Each year, sometimes after Thanksgiving, or maybe early in December, churches all over the world start a new year. The season is called Advent. For denominations that use the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL), a new set of readings starts. On December 2, 2018 the congregations of the ELCA (Lutherans) started year C. In Year C the gospel lessons focus on Luke.
A lot of the sermons I post here were just written as part of my spiritual discipline and will never be preached. But for the first Sunday in Advent, 2018, I preached at St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Durham, NC. At the time of this posting no video was available.
The four RCL texts of the day were:
Jeremiah 33:14-16
Psalm 25:1-10
1 Thessalonians 3:9-13
and
Luke 21:25-36
It might be helpful to read those texts, or at least the lesson from Luke, before reading the sermon.
Here is a word cloud of the sermon, made with the Wordle application available here.
And now... the sermon.
Come Holy Spirit. Make these words to do your will. Amen.
(I spent a good long time craning my neck, looking up around the sanctuary space, and then asked if anybody knew what I was doing.)
It’s from the gospel lesson. You see, I keep hearing about
• distress among the nations
• fear
• foreboding
• the weather (and the sun, and moon, and stars) are all shaken up
And so it seems like the thing to do – at least according to today’s gospel lesson – is to STAND UP AND RAISE MY HEAD
It’s such an open position…. Kind of exposes the critical arteries here in my neck
It also means I can’t see my sermon notes… or my phone… or any of my stuff.
But I see so much else! Because when I stand up and raise my head I can look around. I get curious about what is going on. I can even notice that the world appears to be falling apart, that people are suffering, that we live in a world that is disordered and groaning in pain.
And when I stand up, and look around, I can also notice something else happening:
I can notice REDEMPTION IS NEAR.
I can notice REDEMPTION IS NEAR.
***
I’m going to confess something to you now: I do not like this message very much.
When life are terrible and I cannot see anything good.
• When my world is falling apart and I don’t have a job or any idea of what job will come – or when
• And the world around me is exploding with pain and hunger and little children are put in harm’s way and everybody blames everybody else
• And people are doing crazy, harmful, dangerous things with drugs and explosives and guns
• When all the rules that I thought explained how the world works are broken one by one and it seems like nothing is sacred…
Given all that, it is just really hard to believe that THAT is when redemption is near, isn’t it? Shouldn’t that be a sign of the destruction of everything?
Common sense would say yes, those are sigs of the end… BUT… nonetheless…
That appears to be EXACTLY what this gospel lesson is telling us. In fact, in Bible paraphrase called The Message, it says this:
It will seem like all hell has broken loose
And that is what brought it on home for me.
Back in the day, the sun, the moon, and the stars were what shaped daily routines. Today we can go to work in the dark, come home in the dark, and never even know if it was cloudy or sunny. For us, life is dominated by something different:
• The economy and wealth and money
• Politics
• Media (social and otherwise)
Electronics have in some ways taken the place of the sun, the moon, and the stars in shaping our lives.
Everything is messed up. - - - - Like all hell is breaking loose.
And if that is what is happening, then according to Luke… REDEMPTION IS NEAR.
I’m sure there are people who would say it is not that bad. But think about it… if it’s not that bad, then how bad does it have to get before we realize that yes, in fact, REDEMPTION IS NEAR?
HOW CAN THIS BE??
Seriously!
How can the sign of all things good – of redemption of the broken universe – be signified by all things bad?
Could it be that God is nearest when circumstances are worst? That the pattern is so predictable that it’s like seeing trees bud out when the weather gets warm? It’s not just a happy coincidence that sometimes God shows up in tragedy… it’s the way of the universe according to Jesus!
Interesting, I think, that when we are most likely to be distracted by our frustration or pain or hopelessness…
• When it looks like everything is a mess and all anybody will do is scream at each other…
• When putting trust in Jesus instead of in money or politics or even “common sense” seems like the craziest thing ever..
• In times of unemployment
• In times of debt
THOSE are the times when we are being asked to stand up, and get our noses off the grindstone
• To move forward into the kingdom of God and trust that God will provide everything we need to do what God is calling us to do…
• To keep believing that there is important work to do
• To realize that we can follow Jesus regardless of the political climate or your particular side of the political aisle
When things are at their worst, God draws nearest and redemption is near.
None of this stuff is new, of course. In today’s Old Testament lesson, Jeremiah tells the people that the promises God made to the WHOLE people of God will be fulfilled. The fulfillment will come in a particular way called “The LORD is our righteousness.”
• Not money (or worrying about debt) is our righteousness
• Not politics is our righteousness
• Not even having worldly power is our righteousness
THE LORD is our righteousness. The LORD who comes near us when things are at their worst. That is the redemption. That is the righteousness.
So today… is your heart weighed down with “dissipation and drunkenness”? With squandered resources and overindulgence?
Do you want to hold your hands over your ears and sing LALALALA, or go buy some nifty gadget (that will probably go mostly unused), or go to one more lavish party, or put on blinders so that the only opinions you have to engage are the ones you already hold?
Do you think “well, I would like to give more of myself, or spend time with the people I love, or share my gifts with people who have different gifts… but really, I don’t have time because I have to go to work… this project can’t wait… I have to take care of my own”?
Luke calls that a trap.
The trap of forgetting from whence our righteousness comes.
The trap of not looking up in hard times but instead looking down, drowning out the world outside of us.
And the way out of that trap is to STAND UP! RAISE YOUR HEAD! Look around in curiosity as you wonder what is actually happening around you. Because in that seeking you will find
REDEMPTION.
You may find that you can offer a moment of redemption to someone who is struggling, someone you would not have noticed with your head bent down, focused inward.
You may find a moment of redemption being offered to you as someone stands ready to offer you a hand, or a shoulder, or a listening ear… someone you would not have noticed with your head bent down, focused inward.
You may see that there are people everywhere engaging in small acts lending moments of redemption of the poverty of others and redemption of the poverty we harbor inside of ourselves.
All that redemption - - - - because the kingdom of God is here now, even if we can only see it dimly most of the time.
Jesus has been here to show us how to live, how to pay attention to each other, whom to forgive (hint: everyone, even the unrepentant) and whom to love (hint: everyone, even the ones least like us)
Jesus has been here to show us how to listen to each other with compassion instead of judgment.
Jesus, who was here, and showed us a better way to live, and then we killed him for it… we, the church in-group that did not want our comfort disturbed. We, the broken people who are completely incapable of living as the good and perfect creation that came through Jesus in the beginning.
In this time of waiting, this time of realizing who we are, and how much we need a Savior, we can LOOK UP and know that the baby whose birth we are waiting to celebrate in just over three weeks has already brought what we are waiting for.
We can look up at the cross and see Jesus.
More crucially, we can live into this waiting time knowing that the Jesus on the cross has been resurrected and will come again. That a Jesus who could die and not stay dead can also bring redemption out of the worst of times.
We can remember that
• Christ has died
• Christ is risen
And in the worst possible moment
• Christ will come again.
So stand up! Raise your heads when you really just want to say I cannot EVEN stand this anymore. And in that moment – that exact instant just before despair – know that redemption is near.
Because that is the very moment in which you are most equipped to spread redemption far and wide.
Amen
• The economy and wealth and money
• Politics
• Media (social and otherwise)
Electronics have in some ways taken the place of the sun, the moon, and the stars in shaping our lives.
Everything is messed up. - - - - Like all hell is breaking loose.
And if that is what is happening, then according to Luke… REDEMPTION IS NEAR.
I’m sure there are people who would say it is not that bad. But think about it… if it’s not that bad, then how bad does it have to get before we realize that yes, in fact, REDEMPTION IS NEAR?
HOW CAN THIS BE??
Seriously!
How can the sign of all things good – of redemption of the broken universe – be signified by all things bad?
Could it be that God is nearest when circumstances are worst? That the pattern is so predictable that it’s like seeing trees bud out when the weather gets warm? It’s not just a happy coincidence that sometimes God shows up in tragedy… it’s the way of the universe according to Jesus!
Interesting, I think, that when we are most likely to be distracted by our frustration or pain or hopelessness…
• When it looks like everything is a mess and all anybody will do is scream at each other…
• When putting trust in Jesus instead of in money or politics or even “common sense” seems like the craziest thing ever..
• In times of unemployment
• In times of debt
THOSE are the times when we are being asked to stand up, and get our noses off the grindstone
• To move forward into the kingdom of God and trust that God will provide everything we need to do what God is calling us to do…
• To keep believing that there is important work to do
• To realize that we can follow Jesus regardless of the political climate or your particular side of the political aisle
When things are at their worst, God draws nearest and redemption is near.
None of this stuff is new, of course. In today’s Old Testament lesson, Jeremiah tells the people that the promises God made to the WHOLE people of God will be fulfilled. The fulfillment will come in a particular way called “The LORD is our righteousness.”
• Not money (or worrying about debt) is our righteousness
• Not politics is our righteousness
• Not even having worldly power is our righteousness
THE LORD is our righteousness. The LORD who comes near us when things are at their worst. That is the redemption. That is the righteousness.
So today… is your heart weighed down with “dissipation and drunkenness”? With squandered resources and overindulgence?
Do you want to hold your hands over your ears and sing LALALALA, or go buy some nifty gadget (that will probably go mostly unused), or go to one more lavish party, or put on blinders so that the only opinions you have to engage are the ones you already hold?
Do you think “well, I would like to give more of myself, or spend time with the people I love, or share my gifts with people who have different gifts… but really, I don’t have time because I have to go to work… this project can’t wait… I have to take care of my own”?
Luke calls that a trap.
The trap of forgetting from whence our righteousness comes.
The trap of not looking up in hard times but instead looking down, drowning out the world outside of us.
And the way out of that trap is to STAND UP! RAISE YOUR HEAD! Look around in curiosity as you wonder what is actually happening around you. Because in that seeking you will find
REDEMPTION.
You may find that you can offer a moment of redemption to someone who is struggling, someone you would not have noticed with your head bent down, focused inward.
You may find a moment of redemption being offered to you as someone stands ready to offer you a hand, or a shoulder, or a listening ear… someone you would not have noticed with your head bent down, focused inward.
You may see that there are people everywhere engaging in small acts lending moments of redemption of the poverty of others and redemption of the poverty we harbor inside of ourselves.
All that redemption - - - - because the kingdom of God is here now, even if we can only see it dimly most of the time.
Jesus has been here to show us how to live, how to pay attention to each other, whom to forgive (hint: everyone, even the unrepentant) and whom to love (hint: everyone, even the ones least like us)
Jesus has been here to show us how to listen to each other with compassion instead of judgment.
Jesus, who was here, and showed us a better way to live, and then we killed him for it… we, the church in-group that did not want our comfort disturbed. We, the broken people who are completely incapable of living as the good and perfect creation that came through Jesus in the beginning.
In this time of waiting, this time of realizing who we are, and how much we need a Savior, we can LOOK UP and know that the baby whose birth we are waiting to celebrate in just over three weeks has already brought what we are waiting for.
We can look up at the cross and see Jesus.
More crucially, we can live into this waiting time knowing that the Jesus on the cross has been resurrected and will come again. That a Jesus who could die and not stay dead can also bring redemption out of the worst of times.
We can remember that
• Christ has died
• Christ is risen
And in the worst possible moment
• Christ will come again.
So stand up! Raise your heads when you really just want to say I cannot EVEN stand this anymore. And in that moment – that exact instant just before despair – know that redemption is near.
Because that is the very moment in which you are most equipped to spread redemption far and wide.
Amen
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