Repository of
Sermons
/ Calendar of Events /
Activities
1 Advent
November 27, 2005
Sermon by Rev. Peggy Tuttle, Interim Rector
Readings
Give Us This Day
The president of the Festive Foods Corporation was included in a papal audience and he took the opportunity of making a business proposition to the Pope; that if he could arrange for the Lord's Prayer to be changed from "Give us this day our daily bread" to "Give us this day our daily turkey" throughout the whole of Advent and Christmas. In exchange the Festive Foods Corporation would give £20 million to Catholic charities. The Pope declined his offer. A few weeks later the man called the Pope and upped the offer to £50 million; but once again it was turned down. A few weeks before the beginning of Advent the man came back to the Pope with an astonishing offer of £100 million. The Pope considered all the good works that could be done with such a large amount of money and decided to go ahead. The next day he called a special meeting of the Cardinals to let them know about the situation. "Well" said the Pope. "I have good news and bad news. The good news is that we are to receive £100 million. The bad news is that we have lost the Wonderloaf Bakery account.
The readings for the last several Sundays have been apocalyptic, descriptive of the end-time, leading up to the Christ the King propers which we read last Sunday.
Today we mark the First Sunday of Advent, the beginning of a new church year, Year B. The new church year begins with the celebration of the Parousia. Parousia means the presence of Christ. In the ancient Greco-Roman world it referred to official visits by royalty. It was appropriated by Christians as a specialized term for Jesus' glorious presence on earth.
For this church season we use the Latin word Advent, which originally had the meaning of the coming or arrival of the emperor when visiting a town of his empire. The Season of Advent for us today has come to mark preparation for the coming of Christ in a double manner, first in his incarnation as the babe of Bethlehem, which is obvious, and in his second coming at the end of time, which is perhaps less so.
Advent means coming in three senses:
-
The coming of Christ in the flesh (with newness and power).
-
The coming of Christ in Word and Spirit, to be pondered throughout the year (His presence is always felt).
-
The coming of Christ in glory at the end of time (fulfilling hope for a new world of peace and love among all peoples).
Advent is considered a period of preparation for the birth of the King. Although a joyful time for Christians, it is also a time for us to take inventory of our hearts and lives to make ourselves ready for the second coming of the Christ, the King.
I always struggle with the concept of God made man. I don’t think I am different from most of you. Yet that is what Advent is all about. It is about our struggle with the “coming of Christ;” the coming of God, the coming of the one in whose image we are made.
I said last Sunday that Advent is not penitential and what I meant by that is this: it is not a time to rent our clothing but to prepare our hearts. It is a time to “prepare” ourselves for the coming of Christ. Not just the coming of Jesus in the manger on Christmas Eve but the second coming of Christ; the time known to us as the apocalypse.
That’s a scary word, isn’t it? Look it up and you find it defined in the most frightening ways: disaster, day of reckoning, destruction, catastrophe, end of the world. We’ve seen the worst of disasters displayed across television screens in our living rooms: scenes of war, bombings, tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, starvation, illnesses, and homelessness: disasters of Apocalyptic proportions.
Movies and books have given us images of horror and mayhem. The Left Behind series threatens us with judgment and punishment. We have been conditioned to believe that the second coming of Christ is going to be painful and destructive. Some evangelicals preach hell fire and damnation manipulating people into believing in a God who punishes rather than a God who loves and cares for the very life, given from God’s own breathe.
It isn’t often that I have such contrasting stories to share with you that really describe the difference between a God who loves and a God who punishes. But something happened last week that I want to share with you.
On Tuesday a woman appeared in the office. Her face was badly beaten. One eye so swollen and damaged that her sight in that eye is in jeopardy. Bruises were beginning to turn black and blue while red circles formed beneath both eyes. She had difficulty walking as some vertebrae had also been cracked and damaged from having been kicked in the back while she was on the ground. Her husband had done this terrible thing to her.
A husband is supposed to be someone who cares for his wife, who protects her and shares a loving relationship with her.
That awful experience continued to weigh heavily on me as I moved about doing the things that had to be done. Late Tuesday evening as I was getting ready to leave the church to make some hospital visits I saw down the hallway into the Ryan Room where the columbarium resides. On the table in line with the door sat a vase of starburst lilies and roses. A card was amongst the flowers. I almost felt like I was intruding but something moved me to look. The card read, “I love you.” No signature. I turned the envelope over and it was addressed to Dorothy Westmoreland, and the note was in Wes’s handwriting. Something he had done before he died. That’s the kind of love a husband shows for his wife. That’s the kind of love people show for those whom they love. That’s the kind of love people share in any loving relationship. That’s the kind of God I know. A God who loves us and sends us flowers, not one who kicks and beats us.
Jesus’ warnings in today’s Gospel are not threats; they are words of preparation. They are encouraging us to take every opportunity to see God at work in the world about us and prepare our hearts to receive.
Some of you exercise on a regular basis. Some of us may be careful about our food in take. Is it healthy? Does it provide us with the nourishment needed to ward off disease and infection? We get flu shots and other inoculations to protect our bodies. The question is this, what do we do to inoculate our hearts from being corrupted? What do we do to protect our souls from being compromised in such a way as to turn our eyes away from the one whose light is trying to break through the darkness of winter?
Author David Jenson reflects on this lesson with these words:
Embedded in today’s Gospel is a lesson from a fig tree: “as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near.” By paying attention to God’s world, we keep awake, wait, and prepare ourselves for the coming of Christ once again. Though we do not know the day or hour of his arrival, our waiting and watchfulness are not marked by fear and speculation, but assurance. Advent marks a time that we wait for God. In waiting for God we attend to God’s creation: the fig tree, the sun, moon and stars. Christ’s coming will change things, but it will also come in the midst of the everyday. While we work and while we wait, the one who will come is also already here.
In verse 31 Jesus says, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” Attending to that word, our eyes are opened to the One who comes again in our midst: in labor and rest, in contemplation and action.”
We wait, seeking, hoping and preparing for evidence of the presence of God with us, among us, in us. This waiting is celebrated with color and light, with word and song. With darkness and silence. With doubt and faith. With love. With each other. With God, who is also waiting.
Advent waiting knows the sense of hope. We hope because we believe in Emmanuel, because we know we have not been left alone. We celebrate God’s saving love and presence in our lives today. Yet we wait and prepare for we know that Christ will come again. We believe that. We say it every Sunday in the words of the Nicene Creed.
We wait. We anticipate. We prepare. The difference in our waiting is that we wait in hope.