20 November 2009

Kirkland Congregational Church United Church of Christ

First Sunday of Advent: Lighting the Candle of Hope

Sermon: Signs of the times

Jeremiah 33:14-16; Luke 21:25-36

God remains connected to the world... come hell or high water.

Pray with me: May the words of my heart, and the thoughts of all our hearts be acceptable to you, O God, you are ever constant with us.

Eight years ago, on a late summer's day, the second week of September, my brother in law, Frank, a social worker, catches a subway to work. He rides from Manhattan's upper west side south, to his office near the Battery. The subway stops just north of the World Trade Center. A voice comes over the P.A. system: “Sorry for the inconvenience. The NYPD has instructed us to disembark all passengers at this stop. Again, we are sorry for the inconvenience.”

Frank, not a native New Yorker, has lived in the city long enough to know these things happen. He gets off with everyone else. Taking the stairs two at a time, he emerges at street level. The roads seem a bit busier than usual. Sirens wail in the distance... police, fire? Frank figures they relate to the abrupt end of his subway commute. As he begins to hurry his way to work on foot, he checks his watch, just after nine. Frank does not walk far when all of a sudden the air is full of what looks like snow flakes, but rather than floating down, they all drift up.

Then, a large piece of plastic falls from the sky and lands at Frank's feet. “What the?!” wonders Frank. He peers closely. He realizes the piece of plastic comes from an airliner's overhead luggage bin. Frank looks around. No one walks south, the direction of work. Everyone, everyone hurries east or north. Of course, the date is... September 11^th 2001. We will return to Frank's story.

Our Advent Season begins with two other “end of the world” stories. In Jeremiah's time, Babylonians beseige Jerusalem. The Babylonians have burst the walls and sacked the cities and towns of the northern Jewish kingdom, Israel. The Babylonian seige-engines and armies assail Judah's capital, Jerusalem. The end approaches. Life for the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem will never be the same. The prophet Jeremiah foretells the coming catastrophe. Doom pounds at the city walls. Six hundred years later, in the same city, Jerusalem, Jesus foretells another coming catastrophe: Jerusalem's fall and the temple's destruction, not a pretty picture.

But, but, we do not read Jeremiah and Jesus this day for prophecies of doom and gloom. Rather, looking deeper, we see these writings bring rays of light into our darkness. Even as the heavens change and the earth shifts underfoot-- anyone who has experienced an earthquake know how unsettling the ground shifting underfoot can be-- Jeremiah and Jesus bring words of comfort and HOPE.

Cynics scoff at notions of the Divine. Their thoughts fill numerous books sitting on shop shelves these days. They ask, “Where is God?” They point out that evil happens and they see no evidence of any God stopping it or even forstalling it. But Jeremiah and Jesus say, “Not so!” Not so fast and not so true. They assure us tht the one who creates this world, who sets the sun in the sky and the stars in the heavens, the one who grants you and me life is indeed with us, even when we face the darkest evil.

Advent-- the coming of some notable thing, event or person. Emmanuel, God with us, what advent could be more portentious?

Jeremiah and Jesus foretell change, change disastrous for some. No more same old same old, no more tyranny of tradition. Those on high laid low. Those down low elevated. The marginalized brought centre stage. Those hogging the spotlight relegated stage left, far stage left---or right. Jeremiah and Jesus foretell change, the coming of God's kin-dom, God's people as one. No more nationalism, no more flag waving, no more olympic chants: “USA! USA!” John Lennon's song, Imagine comes to mind: Imagine there's no countries, I wonder if you can? Unsettling, upsetting, earth-shifting, sky-falling.

Advent: something notable, portentious this way comes. What to do? Jesus says, “Stand up! Raise your heads!” The figurative “standing up” allows us to see above the hustle-bustle distractions of the season. Sure, the “to do” list grows: baking, decorating, shopping, wrapping, mailings--Christmas cards and parcels, special events. And the family, never mind the in-laws, the family can drive us to eye-tears and hair-tears! And these trivial things I have listed stand in contrast to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, famine in Africa, floods in Asia and on our own door steps poverty permitted, health care omitted. The USA, our nation, will spend $706 billion dollars on defense this year. Do we feel any safer? Do you? Are the walls we build on our borders really keeping the hordes at bay? And leaders seem to continue to send the message: “Be afraid. Be very afraid!”

Which brings us back to my brother in law, Frank, walking the streets of lower Manhattan on September 11^th. Sixty blocks to reach home on the day it seems as though the end of the world arrives. Frank joins the crowd moving away from the unexplained falling sky disaster. And he witnesses an amazing thing. With misty eyes Frank tells us, “I pass bodega after bodega where shop owners hand out drinks to passers-by. We need those drinks, so many of us choking on smoke and dust. I pass a shoe store where the owner has stacks and stacks of shoe boxes on the side walk. He busily fits women who wore high heels to work with inexpensive flats and sneakers so they can make the long walk home. He gives, he gives, the shoes away. My lunch: a Lebanese Muslim gives me a chwarma –like a gyros sandwich. And he gives one out to each person in the crowd at his stand. Amazing.”

We can be like Chicken Little, running in circles, panicked, crying, “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!” We can circle our wagons in fear. We can cower behind the walls we build, as Jerusalem once did, to keep others at bay.

Or, we can be God's people. With open hearts and minds, we can be expectant this Advent Season for the portentious coming which does bring change.

“The days are surely coming,” says Jeremiah. “Stand up, raise up your heads,” says Jesus. Look above the crowds and see, with HOPE, God remains connected to this world. God is with us in good times and in bad. Emmanuel! God with us, yesterday, today, this season and for always!

Let us pray. God, the signs of doom crash into our lives often and the voices of cynics seem to surround us. Open our eyes to the signs of your presence, your constant calming presence. Fill us with hope. Strengthen us to stand up and raise our heads as we work for Your peace and justice. We pray through Christ, Emmanuel. Amen.