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.

Hope and Optimism

Proper 14 Year A RCL

Track 1

Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28

Psalm 105, 1-6, 16-22, 45b

Romans 10:5-15

Matthew 14:22-33

I want to begin by wrapping up a thought I introduced last week.

Last week, I mentioned in my sermon that the narrative we hear in the gospel lessons for last week and this week take place within a day of Jesus’ life.  Not only that, it is the day on which Jesus hears about the death of his cousin John the Baptist at the hands of a cruel man seeking to preserve his own reputation—Herod.

Last week we heard about the feeding of the five thousand men, besides women and children.  But recall how it began:  We are told that upon hearing the news of John’s death, Jesus withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. When he went ashore, he saw the crowd and went about the work of healing and feeding.

Jesus finds his time interrupted, and while he was gracious, this week, Jesus is more forceful:  Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds.

We all know that moment, or at least we have retrospectively recognized those moments, when we are dismissed by someone.  Sometimes it happens graciously; sometimes not. Still Jesus does so, and for the second time in 24 hours, Jesus is making it clear that he needs to be alone. 

He was trying to get time to himself.  I believe that, in his humanity, he was trying to come to terms with grief. 

The experience of grief, and its own way of overwhelming us, is universal to the human experience, even as it is expressed in a myriad of different ways.  One way in which we experience grief is to sometimes sense within ourselves a constriction of our empathy toward others.  It is almost a sense of pulling back from identifying with the plight of others, as though we do not have the emotional and relational reserves to handle the chances and changes of another’s life in addition to our own.  Another way we experience grief—which I think may be more common because of the way in which we order modern society—is to find ourselves having to act as though grief is not a large part our life, and we seem to go through the weeks and months following a loss as the walking wounded.  Sometimes it shows to others, sometimes it does not.  We go to work, we spend time with friends, we perform any number of tasks, as we also try to put our lives back together.  The work of grief takes a significant amount of labor on our part, even with God’s help, work that might be invisible to the rest of the world. 

And if I am honest, I relate with Jesus more in this story than in many others.  In a recent experience of grief, I found it necessary to take significant time to be alone.  I felt as though my mental capabilities were cut in half and clouded.  It took longer to do tasks.  I cut social engagements when I felt like I needed to.  It took time to discover what the new normal would look like.

Jesus still manages to do great things for people, but it seems to me that the fatigue he might be feeling propels him to be alone with God in prayer. 

It does not take long before our attention is brought again to the works of power that Jesus performs in his ministry, but I suggest it is equally important to note these pauses Jesus had to take.  In Jesus’ own times of need and solitude, we see what full divinity looks like when it is dwelling in full humanity.  And, at least to me, Jesus’ experience seems utterly familiar.  Perhaps it does to you, too.

Yesterday, actually, was personally a day of such pauses in grief.  This sermon came in fits and false starts even up to a few hours ago.

I have been watching the increasingly terrible situation in Iraq for the past few weeks, which this week truly took a turn for the worst as Islamic militants with the group known as ISIS began the systematic slaughter of Christians, other religious minorities, and Muslims who do not agree with them.  ISIS has posted videos of the executions to the web, as well as some pictures, which are truly horrifying.  You know which of the victims are Christian because, after their execution, the bodies were hung on makeshift crosses.  Families who fled the cities after being given the ultimatum to convert, pay a special tax, or be executed, are stranded in the wilderness and dying of thirst and hunger.  Some families are reported to have thrown their children off a mountain to their deaths to save them from either dying slowly of dehydration or from being beheaded.  The Anglican Vicar of Baghdad, Andrew White, reports that a child he baptized was cut in half by members of ISIS. 

[This article addresses the question of “what can we do?” The article contains links for donations to relief organizations, to which I’d add the Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East.]

Add to Iraq the long list of tragic or frightening world events that occupy our thoughts and news feeds.  Israel and Gaza.  Refugee children at our border—not to forget the children who did not escape the violence in their homeland.  Ukraine and Russia.  South Sudan.  There are others.  All of these take a toll, and are then added to our own list of private tragedies and hardships.

It is no wonder that so many of us experience a type of burnout on compassion.  It is no wonder that we sometimes find apathy a preferable option.

And when I speak to people it seems like I’m hearing that faith can be kept—at least in terms of believing—but where is hope?

It seems like it’s one thing to have enough faith to get out of the boat and walk on water—but what do we do when we do not know how long we have to walk before we meet Jesus’ hand in a way we will recognize?

And it’s one thing to want to talk about Peter walking on water, but what do we do when one’s view of the world seems more attuned to the plight of Joseph at the bottom of a pit.

It is somewhat difficult to tease apart hope and faith. 

And yet while hope seems to be talked about less often, Hope does something, the same way that faith and love do.

And over this week I have been thinking about the difference between hope in the Christian sense and optimism.  It seems paradoxical, but I find myself hopeful even though I will not call myself an optimist.

Optimism is defined as hopefulness and confidence about the future or the successful outcome of something.  So far that could match the Christian hope in a very broad sense.  But there is also the optimistic principle that we live in the best of all possible worlds. To my ears, optimism seems to remain focused on the conduct of this fallen world, which will often disappoint us. 

Christian hope is something different.

The catechism in the Book of Common Prayer notes that the Christian hope “is to live with confidence in newness and fullness of life, and to await the coming of Christ in glory, and the completion of God's purpose for the world.”

Hope in this sense takes a longer view, beyond this world, and fixes our hope in the consummation of God’s purpose and the reckoning that comes with it, instead of seating hope in the here and now, where both justice and love seem so easily thwarted.

It is a common criticism of Christianity that says that believers are led to care too much about the afterlife at the expense of the work Christ has given us to do in caring for others.  I agree with this critique.  As MLK said "Any religion that purports to care about the souls of men but doesn't care about the social conditions that damn him or the economic conditions that strangle him is a moribund religion awaiting burial."  In talking about hope in such a final sense—attuned to the notion that we are heading to a decisive End that we do not yet see—I do not mean that Christians should return to a state of simply waiting on God to fix things on our behalf.

Yet to undercut any conversation about the purpose to which we are moving does not serve us well.  We lose the long view God has given us as the hope for our world.  If we lose that, we lose one of the grandest proclamations we have that undergirds much of the optimism we find in this world.

There will be times when our optimism will line up with the Christian hope.  And there will be times when our optimism is dashed because it does not hold a view as expansive as the hope we have in Christ—and the world will thwart our best expectations.  I suggest that we would be well-served to learn how to discern the difference and hold fast to hope and faith in God instead of a lesser vision and short-term goal—still always acting in accordance to our hope in Christ and seeking the Good that God puts before us to enact. 

In that way, perhaps waves and strong winds of this world may appear less frightening, and our grief and frustration find expression through a God who understands our own need for comfort.  And so we too can walk these stormy waters, seeking the hand of Christ who beckons us forward.

Amen.