Advent A December 1, 2019
Isaiah 2: 1-5 + Psalm 122 + Romans 13: 11-14 + Matthew 24: 36-44
Give us ears, O God, to listen for your Word among us, and to be fed with your Word of Life. Amen.
A couple of weeks ago, our Minister of Outreach and Community, Laura Harris-Ferree posted this on Facebook. (It should be noted that I have her permission to share this with you in this sermon). She wrote: As you may know I’m a HUGE stickler about no Christmas anything until after Thanksgiving. But, y’all, this year I’ve broken the rule. I’ve noticed many people starting Christmas very early and I think this world just needs some good news. We need the extra lights and decorations. We need that little bundle of a baby in a manger to bring us hope. So, y’all, Christmas it up. Get that joy. The Harris-Ferree family will gladly welcome advent with a variety of bourbons.
I have three observations for this first Sunday in Advent, based on her post.
1) She said “y’all”…twice. Y’all really have adopted this great southern word.
2) She and Kate have a bourbon Advent calendar. You know where they live.
3) The world really does need some good news. We really do need the extra lights and decorations. We really do need that little bundle of a baby in a manger to bring us hope.
But we don’t exactly get sweet- bundle- of- joy- Jesus in a manger on this first Sunday of Advent. Instead we get end- of- the- world- as- we- know- it- Jesus. Which doesn’t feel nearly like what we want. But may be exactly what we need.
While we might not remember this detail from year to year, on the first Sunday in Advent we ALWAYS have a Gospel reading about the end times. Not Jesus coming in a manger but Jesus coming at the end of all things. And while we might know that we’ll celebrate the birth of the Christ child in exactly 24 days (but who’s counting?) the writer of Matthew’s Gospel says that no one knows, not the angels, not the Son, no one but God’s self knows the day and the hour.
It’s hard to live in not knowing. We want to KNOW what God has in store for us and WHEN it will happen. We believe that it is only with such knowledge that we can really be READY. And Paul reminds us and the church in Rome today in the second reading that we actually DO know what time it is. It is time for us to wake from sleep.
We aren’t very good at living into a future that is an already/not yet kind of thing. The coming of Jesus as a baby and at the last days is a perfect example of this reality and it makes us squirm.
You know who was really good at living into this truth, though? Those who sang the songs of their faith while they toiled in the fields and homes of the people who owned them. Slaves, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, believed with all that was in them that a better day, a new day, the day of the coming of Jesus, would come and that it would liberate them. They might not live to see it, but it would still liberate them.
Before I continue, I want to be sure that in no uncertain terms you hear me say that the ownership of one human being, of one of God’s beloved chosen children, by another, is a sin. It is a sin in which the Church (big C) is complicit and it is a sin for which we must repent. Amen?
One of the most well known spiritual songs that was gifted to the world from this time period is based on our first reading today. The refrain says “I ain’t gonna study war no more, I ain’t gonna study war no more.” Down by the Riverside has been sung since long before the Civil War by those who believed that somewhere, by the river-side, by the stream of living water, where baptism claimed and named them, they would find freedom in God. While the refrain is the same, the verses are many:
Gonna lay down my sword and shield …
Gonna try on my long white robe…
Gonna try on my starry crown…
Gonna put on my golden shoes…
Gonna talk with the Prince of Peace…
Gonna shake hands around the world.
Down by the riverside.
Isaiah and the Psalmist today are envisioning and describing a time of perfect peace….more than the absence of war, but of God’s shalom, when all is right with the world and the cosmos and everything in them. The Psalmist sings their own song of liberation: “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. May they prosper who love you. Peace be within your walls, and security within your towers. For the sake of my relatives and friends I will say “Peace be within you.” For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your good.”
Isaiah and the Psalmist are clear in telling us exactly what we should be about while we are living in this already/not yet time. While we await what is to be on the other side, down by the river side. We are to be bearers of peace in the world. Peace as an absence of aggression, violence, and war to be sure. Isaiah is clear that weapons of aggression and war are to be turned into tools to provide for God’s people. Not the guns you use for sport….but weapons of aggression….weapons of war….swords and spears in Isaiah’s day. And we are to pray for the peace of every nation, beginning with our own home. Followed by peace in our families and among our friends. Not only are we to pray for it, we are to work toward it….contribute to it.
Beloved community, what does it look like at the riverside when you imagine it? For we surely have become enslaved to the sin of being right. Of holding a grudge. Of not getting to know our neighbors. We are captive to OUR way of thinking and being in the world and, in the process we miss the gift of knowing the other.
I am reminded of the words of another theologian who spoke often of the importance of what we do now and the impact it will have in the life to come…down by the riverside, if you will. Fred Rogers put it this way: “Our world hangs like a magnificent jewel in the vastness of space. Every one of us is a part of that jewel. A facet of that jewel. And in the perspective of infinity, our differences are infinitesimal. We are intimately related. May we never even pretend that we are not.”
We are intimately related. In all of our glorious differences. In all of our struggles and in all of our joys we are intimately related. This community of faith, gathered here today, missing many who travel and welcoming some who visit….we are related to the slaves singing the absolute belief that God would meet them down by the riverside….and we are related to the children and parents fleeing for their lives, whether it’s literally Jesus, Mary, and Joseph or families fleeing from Syria or Central America….and we are related to those in prison….and we are related to the outcast and the stranger. We are all, all, no exceptions, all created in the very image of God to live in God’s perfect shalom. In this age and in the age to come.
Beloved, it is Advent and we do know what time it is. It is time to wake up and remember what it means to follow Jesus….Jesus in a manger, Jesus healing the sick….Jesus turning tables when the temple got it wrong. Jesus commanding us to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and visit those in prison. Jesus on the cross. But not in the tomb.
Of course, that’s another story. But they’re all connected….down by the riverside.
Thanks be to God and let the Church say…Amen.