Tick Tock-- This is Your Wakeup Call for the First Sunday in Advent

The word from the prophet Isaiah, and the word from the Psalm appointed for today, is Peace. The prophet, speaking to people who had enough of war, enough of hunger, enough of exile, shared a dream of a new Jerusalem, where God would live. People of the world would stream in through the gates of the city to sit at God’s feet and learn of God’s ways, directly from the source of all life. Nations would not go to war over boundaries or water or food or oil; instead they would come to God for binding arbitration. God would judge between nations, and there would be no arguments, no appeals, so the weapons of war could be broken down and reformed into tools for the farmer and the orchard keeper-- plows and pruning hooks, for wheat and olives, for bread and oil. The stuff of life, courtesy of the author of life.

The psalm transports the worshipper in exile to Jerusalem, not Jerusalem as it was, or is, but as it ought to be, as God wills it. My feet are standing within your walls, Jerusalem, built as a city, where, as in Isaiah, justice is established, because God is judge.

The judgment of God is that all have the things that make for life. Biblical justice is overwhelmingly not retributive justice—not eye for eye as in Leviticus—but distributive justice, as in everyone having a share of the things that make for life, as in the miracle of the manna from heaven, and the feeding of the 5,000, and the wheat that never ran out, and the oil that was never spent.

The prophets promise that Peace is coming, that God will bring it to fruition. But that is not to say that we can sit back and wait for peace to over take us. We can participate in God’s peace now, we can practice living in God’s peace while we are still waiting for the fullness of time. The apostle Paul assures us, Peace is nearer to us now than when we first began to believe. Be Ready! The gospel warns, keep awake and be ready, for the Prince of Peace is coming. How will it look if he comes and finds us sleeping? Or worse, if he comes and finds us at war? As the Vaughn brothers sang, “Tick tock, people. Time’s ticking away.”

We may never see the fullness of God’s peace in our lifetime, but we can participate in God’s peace even today. The paths of peace are before us, and the milemarkers are justice, forgiveness, mercy, and compassion. Let’s be on our way.

Waiting for a King

Text: Jeremiah 23:1-6

The shepherds Jeremiah was referring to were the kings and princes, the rulers of Israel whose duty, according to the prophet, was to use their power for good and not evil. Instead of caring for the people they exploited them. The leaders of Israel were no better than the pharaoh of Egypt, from whom God had delivered the people to create the nation of Israel. Imagine, leaders chosen to serve the people, turning on the people they were called to serve. Enslaving them the way that Pharaoh had enslaved their ancestors, to the benefit of the leaders themselves, and their wealthy benefactors. Sound familiar?

                Truly, there is nothing new under the sun.

                Through the prophet, God promised to “attend to” the leaders of Israel, a vague, but no less ominous threat. Because you did not attend to my people, I will attend to you. And afterward, God will be the shepherd, God will be the king.

                Which is the way God wanted it in the first place. Back in the days of the prophet Samuel, before there was a king in Israel, the people asked for a king, so they could be like other nations. God warned them, through the prophet, God warned them about kings—they will send your sons to war; they will take your daughters as concubines; they will take away everything God has given you. But still the people said, give us a king! And in a private conversation, when Samuel was grieving over the people’s rejection, God said, don’t worry Sam, they are not rejecting you, they are rejecting me. Give them a king.

                And when it all went down just as God said it would, did God say, “I told you so.” Probably. But God also promised to return as the good shepherd, the true king of Israel.

                Next week we begin the season of Advent, a season of anticipation. We will return to the days of waiting, anticipating the return of the king. Because Christian doctrine teaches us that Jesus is the Messiah, the true king, the one of whom the prophets spoke.

                But here we are, still waiting for a King. Maybe not a king, exactly, but waiting for someone who will free us from the corrupt leaders, who gorge themselves on the wealth of the nation, while the poor of the people become destitute, and desperate. When was the last time a leader stood up for the poorest of the poor?

                Still we keep waiting, waiting, waiting for the world to change.

                What if we are the ones for whom we wait?

                For we are the body of Christ, and individually members of it.

                Then we are not just sheep. We are (paradoxically) also the shepherd. Or, at least, members of the body of the Good Shepherd. While none of us, individually, may have the power to save the world, all of us, together, with the Holy Spirit, have tremendous power, and we are called to use that power for good, and not evil, for the least and last of the people. For the old sheep, and the young lambs, for the lost and stray. If we fail to attend to the sheep, God will attend to us.

                This week, we live in the land between time. Between Pentecost and Advent, between the old year and the new, between the already and the not yet. And that is a metaphor for the whole of Christian history, lived between Resurrection and Return. We see paradise on the horizon, we ache for it, and it remains just beyond where we are right now.

                But paradise is our joy and our hope, and we hear the promise on our savior’s lips, “Today, you will be with me in paradise.” Today is a very long day—a day that holds within it an age, an infinite lifetime. While it is still day we have the opportunity to be a part of what God is doing in the world, and the promise that, before the day’s end, we will be together in Paradise. Thanks be to God. Amen.

               

The Communion Table as a “Thin Place”

The island of Iona, in the Irish Sea, is said to be full of “thin places,” places where the division between this life and the afterlife are very thin. That may be why St. Columba built a monastery there, because the place was already considered to be holy ground.

In Saving Paradise, Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Ann Parker describe the early church’s understanding of Holy Communion as a numinous moment, when the veil between the “saints above” and “saints below” was drawn aside. When the church gathered to share the bread, believers feasted with the saints in paradise.

You know I lost my dad in 1992, and my sister and her husband in 2001, and my mom in 2003. Some weeks after my sister’s death, on an ordinary Sunday when we were sharing communion, I was suddenly surprised by the presence of my family. This is not a ghost story. It was not a hallucination. As I sat in the choir loft, while the ushers passed the trays of bread and wine, I felt my sister beside me, and my parents too. I had a sense that Cindy was stifling a giggle (something we often did in worship—try to make the other laugh). And then the moment passed. It was numinous moment. It was as if the difference between us, the living members of the family and the dead, was meaningless. We were all communing together.

When you come for communion this Sunday, remember you will share the feast with all the saints, the ones in the pews and the ones who sit at the table in Paradise, and in that moment, we will all be united in the presence of Christ. Amen.

Cindy and I, ready for Thanksgiving Worship at First Congregational in Moline, c.1980