Advent 1A; Isa. 2:1-5; Matt. 24:36-44; St. Paul’s, NC
12/1/2019
Jim Melnyk: “The Light of Hope”
This morning we light the first candle of Advent and claim
a promise of hope. We ask together, “Help us to remember that God is our sure
and certain hope,” and we remember that the Light of God shines in the
darkness, and that darkness cannot put out the light – even the light of one
small candle. We light a candle of hope because our world is far from perfect,
and we struggle with how to be present with one another as the image of God
made real not just in us, but made real in every human heart.
Hope is a reality that is most needed in times of struggle.
Hope challenges us to, in the words of Matthew’s gospel, keep awake – for we do
not know the hour of the coming of the Son of Man. We do not – and cannot –
know the hour for the fulfillment of God’s promise for us and for this world.
Advent
2019 is certainly a time of challenge – a time of testing. And while there’s
obviously a whole lot of good going on around us, all too often the good we see
is a thin veneer of civility covering over a whole lot of anxiety. Political
battles continue to run rabid, having taken us down the rabbit hole to what
seems at times like the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. The stock market continues to
rise, which is great if you own stock – but minimum wage for the working poor
hasn’t changed in ten years.
Cute
cat videos aside, if someone’s not out to scam us on various forms of social
media they’re certainly out to get us going at one another’s throats – it’s
hard to tell what’s real anymore. The climate crisis continues to build while
too many people shrug it off, perhaps thinking the environment will magically
heal itself while we continue to destroy it. And all that doesn’t even take
into account the day-to-day struggles with issues surrounding family dynamics,
work, and for some, serious health problems.
In
other words, like Jesus and his early followers, we live in difficult and often
violent times. Sometimes I wonder if the wild, wild, west was more civilized
than modern day America. White Supremacy is a real thing in 2019 – and it’s even
being legitimized in some parts of the church. Parents send their children off
to school with a prayer for their safety. Spouses to the same for their loved
ones who teach. Cyber bullying has become every bit as violent as face-to-face
confrontations – with often terrifying emotional responses by those being
bullied. And I guess just reciting the litany can be depressing on a cloudy,
rainy, Carolina morning.
And
yet Jesus tells us to keep awake – in essence, Jesus tells us to continue to
hope – to have a feeling and a desire for something positive and life-giving to
happen for us and for our world. But the hope to which we are called is meant
to be an active hope. The hope to which we are called is meant to be a hope
that spurs us to act on behalf of one another as followers of the Prince of Peace.
Professor Kenyatta Gilbert writes, “‘Stay woke!’ That is, be vigilant [in these
challenging times] while adhering to hope. ‘Wokeness’ [which has to do with
being alert to injustice in society, Wokeness] is postmodern parlance for
Matthew’s notion of heeding signs and remaining awake to Jesus’ second coming.
Salvation is near.”[1]
Walter
Brueggemann reminds us, “Advent is a chance to receive a world quite unlike
this one.”[2] But the anticipation and longing for hope is
challenging in and of itself. Not everyone who calls for hope actually longs
for its arrival – and too many people in this world thrive on instability,
anxiety, and fear. No wonder Christians throughout the centuries have longed
for the return of Christ – an event surely meant to break us out of our
complacency and remind us that we are indeed Holy Partners with God.
Hope,
when it is an active hope, is also about preparation, and “preparation”
certainly sounds a lot like “work.” And so it is, says The Rev. Dr. Lorraine Ljunggren.
One of the challenges we face every year at this time is getting so caught up
in the work of getting ready for Christmas that we forget what it is we are
meant to be hoping for – working for – in a world that often seems so lost.
“It’s
work to clean the house, to cook, to buy presents, to write cards, to get all
the work done at work and all the homework done for school. It’s work to polish silver and change altar
hangings and practice readings and all the behind-the-scenes work which makes
our time of worship so meaningful. It’s
work to serve others in the world outside the church’s doors. Just as it is work to prepare for family
gatherings, especially if all isn’t well in the family system.”
Lorraine concludes: “Advent presents itself to us and invites
us to do some work that is different. Advent is about preparing our hearts and
minds and souls for things greater than the world does, or even can, offer
us. Perhaps Advent preparation is about
a change of heart or mind or soul – change which may lead us to a fuller
life, a more peaceful life, [and] a more love-filled life.”[3]
And so we go back to our lone candle on this first Sunday
of Advent. It shines as a beacon of hope at the beginning of a season of preparation
and anticipation for the One Who Comes Among Us at Christmas. We long to hear
the glorious words of the evangelist John who proclaims – “In the beginning was
the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”[4]
As Holy
Partners of God we are meant to become beacons of hope ourselves – to perceive
a world quite unlike this world and to work at making it come about. When
people speak words of bullying we can speak words of encouragement. When others
embrace greed, we can act out of generosity. When some grumble, we can practice
gratitude. Where others exclude and revile, we can welcome and show love.
German poet Rainer Maria Rilke captures the essence of
what it means to be awake and waiting in the midst of Advent:
I am, you anxious one.
Don’t you sense me, ready to
break
into being at your touch?
My murmurings surround you
like shadowy wings.
Can’t you see me standing
before you
cloaked in stillness?
Hasn’t my longing ripened in
you
from the beginning
as fruit ripens on a branch?
I am the dream you are
dreaming.
When you want to awaken, I am
that wanting;
I grow strong in the beauty
you behold.
And with the silence of the stars
I enfold
your cities made by time.[5]
Advent has arrived, and with
it we carry hope on our way.
[1] Kenyatta
R. Gilbert, founding director of The Preaching Project. Sojourners Preaching
the Word, 12/1/2019
[2] Walter
Brueggemann, Preaching the Word, 12/1/2019
[3] The
Rev. Dr. Lorraine Ljunggren, Advent 1 sermon 2019
[4] John
1:1, 3-5
[5] Rainer
Maria Rilke, Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems
to God, translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy
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