Sermon December 6, 2009

Advent II, Year C

Baruch 5: 1-9; Canticle 16; Philippians 1: 3-11; Luke 3: 1-6

And so we begin the second week of our preparation - where "our" means the whole Church of God through-out the world - the second week of a great, quiet retreat in preparation for what we will celebrate with much noise and celebration in about three weeks.

Is your life quiet at the moment? Certainly not since "Black Friday", huh?!! Don't get me wrong - I'm not against consumerism per se - "buying stuff" is what has raised the standard of living for a good part of our nation. But it's pretty noisy, glitzy, bright - blinding, almost.

I'd be prepared to guarantee that all of us have had the experience of having someone drive toward us at night with their high beams on. What can you see when that happens? Pretty much nothing. Our contemporary consumerism does that to us, blinding us to what we are called to pray for and work for.

And it's not just the consumerism, is it - four police officers are gunned down in cold blood - executed while drinking coffee. And the truly worrying thing is that it takes this level of evil to shock us - we're no longer shocked about drugs in high-schools or grade schools, we're no longer shocked by sexual promiscuity as a "life style". Our culture faces some very stiff challenges, and we feel helpless in the face of them.

Makes it a little difficult to be reflective and silent, to pray - a little tough to sit back and enjoy Advent, doesn't it?

But look at what Baruch says - and know this about Baruch: it was written in the depths of the despair of exile in Babylon. Baruch, too, identifies a time of "sorrow and affliction" - a time that, in its own way, was much like ours. So look at what Baruch says: "take off your garment of your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem, and put on forever the beauty of the glory from God. Put on the robe fo the righteousness that comes from God; put on your head the diadem of the glory of the everlasting; for God will show your splendor everywhere under heaven." (Bar 5:1)

The language of "the beauty of the glory from God" trumps the language of "sorrow and affliction".

So I suppose the logical question about Baruch would be this: "Has he lost his mind?"!! And what about the authors of the lectionary - have they lost theirs too? We are, says Baruch, to be made by God into the peace of justice, into the glory of God on earth - and this out of the depths of "sorrow and affliction"?

Language on that grand a scale kinda makes the idea of a parish bazaar or a Christmas party seem a little beside the point.

Well, no. Actually it doesn't! The language that used to be used about Advent - that of repentance - is really what lies behind this, but think of it described differently. We're being asked to undergo a sort of revision, a stretching, in the way we approach life and the way we approach tragedy. That's John the Baptist's message today when he says: "Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth". He's talking about getting ready for a new way of living, in the light - for us - of a new birth.

Yes, Jesus comes into the ordinary places of our lives, into the parish bazaars and Christmas parties, into our dreams of happiness and cheer, into our joys....and also - and importantly - into the harder places, into the craggy mountains and deep gorges that make up human existence. I'd be willing to bet that you all know a lot about these latter places if you're a human being (and I can see that you all are!!).

Most of us are hiding the sadness of those latter places, or we're afraid to approach them, those utter failures that hide in the deep recesses of our hearts.

The promise of Advent is made in the knowledge of all these places, the joyful and the sad, the easy and the hard. The promise of Advent is in what lies at its end, the birth of God's grace, God's love in your heart and in mine.

Paul is echoing that reality: "I thank my God every time I remember you........you hold me in your heart.....and [so] this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more....."

For me it's all tied together by one metaphor, from John's gospel - perhaps the most profound in the New Testament: Jesus says, "unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." (John 12:24).

Think of that seed that is "Christ who died, yes [and] who was raised" (Romans 8:34) gestating right now in our hearts. Are we willing to do that - to think that way? Are we willing stretch the way we approach life and the way we approach tragedy?

Paul says if we're willing we don't have to do it all by ourselves: "the one who began the good work in you will continue to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus."

For indeed, as John says, we are to "Prepare the way of the Lord". The only way we can do that in the world outside is if we're willing to do it first inside ourselves.

So that's the Advent question this week: Are you willing? Amen.