Sermons

Prophetic Preparation

John Wilkinson                            Third Presbyterian Church
December 3, 2006                   Jeremiah 33:14-16/Luke 21:25-36

HIV-AIDS has moved off our theological and political radar screen just a bit. Tonight in this sanctuary, we will host a community wide prayer service to mark World AIDS Day. More than 70 organizations and congregations are co-sponsoring the service, thanks in large part to Ralph Carter’s indefatiguable recruiting efforts. Wade Norwood will provide the reflection for this evening. All are encouraged to be present as you are able, or to join in prayer wherever you may be.

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There are choices to make every day, every moment, about how we will live our lives, and about how our faith will make a difference. The religion I embrace seeks to live in a kind of tension all of the time: a tension between the here and now and the yet to be.

There are distinctions to be made. We could live only for the moment and ignore the long term, the big picture. Or we could live only for the hereafter, the sweet by and by, and ignore what is all around us.

But this tension between the “right now” and the “soon and very soon” is where we are called to live. It is where God lives. It is where Jesus came to live. It is what Advent is all about.

* Advent, that strange season brushing up against the Christmas preparations that began somewhere near Flag Day.
* Advent, that strange season that will insist that it’s not quite time yet.
* Advent, that strange season that will demand a bit more preparation and expectation and anticipation than our impatient spirits will want to invest.
* Advent, that strange season that will not allow us to sing the really good Christmas carols until seemingly much too late.

Advent. Poet Joseph Nolan writes: “We wait – all day long,/ For planes and buses,/ for dates and appointments,/ for five o’clock and Friday./ Some of us wait for a Second Coming./ For God in a whirlwind./ Paratrooper Christ./ All around us people are waiting:/a child, for attention;/ a spouse, for conversation;/ a parent, for a letter or call./ The prisoner waits for freedom;/and the exile, to come home./ The hungry, for food;/ and the lonely, for a friend./ The whole earth’s a waiting room!/ ‘The Savior will see you now”/ is what we expect to hear at the end./ Maybe we should raise our expectations.”

It must have been a lonely vocation, being a prophet. You were not to be the life of the party – in fact, party invitations were probably scarce. The image we carry, that of a slightly deranged person standing at a street corner with a hand-lettered sign proclaiming the “end is near” is inaccurate, but only by degrees. Prophets would not fit in: not with the religious establishment who went about their religious business without paying much attention to its actual content…not fit in with the political establishment who insisted that all was well when it wasn’t…not fit in with the regular people, you and me, who lived in such a rut of religious routine that we would forget how wondrous, and challenging, and inspiring, and daunting, it was to be called to be part of God’s community, God’s covenant people.

That was the prophet’s job. To remind us of that call, that vision. It was not to say that the end is near and leave us hang out to dry for all eternity. It was to live in the tension. Here is how things are, namely, not so good, and here is how they may be, and here is what God is doing about it and here is what you can do about it.

Because we dismiss the image of the deranged street-corner outcast we risk dismissing the voice of the prophet. Voices that speak of impending ecological calamity, or the next pandemic that will outfox our best medicine or the latest rogue nation to procure nuclear capability are speaking out. All the time. Are we listening? Not to mention the latest instance of handgun violence in our own city’s streets.

These are not prophetic voices until they add to their gloom and doom a word of hope, of possibility. We do not miss that word. We carry that word. So Advent…tension. But the good kind.

Through the prophet Jeremiah, God tells the people that the days are coming when I will make things new. The signs of that new day will be justice and righteousness and peace. This is God’s business and we are invited to participate.

We read about Jesus’ road to Jerusalem this morning as we prepare the road to Bethlehem. He, too, is speaking of the future, his second coming, as we get ready for his first. There will be a day, a formidable day. And you are called to be ready, for when it arrives, redemption will arrive with it.

Theologian James Kay asks “is there anything promising on the horizon? Or will this world just keep grinding every eternal hope into powder and ashes? But is this the message of Advent? That it's hard out there? That's part of the message,” Kay writes, “but not the whole story. The message of Advent is not that everything is falling to pieces… And certainly the message is not that God is in heaven and all is therefore well with the world. No. The message of Advent is that when heaven itself is spinning into oblivion, when every fixed star on the moral compass is wavering, when all hell is breaking loose on earth, ‘your redemption is drawing near...’ the message of Advent is that we can never take our own projections more seriously than God's promises. When we least expect it and when there is no evidence for it, God's power comes into this godless world in ways the world itself could never predict or foresee.”(Christian Century, November 12, 1997)

I do not remember very much about my senior seminary sermon, except that I worked a long time on it and that it wasn’t very good. It was an Advent sermon though, and I do remember one point. Walking to class one day on the South Side of Chicago, I noticed a street crew working on a street project. Their mid-morning break was over and they were reluctant to rush back to the job. Finally, one of them said, “let’s get back to work, this thing won’t fix itself.”

It was a curiously prophetic thing to say. The street is in need of repair. Either we bemoan that reality or we do something about it. We cannot fix every pothole, widen every lane, re-stripe every mile of highway.

But when presented with an opportunity, we can do something, our little part, our mini-repair project, voice our own mini-prophecies, enact our own mini-revolutions, proclaim our own mini-Advents. And we can huddle together with others doing the same thing, here and elsewhere. And be ready, in the ways that we live our own lives, in the ways that we engage one another, in the ways that we look at the world and respond to the tough news all around us.

The days are surely coming; righteousness and redemption are near. But this thing won’t fix itself, and we’ve been given gifts, and a voice, and fellow travelers to make a difference.

* It begins with one candle.
* It begins with a little bite of bread and a tiny sip from a little Presbyterian cup.
* It begins with singing these not-quite familiar hymns with powerful tunes and minor chords and foreboding words and taking them seriously.
* It begins with us, listening, at first, for the voice, then hearing it, then realizing that we, too, have been given a voice to whisper into a world bent on destruction and “choking on its fears.” (Kay)

Advent…tension. But the good kind, between the here and now and the yet to be.

The appointed Psalm for the day, Psalm 25, issues an Advent request: “Make me to know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth, and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all day long.”

Let us wait all day long, but let’s not sit around. Amen.