1st Sunday of Advent Sermon
It is very hard to be the church.
We gather together, week after week, bound together by a worship service that proclaims the most extraordinary things: that God became man and dwelt among us; that we ourselves are made in the image of God; that resurrection Jesus’ resurrection and ours has already triumphed over every death; that we have been joined in peace with God and one another.
This is the gospel message that binds us together in the church.
And who are we? we who share this common message? but a mongrel assembly of confused and lonesome people, doing the best we can. A people whose children are drug addicts. A people who watch pornography in the cover of isolated rooms. A people who whittle away hours, reading drivel on our smart phones.
This isn’t a criticism.
It’s more of an observation, really, an observation of an enormous paradox.
What does it mean for us to gather as the church, stewards of this gospel of grace, while living such splintered lives in a fractured world?
Who are we?
I suspect for many, just getting to church or watching it online with any degree of regularity is the most you can muster. To say the prayers, consume the sacrament, hear the music in the face of this tragic world and our private woes – just getting here is a kind of triumph. And if this sounds like you, I say simply this: Bless you. Carry on. Really. If this is all the faith or hope you can manage, may it be as the widow’s mite that Jesus saw and praised as great in the Kingdom of Heaven.
And perhaps for others, there’s more engagement – more participation in the life and faith of the church. But when you hear – week after week – exhortations to forgive everyone; to love broadly; to seek the stranger’s good; to fight for justice; to live modestly that you may share lavishly – really, is it just too much? Too much expectation, perhaps, for someone who doesn’t even know how to pray for five minutes when they’re alone; for someone who can’t claim ever to have had any honest-to-God experience with the divine that they can cling to for assurance?
And what does it mean to be the church that follows a Jesus we’ve never even seen?
These are real questions for us – as individuals and as a church. And you well know, there’s no way I can lob out some tidy, inspirational morsel that will somehow remedy it. I’m sorry. So, my message is simply this: I know. I know it’s hard to be the church, to claim Jesus’ name, to bear any significant witness of the gospel Jesus proclaimed.
What does it mean to be the church?
Many things. But chief among them is that we’re a people who gather in hope. Yes, our brokenness is real, as is the brokenness of the world – disastrously so, in many places. But it is precisely there that the hope of our gospel is rooted. For our hope is of a god who is not only is aware of the suffering, but has participated in it. And not just as an aloof anthropologist gathering data about the human race, but as one fully joined, in love and in suffering, with this human race.
I’ve just reread Stephen Lawhead’s epic novel, Byzantium. It’s tells the story of Aidan, a 9th century Irish monk who makes a pilgrimage to Byzantium – modern day Istanbul. As any good epic should, the story has a thousand twists and turns which include Aidan first being enslaved by Danish Vikings, and then – along with the Vikings – being enslaved in a wretched silver mine. It’s around that time in the story that Aidan finally loses his faith altogether, because God has given up on him. But by the end of the story we discover it was in that same context – that of absolute suffering – that Gunnar, one of the Danish Vikings, discovers a faith of his own:
“Do you remember when the mine overseer was going to kill us?” he asks the now faithless Aidan. “There we were, our bodies were broken, our skin blackened by the sun – how hot it was? Remember?
“Well, I was thinking: I am going to die today, but Jesu also died. So he knows how it is with me. And I was thinking, would he know me when I came to him? Yes! Sitting in his hall, he will see me sail into the bay, and he will run down to meet me on the shore; he will wade into the sea and pull my boat onto the sand and welcome me as his wayfaring brother. Why will he do this? Because he too has suffered, and he knows, Aidan, he knows.” Beaming, Gunnar concluded, “Is that not good news?”[1]
Yes. Yes, it is good news. This is the extraordinary hope of our gospel. He knows.
And I share all this today because today is the first day of Advent.
Advent is this welcome season of the church year that stands with its feet planted in two realities. One foot is planted firmly in this world and the reality of its conditions. It plainly admits to all its sordid brokenness and pain – in nature, in politics, in families, in ourselves – and pleads most fervently, “God, come and redeem this mess.” Because the core message of Advent is our expectation that God in Christ will return and will complete God’s ultimate work of redemption. So in the wisdom of the church, our liturgical year begins today by looking out to the very end of this whole cosmic story and saying, “God, we’re a mess. Do something.”
So that’s one foot, looking forward to the Parousia: God’s final solution.
But the other foot is planted in the past. From that perspective, we look back to the memory of Christmas and the Incarnation, with the solid assurance that – whatever our future with Christ will be – it must be consistent with who Jesus has already been for us. Jesus showed us the face of God, and it was a face of humility, obedience, compassion… and the full strength of heaven to overcome all sin and death and division. God’s forgiveness and resurrection is already accomplished.
So this is Advent: We stand fully attentive to the present, with our eyes to the future, through the lens of the past. And this is what gives us hope.
It’s like the Advent art behind the altar: They’ve made an Advent Calendar for us – a window opening for each Sunday of Advent. And here, in the first window, we see the fig branches and leaves from St. John’s own fig tree. In the gospel reading, Jesus spoke of the end times, saying we’d recognize the signs of this world’s consummation as easily as we know when summer is coming by the fig tree putting forth its leaves.
But that’s not the case for us. We aren’t living in such a time as to see the end with any such clarity. The sufferings of our age – though significant – seem no more substantive than what many generations before us have experienced. So, rather than fig branches bursting forth in bud, what we have are dried leaves from the past season and young figs of a harvest yet to come.
This is Advent. We live in the present through the lens of the past, as we look to the future, with hope. As God in Christ has suffered in redeeming love for us, so God in Christ will be with us now and in the age to come – the outworking of God’s “plan for the fullness of time, [when Christ will] gather up all things in him[self], things in heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:10).
And as we wait, in hope, so we join in this hopeful work – partners now with Christ in his redemption.
The fig tree at St. John’s was planted years ago in honor of my predecessor, Doug Pollock. It has become, for me, a symbol of our church. And every year, while it’s dormant, as we await its new growth, it’s my job to prune the tree. Which I don’t mind at all. It’s become a kind of annual prayer for me. “God, Doug did his best to tend this tree – this church. And now it’s my season to do the same. May I do it well. May it be healthy. May it bear much fruit.”
And, of course, this is not a job just for me or the other clergy. St. John’s is our church – our fig tree – to tend, to nourish, to harvest. And in these winter days, while all is dark and dormant, may our work carry on. In hope.
Let us gather in hope, pray in hope, serve in hope, rest in hope, and – yes – even whittle away some hours, reading drivel on our smart phones, in hope.
“Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus direct our way…May the Lord make us increase and abound in love for one another and for all” (1 Thessalonians. 3:11-13).
For “the days are surely coming,” says the Lord, “when I will fulfill the promise I made….I will cause a righteous branch to spring up from David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land” (Jeremiah 33:14).
I wish you a blessed and hope-filled Advent. Amen.
[1] Stephen Lawhead, Byzantium, New York, Harper Prism, p. 862.