‘A’   //   Advent 1   //   12-2-07   //   Celebration of Worship, Northside/St. Aidan’s

 

Scriptures    Isaiah 2:1-5                              Romans 13:11-14

                   Psalm 122 (canted)                   Matthew 24:36-44

 

Prayer ...

May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of all our hearts, be acceptable unto you: O God, our rock, and our redeemer. Amen.

 

In the movie The Big Chill, close college friends from the late 1960s – University of Michigan alums, no less – are unexpectedly reunited when one of their number, Aaron, commits suicide. When the main characters gather for the funeral, they ask themselves why their friend chose to end his life.

 

During the eulogy, the minister – a typical Hollywood caricature of an elderly white male country parson – reflects on the seemingly meaningless nature of Aaron's life and death. As he tells the story of Aaron's apparent inability to find a suitable niche, the pastor also speaks to the anxieties and sorrows of his closest friends. "Where did Aaron's hope go?" he asks. "Maybe that's the small resolution we can take from here today: to try to regain the hope that must have eluded Aaron."

 

The minister invites Aaron's friends to begin redefining their relationships with one another. Thus begins a painful process of opening up their wounds to one another, in the hope that they might be healed – even, transformed – through the tragedy of Aaron's death.

 

 

That same question -- Where did our hope go? -- is a critical faith question for our church as we enter the season of Advent. The theme of rediscovering hope is central for Walter Brueggemann, who notes that "the natural habitat of Advent is a community of hurt. It is a voice of those who know profound grief, who articulate it and do not cover it over ... And because the hurt is expressed to the One whose rule is not in doubt, this community of hurt is profoundly a community of hope."¹

 

Brueggemann's assertion, however, may not seem believable in a culture that does not easily acknowledge the existence of pain and suffering. We have been taught to think of the days between Thanksgiving and Christmas as a time to be happy. Through the medium of advertising, we are conditioned to think of Advent as a preparation for the type of Christmas celebration depicted by Hallmark cards, and immense, glittery light displays.

 

Let’s observe what takes place in what I often call “the malling of America”. December, of course, is the malls’ busiest time of year. The closer we get to Christmas, the more customers seem to wander in and out of stores like zombies. Nine out of ten seem to have no feeling for the gifts they choose. They seem to be merely buying one more thing to cross off Christmas lists. Piped-in music accommodates and accentuates our ennui: Bing Crosby ... Perry Como ... Bruce Springsteen ... Alvin and the Chipmunks ... and, of course – not to be confused with the King of Kings – the King, himself.

 

King Elvis posing the following question to all of us agitated shoppers:

 

Oh, why can't every day be like Christmas?  Why can't that feeling go on endlessly? For if every day could be just like Christmas, what a wonderful world it would be!

 

Oh? Our culture tends to confuse such mawkishness with faith. As Stanley Hauerwas and Will Willimon point out, "Sentimentality is the way our unbelief is worked out."² Without a clear understanding of what we value, we assume that being faithful is determined by our ability to make ourselves – and others around us – feel happy. If we buy one more present, find a bigger Christmas tree or put up fancier lights, then we will surely have a merrier Christmas.

 

 

A deceptive hope of uninterrupted bliss so strong that many Americans are willing to deny basic human rights for some in order to weave a delusional cocoon of happiness for many. Happiness, institutionally controlled: The Bill of Rights, over here … Or, national security, over here. Can we possibly honor both?

 

 

 

Yet, Advent: Ah! A new beginning, a chance to confess to God that we are lost in a gospel of sentimentality, in a false religion that tells us that there is something seriously wrong with us if we are not happy and secure. For the hope of Advent is found through God's promise to awaken us from our saccharine slumber to see the world as it really is.

“Ready, set … Be!” For there is little “Go!” about Advent, really. Perhaps what is most discordant about Jesus' words today is that he doesn't give us any specifics about how God's hope will be realized in the world – much less how we go about bringing it into being. He only tells us to be ready – that God would act in a way that would not only be unexpected, it would be unsettling.

 

T. S. Eliot puts it well in “The Four Quartets”, I think: “I said to my soul: be still, and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing. Wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing. There is yet faith, but the faith and love and hope are all in the waiting.”³

 

Isaiah's assertion that "swords will be beaten into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks" is more than an idealistic metaphor. God has the power to overcome injustice and the forces of evil. This may be a difficult message to swallow – just as difficult, perhaps, to believe that a messiah could be born in an insignificant city like Bethlehem or – more insignificant yet, as most scholars now believe, Nazareth. Yet as we watch and wait for an announcement of new life, we realize that God can act in unexpected and miraculous ways.

 

‘Tis true: We enter the season of Advent as people fragmented by the pain in our world. But also we enter Advent as people empowered to expose and to remove the layers of artifice about us and discern a vision of God's hope that can endure all things.

 

 

A wealthy man decided to go on a safari in Africa. He took his faithful pet dog along for company. One day the dog starts chasing butterflies and before long he discovers that he is lost. So, wandering about he notices a leopard heading rapidly in his direction with the obvious intention of having him for lunch.

 

The dog thinks, "Boy, I'm in deep doo doo now!"

 

Then: A vision of hope arises. The dog notices some bones on the ground close by, and immediately settles down to chew on the bones with his back to the approaching cat. Just as the leopard is about to leap, the dog exclaims loudly, "Man, that was one delicious leopard. I wonder if there are any more around here?"

 

Hearing this, the leopard halts his attack in mid-stride. A look of terror comes over him, and he slinks away into the trees. "Whew. That was close! That dog nearly had me!"

 

Meanwhile, a monkey who had been watching the whole scene from a nearby tree figures he can put this knowledge to good use and trade it for protection from the leopard. So, off he goes. But the dog saw him heading after the leopard with great speed, and figured that something must be up.

 

The monkey soon catches up with the leopard, spills the beans and strikes a deal for himself with the leopard. The cat is furious at being made the fool and says, "Here, monkey, hop on my back and see what's going to happen to that conniving canine."

 

Now the dog sees the leopard returning with the monkey on his back and a look of vengeance in his eye, and thinks, "What am I going to do now?"

 

But then the dog’s hope kicks in, once again. Instead of running, he sits down with his back to his attackers pretending he hasn't seen them yet. And just when they get close enough to hear, the dog says, "Where's that monkey? I just can never trust him! I sent him off half an hour ago to bring me another leopard, and he's still not back!"

 

 

Discerning a vision of God’s hope, that can endure all things …

 

We may not know exactly where our hope will be … or how. But we will know that God's response – Jesus breaking-and-entering our lives, perhaps – will prepare us to receive the jubilant good news of a birth announcement.

 

And perhaps that birth announcement will even prove our own.

 

Ready … set … be!

 

Thanks be ... to God.                <  Amen.  >

 

 

¹Walter Brueggemann, Advent Christmas: Aids for Interpreting the Lessons of the Church Year (1984).

 

²Source unknown.

 

³See, e.g., http://www.panhala.net/Archive/I_said_to_my_soul.html.