Advent
(or anxiety, preparation, and our mission to the
moment)
These past days, you and I have been exposed to repeated messages
about the Apocalypse and the end of times. If you've been watching,
you've seen them all around, and they may even have influenced your
behavior. They've certainly made me anxious. Yet the irony is that
these frequent references to final days have come at the conclusion of
the Toyota-thon. And the fearful forecasts of deprivation have come
from the prophets of Ames and Radio Shack and others. But let there be
no mistake: we are saturated with apocalyptic messages, with constant
warnings of the end, calling us to act.
So, welcome to Advent. There are twenty-four shopping days before
Christmas. The Toyota-thon ends tomorrow. Yet our Christian new year is
just beginning, right in the middle of all this anxiety, and at its
start it seems to do little to settle our souls. In fact, it offers
warnings of its own. What a strange time.
Advent, as you know, is the Christian assertion that our year
doesn't start when the Romans say, or the Jews, or the cycles of
nature, and it doesn't even start with birth. It starts before birth,
with expectation and even a word of the end. It starts the way we do,
getting the room ready for the baby, even worrying how the baby will
grow up in a world gone mad. It starts in the middle of things, like a
journey of a thousand miles that always takes some initial step. So
welcome to Advent: the Christian promise renewing.
It's a curious thing that the season that leads up to a silent
night, where joy to the world upon a midnight clear, starts in anxiety.
It's an annoying thing to many people, too. I mean, here we are, we
have the wreath set up, we know where the story is going, we'll be busy
right before Christmas, and we need some reassurance right now, yet we
come to church and hear these stories of end times, this dissonant
music, and we sing hymns tempered with uncertainty. Who moved my
Christmas cheese? What's going on here? Can't we get the good stuff
now? Well, this may be the good stuff; give it a minute and let me try
to explain.
One of my favorite teachers used to say "soteriology
recapitulates anthropology," which means God gives what people
need. More, too, but certainly what we need. And isn't one of the first
things that we need in any cycle of renewal a frank discussion of where
we are? And isn't where we are often an anxious place, a distracting
place, even a dangerous place? We thought so approaching Y2K. We
thought so on September 12th last year. I think so now.
Advent begins with scriptures that talk about things we read about
and think about. Dangers in the world. Fears that evil has too much
power. Fears that we concentrate on peripheral things instead of
central things.
In particular today, Isaiah is making a plea to be freed from
literal exile. His people are captive, and he prays for God to work
with those who wait for him.
Jesus today is offering a view of the end of history, an
eschatology, which is the discussion of the last times, last things.
His apocalyptic eschatology seems dramatic, but by definition it means
an unveiling, and a change of the present order. Which is not such bad
news. Especially if the fireworks don't distract our focus.
Yes, the sun will be darkened, and stars will fall from heaven. Yes,
there will be a separation of peoples. But what does that mean? It
means the opposite of what the Romans wanted the disciples to believe,
and, quite honestly, it means the opposite of what current governments
and powers across the world today think. It means that evil, worldly
powers, terrorists, tyrants, or even tradespeople are not in charge of
the end. It means God, who was in charge of the beginning, is also in
charge of the end.
Now on the one hand this seems a quaint historical curio to a people
with great education, experience, powers, and cultural savvy. Like the
Romans. Or us. On the other hand it is a subversive faith claim that
reverses not only our fears but also our enormous cultural conditioning
that says the end will come by environmental degradation, nuclear
holocaust, technological failure, or some other list of things in our
hands. Jesus' perspective says you haven't got the whole world in your
hands. God does. And if the beginning and end are in God's hands, what
have you got in yours? And there's the other overlookable part of
Jesus' statement. You've got the middle in your hands. Be alert, watch
and wait he says. You've each got your work, he says. Don't get
distracted by the fireworks. Now this is very un-Newton, very un-type
A, very un-executive, but: you're not in charge. Manage the middle. God
is handling the beginning and the end.
We don't take Jesus' sense of the future very seriously anymore. In
fact, it is often reduced to a joke. Like the one about the great
sanctuary in London, where the senior priest was walking through the
transept one day, past enormous columns, when an anxious curate ran to
him and said, "Father, one of the cleaning women says she just saw
Jesus leaving the chapel and coming into the sanctuary! What should we
do?" The priest answered, "Look busy."
What was once the central sense of the church is now dismissed as
amusing. But it is so much more important. Indeed, the message of the
end of times on Jesus' lips speaks to our anxiety with subtle Good
news. It says we are discontent with the present, and aren't we? It
prays, save us from this world and from ourselves, and don't we? And it
dreams that God offers a garden with something dramatically renewing,
and doesn't She? Jesus' message is that our future has a name and a
face: not bin Laden's or Bush's or Hussein's or Sharon's. But somehow
it has the face of God incarnate. Jesus' message says that even the
most senior executives and bearers of great burdens don't have to
determine the outcome of all things, but rather care for today. It says
that anxiety, distraction and danger don't get the last word, which is
good news.
It has been a tough few days with all these commercials. It has been
a tough year, too. The Vatican has disappointed many people. Our
intelligence services have disappointed many people. Mitt Romney and
Shannon O'Brien, Tyco, WorldCom, Martha Stewart, Star Market, why even,
for some, this parish, have disappointed many people. But the end is
not in their hands.
Welcome to Advent: the Christian promise renewing. Why not share a
new year's resolution today, to start anew by accepting Jesus'
invitation to manage the middle? The mission, the feeding, the work for
justice and social and cultural renewal, the fight to prevent the
spread of AIDS the fight for housing and multi-lingual education for
all, the struggle for domestic safety and service to our nation and the
effort to save Christmas from consumer captivity -- why not accept all
of this, and leave the final outcome to God? It's very un-Newton. But
it's our invitation today. And it's our best hope as we prepare for the
birth of God, the promise of peace, the vulnerability of salvation.
Happy Advent. Amen.
Copyright © 2002 Kenneth F. Baily. Used by
permission.
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