Sermon: “For Justice, Peace, and Well-being”
Now if this raises your anxiety, let me remind you, as I do each year, that Christmas is how long, according to that wonderful song? Right – 12 days – December 25 th is the first day of Christmas – and it ends on January 5th. So you could really have 22 plus 12 days left to get it all done. But I would do your best to resist the temptation to buy the gift items “for your true love” that are suggested in that song. If you do, you better bring your Visa. This year the cost for all 364 items mentioned in the song is $78,100 (up from $77,000 last year). You could limit yourself to only one of each item – then your cost would be a mere $19,507. Either way, please talk with me before you do this. I want to visit with you about your church pledge for 2008. While most of us are to some extent already caught up in the Christmas season, in the church we do our best to hold back from Christmas just a little bit – and focus our attention on a preparatory and an anticipatory season called Advent. Advent is the first season of the church year – or what we call the liturgical calendar. This liturgical calendar was developed centuries ago as a teaching tool, and as a reminder that as Christians and disciples of Jesus Christ, our lives are to follow an alternative rhythm of days and seasons – a rhythm that is not always the same as the standard days and seasons of the regular calendar. At no time is this more true than in this first season of the church year, the season of Advent. While so much around us is focused on Christmas, we come first to Advent. The word itself gives the emphasis of this season. Advent means “arriving” or “coming soon” – “coming soon to a theatre near you.” Advent tells the story of the world’s yearning for a savior, a deep desire for what is wrong to be made right, for what is broken to be fixed – for what is anxious and panicked to be make well and whole. In advent we look forward with great anticipation for the full restoration of justice, peace, and well-being – for ourselves and for all the world. Walter Brueggemann, an Old Testament scholar, now retired from Columbia Presbyterian Seminary, says this about Advent: “In this season we are on the brink of something utterly new, long yearned for, but beyond our capacity to enact. Advent invites us to awaken from our numbed endurance and our domesticated expectations, to consider our life afresh in light of new gifts that God is about to give.” To be awakened from “our numbed endurance and domesticated expectations.” Much of the time we live our lives doing the same old thing, the regular routine. And while there is a level of comfort in that, we also can become susceptible to boredom – and grow insensitive and aloof to what is happening all around us. Routine, even a routine we have to endure, can become numbing. In our weaker moments we find ourselves believing that things in the world are “moving from bad to worse” – that the world is “going to hell in a hand basket” – that there is “nothing new under the sun.” We expect nothing new or wondrous to break out among us. Our expectations become domesticated. And Advent arrives and says – “Wake up” - “look” - “Something utterly new is about to happen – something even better than a “merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year” – something greater than you ever expected. Wait for it – yearn for it – for it will surely come.” “See afresh what God is about to do.” “Hope for – and expect – the restoration of justice, peace, and well-being, which God is bringing about –even through you.” We hear this yearning and expectation in all of the scripture lessons read this morning: in Isaiah, where the people of Israel long for that day when the LORD God will judge between the nations – when swords will be beaten into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; when war and “war colleges” will be no more – when all will “walk in the light of the Lord!” Paul – writing to the Romans, lifts us the challenge of love as the means by which justice, peace and well-being is to be restored in our relationships: “Owe no one anything – except to love one another.” What a wonderful image. Our debt to one another is to love one another. Paul gives a short list – from the second part of the Ten Commandments, all about loving neighbors. Then comes this “alarm clock” text: “Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; 12the night is far gone, the day is near. “Wake up” Paul says – a good word in Advent – wake up and pay attention to what God is doing and about to do in the world. “Wake up – for God’s salvation - God’s restoration of justice, peace, and well being is coming – so live your lives here and now in light of this coming reality.” Now the actual when – the “date” when this full restoration is to come about – is unknown. Here in our text from Matthew, Jesus says even he does not know – though many then and now still speculate. But what Jesus primarily tells us in this less is to be awake – not to be afraid – but to be awake - to be prepared - to be expecting this full restoration to come about – for it will surely come. This is all good news for us, here on this first Sunday of Advent. And though the focus today if primarily on the “yet to come” restoration of justice, peace, and well-being, we can see signs of this in the here and now. Today, when we are awake, when we are roused from our numbed endurance and out domesticated expectations, then we can see the examples of this promised restoration. Let me just mention two. The Tuesday before Thanksgiving, at our Ecumenical Community Service, I was sitting in the front pew at the Methodist Church – and during the call for the offering Ron Loughry talked about the new building right here for our Fern Creek / Highview United Ministries – our Assistance Center and Adult Day Center. Seated behind me are several women – I think they were Fern Creek Baptists. Ron was saying how this building was a sign of miracles. “The first miracle was from Beulah Presbyterian Church, who decided to lease the property to the United Ministries for $1.00 a year for ten years.” That was no sooner out of his mouth when a woman behind me whispered, “Wow.” I smiled. “Wow.” The work of our United Ministries - of which we are a part - helps real families in our community to receive justice, peace and well-being – economic justice in the right to have one’s daily bread – and the blessing of restored well-being, a freedom from fear and dread over where the next meal is coming from. Maybe you caught this on Wave 3 News last week – about Haley’s Closet – how one family responded to the tragic death of a granddaughter – who died in November of 2000, seven years ago, when she was only a few months old, due to a severe chromosomal defect. Haley’s grandparents, Vicki and John Wethington, said they could do nothing to help their granddaughter. But they could do something to help other children. They started buying a few toys, which they donated to the Fern Creek / Highview United Ministries, to distribute at Christmas time. Through the next year they bought toys and stored them in their basement. John later added a large closet on to the back of the house to store the toys. Other family members and friends got involved. Later Wal-Mart got involved, donating bikes. The closet and basement got so full that we were called about three years ago, with the request to store the bikes and toys here at church. Last Friday everything arrived – and with 40 family members and friends, we all walked into the gym over 60 bikes – and hundreds of toys, now stacked in the Memorial Room. Over the next two weeks they will be distributed to families in need in our area – helping to make Christmas more joyful for so many children. The turning a tragic loss into a generous sharing and giving to those in need. It is yet another sign of Advent – of God using us and moving us to help restore justice, peace and well-being. In our days of Advent this year, and in all our years – may we continue to yearn for this restoration, and do all we can to participate in it. And all God’s people said. Amen. |