Loading...“It’s the end of the world as we know it (and I feel fine)”
Or, so sings the rock group REM, of my teenage years.
While that’s a song from the 80s, it pops up often in cultural references, even in our recent days:
when the Berlin Wall came tumblin’ down, and the Cold War thawed out;
when Y2K was touted as the next disaster – that wasn’t;
when Hurricanes Sandy, Katrina and Maria made landfall;
when young black men are shot and killed
– in disproportion to the disturbance raised;
when a man with an assault rifle goes into a medical clinic, a church, a movie theater, a school, a hotel balcony and shoots patients, the faithful, movie goers, students, or concert attendees,
killing some and traumatizing so many more
It’s such a useful phrase – It’s the end of the world...
and a catchy tune.
The rest of the lyrics are a stream of consciousness about all kinds of topics that are mostly apocalyptic in nature:
a hurricane, a book burning, the rapture, the furies.
We could add our own topics to the song:
from life together in this congregation,
or from your daily life and experience.
Every one of those things,
while signifying a change and an end to what we know,
doesn’t mean disaster, destruction, and dissolution.
In every death, there is rebirth.
In every ending, something new can emerge.
I’d even suggest to you that we have to change.
We cannot stay the same
because God created us as people who are always
learning and co-creating, growing and becoming.
This isn’t necessarily an easy thing to accept,
especially not with open arms!
I used to resist changing a thought or behavior
because I was under the mistaken impression
that to change meant that I had been wrong.
And, I don’t like to be wrong!
But!
Change is not about “right” and “wrong”.
It is not about “maintaining comfort” or “avoiding discomfort”.
And, it’s really not even about “causing confusion” or
“keeping calm”.
For one thing, change is pretty normal stuff.
It’s “value-neutral” as the psychologists, sociologists, and systems people would say.
For another thing,
Change means that God is at work.
Look at the fig tree – or any tree for that matter –
in the spring the leaves emerge, flowers bloom,
in the summer the fruit grows and develops,
in the autumn, harvest comes and the leaves turn colors,
in the winter, the tree turns to dormancy, rest, and slow growth.
Look at your own life – or any life for that matter –
you are learning new things,
you are challenged to think in different ways,
you are extended invitations to serve,
you have new skills and abilities to try out,
you go through a time of dormancy, rest, and slow growth.
There is even death to a way of being in order to be reborn into new life and hope.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is the First Sunday of Advent.
This is the beginning of our new year.
That has practical implications: we read from the Gospel of Luke.
It also highlights our counter-cultural nature as Christians:
It’s the new year, but it’s not January 1;
It’s Advent, not Christmas.
We have these four weeks before Christmas that are preparation time.
They aren’t preparation for Christmas so much
(you know, the retelling of the story in word and song,
or the decorating, or the baking),
as the time to wait,
to ponder and to wonder and
to sit in hope.
Advent, especially this first Sunday of the season, is about anticipation.
It’s about hope and expectation.
Ponder: For what do we hope in God?
Wonder: What are we expecting as disciples of Jesus?
Ask, for what do we wait in anticipation from the Holy Spirit?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The prophet Jeremiah’s book has this little section in it –
the part from which our first reading today comes –
that is full of hope and possibility and promise.
It is VERY unlike most of the rest of the book.
Indeed, most scholars agree that this section was written much later and then edited into the book of Jeremiah after a couple of generations.
Most of the rest of Jeremiah’s book is about
the destruction of Israel and Judah.
It is full of threats, harsh words: doom and gloom!
It tells of the coming of death, slaughter, and exile.
When faced with all of that – the words about it, or in actual fact –
it’s easy to despair.
Why even go on when all is going to end in annihilation?
Why go on when there is no hope?
why continue if you can no longer even imagine
God’s promised future?
But, as Jeremiah reminds us, God is a God of promise,
and of promise fulfilled!
Even in the midst of great despair,
when there seems to be no escape from great suffering –
there is hope.
There is hope
because this despair and suffering
is exactly the place where God speaks the promise of grace
and where God opens the door
from despair to imagination and life,
from suffering to creativity and love.
The hope that comes from God, our relationship with God, and the faithfulness and righteousness of God
are not about wishful thinking, cheerful optimism,
speculation, or blind following.
Advent hope is about looking for God’s work in the world.
It is about longing for the future that will be;
longing that is grounded in the trust we have in God’s actions
in the past and present.
Advent hope is about the righteousness of God
and our own righteousness that is so much more
than “proper behavior”, but is rather
a humble way of being toward others
so that we act and speak with compassion and love.
Advent hope is rooted in the justice of God
which is not about legalism.
God’s justice is noticing, seeing, and acting for those around us who are run roughshod by the world around.
Advent hope is a “wholeness that comes from embracing brokenness,”
as Walter Bruggemann has said.
In other words,
Advent hope is centered in the healing of the brokenness
that we’ve already experience from God
and can now integrate into our whole being. For example:
the tree that bears the scar of the embedded fence,
the broken and repaired clay pot,
the tenderness and mercy that we offer
because of our own experience with grief and loss.
Advent hope is loving one another,
as Paul encouraged the Thessalonians.
It is people who stand up and raise their heads and face God
even if the world – their world – is falling down around their ears;
even if the society around them tells them to not protest so loudly, to not cause such a ruckus.
The advent hope to which you are invited to be a part
is in this world where God is at work, where God has shown up.
It is in the creativity we use to face challenges.
It is in the longing you have for the day that is surely coming
when the poor do not loose their affordable housing, and
are not scuttled away to shelters, or forced to live on the streets.
It is the imagination you have to find ways of making peace
in your relationships, or in the world. Or, both.
It is in the expectation we live in that God’s future has no place for rancor and bullying,
and when we are no longer torn apart by the fear inherent in racism, homophobia, or sexism.
Advent hope comes from and has life in us through God.
Advent hope is the very substance of all that we are.
We hear it,
we sing it,
we eat it at this Table,
and we are called to live fully in that hope at all times
even if the face of seemingly cataclysmic events, and “the end of the world as we know it”
We are to live in the Advent hope as beloved, claimed, redeemed
followers of the One who is amongst us – Immanuel!
Amen
