Sermon From Sunday, Dec 10th Advent 2
In her book, Amazing Grace, author Kathleen Norris learned about waiting and about silence when she visited classrooms in North Dakota. She asked the students to sit still and to be as silent as possible – to listen, and not to make a sound. She then asked them to write about what they experienced in the silence.
“It’s scary,” one fifth grader wrote. When Norris asked him why, he said, “It’s like we’re waiting for something – it’s scary.” Another child, a third grade boy, wrote that his quiet time made him think about being strong. Strength, he said, is “as slow and silent as a tree.” One little girl said this: “Silence reminds me to take my soul with me wherever I go.”
In the cacophony of sound that surrounds us constantly, we rarely “have time” to be silent, we rarely “have time” to listen to the still small voice of God in our hearts. Which begs the question, where exactly, is our soul? Advent is a time of preparation, what does that mean for us? What are we preparing for? I asked that question last week, and find today that I am no closer to an answer than I was a week ago. But what I have found, is that this is OK, it is OK not to have the answer at my fingertips, at the tip of my tongue to pass on to you or even to those who would hear. It is OK to not know what it is we are preparing for.
I guess, I know WHAT we are preparing for, we are making space for the arrival of Christ in the world, we are making space for God to become incarnate, for God to come among us, in human flesh, to share our experiences, our sorrows, our joys. We are making ready for the Christ Child. What has bugged me so far this Advent, and really most Advents for the past six years, is that I have been talking about waiting, as if something is going to come to us, something will approach us. As if the preparing we must do this Advent will happen of its own accord. I am not so sure that is how Advent works. William Temple, a past Archbishop of Canterbury said, “Our devotion is not to hold us by the empty tomb; it must lift up our hearts to heaven so that we too ‘in heart and mind thither accent and with Him continually dwell:’ our devotion must also send us forth into the world to do His will; and these are not two things, but one.” We are not preparing a meal, where, we have to follow step by step instructions to prepare it, we are not preparing to go camping, where we must be ready for inclement weather or for pleasant perfect weather, not unlike our winter weather we find ourselves experiencing today.
I am only left to imagine what must have been going through people’s minds as John was out crying in the wilderness. John was proclaiming a familiar scripture piece, one that would not have been foreign to John’s Jewish brothers and sisters, steeped in the Hebrew Scriptures as they would have been. But there was a twist, there was a change in that familiar tune, it is kind of like when we hear P Diddy, who I think is now just Diddy, create a musical piece, a rap version of Silent Night, Holy Night, our traditional minds start spinning, but our heart kind of likes it, and appreciates the new twist on old words. Maybe, as people began to flock to John, to hear his words, people felt that same way, as if this was not just tradition being interpreted, it was tradition being transformed, tradition being made into something new.
I received an email from my clergy health people saying, “The function of Advent is to focus on...the always-to-be-expected coming of Christ into our experience, and the specific contribution of repentance-texts is to encourage reflection upon all the ways in which our lives do not in fact manifest the love and devotion that are appropriate to relationships with God and our neighbors.” It made me think of a quote that I recently heard and I am going to butcher it, so I will give you the best I can remember of it, “I had hoped that God would come, I prayed for God to come, and when I prayed I discovered God was already there.” God is with us, bidden or unbidden, God is with us, never to leave. But we must, as a community, reflect on how our hearts welcome the other into our lives, how our community is in relationship with each other, with the surrounding neighborhood and downtown and in relationship with the world. We must reflect, we must prepare our hearts for the always to be expected coming of Christ in our experience.
The responsibility lies upon us, we must go, as William Temple said, we must go into the world, to do Gods work, in the sending, we are doing, in the doing we are being sent. They are not two different tasks. William Temple also said, “In the days of Christ’s earthly ministry, only those could speak to him who came where He was: if He was in Galilee, men could not find Him in Jerusalem; if He was in Jerusalem, men could not find Him in Galilee. His Ascension means that He is perfectly united with God; we are with Him wherever we are present to God; and that is everywhere and always. Because He is "in Heaven" He is everywhere on earth: because He is ascended, He is here now.” God is with us, and God is in our hearts, yet we choose to seek God in the trees, in the lakes and oceans, in the world outside of ourselves and our community.
As a community of faith, God is in our midst this very moment, God is with us, teaching, celebrating, laughing, crying, lonely. God is with us, not far from us, and it is our responsibility, now, during this Advent, to prepare our hearts, to prepare our lives, to prepare our community for the coming of God into our midst. Paul writes to the Philippians, “And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight.” Paul is not speaking to the individuals gathered; he is speaking to the community gathered. Look around you, who in this sanctuary is in need this Advent season, who in this sanctuary is lonely this Advent? Who in this sanctuary is filled with sorrow because something is different this year, than it was last? And who in this sanctuary, this house of prayer, can reach out in love to the people that need to be comforted and cared for?
Life magazine ran a story, a while back, about a ten year old Indian boy named Billy Peterson, who had to undergo a series of chemotherapy treatments for a life threatening cancer. His closest friends, his baseball teammates, were told that when Billy returned to school he would be noticeably thinner and would have lost his hair. Eight weeks later, Billy came anxiously back to school and a baseball team of sixth grade boys who had all had their heads shaved. “and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”
“It’s scary,” one fifth grader wrote. When Norris asked him why, he said, “It’s like we’re waiting for something – it’s scary.” Another child, a third grade boy, wrote that his quiet time made him think about being strong. Strength, he said, is “as slow and silent as a tree.” One little girl said this: “Silence reminds me to take my soul with me wherever I go.”
In the cacophony of sound that surrounds us constantly, we rarely “have time” to be silent, we rarely “have time” to listen to the still small voice of God in our hearts. Which begs the question, where exactly, is our soul? Advent is a time of preparation, what does that mean for us? What are we preparing for? I asked that question last week, and find today that I am no closer to an answer than I was a week ago. But what I have found, is that this is OK, it is OK not to have the answer at my fingertips, at the tip of my tongue to pass on to you or even to those who would hear. It is OK to not know what it is we are preparing for.
I guess, I know WHAT we are preparing for, we are making space for the arrival of Christ in the world, we are making space for God to become incarnate, for God to come among us, in human flesh, to share our experiences, our sorrows, our joys. We are making ready for the Christ Child. What has bugged me so far this Advent, and really most Advents for the past six years, is that I have been talking about waiting, as if something is going to come to us, something will approach us. As if the preparing we must do this Advent will happen of its own accord. I am not so sure that is how Advent works. William Temple, a past Archbishop of Canterbury said, “Our devotion is not to hold us by the empty tomb; it must lift up our hearts to heaven so that we too ‘in heart and mind thither accent and with Him continually dwell:’ our devotion must also send us forth into the world to do His will; and these are not two things, but one.” We are not preparing a meal, where, we have to follow step by step instructions to prepare it, we are not preparing to go camping, where we must be ready for inclement weather or for pleasant perfect weather, not unlike our winter weather we find ourselves experiencing today.
I am only left to imagine what must have been going through people’s minds as John was out crying in the wilderness. John was proclaiming a familiar scripture piece, one that would not have been foreign to John’s Jewish brothers and sisters, steeped in the Hebrew Scriptures as they would have been. But there was a twist, there was a change in that familiar tune, it is kind of like when we hear P Diddy, who I think is now just Diddy, create a musical piece, a rap version of Silent Night, Holy Night, our traditional minds start spinning, but our heart kind of likes it, and appreciates the new twist on old words. Maybe, as people began to flock to John, to hear his words, people felt that same way, as if this was not just tradition being interpreted, it was tradition being transformed, tradition being made into something new.
I received an email from my clergy health people saying, “The function of Advent is to focus on...the always-to-be-expected coming of Christ into our experience, and the specific contribution of repentance-texts is to encourage reflection upon all the ways in which our lives do not in fact manifest the love and devotion that are appropriate to relationships with God and our neighbors.” It made me think of a quote that I recently heard and I am going to butcher it, so I will give you the best I can remember of it, “I had hoped that God would come, I prayed for God to come, and when I prayed I discovered God was already there.” God is with us, bidden or unbidden, God is with us, never to leave. But we must, as a community, reflect on how our hearts welcome the other into our lives, how our community is in relationship with each other, with the surrounding neighborhood and downtown and in relationship with the world. We must reflect, we must prepare our hearts for the always to be expected coming of Christ in our experience.
The responsibility lies upon us, we must go, as William Temple said, we must go into the world, to do Gods work, in the sending, we are doing, in the doing we are being sent. They are not two different tasks. William Temple also said, “In the days of Christ’s earthly ministry, only those could speak to him who came where He was: if He was in Galilee, men could not find Him in Jerusalem; if He was in Jerusalem, men could not find Him in Galilee. His Ascension means that He is perfectly united with God; we are with Him wherever we are present to God; and that is everywhere and always. Because He is "in Heaven" He is everywhere on earth: because He is ascended, He is here now.” God is with us, and God is in our hearts, yet we choose to seek God in the trees, in the lakes and oceans, in the world outside of ourselves and our community.
As a community of faith, God is in our midst this very moment, God is with us, teaching, celebrating, laughing, crying, lonely. God is with us, not far from us, and it is our responsibility, now, during this Advent, to prepare our hearts, to prepare our lives, to prepare our community for the coming of God into our midst. Paul writes to the Philippians, “And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight.” Paul is not speaking to the individuals gathered; he is speaking to the community gathered. Look around you, who in this sanctuary is in need this Advent season, who in this sanctuary is lonely this Advent? Who in this sanctuary is filled with sorrow because something is different this year, than it was last? And who in this sanctuary, this house of prayer, can reach out in love to the people that need to be comforted and cared for?
Life magazine ran a story, a while back, about a ten year old Indian boy named Billy Peterson, who had to undergo a series of chemotherapy treatments for a life threatening cancer. His closest friends, his baseball teammates, were told that when Billy returned to school he would be noticeably thinner and would have lost his hair. Eight weeks later, Billy came anxiously back to school and a baseball team of sixth grade boys who had all had their heads shaved. “and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”
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