Loading...I’m going to do something that I rarely do in sermons:
I’m going to “get real” with you and share a very personal struggle.
Despite the fact that homilies are, de facto, God’s Word of grace and hope
filtered through my own interpretive view and experiencethe truth is, it is God’s Word!
And I try to temper myself. I try not to talk too much about my own experience or let my own agenda take over. I aim for “no politics”, per se.
But I do try to be provocative,
call out the barriers, the bigotry, and the prejudices,
and encourage you to make connections between faith and life,
and to listen for God’s call in your daily and public life.
Yet, Advent is stark.
Advent demands truth.
Advent – sometimes with fiery language – brooks no frivolousness or shallowness.
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With that prologue, here it is –
I despair sometimes.
Oh, not personally; there’s no need for a Mental Health counselor quite yet.
But, every morning as Alex and I read the paper,
one or the other of us will mutter,
“I’m so sick of reading about the latest tweet storm
and of hearing about what the President has done now!”
Indeed, I’ll often skim or skip the national news.
It’s not quite a head in the sand posture because I am paying attention,
& I do my part in bringing some compassion back by loving, serving, writing.
Mostly, though, I’m just resigned.
With the latest (at least, as of Saturday) stated decision about moving the US Embassy from Tel Aviv, Israel to Jerusalem – effectively acknowledging Jerusalem as the capital of Israel – really threw me down the tubes.
You see, I lived and volunteered in Palestine and Israel and Palestine for three months and got a close up view of the realities of the military occupation by Israel of the West Bank (the largest part of the occupied Palestinian territories) and of the precariousness of the situation, including the delicate balance around that status of Jerusalem.
The President’s decision changes that balance dramatically and will lead
indeed, it already has led, to more violence and oppression.
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Despair. It’s not an uncommon feeling.
You may feel a similar despair caused by the same thing,
or something else completely.
In this despair,
I need the light of hope.
I need patience as I await the fullness of God’s vision.
I need the reminder of God’s ongoing action in the world.
I need to hear again that a thousand years are like a day for God.
I need Isaiah’s words from God:
Comfort,
O Comfort my people, says our God
Speak tenderly to them.
I need that voice crying out:
In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord
make straight in the desert a highway for our God!
Isaiah reminds me – us – you
that God is reliable,
that God saves,
and that God acts with God’s own initiative.
Peter reminds us
that God is patient, and yet, not inactive.
Peter reminds us that God is at work in the human arena,
but not always in ways that are immediately noticeable.
And Mark -- oh, dear beloved Mark –
The beginning of the good news....
e.g. the good news is still unfolding.
Mark, who tells us about John the baptizer who announces hope and the source of hope: the Messiah (or, Christ; or, Savior),
and he reminds us that we have a way to be included in that hope given freely: turn to God again and again.
Remember that God has acted and is still at work!
“Memory [and remembering] is the soil in which hope survives, and [the thing] which is remembered is the promise of a faithful God.”
(Fred Craddock, in Preaching Through the Christian Year, Year B, p. 12)
We have the gift of hope.
We have reason to hope even if all seems dark.
We have light and the source of all light.
We have a way, a path, made through the desert even though all seems desolate and cause for despair. Yet as people of God and followers of the Messiah, we Advent pilgrims on our way to the manger must pass through the desert. (Craddock, p. 13)
We walk together in the light.
We walk on this level highway which God forms.
We walk in the comfort of the Spirit’s companionship.
We walk with patience.
and, we walk with hope in the Christ.
Amen
