The Joy of Advent (and the Canticle of the Turning)

St. Matthew’s, Chandler

4 Advent

Year C

Micah 5:2-5a
Canticle 3 or 15 
Hebrews 10:5-10
Luke 1:39-45, (46-55)

We are beginning the fourth week of Advent, and so this may be a good time to recap what has transpired in the weeks before.  If the Gospel lessons from scripture have not seemed to be telling a coherent story, it is because they have not been telling a linear story.  In fact, the gospel lessons have been going backwards.

So— on the first Sunday of Advent, the lectionary gave to me: a full-grown Jesus preaching prophecy.  The 33 year old Jesus foretells his second coming and the troubles before his next appearance.  Advent is as much about the expectation of this next appearing of Christ as it is about preparing for the season of Christmas and the celebration of the Incarnation, when Christ came to Earth in the flesh.  

On the second Sunday of Advent, the lectionary gave to me: John the Baptist and Isaiah’s prophecy.  It was foretold that one would come before the Messiah to prepare the way, and call people to repentance.  This was John the Baptist, who would soon baptize Jesus before Jesus began his own three-year ministry.

On the third Sunday of Advent, the lectionary gave to me: John’s ethics and End-times prophecy.  This was a continuation of the week before. You might remember.  John:

…said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits worthy of repentance… Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire."

And the crowds asked him, "What then should we do?" In reply he said to them, "Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise." Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, "Teacher, what should we do?" He said to them, "Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you." Soldiers also asked him, "And we, what should we do?" He said to them, "Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages."

"I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming…His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat…but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."

So, with many other exhortations, John proclaimed the good news to the people.[1]

Wait, there was good news in that?

We’ll come back to this.

On the fourth Sunday of Advent, the lectionary gave to me:  Elizabeth extolling Mary.  Today, we hear about what happens right after the angel Gabriel visits Mary with the news that she will carry the Son of the Most High God. Elizabeth is six months pregnant with John the Baptist when Mary hurries to visit her relative living in the hill country just outside Jerusalem, and “Elizabeth no more than hears Mary’s words of greeting, and she knows what has happened. Luke tells us that Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she cries out,

Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb…for as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”^[2]

At this point Mary cannot help herself.  She bursts out into song—not that “12 Days of Christmas” business—no! The Magnificat, or the Song of Mary! (“My soul magnifies the Lord!”)  We’ve heard at least one version today.

In these four weeks, we have come a long way.  From the haunting tones of “O come, O Come, Emmanuel” which always seem to me to speak of seeing the light of Christ from a great distance—as a single flickering candle at the end of a long dark tunnel—to this song of Mary that speaks of a reality so close that it seems at hand and present.

God has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.

He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly;

he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.

Mary and Elizabeth absolutely revel in the possibilities of a world turning upside down.  The joy with which they do so is also a key for understanding John the Baptist from last week.

John the Baptist sounds harsh.  All the prophets do.  In fact, Mary’s song has a harsh tinge to it as well, particularly if you think it unfair that anyone—particularly the rich—are sent away empty.  What is the good news here? 

The good news is that we follow a God and creator who loves us and cares for us.  We are not at liberty to say that God offers a blind eye or unqualified affirmation to everything humanity does.  The same loving-kindness that God shows to us is shown to all of creation. For if God offers an unqualified patience and affirmation to everything we do—even those things which harm others—then the Gospel holds no good news for the many who suffer for the sake of the comfort of a few.  There was and is need for the savior we are awaiting. 

And the prophets’ call to repentance is the reminder that we are not individually God’s sole project on this earth. The call to repentance is misunderstood if it is seen only as a project of personal improvement.  That is too small a glory for the Kingdom of God we proclaim as “on the way”—a Kingdom proclaimed by building communities that practice love in spite of our fears and our lusts for power and control over others.

John’s words to the rich, the tax collectors, and the soldiers to give to others out of their abundance, to not collect more than they are supposed to, to not steal from the people they are watching over— These are the habits of justice and mercy on Earth that prepare people for living the Kingdom of Heaven.  John’s preaching makes plain again that there is a God who cares about the weak, the poor, the needy, and the outcast—just like every prophet before him, just like the psalmists, just like Zechariah, Elizabeth, and Mary, just like Jesus and we who follow after. 

This is a hard message for the rich, the tax collectors, and the soldiers who have to give up the practices that enriched them, and learn a new way of being in the world.  This is a hard message today for anyone who finds they have the power to enrich themselves at the expense of others and act to do so or allow it to happen.  But this message that God cares and that God is acting to turn the world around is precisely what Good News looks like to those whose experience of love, justice, and mercy is wanting or nonexistent. And the good news for the powerful is that they are indeed invited into this turning of the world—to find that after the work of turning toward love, justice, and mercy, they will see the riches of Kingdom and regain their full humanity by learning to see God more clearly as well as the equal belovedness of those they had previously overlooked. 

With this turning of the world, in which the normal expectations of power and prestige and the problems borne from their exercise are turned upside down, and a Kingdom of perfect love and justice are realized as the lowly are lifted up.

And we follow a God who delights in such reversals.  Our expectations of God’s work he will shatter, and yet still fulfill. In a world in which the powerful are marked by being well-borne, with affluence and fortune, God will choose a different path.  Instead of a savior borne of impeccable pedigree, God will send his son to be born of a sexually suspect, unwed, poor, young woman, who could not even find a room at an inn—a son begotten from before time and through whom all things were made, whose first bed on earth will be an animal’s feeding trough.  This entrance into the world was not an accident. The creator of the universe could have had Jesus born into power.  

But God chose this young woman, marginalized in her own time, who yet finds sanctuary and hospitality with her cousin who is also pregnant under divine circumstances.  

And both hearts are so full that the only proper response is laughter and song! 

They know they are living in the good news of God’s confounding ways! 

There’s the joy of the season!    

How shall we welcome such a scene this week?  

How shall we prepare for the world to turn?

-----------------------

I requested that the Canticle of the Turning be sung by the choir for this Sunday; which is a song that highlights what is in plain sight in the Magnificat, but is somewhat muted in the song’s familiarity and Mary's meek and mild image.

My soul cries out with a joyful shout

that the God of my heart is great,

And my spirit sings of the wondrous things

that you bring to the ones who wait.

You fixed your sight on your servant's plight,

and my weakness you did not spurn,

So from east to west shall my name be blest.

Could the world be about to turn?

Refrain

My heart shall sing of the day you bring.

Let the fires of your justice burn.

Wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near,

and the world is about to turn!

Though I am small, my God, my all,

you work great things in me,

And your mercy will last                          

from the depths of the past

to the end of the age to be.

Your very name puts the proud to shame,

and to those who would for you yearn,

You will show your might,                          

put the strong to flight,

for the world is about to turn.

From the halls of power to the fortress tower,

not a stone will be left on stone.

Let the king beware for your justice tears

ev'ry tyrant from his throne.

The hungry poor shall weep no more,

for the food they can never earn;

There are tables spread, ev'ry mouth be fed,

for the world is about to turn.

Though the nations rage from age to age,

we remember who holds us fast:

God's mercy must deliver us

from the conqueror's crushing grasp.

This saving word that our forebears heard

is the promise which holds us bound,

'Til the spear and rod can be crushed by God,

who is turning the world around.

---

[1] Portions from Luke 3:7-18.

[2] Jan Anderson, (http://adventdoor.com/2009/12/13/advent-4-the-sanctuary-they-make-in-meeting/#sthash.5izj979b.dpu).

Waiting for the Return

Advent 2

Year B

St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church

Isaiah 40:1-11
Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13
2 Peter 3:8-15a
Mark 1:1-8

“Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish; and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation.” In the name of…

Imagine if you will that you are ten years old, and you are waiting for Christmas day.  

Now, imagine that instead of Christmas morning being one morning, Christmas could come for every different family on a different morning over the course of the month of December.  So, imagine going to school and having your classmates wear their new clothes or talk about their new bike, but Christmas could be for you as late as December 31^st.  Imagine how much harder that would make the wait!

For Laura and I, this is what it felt like 15 months ago as we were waiting for Colin to be born. We had a lot of friends who were expecting around the same time, and we knew that babies have their own schedule, but the two weeks before Colin’s due date really sharpened our sense of expectation. And we waited, and watched our friends have their babies, sometimes on time, sometimes early, but each time we saw a birth announcement, it increased our own sense of impatience.  So, for us, we had a month of acute waiting. We waited the two weeks before the due date, and then for two weeks after the due date.  Waiting for the really hard experience of giving birth that neither of us had gone through. Waiting as we had to live with the tension of making plans for those weeks but hold enough flexibility that we would be able to drop everything at a moment’s notice. 

Waiting for how our life would change in ways we could not yet comprehend.  And the preparations to be made.  Finishing a nursery.  Figuring out the carseat. 

It was hard to wait.  But we didn’t have much choice. 

We were living on a schedule not under our own power or control.

It is one thing to wait for something that has an appointed day of arrival, known in advance and easy to count down to. It is another to wait for something with more uncertain timing—more surprise, and less in our control. It’s like walking across a dark room and wondering when you might hit the far wall. It is even more so to wait for something that seems to tarry for generations. For centuries. 

So here we are, in another season of Advent. Advent is the time that the church remembers Christ’s promise of a second coming as we prepare to celebrate the anniversary of his first coming. As such, Advent is a time of expectation and waiting, but also of repentance and purification. 

Recall our collect for the day, in which we pray that God give us the grace to heed the warnings of the prophets and repent of our sins. Think about John the Baptist and his proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  Think about his heralding of a coming baptism by fire. While this sounds rather like a bummer of a message, the purpose of such preparation is so that we may greet Christmas with joy in celebrating Jesus’ birth and earthy work yet remain in hope for the time in which perfect peace, justice, and mercy will hold sway over all.

Another season of Advent. Another season of waiting in a long series of seasons and years of waiting. Why bother waiting? Why not just be surprised when or if Christ comes back? Why do we even bother putting much stock into such an idea as Christ’s return?

Our generation is not unique in facing the question of what it means that we are still waiting for Christ’s second coming. 

In the epistle of 2^nd Peter which we read from today, we find the author addressing just this issue. What do we make of our wait for Christ? This was no mere theological exercise; the author is challenging a very particular group of people.  A few verses earlier than what we read today, the author names his opponents, saying:

³First of all you must understand this, that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and indulging their own lusts ⁴and saying, ‘Where is the promise of his coming? (2Peter 3:3-4)

The scoffers ask why Christians so foolishly wait for Jesus’ return.  “Why not instead indulge themselves and live for the day?”[1] For the scoffers, “not only is Jesus’ return in glory

not a legitimate expectation, but such a return would interrupt their worldly lifestyle.”  

Still, it is easy to at least see the scoffers’ point and the questions that come up. 

The second coming hasn’t happened. 

Has God forgotten us? 

Does God not care about the suffering in the world? 

Is God powerless after all? 

Is there even a God? 

If not, why bother with being good?[2]

“In the face of these questions, the author objects by pointing out that the scoffers have failed to take three things into account: The power of God’s word to both create and destroy (vv.5-7), the difference between the reckoning of God’s time and human time (v. 8), and the character of God (v. 9). In other words, there is at once a power, a patience, and a graciousness that characterize this God.”[3]

Unlike some images present in our society that see God as vengeful, as perfectly willing to condemn billions to eternal torment—unlike some Christians who write about the end of time

as an elaborate revenge fantasy with what can only be described as a sense of glee at the prospect of watching the slaughter of the unfaithful—there is instead the words from this epistle.

Hear the words again:  “The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all (*all*) to come to repentance… [therefore] regard the patience of our Lord as salvation.” 

Instead of a God who shuts down the world in a fit of exasperation, who destroys the creation in a rage; we serve a God who in love approaches us and the end of time with patience

and proclaims purification as though through the refiner’s fire.  This is the picture of a God who remains faithful to us and to all of creation, even when we find our patience tried and at its end.

The question remains, then as now:  what disposition will our waiting take? 

For the author of 2nd Peter, the proper response to God’s gracious patience is a life turned toward repentance and growing in greater and greater holiness. And this holiness goes beyond our relationship to God, but expands outward to all whom we meet.

The call to repentance and the admonition to be found blameless is a serious matter even though God’s patience stretches so far over humanity’s experience of time.  While the scoffers claim God’s supposed absence or tardiness frees us from consequence, we are not at liberty to say that God offers a blind eye or unqualified affirmation to everything humanity does.  The same loving-kindness that God shows to us is shown to all of creation. For if God offers an unqualified patience and affirmation to everything we do—even those things which harm others—then the Gospel holds no good news for the many who suffer for the sake of the comfort of a few. 

The prophets’ call to repentance is the reminder that we are not individually God’s sole project on this earth. The call to repentance is misunderstood if it is seen only as a project of personal improvement.  That is too small a glory for the Kingdom of God we proclaim as “on the way”—a Kingdom proclaimed by building communities that practice love in spite of our fears and our lusts for power and control over others.

As we work toward this kingdom, we wait.  

And in this season we are invited to cultivate a patience markedly different from simply keeping ourselves occupied until the End. 

And Lord knows we are so very occupied this time of year. 

Soon, very soon,

we will commemorate a very special birth even as we await for Christ’s return.

Will you slow down? 

Will you wait? 

Will you hold yourself to a schedule not under your own power/control, but one that promises a world better than we can ask or imagine?  

Will you watch for new heavens and a new earth? 

Will you proclaim a Kingdom to come? 

---

[1] This sentence and the following rely heavily on the work of Lee W. Bowman, Found in Bartlett, David L., and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds. Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary (Year B, Volume 1). Louisville (Ky.): Westminster John Knox Press, 2011.  40).

[2] Disclaimer:  I believe that non-Christians can be ethical people.

[3] Bowman, 40.