Monday, December 17, 2007

Advent in the Holiday Season - “Are We There Yet?”

Now that Thanksgiving is over, it is officially the “Holiday season.” But we all know what season really presses upon us. If you were in town this weekend – Light Up Louisville is but one harbinger of many. Notice also the mall, the TV commercials, and probably your own sense of mild panic setting in. It’s the Holiday season! Its time to shop and get busy. Much to do. And, of course, it is time to wax nostalgic.


I remember Christmas in SD.
We would all pile into the station wagon, wrap ourselves in warm woolen blankets and make the long trek to Grandma’s house in Culbertson, NE. It was an eight hour drive over the river, and down Interstate 29, and through some woods. Well, actually, I’m making that up. We knew better than to try to travel any real distance in December, unless you wanted to risk getting stranded in a blizzard. So we really took that trip in the summer, before cars had air conditioning. And we certainly did not need those woolen blankets. I do have memories of that. But as for Christmas, for the most part, we stayed home.

In the summer when we did make those long road trips to Grandma’s it was eight hours of road time from Brookings SD to Culbertson NE. Eight ENDLESS hours of boredom and restlessness. It may have seemed endless to my parents as well – but for entirely different reasons. With five kids in the car, it was eight endless hours of fighting, begging and whining. But not boredom. I now realize that a quiet stretch of road time can be a welcome respite and a good time to think.

Advent and the Holiday Season
This morning we are at the beginning of a stretch of road we call Advent. It is a journey to a destination we call the Christmas season (which begins Christmas day). But it is also the holiday season, and even though it may be New Years Day in the church, it is clearly the Holiday season everywhere else. What a contrast in styles, these two seasons, and they don’t travel well together at all.

I know we are pretty much bought into this thing we call the Christmas season. We love the lights, the food, the family and the this “Christmas spirit.” It brings our families together and brings good cheer – for a time anyway. I love it, and I sing along.

The season of Advent, on the other hand, the world has left to the church. Few in the world practice it, and perhaps just a few of us in the pews as well. There are reasons for that, I think. For one, its not as much fun. And it is certainly does not deliver immediate gratification. Advent calls us to wait, and watch, and hope. It calls us to stay awake and be alert. Its more akin to driving the car than riding in it. It requires attention to the road. You can’t just ride along, play games and eats snacks and nap.

For most people, such a nighttime vigil of waiting and watching for a thief in the night is just an awful desert between where we are and where we want to go. We are, like children on a road trip, anxious to get it over with. We ask of God, even as adults, “are we almost there yet?” “How long till we get there?” We can’t stand the long ride, we are not interested in the journey, and we want to arrive yesterday. But Advent is not about getting there. It’s about the long ride. Its not about the destination, its about the journey. The world’s holiday season stuff is for children. Advent is for adults.

Most of us here this morning, I believe, are faced with the task of living with one foot in both of these seasons. One presses on us because we live in a society and are members of families with holiday traditions and expectations. The other presses on us from the traditions of our faith and from the voice inside us that tells us to keep watch and reminds us that, “Jesus is the reason for the Season.” We have a foot in each camp. I don’t think we need any help with how to do the holiday one – you can find that help at the Mall. But we may need some help with the Advent season.


A Very Long Car Ride
It is a beautiful destination we find expressed in our Isaiah text:
They shall beat their swords into plowshares,
And their spears into pruning hooks;
Nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more.

That’s a poignant text for our time. But the people of God have never lived at this destination. All these centuries our relationship with God has been forged in waiting, not arriving. The hope expressed in our Isaiah text – swords into plowshares – it was so long ago. When it was uttered, it would be another 600 years before the angels sang on that first Christmas night. And its been 2,000 years since then. And we are still using swords for war, and guns for greed and words for injustice. That’s an awful long car ride. Are we almost there yet?

How do we keep our hearts warm with hope and patient expectation? How do we keep ourselves from falling asleep and veering into either the ditch of cynicism and despair or the ditch of pain numbing consumption and distraction? Is the best we can do is just create a good holiday for our loved ones? The poor will always be with us, as will injustice and war, and another 1,000 years will pass - and I cannot do anything about that. The Advent question is - how do our hearts remain open to hope? How do we continue to believe?


The Thief in the Night
Our Gospel text gives no easy comfort. Jesus is telling us to stay awake, to stay up all night, perhaps for another 2,000 years, keeping our eyes on the road, staying aware of other drivers, watching the weather, alert for deer crossing. That’s lots of coffee to stay awake. And this Advent kind of watching is hard because it is open ended. We may know we are headed to God’s house, but we have never been there before, so we don’t know how long it will take, and we don’t know what the road will be like, and we don’t know what to expect along the way.

This kind of waiting reminds us that we are not really in control. It reminds us of our limits. We can only see so far down the road. We can only move so fast. We can only prepare so much. We don’t know what’s in the mind of the thief. We don’t know where he is or his plans. We do not know when the thief will come.

Such waiting is hard. Ask anyone eight or nine months pregnant. Or waiting the test results. Or waiting for a loved one to return home. It usually means we are hooked into something bigger than ourselves, something that controls the outcome other than us. This other is usually not asking for our advice, and is not acting on our timetable, but theirs. That all certainly applies to God. Waiting is always hard because waiting is not a matter of doing – it is a matter of being. Being patient. Being strong. Being faithful. Being confident. Being hopeful. Frosty the Snowman is much more fun.

Shaped by Waiting
But there is grace and gospel in this. Even in this thief in the night. For that which you watch out for, and wait for, and prepare for, and expect, shapes who you become. There is life in the waiting and watching.

When a couple waits for a baby, there is very little they actually know. There is a great deal for which they hope. But waiting for a baby comes down to making a space and accepting what comes to live there. And it is waiting for something that is life changing beyond all that can planned for or controlled or imagined. And it is the happy acceptance of that arrangement. Its a contract with life where you agree to make space and accept whatever comes. So you buy furniture and pick out names and save money and modify rooms and so on, rearranging your life for this event to come.


Living Into Advent
So, how do we practice Advent? Let yourself be shaped by the hope and expectation of your Christian faith. Awaken to what you are and what you are becoming in Christ. You may need to make some faithful choices between having an Advent or just a holiday season. The holiday season clamors for your attention. Advent sits quietly, inviting you to come and be expectant. The holiday season urges you to get up and get going. Advent calls you to stop and listen. The holiday season tells you to grasp. Advent says give.

Making space for the Christ child in Advent involves making space for the questions of faith: For what do I wait and hope? What do I expect of the life of faith? What do I want for Christmas? What do I want from the Christ child? Advent is the season to reflect upon what it is that we hope for.

Lets keep some room for Advent during this holiday season. May it open our hearts to deeper expectations of joy and peace and justice. May we find that our watching for the coming Christ child shapes us into Christlikeness. May we find Christ truly born in us, and in those we love.

O Come, O Come, Immanuel

Monday, April 23, 2007

Easter Day - 2007 Practice Resurrection

Easter Sunday Year C
Luke 24:1-12
Jerry Cappel


Practice Resurrection

I meet with some fellow priests each Wednesday morning over coffee. It is called a “sermon preparation” group. And we are that, from time to time when we do not get distracted by other church business. Anyway, we met last week and actually did discuss sermons, partly because, I think, of the fact that this upcoming Sunday was Easter. It seemed to be the consensus at the table that Easter was one of the toughest Sundays to preach – not just because it was the “big Sunday” and had all the big expectations around it, but because resurrection itself was hard to preach. It is certainly true that resurrection is hard to grasp. Crosses we can pick up. But resurrections are a whole other matter. Those are kind of hard to control or measure. We can turn it into song, we can encounter it in ritual and worship, but it is kind of hard to do anything about it. It is fun for Easter and its good stuff for funerals. It makes for great music and gives confidence and hope after death. But what about after church? What about at home and at work? How do I take it with me?

Then I ran across this from a sign in an Irish pub:
“St. Patrick’s Day: One day a year; 364 days to practice.”

Now that’s useful – and its really not so far off to apply that to Easter. Easter for the church (like St. Patrick’s day for an Irish pub) is the central event of our faith and the center of our church calendar. All other events in the church year are built upon Easter. Each Sunday is a “little Easter.” And then I thought of a poem written by Wendell Berry (the farmer/poet/author/activist/curmudgeon) who used the phrase, “practice resurrection.” And I thought – that’s it! Easter Sunday: One day a year, 364 days to practice. We don’t need to wait till we die for resurrection to happen. We don’t need to wait for funerals to talk about resurrection. It is something we can practice. Let me read some of the poem to you:
An excerpt from Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front by Wendell Berry. . . . . . . . .
So, friends, every day do somethingthat won't compute.
Love the Lord.Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.Love someone who does not deserve it.
Give your approval to all you cannotunderstand.
Praise ignorance, for what man has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest that you did not plant, that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested when they have rotted into the mold. Call that profit.
Prophesy such returns. Put your faith in the two inches of humus that will build under the trees every thousand years.
Listen to carrion - put your ear close, and hear the faint chattering of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh. Laughter is immeasurable.
Be joyful though you have considered all the facts. . .. . . .
As soon as the generals and the politicos can predict the motions of your mind, lose it.
Leave it as a sign to mark the false trail, the way you didn't go.
Be like the fox who makes more tracks than necessary, some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

Do that which does not compute. Now there is a description of the life of Jesus.

Resurrection Economics
Jesus spent his days doing things that just did not compute (in an earthly sense). And when all those actions that did not add up led to a cross – God put his seal of approval on all those choices with the stamp of an empty tomb. Jesus was already practicing resurrection when he aligned himself with simple fishermen, and made them the stewards of his gospel. Jesus was practicing resurrection when he chose to hang out with the poor and the outcasts, the sick and the sinners. Jesus was practicing resurrection when he forcefully spoke the truth, even when it offended people of power and influence. Jesus was practicing resurrection when he when told a rich young ruler to sell all he had, when he defended the adulteress and condemned the self-righteous. Jesus was practicing resurrection when he touched the lepers, touched the dead, and touched the bleeding woman. Jesus was practicing resurrection when he called on his disciples to put away their swords and take up their crosses.

We practice resurrection when we say no to those like Pontius Pilate who was sure that real power lay in the power of the state and sword. We practice resurrection when we say no to Judas, who cared more about money than about the message of Jesus. You practice resurrection when you step away from the crowds who want to keep you in your place, who want to keep you in line, and want to keep you earthbound to bread and their social expectations.
Practicing resurrection is to avoid the trap of the religious leaders for whom their religious heritage was paramount, even if it meant sacrificing one of their own. It is to anoint the feet of Jesus with oil that cost a year’s worth of wages (as Mary did). It is to climb a tree as an adult and then give half your money away (as Zacheaus did). It is to defy the crowds and reach out to touch the hem of Jesus’ garment (as the bleeding woman did), or to defy the crowds and keep yelling out to Jesus for mercy (as the blind man did), or to defy the crowds and sit on Jesus’ lap (as the children did). It is to turn the other cheek when everyone is telling you to strike back. It is to go a second mile when everyone already thinks you are acting like a doormat. It is to sell all you have to buy a field with a pearl in it that no one else sees. It is to believe in small things like mustard seeds and to believe that the poor and the mournful are blessed. It is to let yourself be forgiven even though you have just ruined much of your family’s life. It is to forgive the one who has so deeply wronged you. That was the path to that empty tomb with the rolled away stone.

The Rolled Away Stone
Let me share with you one more nugget from our Wednesday coffee. The story this morning tells of the stone rolled away from the tomb. Do you know why that stone was rolled away? The Dean (Mark Bourlakakas) said– you know, the stone was not rolled to let Jesus out of the tomb. He did not need that stone rolled away. With his resurrected body he just appeared and disappeared right through the walls. It was rolled away to let us in. It was rolled away so that we could see. That is why the tomb is open. So we might get in there and encounter resurrection. To get us past the mundane and the earthbound. To get us past valuing only that which we can see and measure and control. To help get us past the lies that the world tells us. To help us get past our fear of being alone and our fear of death. To point us to a path – the path of resurrection that Jesus pioneered for us. To give us the hope we need to enable us to practice resurrection.

Community of Practice
There are what are called “communities of practice.” Most professions have them. You cannot practice medicine outside of the medical community. The medical community creates the schools, does the research, writes the journals and controls the training of practitioners. You cannot practice medicine without peer review, keeping up with the journals, and submitting yourself to the oversite of the medical community. The same is true in law, or engineering and a number of other fields of practice. In the case of our church, we practice resurrection. But to practice resurrection means we have to encounter it in worship and in the lives of others. It means we work at it over time with the help of good teachers, fellow saints, committed relationships and good council. When we do the things Jesus did and we keep at it day after day, and we keep doing those things- prayer, worship, feeding the hungry, forgiving and receiving forgiveness, loving the least of these, etc. - and we do these things under the tutelage of the saints, teachers, writers, and pastors from across time and around the globe, then we will become competent in seeing the Risen Lord and following him. It is in the practices that we will see him and know him.”

So, Happy Easter! One Sunday a year – 364 to practice.


Alleluia! The Lord is Risen!

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Welcome to Our Sermon Blog

We will be posting sermons and reflections from our Rector. Come back shortly