Sermons & Meditations

Mark 13:24-37
Presented November 27th, 2005, by J.D. Kline
The First Sunday of Advent

One of the lesser-known books of the Hebrew Scriptures is the book of Lamentations, a series of five poems of lament that emerge from a deep wound—from the experience of exile. It was a time, some six centuries before the birth of Jesus, when the city of Jerusalem was destroyed, the Temple left in ruins, and many of the people forced to move to a strange land—the land of Babylon. The poems found in the book of Lamentations were written from the perspective of those who were left behind amidst the destruction of Jerusalem—mostly the poor in the land.

Not only did the ravages of war leave a trail of illness, hunger and poverty, but the very symbols of faith that held life together for the people of Israel—these symbols were destroyed. It was as if all of the people’s spiritual underpinnings had collapsed, with the resulting sense for the people that God had apparently deserted them.

The first poem in Lamentation, chapter one, portrays Jerusalem as a widow “weeping bitterly in the night” (v. 2), convinced that all hope has been lost. The poems continue in this vein, one lament after another, when all of a sudden, in the middle of the third chapter, the poet reverses course, and those remarkable words on which we base the much-loved hymn, Great is thy Faithfulness—these words issue forth. After asserting that his soul is bereft of peace and all happiness is gone, the poet nevertheless cries out,

But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:
the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,
God’s mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness (3:21-23).

Consider with me this intriguing juxtaposition of despair and hope, this peculiar combination of lamenting things as they are while hoping beyond hope for the coming of something new. Does that not capture much of the spirit of the Advent season, with its anticipation of a coming transformation of life, even when all appearances remain to the contrary? In her book May I Have This Dance? spiritual retreat leader Joyce Rupp suggests that “Advent is a season for exiles. It is a time of waiting, a time of yearning for light to dispel the darkness.”

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Matthew 25:31-46
Presented November 20th, 2005, by J.D. Kline
Thanksgiving Sunday

Robert Coles, noted psychiatrist and professor at Harvard University, some years ago wrote a biography of Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker movement and outspoken advocate for justice and peace. He recalls the last time he saw her, that she spoke quite matter-of-factly of her approaching death. Said Dorothy Day,

I try to think back; I try to remember this life that the Lord gave me; the other day I wrote down the words ‘a life remembered,’ and I was going to try to make a summary for myself, write what mattered most—but I couldn’t do it. I just sat there and thought of our Lord, and his visit to us all those centuries ago, and I said to myself that my great luck was to have had him on my mind for so long in my life!

What do you and I have on our minds? What occupies center stage in our thoughts and our energy? For Dorothy Day, it was a sense of gratitude for God’s remarkable grace encountered in the gift of Jesus Christ. I rather suspect that Dorothy did not consciously have Jesus on her mind every waking hour; instead, she was no doubt much like the faithful in this morning’s Gospel lesson who quite “unself”-consciously express their devotion to God as they serve sisters and brothers in need. New Testament scholar William Barclay asserts that those who feed the hungry in Christ’s name, those who clothe the naked, welcome the stranger, and visit the sick and the imprisoned, do so because they literally cannot stop themselves. Writes Barclay, “[Each deed of service] is the natural, instinctive, quite uncalculating reaction of the loving heart.”

Consider today’s Gospel lesson from Matthew 25, long familiar to us Brethren, with its challenge to serve “the least of these” among us. Sometimes called a parable, it is rather an end-times drama, picturing the return of the Son of Man. People from all nations are gathered before Jesus, and they find themselves divided into sheep and goats. This is the only scene in the New Testament with any details portraying the last judgment, and to the surprise, no doubt, of those who advocate doctrinal purity, there is no question of what individuals believe. Rather, the focus is on what people do. The focus is on the depth of our love and care for those persons around us who are in need.

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