First 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, a message too good to be true: that God became man and dwelt among us; that we are made in the image of God; that resurrection 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. 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. And who are we to dwell together each Sunday in the sanctuary of a cosmic, divine love story, proclaiming hope, while the world around us is burning up? Who are we? This isn’t a criticism. It’s a genuine question. What does it mean for us to gather as the church, stewards of the gospel of grace, while living dispersed lives in a fractured world? Who are we? I suspect for many, especially in this stupefying age of ever-mutating pandemic, just getting to church or watching it online with any degree of regularity is the most you can muster. To say the prayers, eat the bread, hear the music in the face of this tragic world and our private woes, just getting here is a kind of triumph. And to you I say, 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 praised as great in the Kingdom of Heaven. And perhaps for others, there’s more engagement – more participation in the life and activities of the church. But when the priest exhorts you, week after week, 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 to have ever 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. No. 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 that Jesus proclaimed. What does it mean to be the church? Many things. But whenever someone joins St. John’s and we talk about being a member here, I always share the same advice, “Remember, we’re all just a bunch of sinners. And belonging to the church is a lot like a marriage. You never want to hurt your spouse. But if you’re actually going to share life together, then hurt is inevitable, because we’re all broken people, butting up against each other. What makes for a good marriage is the same thing that makes for a good church, that when we do hurt one another, we have the courage and maturity to talk out it, to admit where we were in error, to forgive each other, to receive that forgiveness, and to carry on together. That’s what makes a good church.” And if we can practice this here, in a community where forgiveness is core to our identity, it just may shift our character to be able to live more grace-fully in this antagonistic world. And I share all this today because today is the first day of Advent. And the message of Advent is exactly what we need to hear as the framework of how we live our broken lives, even while seeking to be like Jesus. 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. It’s admitting to all its sordid brokenness and pain – in nature, in politics, in families, in ourselves – it’s admitting to all manner of brokenness and saying, “God, we need you to come and redeem this mess.” Because the core message of Advent is the expectation that Jesus will return and will complete God’s ultimate work of redemption. So in the wisdom of the church, our liturgical year begins by looking 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 looks backward. That foot is planted That foot is planted in the memory of Christmas and the Incarnation, in 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 turns out it was a face of humility, obedience, compassion; and the full strength of heaven to overcome all sin and death and division. The forgiveness and resurrection of God is already accomplished. So in 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. Like the Advent art behind the altar: The bare branches of winter are as the bareness of this world and everything that feels lifeless or despairing. And the water, like our winter rains, is Christ the Living Water, already with us: alive, cleansing, flowing, healing, saturating the earth, and being drawn up through the roots into the tree – that is not dead, but alive – with buds already swelling for the inevitable spring. And Christ, the Light of the World, will guide us home. So although we aren’t a perfect church, any more than we are perfect Christians, or perfect husbands or wives, we are an Advent Church. We are formed in the story of Christ and all he has been for this world, looking to the future with a stirring hope of who Christ will continue to prove himself to be, through his work and ours, for the well-being of this world. And in these days between, we are as the Bride of Christ, in this marriage with God and one another, doing our best: Stumbling into each other; saying “We’re fine,” when really we’re hurting, but not sure how to be honest; lazy and waiting for “someone else” to do the work. Such is the reality of the church. But as in marriage, our stumblings are also intermixed with moments of great generosity and kindness. I remember Harry Dearth’s funeral a few years ago when his family chose not to bring his wife, Shirley, to the service. Her dementia was so advanced, they knew being here would just be distressing and confusing. But someone in our parish heard that Shirley wouldn’t be here and told me, “Eric, I’ll go to Cottesmore and sit with her throughout the funeral. It’s not right for her to be alone, even if she doesn’t know what’s going on.” And so the two of them sat together, largely in silence. Nothing noteworthy happened between them. Yet there was the Body of Christ, alive and true, and surely the Holy Spirit was dancing between them. For there is no barrier to God’s loving and it is the privilege of the church to become partakers of what God is always doing. And so I invite and encourage you – with all grace for your stumblings – to participate in the active life of Advent hope. This isn’t a program to sign up for. It is nothing the church manages. It is simply the substance of what makes the church the church: the confidence that God will ultimately restore the brokenness of this world, and we can now live as if it were already so. Because the “Already” of Christ’s birth and life and death and resurrection is all ours, right now, to live into. When you see the weekly email with the “Love Your Neighbor” box, telling us who’s sick or recently bereaved – that’s an invitation. God is already with them, loving them, and we are one with God, so we can participate in this truer part of our identity. We god-bearers can be the Church of St. John’s that loves on the road. And if you can’t get there, write a letter; call them. You don’t need to be particularly wise, with the right words to say. You just need to care. “Hey. Heard you were sick. What’s going on?” And follow their lead from there. For when we do that, when we take little, courageous steps, we are indeed following God’s truth and light, leading us to God’s holy hill and dwelling. This is Advent. And because this is the day when many of us return our pledge cards to the church for next year’s budget, let me say just a word about money. I know it can be irksome when it feels like the church is always asking for more. Trust me, I know. But apart from the practicalities of running a small, non-profit organization like the church, a benefit of giving – which Cynthia and I keep re-discovering – is that we can do it. We can’t change our character overnight. We can’t “become like Jesus” with just one prayer. But we can, in one moment, make bold, generous decisions to say, “We will live with less, so you can simply live” – especially when it comes to supporting our mission partners, who care for our most vulnerable neighbors. And there’s something extraordinarily liberating, and hope-inducing for us every time we choose generosity, even when it now means saying “no” to something we’d intended for ourselves. “Giving away” is not just a kind of begrudging faith; it is a form of living hope: that we’ll be okay, and we now get to be part of someone else’s being okay as well. And it feels full of God. So I invite you this Advent to be mindful about who you are, mindful of your yearnings for this life and for this world; to lament where there is sorrow; and to take tiny, bold steps of becoming that for which you long. “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).