St.
Alban's Episcopal Church
Austin, Texas
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Austin, Texas
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From the Pulpit:
As I was preparing my sermon this week I received the grace of a reminder of what the role of a preacher really is. At EFM on Tuesday morning we were talking about the Holy Spirit and someone asked me outright if I believed that the Holy Spirit was with me when I preach. I didn’t have to pause to answer because I know I would never have the audacity or the courage to step up to this pulpit if I thought I were on my own. I’ll take full credit for the sermons that are duds, but the ones that let God’s light shine through are that way because the spirit has visited me for all our sakes. Barbara Brown Taylor, in her book The Preaching Life, says that the preacher is like Cyrano de Bergerac, though many of us might also respond to the more modern film, “Roxanne”, and in our mind’s eye will see Steve Martin hiding in the bushes. Taylor says that the preacher is “passing messages between two would-be lovers who want to get together but do not know how.” She says, “The words are my own but I do not speak for myself. Down in the bushes with a congregation who have elected me to speak for them, I try to put their longing into words, addressing the holy vision that appears on the moonlit balcony above our heads. Then the vision replies, and it is my job to repeat what I have heard, bringing the message back to the bushes for a response. As a preacher I am less a principal player than a go-between, a courier who serves both partners in an ancient courtship.”1 This wonderful image reminds me, on this first Sunday of Advent, that we are all here because of our longing for God’s love, which is in turn longing for us. And, just so you know, I believe that sermons are only one of the media through which that love has access to us. Last year on this day I told you about my bracelet that is a mobius strip that has no beginning or end, no inside or outside, but that is continuous because the jeweler who made it gave the strip of silver a half turn before he joined the ends. We did not wrap up the church year last week in any really meaningful sense. We celebrated the kingship of Christ, and here we are, reading a passage from near the close of Matthew’s gospel, in which Jesus is telling people not the beginning of the story but the end of it. It’s a strange way to begin the year, don’t you think? There is no question but that the world has co-opted Christmas. The Randall’s near my house didn’t even wait until Thanksgiving to dress the checkout people in Santa suits. The throngs at the big box stores and malls on Black Friday have become a newsworthy event as thousands waited in the predawn rain to rush to grab electronics and toys and clothing. But Advent is not ultimately about Christmas. It is more than getting ready for baby Jesus. Paradoxically, it is about preparing for the endtimes. That is what Jesus is talking about. It is what theologians call apocalyptic eschatology, not only our very human fascination with how this world will someday end, but rather it is attention to the fulfillment of God’s kingdom. Of course people are curious. They were in the first century and we are now. It is only natural to want to look into the future, but if we could see how it all ends, how our own lives will end, would we really want to know? Jesus tells them in no uncertain terms that no one knows when the Son of Man will come – not the angels nor the Son himself. People will be going about their business. They’ll be wining and dining, they’ll be doing the laundry and putting their children to bed, they’ll be cooking breakfast, and getting married and going to church and filling their cars with gas. Same old, same old. And that is what Advent is about. It is emphatically not about the past or the future. It is about the now. Advent is not a time to be endured as we wait for either Jesus or Santa Claus. It is a time to be lived in the full presence of God’s love, which was expressed in the incarnation of Christ. We begin this new year with the end of the story because we do already know the how the story will end. We have seen the resurrection of Christ, and that is the ultimate happily ever after. The end of the story is that God loves us with all of God’s infinitude. The end of the story is that God wants only good for us. We are the ones who mess things up, and what does God do? God forgives, and forgives, and forgives. God loves us enough to become one of us. In an odd little book by called Finding God in a Tangled World, the author, Juris Rubenis, gives us this little scenario:
Adam asked God, “What do you want to do with me?” We are all of us full-blooded daughters and sons of God, every bit as much as Jesus was, and God was so desperate to show us how beloved we are that God became us. It is because we know the end of the story that Advent calls us to be profoundly present in the now. As St. Paul says, we are to put on the armor of light, because God has clothed us in the power of God’s own light. We’re decked out in shining outfits of holiness. We are not to live in the tyranny of the past, because, when we repent, God forgets our sins. When we refuse to forget them ourselves, are we not claiming to be better judges than God? I know it is hard, but Advent calls us to release the past and to look forward. But, odd as it sounds, we are not to live in the future either. Jesus is telling the people that God has the future all taken care of. As Dame Julian of Norwich said, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” Because God has the big picture, we don’t need it. Do you remember the old saying, “Jesus is coming. Look busy”? Well, Jesus is telling us pretty much the same thing. He’s saying, “Wake up! It’s all around you, and you’ve got work to do, right now.” This armor of light we’re wearing is our uniform, and it has the power to change the world. If we pay attention and take our marching orders seriously, how can we not do our part to heal all that is broken? We all have the opportunity to be Cyranos to each other, to live in the fullness of the promise that has already come true in the incarnation and resurrection of Christ, to give ourselves up to the power of the spirit and let God’s goodness and love flow through us for the sake of all creation. Wake up, my dears! Isn’t it awesome? Amen.
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05/16/2008 | ||||||
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The
Rev. Margaret Waters