but and we generally eat too much as it is—but, geez, give me a break, a little taste every once in a while isn't really the end of the world.
And in the case of Christmas, it might even do us a world of good. After all, when we're standing here in Advent, looking down the road at Christmas, we have to remember: we're waiting to celebrate the anniversary of Jesus' birth not waiting for the birth itself. That already happened, a long, long time ago. Our faith tells us that just about 2000 years ago God's love took shape among us in a radical new way: it became flesh and bone in one particular little baby born in manger, a baby who would grow up to be a great prophet and teacher of the reign of God and who would end up being put to death on a cross for his belief in the nearness of God and the accessibility of God's gifts to all persons. And through the miracle of Christ's resurrection by the power of the Holy Spirit, those same gifts, given two millennia ago, are still available to us today.
In other words, even as we wait here in Advent, the presents are already under the tree, waiting for us, waiting to unwrapped, enjoyed, and shared... now. And as far as I can tell, with the way things are going in the world around us, with wars and insurrections, famines and plagues of, yes, Biblical proportions going down every day, we need those gifts now—not even just four weeks from now, but here, now, today. So if that means decorating some Christmas trees or singing a couple of Christmas carols a little early to help us remember those gifts and claim them for ourselves and the world today, then so be it. I am just that kind of rebel.
Hence this year's Advent theme: "Unwrap the Gift." Clearly we've already hauled out the holly... by the bucketful. But wait, there's more. There will be a crèche for the communion table, and mountains of poinsettias, as many as you can donate. This year, as part of our Christmas party, we're going to finish decorating these trees. And, as we've already done with the children this morning, each week we'll unwrap one of the spiritual gifts of Christmas: hope, peace, joy, and love. All of this not because we're simply impatient to skip over the more reflective, more disciplined exercise of a more restrained Advent, but because, in the words of one of my very favorite theologians, The Irreverent Mother Mame Dennis Burnside:
We need a little Christmas,
right this very minute,
candles in the window,
carols at the spinet.
Yes, we need a little Christmas,
right this very minute.
Need a little Christmas now.
So, again, with this morning's gift we turn our attention to hope and ask ourselves What is Christian hope? Unfortunately, hope, like most other traditional virtues, gifts, and graces, has suffered in recent years from an unfortunate degree of Hallmark-ization. As a concept, hope's lost a lot of weight and become rather, well, wispy; in fact, it can seem awfully pie-in-the-sky, and may conjure images of a Hummel-eyed figure waiting patiently, reverently, for whatever the future may hold... though, gosh, you know, God, it'd be swell if it were something nice. In some cynical circles, hope has faded so far as to have nearly disappeared altogether.
But real Christian hope has quite a bit more meat on its bones. It's not an imaginary escape hatch. It doesn't shrink from trying times. No, hope marks the signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars. It takes account of each injury, each injustice, of the distress among the nations, their confusion like the roaring of the sea and the waves. It sees all this, feels all this, and yet does not faint from fear and foreboding, but faces the world head on. Hope looks through the shifting shadows to see just what is coming into the world: God's own self, coming in love, bringing the revolutionary reign of justice, peace, and compassion. In the symbols of the season, hope sees the star burning bright, though still far off, and sets out to follow where it leads. It feels for the future—God's future and ours—and grasps it with both hands to help midwife it into the present.
This sort of hope is not easy. It doesn't just happen. It takes faith—faith that the God whom we've known to be merciful and just and faithful in the past will continue to be faithful into the future. And for some of us, that can be a lot to ask. But then, that first Christmas didn't just happen, either. It took a lot more than a few decorations hauled out of the attic. It took faith on the part of Mary and Joseph and the shepherds and the magi to believe that, in spite of their present circumstances of poverty, of marginalization, of alienation, something better, something good was on the way with their name on it.
Or think about Jeremiah. There he was, a prophet without honor in his own hometown, in a nation under siege, with the enemy literally camped on their doorstep, and the government still claiming victory was right around the corner. Still, he was given a message of hope for the people—hard hope, indeed: that even though the worst was yet to come, and their world was about to be changed forever by the experience of deportation and exile, God would not forget them; in fact, God would be with them, even in exile, and would preserve them, a righteous remnant, a branch of David's family tree, and from them would raise up a new nation in God's good time. I'm reminded of Jesus' image of the fig tree. Jeremiah saw the withered winter stump, to be sure, but through hope he also could see the slender shoot of new growth that portended the coming summer in God's love.
Then there's Jesus himself. Doubtless by this point in the story Jesus understood what was going to happen to him, that the powers that kept his world firmly in the grip of a violent and exploitative domination system and called it "peace" would not tolerate his gospel of liberation and true peace-with-justice much longer. Jesus was no Pollyanna. He'd seen the crosses lining the road to Jerusalem, each dead tree bearing the strange fruit of unpopular prophets, revolutionaries, and malcontents. He could see where his choices were taking him. And yet... and yet... Jesus kept walking that road, trusting, in strong and faithful hope, that another world was possible, that with God, all things are possible. Even love. Even resurrection. Jesus could look through the cross to the flowering of a whole new creation.
This is the same gift of hope God has given us already this Advent season: that with feet firmly planted on the ground, we can, indeed, raise our heads to the clouds and scan the skies for the signs of the coming of the Son of Man; that we can anticipate the transformation of the world and our redemption along with it, and so begin to arrange our lives here and now according to that good news. So go ahead, friends, this package has your name on it. Don't be afraid to unwrap this gift and start putting it to work in your life. You don't have to wait another four weeks, you don't have to wait one second longer, because God has already drawn near to us—to you and me and the rest of the world, to all of us—as near as Jesus, as near as Christmas, as near as now.
So try it out. Where do you see the tender green shoots beginning to lift their heads? Where is the light already beginning to dawn? In a widening dialogue in our nation about our role in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Middle East? In one state supreme court embracing marriage equality for all its citizens, or one state, at least, turning back a fearful attack on that basic human right? In the continuing courage of so many in the face of 25 years of the AIDS pandemic? In a church opening its doors to all persons, no matter who they are, no matter where they are on life's journey? In some more personal, more private way in your life: a look, a word, a gesture, tending toward grace? Whatever it may be, for you, for me, for us, let us give thanks to God who gives us such hope not only at Christmas, but every day, and has even more in store.