Sermon for Advent II Year B 2017 Preparing for the Beginning Recently I was reminded of the Thanksgiving Day prayer of that great theologian: Homer Simpson. If you are not a fan of the Simpsons, I apologize, however I do want to point out that The Simpsons is not only the longest running prime-time comedy series in television history but it also has some Lutheran creds : the creator, Matt Groening, was raised a Lutheran. As I was saying, a friend of mine, who happens to be an Episcopalian priest, reminded me of what I think could or should be considered a great prayer for the beginning of Advent. Here is Homer Simpson s Thanksgiving Day prayer, (a prayer which he prayed surrounded by his wife with the blue beehive hairdo, his daughter and son, his two chain-smoking sisters and others): We d like to thank you for the occasional moments of peace and love our family s experienced. Well, not today, you saw what happened! Oh Lord, be honest, are we the most pathetic family in the universe or what? Now, in my humble opinion, there is much to be admired in Homer s prayer. Not only is Homer thankful, but above all, he is honest! He does not attempt in any way to hide or even explain or justify the flaws of this very human family blue beehive hairdo and all! There is no pretense in his prayer. And that lack of pretense, despite the laughter or perhaps because of it, 1
is the reason I found myself thinking about how this prayer of Homer s is in so many ways a wonderful prayer for Advent. Advent, the season in which we find ourselves watching and waiting for the coming of the One who brings us those blessed respites of peace and love we have experienced (however occasional and even fleeting such moments may be!). Advent, the season in which we watch and wait for the One who has seen what has happened not just today but every day; the One who certainly knows, well, (let s be honest!) how pathetic we can be and how in need we are of saving. What does it mean for us to confess that we don t have everything figured out and completely in order? What does it mean for us to admit that our house is a mess and we re not really ready to have God (or anyone else!) make that long expected visit? Given the choice, which do you prefer? God to come and help us clean up our mess or God to come and give us a gold star for making such a valiant effort at cleaning up our mess on our own? or do we prefer God not to come at all because we don t want God to see our mess? 2
Perhaps, in all honesty, the answer is... all of the above? We want help in cleaning up our messes, and yet we want affirmation that we have done our level best at cleaning up the mess, but in the end, it would be such a relief that to have anyone see the messes we have made. So, here is the good news: God does come to us in the human person of Jesus born in Bethlehem, raised in Nazareth, baptized by John in the Jordan River, who ate with sinners, touched lepers, spoke comfort and forgiveness to those in need of liberation from evil, even while he was dying on the cross... the gospel of Mark tells us right in the first line of his account, God is making a new beginning. God does for us what we can t do for ourselves that is, free ourselves from the prison, the mess of our sinful, pathetic ways. And God comes to us through the gift of the Holy Spirit (what a wonderful Christmas gift!) so that we might have the power to be disciples of the One who is the Way, the Truth and The Life so that we might be the compassionate, loving hands of Christ, and so that we might be co-workers in cleaning up the mess. Last week we asked the question, what are waiting for? This week the question seems to be, how shall we wait? How shall we prepare for the coming of Christ? (Especially if our answer is that we prefer God not come and see our mess!) 3
These are the questions the writer of the second letter attributed to Peter takes up. Eugene Peterson s translation of these verses in The Message are helpful to us: Don t overlook the obvious here, friends. With God, one day is as good as a thousand years, and a thousand years as a day. God isn t late with his promise as some measure lateness. He is restraining himself on account of you, holding back the End because he doesn t want anyone lost. He s giving everyone space and time to change. Since everything here today might well be gone tomorrow, do you see how essential it is to live a holy life? We ll be ready for the promised new heavens and the promised new earth, all landscaped with righteousness. Imagine... a world, a country landscaped with righteousness which could also be translated as justice. A world as one very wise yet very young person said is a place where we do what God wants us to do. Kind of hard to imagine, right? Which is why, we need to remind ourselves over and over that Advent is not a season in which we are preparing for Christmas No we are watching, waiting and preparing for Christ to come. The second letter of Peter makes it clear that we are not just waiting for Christmas! What we are waiting for is a new beginning The coming into being of God s promises, new heavens, new earth, a brand new life, with everything to live for. In our gospel text for today, 4
Mark wastes no time in getting down to business a single-sentence introduction announces the new beginning An event has taken place that radically changes the way we look at and experience the world, and Mark, for one, can t wait to tell us about it. In every sentence Mark writes in his gospel, there s an air of breathless excitement and as far as Mark is concerned the sooner we get the message, the better off we ll all be. Because the message is good, incredibly good: God is here, God does not think we are pathetic and God is not afraid or put off by our messes. God is on our side. And, most importantly, God is passionate to save us and to empower us so we can get moving on God s new beginnings. All the texts we hear today on this 2nd Sunday of Advent remind us that we need to pause, to take stock, and to empty our hearts so that there is room in them for the birth of something new and altogether unforeseen. Clear a road for the LORD, the prophet Isaiah says Prepare a highway across the desert for our God! (And the desert Isaiah is speaking of is not some faraway desolate geography in the Middle East; no Isaiah is talking about the desert places in our lives, in our souls, and in our hearts.) Isaiah every bit as brutally honest as Homer Simpson reminds us of our limits, our fragility, our mortality. 5
After everything else has passed away, all the grass has withered, after the flowers have faded and all the glories of the flesh have perished from the face of the earth only God s word will stand forever. Only God is forever. Only God will never let us down. Then John the Baptist cries out another rough but utterly sincere and refreshingly honest character, (a little like Homer Simpson?) a prophet who appears as wild as the wilderness in which he lives and preaches in announces again: Make straight the way of the Lord! So what does it all mean for us? Because we need to know that when the prophet speaks, he s not speaking only to those people who lived long ago or some other people over there. No, when the prophet speaks, he s speaking to us. Certainly it is true that most of us are waiting, if not for the day of the Lord then for something else for true love, for the return of health, for a job that challenges us, for a house to call our own, for peace in our families, in our nation, in our world. Most of us are waiting for something, and many of us yearn for something better we cannot name. (Barbara Brown Taylor, Mixed Blessings, p. 9) Perhaps the one phrase out of all the texts for today we resonate most with is Isaiah s imperative: Cry out! 6
And together we ask with Isaiah, What shall I cry? although the paradox is, of course, that most of us have something very specific in mind to cry out to God for. Like Isaiah and John, we too yearn for something better, something we cannot or perhaps dare not name. For Isaiah it is the revealed glory of the Lord a mystery higher than all others. For John it is the One who will come after him who is mightier and greater than himself. Neither of them know the details but they know that the old ways of life are passing away and new life is on its way. Do we know that too? Do we know that the old ways of life are passing away and new life is on its way? The scriptures today call us to prepare for that new life, to clear away anything that might get in its way and to wait without knowing when it will come, or what it will exactly look like or even how it will change our lives a new life a new beginning. During Advent we are invited to empty ourselves by being completely honest before the Lord. No pretense allowed! We are invited to come out, to let go, to open up to hold the things of this world lightly in our hands and even to give up those things, those ways of being, that are clearly taking up too much room. During Advent we are invited to prepare the way for something new and unknown in our lives, 7
brought to us in person by the living God In Advent we give voice, we cry out our yearning for awe and wonder and transformation. What will that new life mean for you and I? What do we have to let go of first? What is taking up too much room or blocking the way of God s entrance into our lives? We might not know the answers yet to these questions and that, too, is what Advent is about. But one of the answers we do have comes from the letter of Peter which essentially says: Be the change God wants to see. Use the space and the time God has given you for a new beginning, a new life. Yes, God has seen it all. God has seen what happened. But God sees and wills what we cannot see that a highway will be fashioned in the desert, every valley will be lifted up and every mountain and hill will be made low such that we will not be separated from the love God in Christ Jesus neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation nothing will be able to keep the love of God in Christ from reaching us, from comforting us, from creating a new beginning in us. That is what Advent celebrates, anticipates and prepared us for. 8
Advent is about preparing a place for something new in our lives, for new life in us, and then waiting without knowing, waiting with nothing but faith, hope, and love in the promise that God himself is with us and his steadfast love and faithfulness will meet us where we are. God will offer us in Christ all that we, even though we may be pathetic, are yearning for and so much more! 9