Sermon: Welcoming Upheaval
Text: Jeremiah 33:14-16; 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13; Luke 21:25-36
Date: November 29, 2009
Sophie Morse, Seminary Intern, Eagle Harbor Congregational Church
This week’s readings share the familiar Advent theme of preparation: Jeremiah is preparing his listeners for the coming of a new Davidic king, a sprout from the cut-off stump of Israel’s royal lineage. Paul urges the believers in Thessalonica to act so that their hearts would be “strengthened in holiness” for the return of Christ, an event he felt sure would happen any day. In our passage from Luke, Jesus is encouraging his listeners to be “alert at all times” so that they might be prepared for his return at the final judgment.
And many of us know Advent to be indeed a time for preparation. We are preparing ourselves for the much-anticipated birth of Jesus into the world, allowing ourselves to relive the joy and triumph of this long ago miracle. We may find ourselves comforted by a sense of holy mystery, and unexpected grace that penetrates the long nights and stress of holiday preparations, a renewed sense of wonder. But on this first Sunday of Advent, we are also invited to contemplate the other half of the meaning of Advent: the return of Christ at the end of history. And this does not always sit well with us. When both the apostle Paul and Jesus ask us to prepare our hearts for Christ’s return in the final judgment, attendant with the surging waves, fainting men and the nations in distress, we find this is a hard guest to invite to our holiday bake-offs, gift-giving marathons and celebratory pageants. Where, in between this secular magic and the triumphal joy of welcoming the new Messiah, can we fit such and inconvenient thought? We might as well just go from this reading to the movie “2012” and have ourselves a Merry Little Apocalypse. Not exactly the festive mood we were seeking. Bring us Jeremiah’s new Davidic king: the one who will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Everlasting Father and the Prince of Peace. But hold off, please, on the passing away of heaven and earth.
We as Congregationalists in particular and modern liberal Protestants in general, have I think a particular challenge with apocalyptic imagery. It is safe to say that the end times, though inextricably linked to this triumphal return of Christ, is not a frequent preoccupation of ours. To many of us, it is an idea too weighted down with imagery that is either too fantastical for out taste, or too unforgiving. The Seventh Day Adventists, Pentecostals, Evangelicals can have their apocalypse, we seem to say, to interpret how they will. Let them see an omnipotent and Hollywood, special-effects kind of God; we see a scientific cause and effect. Let them have a passive acceptance of the end of the world; we however will not let God’s creation be some kind of inevitable sacrifice to the arc of history. We balk especially when this philosophy come with the suspiciously self-serving assurance that the “righteous” will escape this final judgment, swept up in the New Creation when life as we know it ceases to exist. Our irreverence for this win/lose perspective can perhaps best be captured in the cheeky bumper sticker, “Come the rapture, can I have your car?”
Thus to contemplate Christ’s return, as we are asked to do this week, is a distinctly mixed theological bag. As comforting as it may have been for the apostle Paul and his contemporaries, and indeed for anyone who believes in the coming of Christ in their lifetime, the fact remains that the good news comes with quite a good deal of bad. If you are eagerly awaiting the arrival of a fire truck at your house, you are most certainly not having a good day! In this passage in Luke, Jesus is not shy about telling his listeners that not only is the fire department coming, but if they’re not careful their burning house will close around them “like a trap.” Given this tone, we are perhaps forgiven for running headlong in the other direction: toward the quiet and prayerful anticipation of the baby Jesus in the manger, mother Mary, Joseph, the Shepherds in the field: “O Come O Come Emanuel…”
How then are we to prepare for this spooky side of Advent? We know of course, that the words we heard today were needed by the communities that first heard them. Jesus’ words in Luke echo those spoken by the Hebrew prophets during the time of the Jewish exile in Babylon: not a fun time. They were a scattered religious people devastated by the loss of their ancient and sacred place of worship in Jerusalem. Jesus’ audience, familiar with this time of historical exile, was living with the abject poverty and humiliation brought about by the Roman occupation. And a few decades later, Luke wrote for a community following the second destruction of the temple in Jerusalem and the crushing of yet another rebellion against Roman rule. All of these listeners could have used a promise that God’s word would be fulfilled, that though the world they knew was passing away, they would not be forsaken. They did not need to make a movie about all-encompassing catastrophe; they were already living their own. The Advent season in fact has never been without the context of dire need as the entry point for hope, for a new reign on earth, a new Messiah that will once again return to restore all to glory.
But does this really mean us and if so do we want to look at it? I propose asking a different question, however, which is: do we really have the choice?
Richard Lemieux is one who didn’t have such a choice, when he experienced a personal dark night of the soul several years ago. Richard is the author of the book Breakfast at Sally’s, which if you haven’t read yet you need to run, not walk, to the nearest bookstore or library and take home a copy. It is not just a book about homelessness, by a man who at age 58 plunged from a life of wealth to pennilessness in a few short months, not only a story about hope, which it is, it is a story about a Kitsap County that most of us never see: the makeshift camps of youth in the woods behind Bremerton’s Home Depot, a family with 2 small children living in a storage unit.
Richard writes of his own apocalypse on Christmas night, 7 years ago. He attempted suicide from the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, only at the last moment being called back from the brink to comfort his dog, Willow, who had become hysterical in his abandoned van, too far away for him to hear in the literal sense, but apparently not in the figurative sense. (May Willow rest in peace, she died just a week ago Saturday at age 13.) It was at the edge of his abyss, the bottom of his plunge into despair, that Richard was able to choose life, in a way that he, as a rich man with nearly everything as his disposal, had never had to do before. And I suspect that he did not realize how much he needed to feel loved until that moment.
And here we are at Advent, being reminded of transformative hope that comes at the darkest of times: A hard Christmas message, but one that can be life-saving for those who live a very different life from the ones that most of us here enjoy. For some, the need for new reign on earth is not as hypothetical as it is a pressing everyday reality.
I had the fortune of listening to Richard speak a couple weeks ago at Grace Episcopal Church. His own story of hope does not end with his miraculous escape from suicide. It continues with a call to end despair that affects so many of our fellow humans who no longer have homes. He points out, and many of us may already know, that while the number of homeless men is in decline in this country, the number of families without a place to live is on the rise. There are almost 100 students in the Poulsbo public school system alone who are considered homeless. Is this not our own social and economic apocalypse for which we need a dramatic and game-changing intervention?
As I reflected on the Scriptures we heard today, it occurred to me that these words from Luke may not be comforting to me precisely because I am comfortable. Richard shared that before he was homeless he used to love the sound of the rain. That wasn’t true anymore when he had only a van to protect him from the relentless drumbeat of the Pacific Northwest wither. It became his nemesis. A person with a roof over their heads doesn’t need the comfort of donated tents, and might in fact be annoyed at the offer. For a homeless person of course, it would be a Godsend. To the comfortable, the idea of a cosmic upheaval may be disturbing. To those in the pit of poverty and despair, such a concept might seem welcome. They, and by extension we, need an overturning of the world order, but can be harder for the comfortable to welcome such upheaval. To recognize the need for it.
I don’t believe it is wrong to enjoy the comfortable Christmases that some of us do. I am not an advocate for arbitrary deprivation. I do believe however that one of the messages of Advent could be that we not let our comfort cloud our perspective. Richard’s story and these words from today’s readings help to remind us that a choice to prepare for the uncomfortable or not is a false one, one that exists only in our imagination. When we cannot house our children or our ageing parents, our home is burning. We have forgotten who our brothers and sisters are. For Richard it took many people recognizing this: the Salvation Army in Bremerton where he got so many of his meals, the psychologist at Kitsap Mental Health who diagnosed and treated his depression, the Methodist Church that finally gave him shelter, community, and, nine months later, a co-sign on an apartment. And the woman from that church who no heads up the non-profit foundation dedicated to getting his book into school curricula and libraries across the country. And many, many more.
And so many here at Eagle Harbor Church do the same: The message of compassion and extravagant welcome travels far from this little church on Bainbridge Island: monthly Super Suppers and collections for many local and far-flung ministries. This is living into this other half of Advent, recognizing the need, holding out the hope. Perhaps not as simplistic a hope as for some divine Big Brother to descend on a cloud and start knocking heads together. (Though how many of us secretly wish for this at time?) But a hope that indeed, it will not always be like this, that no matter how bad it gets we will not be forsaken and we are not, in Jesus’ words, to get weighed down immeasurably by the “worries of this life.”
As we say this prayer of reassurance for ourselves and our families, let us also say it for those whose lives of desperation we do not see, and let it help to open our eyes so that we can see. May we continue, as Paul urges his sisters and brothers in Thessalonica, to “increase and abound in love for one another and for all.” In this holy and joy-filled time of Advent, may we welcome in the inconvenient, the unexpected, the uncomfortable, and may we all be blessed, amazed and comforted beyond measure.
Amen