Isaiah 64:1-9; Mark 13:24-37
Presented November 27, 2011, by Joel Kline
The First Sunday of Advent
Early on in my experience as a pastor, I struggled a great deal with my own sense of calling. Is the pastoral ministry the right “fit” for me, I frequently wondered, particularly since I found myself frustrated and impatient with the disparity that all too often exists between what the church proclaims and how that same church acts. The questions have never fully disappeared—indeed, I suspect they never should!—but I did begin to recognize how important it was for me to look inwardly, to examine the inconsistencies in my own life before investing so much energy lamenting any disparity I noted in the lives of others and in the church community. In other words, I had my own work to do, and in response, I began to develop a set of spiritual disciplines, meeting regularly with a spiritual director or guide through the years and creating intentional times for prayer and meditation and journaling—times for honest confession of my own shortcomings and brokenness every bit as much as those yearnings deep within me for healing and wholeness in the world around me, for a deepening taste of justice and compassion, peace and new life.
During those beginning years of ministry I recall hearing a fellow pastor talking about the hymnody of the church, pointing out how we perhaps overstate and “over-sing” the commitments we make to our faith. You will remember the familiar hymn that begins, “Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to thee.” In one of the stanzas we sing, “Take my silver and my gold; not a mite would I withhold.” Even now, every time I hear or read or sing those words, I have to stop and ask myself, “Really? As one living in the midst of a materialistic culture that assigns personal value in terms of how much we earn and possess, can I honestly claim that I am willing to place everything that I own in the hands of God?”
In the haunting Advent hymn we sang as worship began this morning, O Come, O Come, Immanuel, we pray the prayer, O come, desire of nations, bind all peoples in one heart and mind. Bid envy, strife, and quarrel cease. Fill the whole world with heaven’s peace. Again, I find myself needing to ask, “Is this a prayer I can freely make my own? How willingly do I let go of the envy and the quarreling and the strife buried deep in my own heart and soul; am I able to cast aside those yearnings for success and status and recognition that may well keep me from respecting and honoring the gifts of others; am I willing to take on the heart of a servant, setting aside my own pursuits when necessary to help bring about a deepening peace and unity to human life?”
Advent is a season in the church year that invites and challenges each of us to take this inward look. We begin this time of Advent, knowing that envy, quarreling, and strife are all too familiar companions, entrenched both within our own souls and in the world around us. How shall we move forward?—surely this is the Advent season’s critical question for us. Because in Advent we not only look back and recall the initial birth of Jesus, remarkable as it was—the story of the incarnation, of God taking on human flesh and dwelling among us. Even more, Advent is a season of anticipation, looking forward to the promised fulfillment of the hope inherent in the incarnation, the promise that life will indeed be made new. In Advent, then, we find ourselves paying close attention to our deepest yearnings, to our hopes and dreams for the coming of that day when envy and quarreling and strife will truly come to an end; to that time when justice will roll down like water and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream; to that day when nations no longer are in the business of creating warfare and living by the sword, but instead learn to live together in peace; to that era when all humanity takes hold of the wonder of God’s compassionate and never-ceasing love. It is a marvelous vision of how life is to be lived, a glorious hope that life can indeed be transformed and re-created. But the Advent season also reminds us that each of us and all of us have serious work to do, should that transformed vision become reality in our own hearts and in the world around us.
Centuries before the coming of Jesus, in those days of old when the Israelite people returned from a time of exile in the enemy land of Babylon, they carried the hope that life would now be different. But they returned to their land, only to discover that their beloved city of Jerusalem continued to lie in ruins, the temple needed to be rebuilt, and the land continued to be marked by desolation. Is it any wonder that the prophet, identifying with the people’s deep yearnings for life to be refashioned and remade, cried out to God, “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down…so that nations might tremble in your presence” (Isaiah 64:1-2).
In Advent we offer a similar cry, and yet, while waiting for God to act, we know—deep within us—that we carry responsibility as well. Familiar Advent scriptures and carols speak of waiting, but it is not a passive, sit-on-your-hands kind of waiting. No, it is an active waiting to which we are called; we are urged to be alert and awake! In Monk’s Hood, a medieval novel of suspense, author Ellis Peters describes one of her characters, a young man who has been given a second chance at life, as a character “both spent and renewed . . . a [person] half-drowned and wholly transformed.” It’s a description that carries the Advent flavor, does it not? We live in a world going through all kinds of upheavals, yet in the very midst of life’s deep uncertainty, Advent reminds us that God is in the business of making all things new. Though we frequently find ourselves feeling half-drowned in the midst of the world’s—and our own—turmoil, yet we embrace the promise of life fully transformed. Though we frequently find ourselves questioning where God is in the midst of life’s uncertainties and quarrels and divisions, feeling as if God is all too silent, yet our Advent faith urges us to a life of alertness, waiting expectantly for the often-subtle ways God reveals God’s presence in us and among us and around us.
Joan Chittister, Benedictine sister and outspoken advocate for justice and peace in our world, reminds us of the distinction between confidence and hope. “Confidence,” asserts Chittister, “is the inner conviction that we are equal to whatever task is before us. It is the certainty that we are bright enough, strong enough, powerful enough to meet a challenge and best it.” But hope, suggests Chittister, is something quite different. Hope is “what sustains is when we have little or no confidence left.” Hope is rooted in the conviction that whatever happens in life, God is present with us, and it is God who equips us to continue the works of ministry. It is God who sustains us when all seems lost. It is God who is able, as the old African-American spiritual puts it, to create “a way out of no way.” It is God who, in the words of Isaiah, is the potter while we are the clay; indeed, “we are all the work of [God’s] hands” (Isaiah 64:8).
This morning’s lesson from the Gospel of Mark carries images of upheaval, but, contrary to the way in which this text is often portrayed by biblical fundamentalists, the intent is not to gloat over coming destruction. Indeed, the message is not primarily about destruction at all, but the very opposite: the creation of something markedly new, the fulfillment of what shall be, the unfolding of God’s kin-dom among us—a realm of living based upon the alternative values of compassion and justice, peace and right living, servanthood and self-giving love, generosity and gratitude. Our task in the midst of life’s uncertainty and turmoil is to keep alert, to be awake, to be on the watch for new possibilities unfolding in us and around us. Surely that’s the intent upon Jesus pointing to the fig tree. “As soon as its branch becomes tender,” asserts Jesus, “and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near.” In the same way, Jesus tells us, when you see tumultuous events occurring, don’t forget to look more deeply for the often-subtle ways God is at work, renewing and re-creating human lives. All the while, you and I are called to place our trust, our faith, our firm hope, in the God who is in the business of making all things new.
Keep awake! Keep alert! This is our challenge, to live now as if God’s redeemed and re-created world were fully here among us. This is our calling, to pray and work in the light of God’s promise of new life. O come, desire of nations, bind all peoples in one heart and mind. Bid envy, strife, and quarrel cease. Fill the whole world with heaven’s peace. May it be so! Amen!