Sermon – Buckland 30th November 2008 Advent Sunday December 13, 2008
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Isaiah 64.1-9; 1 Corinthians 1.3-9; Mark 13.24-37
A man was feeling the pinch at a time of financial crisis, so he decided to pray about his needs. “God, is it true that a thousand years to you are like a day?” he asked.
“Yes,” replied God.
“Then a thousand pounds must be to you like a penny?”
“Yes, that’s true,” God answered.
“Er, God. Could you give me a few pennies, then?”
“Yes,” said God, “in a few days’ time.”
God’s timing and ours are very different.
It’s a bit like the never-ending days before Christmas for an excited child – it seems to them that Christmas is so slow in coming; but for a busy adult trying to get everything done, the days rush by. It’s the same period of time that is being lived through, but the experience is very different.
God has the overall picture of his will for creation, this world and beyond. We can only see parts of it; our vision is very limited. Our experience of living through the days of waiting before the fulfilment of his promises is very different from God’s.
I wonder if you ever stop to take stock of your life, to look at where you’ve come over the past few years or more. Advent is a good time to consider the past year.
Like New Year’s Day, Advent Sunday is the beginning of a new year, the Church’s year.
Advent gives us space to prepare ourselves for the coming of Jesus, the coming of Jesus at Christmas, but also, and we tend to forget this as we live through December day by day, the coming of Christ again, the fulfilment of all God’s promises.
Our readings from Matthew’s Gospel over the past few weeks have reminded us of the need to be prepared, to be ready and on guard for the return of Christ. We have now moved from the readings for Year A to those of Year B, which concentrates mostly on Mark’s Gospel. But having changed Gospels, we are still receiving the same message – be prepared, be alert.
Sometimes when we look back, we are tempted to think of some situations and say “if only”. If only this hadn’t happened, then things would be different.
Those two words, although they contain much power which can change our lives if we use them frequently, can have a very negative effect on us. Yes, we’ll all have things we wish we’d done differently. We can all think of the things we wish we hadn’t said or done. But concentrating on the “if onlys” can mean that we are focusing on the wrong things.
If only you would tear open the heavens and come down – sometimes it’s God to whom we apply our “if onlys”.
If only God would be a little more evident, then we’d really put him first in our lives. The passage from Isaiah begins with an “if-only” moment – if only you’d come now, God; if only we could see you power, then even our enemies would notice.
If only you were a bit more obvious, God.
There’s a poem that thinks a little bit more about how we relate to God.
You’ll always be welcome, Lord,
of course you will;
but this not knowing
quite how or when to expect you
does create just a little bit of a problem.
Say you turn up unexpectedly one evening;
well, we don’t always hear the door
when the television’s on,
and it generally is.
And as to seeing you out in the street;
what with folks with clip boards conducting surveys,
holding collecting boxes
or plain begging,
we try to avoid strangers.
There’s the telephone of course,
but so many calls are trying to sell
home improvements or insurance
that if we don’t quickly recognise the
voice
we tend to put the receiver down.
You’ll always be welcome, Lord,
of course You will,
- but it would so help
if you could give us a little warning of your coming.
If only, God, you were a bit more obvious.
I think one of the purposes of Advent is for us to become more aware. Our Gospel reading tells us that there will be signs before Christ returns, but we don’t know when that will be so we do need to keep awake.
Our waiting is not to be a time of idleness, as with the slaves when the master has gone on a journey, we all have our part to play in the world during this waiting time.
And though waiting can seem pointless at times, if we keep our eyes focused on the end, then it will be easier. It’s a bit like having fire extinguishers in the church – or anywhere for that matter.
We don’t know when the fire will come, but we remain prepared with annual checks on the apparatus to ensure that, if a fire did happen, all would be OK. We keep the equipment ready so that it can play its part when disaster strikes.
Similarly we need to keep ourselves ready for the time when the Son of Man returns. Unlike a fire, it won’t bring disaster for everyone, but it will have a devastating effect on those who are not ready for it.
And we need to keep awake not just for the dramatic signs, the darkened sun and moon, stars falling from heaven, we need to keep awake to God in the world. The signs of God are all around us if we just open our eyes to them.
Jane Williams tells the story of a monk who comes to his abbot seeking help. He fires questions at the abbot about his experience of God. But the abbot’s response is not what he wants.
“Just look,” says the abbot.
“I’m always looking,” replies the monk.
“No, you’re not,” says the abbot. “In order to look at what is here, you have to be here, and you are mostly somewhere else.”
In order to see God, we need to look at God, not fill our minds with other matters. Jesus’s recommendation is not a life full of activity but a watchful preparedness, a way of looking at the world that sees it as full of signs of God.
The people in Isaiah’s time feel that the world is empty of God. God has withdrawn and it’s all God’s fault. It’s not surprising that they sin, they say. If only God would make the mountains shake, then of course people would serve him.
But then the people turn around – it’s a bit like seeing themselves in a mirror. As they shake their fists at God, they come to realise that God has not been absent, but that they have been elsewhere, their minds have been filled with other things.
Advent is a time for us to stop and look, to look for the signs of God in the world, to do less and to wait on God more. We need to remember that God is faithful, something Paul reminded the Corinthian church in the passage we heard today from his letter to them.
God reveals himself in the world, we need to learn to look again and see the signs of God and to realise again, as the people in Isaiah’s time had to, that we are utterly dependent on God for our existence.
But in order to do that, like the monk, we need to be here and not elsewhere, our minds need to be on God and not full of other things.
May Advent be a time for each one of us of truly looking at God and seeing signs of his life in the world. Amen.
Letter from Sarah – December 2008 December 13, 2008
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Advent Hope
I’m writing this on the Saturday after Barack Obama was chosen by the people of the United States of America as their President-elect. Their choice appears to have unleashed a great sense of hope, which is felt around the world. Even some of the supporters of the defeated presidential candidate John McCain have said since the election that this result might signal a positive change.
Certainly Obama’s followers are feeling hopeful, and those effects appear to have swept across the Western world, and parts of Africa, Kenya in particular. There has been a spate of baby boys named Barack Obama and girls after his wife Michelle. There is a sense of a new beginning, to which in the face of the current financial crisis, people are holding on strongly.
In a dark world, a sense of hope gives people a reason to carry on living. The season of Advent, which begins this year on Sunday 30th November, is a season of hope. During Advent we look forward to the incarnation of God, the God who chose to send his Son to be born not among the rich and powerful, but in a stable, because there was no room anywhere else, among ordinary people.
The coming of Jesus brought hope to those who recognised in him God’s chosen one, the awaited Messiah, through whom the darkness of the world would be turned to light, and sin defeated. The battle has not been wholly won yet; we still pray “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, they will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” The promise of God’s kingdom is a promise of peace and love, of an end to war and sin and sickness and death.
Christmas is important for Christians for many reasons. Among them, it lets us know that God’s love is part of this world, not something removed from it. By sending Jesus to live in the human sphere, God is signalling that we are cared for and loved, that nowhere is beyond hope, and that these future promises are for us.
As Christmas approaches, let us hold on to the hope of those promises and a sense that new things and new beginnings can happen not just because of an American election but also because of the birth of a child.
With best wishes, Sarah
