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| SERMON 1st Sunday of Advent November 29, 2009 The Rev. Charles W. Messer |
| 667 Mount Road, Aston, PA 19014 610-459-2013 |
| Small Parish - Big Heart The little church you've been looking for! All are welcome! |
| Our Mission: To worship the Lord To serve the community To grow the church |
Jeremiah 33:14-16 Psalm 25:1-9 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13 Luke 21:25-36 |
To contact us: Calvary Episcopal Church 667 Mount Road Aston, PA 19014 610-459-2013 OFFICE The Rev. Charles Messer, Rector Fr. Chuck: frmesser@calvaryepiscopalrockdale.org Website: mail@calvaryepiscopalrockdale.org Office: calvaryoffice1@verizon.net |
Welcome to Advent. It’s hard to believe that it’ll be Christmas in a few weeks.
However, most of our culture has been celebrating Christmas for months now. Wal-
Mart started bringing out stuff for Christmas just before Halloween. There is a radio
station here in town that started playing Christmas music around the clock before
Thanksgiving. Is it possible to be sick of Christmas before it even gets here?
But there’s reason why we anticipate Christmas. It’s a feel good time where the
troubles of the day are put away. It’s a time when kids off at college come home, a
time when families who’re scattered across the country come together. It’s a time
when our children dress in bathrobes, wings, and angels to become shepherds
and angels by acting out the story of the nativity. It’s a time, let’s not forget, to shop,
buy, Layaway, and charge to our hearts content.
There is something awkward about the thought of getting into the Christmas spirit
so early this year, if at all. This has been a tough year. 2009 had a lot going on, to
say the least, and I’m a bit apprehensive of 2006. This past year has brought us to
near economic collapse, violence and terror, and to top it off 2009 marks the eighth
year we’ve been at war with no end in sight. Singing peace on earth good will
toward men while gathered around a white artificial Christmas tree with twinkling
lights and tinsel on this last Sunday of November doesn’t seem right.
One of the greatest gifts the church has given us is the liturgical calendar. Unlike
Wal-Mart and Target, the Church is not so quick to jump from Thanksgiving to
Christmas in the blink of an eye. Before Easter there is first Lent. Before Easter
Sunday there is Good Friday. Thus, before Christmas there is first the longing and
waiting of Advent.
Before we celebrate the coming of the baby Jesus, before the kids dress in
bathrobes and angel outfits, before all of the joy of Christmas we’re confronted by
these passages of anguish. C.S. Lewis said, “The Christian faith is a thing of
unspeakable joy. But it does not begin in joy, but rather in despair. And it is no
good trying to reach the joy without first going through the despair.”
Sunday after Sunday in Advent, it’s Isaiah and John the Baptist. Not the Jeremiah
who sings so well in Handel’s Messiah, but the Jeremiah we hear this morning,
who laments the fate of Jews in exiles who’ve lost everything.
“The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will fulfill the promise I made
to the house of Israel.”
So here we are a couple thousand years later gearing up for Christmas. We are
moving, have been moving since the first opportunity in late October; time to drag
the tree out from the attic, untangle the stings of lights, sit on Santa’s lap with our
list of things to make our lives better, and drink ourselves into a diabetic coma from
the rivers of eggnog. And here is the out dated, irrelevant Church out of step as
usual with the rest of America. Unable to catch the spirit of an Andy Williams White
Christmas Special, the church is all gloom and doom for the next four Sundays.
Advent is the season in which we talk about hope, about living in expectation,
about being prepared. I must confess that I don’t feel very hopeful. I feel frustration
rather than hope. I am hesitant about getting my hopes up. Our country continues
to be at war. Death and violence have become commonplace – in Iraq, in
Afghanistan, in Chester and even in our own community. We seem to have waged
war against our environment – and seem to be winning. Apathy, indifference, and
insensitivity are the WMD’s in our dealings with the poor and homeless.
My grandmother was one of the godliest women I have ever known. When she
talked about her love affair with Jesus I could feel it. Before she died we were
watching television just after 9/11. Seeing all the destruction in NYC, she said with
tears in her eyes, “Son, never forget, Jesus is the answer.” For her Jesus was the
only solution to life’s calamities and difficulties. She spoke with such certainty as
though she has tested the solution many times in her 83 years. Right now, in this
point in my life and where things are in our world, I have my doubts. The many
things I thought were certain are uncertain at best.
The Church in Advent takes seriously the mess we’ve made of things. The Church
shouts with a fist raised to heaven and tears running down its face that things
down here are utterly screwed up and there seems to be nothing we can do to fix
them. So, in Advent we long for God to come down and drown the darkness with
light. In Advent, we beg God, we hurl our pain into heaven on scrapped and bloody
knees that God would do something now.
Advent gives us this possibility, an anxious hope of things to come. A hope that
God’s would bring us to a new day. We seek a possibility when darkness will be
drowned by light and death interrupted by life. Advent in the season of maybe.
Maybe people will be healed. Maybe the poor will be fed. Maybe the homeless will
have shelter. Maybe a good job will come along. Maybe next year will be better.
Maybe peace will reign and wars will cease. Maybe all of the killing in Upper Darby
and Chester will end. Maybe cancer will be a thing of the past. Maybe. This is the
language of possibility.
Maybe Word will become flesh. Maybe a virgin will give birth to the savior of the
world. Maybe God will become human, just like us. This is the language of
incarnation.
Maybe the dead will rise again. Maybe old things will pass away and become new.
Maybe broken relationships will be made whole. This is the language of
resurrection.
Maybe God is revealed in the beggar, the homeless person, or the prostitute.
Maybe God is revealed in the poor, in the forgotten, and the in unexpected. This is
the language of Advent.
The hope for us says the out of step and out dated church in Advent, is that we are
out of hope, and we know it. We dare not rush to greet the savior in the manger
prematurely until we pause here in Advent to admit that we need salvation. Nothing
within us can save us. No thing can save us. We’ve tried that before. No president,
no bomb, no new car, no bottle, no drug, no Andy Williams white Christmas can
save us.
The day is surely coming, says the LORD.
Our hope must be in someone out there who comes to us, not the other way
around. We live today. We look toward tomorrow. We live in anxious possibility.
We live in maybe. Welcome to Advent.
However, most of our culture has been celebrating Christmas for months now. Wal-
Mart started bringing out stuff for Christmas just before Halloween. There is a radio
station here in town that started playing Christmas music around the clock before
Thanksgiving. Is it possible to be sick of Christmas before it even gets here?
But there’s reason why we anticipate Christmas. It’s a feel good time where the
troubles of the day are put away. It’s a time when kids off at college come home, a
time when families who’re scattered across the country come together. It’s a time
when our children dress in bathrobes, wings, and angels to become shepherds
and angels by acting out the story of the nativity. It’s a time, let’s not forget, to shop,
buy, Layaway, and charge to our hearts content.
There is something awkward about the thought of getting into the Christmas spirit
so early this year, if at all. This has been a tough year. 2009 had a lot going on, to
say the least, and I’m a bit apprehensive of 2006. This past year has brought us to
near economic collapse, violence and terror, and to top it off 2009 marks the eighth
year we’ve been at war with no end in sight. Singing peace on earth good will
toward men while gathered around a white artificial Christmas tree with twinkling
lights and tinsel on this last Sunday of November doesn’t seem right.
One of the greatest gifts the church has given us is the liturgical calendar. Unlike
Wal-Mart and Target, the Church is not so quick to jump from Thanksgiving to
Christmas in the blink of an eye. Before Easter there is first Lent. Before Easter
Sunday there is Good Friday. Thus, before Christmas there is first the longing and
waiting of Advent.
Before we celebrate the coming of the baby Jesus, before the kids dress in
bathrobes and angel outfits, before all of the joy of Christmas we’re confronted by
these passages of anguish. C.S. Lewis said, “The Christian faith is a thing of
unspeakable joy. But it does not begin in joy, but rather in despair. And it is no
good trying to reach the joy without first going through the despair.”
Sunday after Sunday in Advent, it’s Isaiah and John the Baptist. Not the Jeremiah
who sings so well in Handel’s Messiah, but the Jeremiah we hear this morning,
who laments the fate of Jews in exiles who’ve lost everything.
“The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will fulfill the promise I made
to the house of Israel.”
So here we are a couple thousand years later gearing up for Christmas. We are
moving, have been moving since the first opportunity in late October; time to drag
the tree out from the attic, untangle the stings of lights, sit on Santa’s lap with our
list of things to make our lives better, and drink ourselves into a diabetic coma from
the rivers of eggnog. And here is the out dated, irrelevant Church out of step as
usual with the rest of America. Unable to catch the spirit of an Andy Williams White
Christmas Special, the church is all gloom and doom for the next four Sundays.
Advent is the season in which we talk about hope, about living in expectation,
about being prepared. I must confess that I don’t feel very hopeful. I feel frustration
rather than hope. I am hesitant about getting my hopes up. Our country continues
to be at war. Death and violence have become commonplace – in Iraq, in
Afghanistan, in Chester and even in our own community. We seem to have waged
war against our environment – and seem to be winning. Apathy, indifference, and
insensitivity are the WMD’s in our dealings with the poor and homeless.
My grandmother was one of the godliest women I have ever known. When she
talked about her love affair with Jesus I could feel it. Before she died we were
watching television just after 9/11. Seeing all the destruction in NYC, she said with
tears in her eyes, “Son, never forget, Jesus is the answer.” For her Jesus was the
only solution to life’s calamities and difficulties. She spoke with such certainty as
though she has tested the solution many times in her 83 years. Right now, in this
point in my life and where things are in our world, I have my doubts. The many
things I thought were certain are uncertain at best.
The Church in Advent takes seriously the mess we’ve made of things. The Church
shouts with a fist raised to heaven and tears running down its face that things
down here are utterly screwed up and there seems to be nothing we can do to fix
them. So, in Advent we long for God to come down and drown the darkness with
light. In Advent, we beg God, we hurl our pain into heaven on scrapped and bloody
knees that God would do something now.
Advent gives us this possibility, an anxious hope of things to come. A hope that
God’s would bring us to a new day. We seek a possibility when darkness will be
drowned by light and death interrupted by life. Advent in the season of maybe.
Maybe people will be healed. Maybe the poor will be fed. Maybe the homeless will
have shelter. Maybe a good job will come along. Maybe next year will be better.
Maybe peace will reign and wars will cease. Maybe all of the killing in Upper Darby
and Chester will end. Maybe cancer will be a thing of the past. Maybe. This is the
language of possibility.
Maybe Word will become flesh. Maybe a virgin will give birth to the savior of the
world. Maybe God will become human, just like us. This is the language of
incarnation.
Maybe the dead will rise again. Maybe old things will pass away and become new.
Maybe broken relationships will be made whole. This is the language of
resurrection.
Maybe God is revealed in the beggar, the homeless person, or the prostitute.
Maybe God is revealed in the poor, in the forgotten, and the in unexpected. This is
the language of Advent.
The hope for us says the out of step and out dated church in Advent, is that we are
out of hope, and we know it. We dare not rush to greet the savior in the manger
prematurely until we pause here in Advent to admit that we need salvation. Nothing
within us can save us. No thing can save us. We’ve tried that before. No president,
no bomb, no new car, no bottle, no drug, no Andy Williams white Christmas can
save us.
The day is surely coming, says the LORD.
Our hope must be in someone out there who comes to us, not the other way
around. We live today. We look toward tomorrow. We live in anxious possibility.
We live in maybe. Welcome to Advent.
