December 2 - ThisWeeksSermon

“It’s about not knowing.”
The 1st Sunday of Advent, December 2, 2007
AUDIOVERSION:http://www.episcopalmarlboro.org/Uploads/20071202ThisWeeksSermon.mov
My daughter has been in the hospital, you know.
Watching and waiting for the baby, waiting for obstetricians to declare that the optimal moment has finally arrived for bringing our immediate family’s first grandchild into the world.
I told Jennifer that I rather enjoyed at least one thing about all this waiting:
At least when I call her, she’s there.
She answers.
That’s quite a new experience for me.
She’s always in a meeting, or on the road, or on the phone.
I leave a message, and she calls back when she gets time.
But now that she’s “tethered” to her bed, so to speak, I call and I get an answer, usually.
Tuesday morning I called Jennifer from Grand Central Station.
No answer.
Figured she was in the bathroom or something.
Tuesday afternoon, from Grand Central Station, I called again.
No answer.
Couldn’t imagine what was going on.
Again, I told myself it was just a coincidence that she’s in the bathroom every time I call.
When I got home, I called again.
Still no answer.
Then I called José, my son-in-law.
He hadn’t been able to reach her either.
First time he called, he said, the line was busy.
Later, there was no answer.
He said he’d track her down for me, for us!
I sat next to the phone, watching and waiting.
Imagining all sorts of things, imagining an emergency, imagining it was such an emergency that she’d been rushed from her room so quickly that no one had time even to call José.
What could be going on, I wondered, as more and more anxiety welled up inside me.
All was well
Of course all was well.
Not long after talking with José, Jennifer called me, herself.
She had been “entertaining” a string of visitors that afternoon, and she thought it would be rude to take phone calls while they were there, so she was ignoring the phone, ignoring me.
(I don’t think she’ll do that again.)
As I speak here this morning, Jennifer’s undoubtedly sitting there in her hospital bed, at the Alta Bates Medical Center in Berkeley California, still watching and waiting.
There’s a little test they can do to determine how developed the baby’s lungs are.
They ran that test Thursday.
The baby wasn’t ready.
They’ll test again tomorrow.
Meanwhile, we’re all “watching and waiting.”
The beginning of advent
Seems appropriate on this first Sunday in Advent.
It’s what the experience of Advent is supposed to be about.
“Watching and waiting.”
In Advent, we’re expected to re-experience the anticipation that something wonderful is about to happen.
we’re not sure exactly what will happen, or exactly when it will happen, or exactly how it will happen, but in the season of Advent, we are to know, somehow, that something wonderful is just beyond, readying itself for a miraculous entry into our world.
The Church’s New Year’s Day
Today’s not only the first Sunday in Advent.
It’s also the first day of the new year for the Church.
Every year at this time, everything starts over.
We just finished Year C in the lectionary cycle.
Today is the first Sunday following the lectionary for Year A, where we’ll be reading primarily from Matthew’s version of the gospel story.
And today it was a strange prediction of a time when Christ would come to establish a reign of God in the world, a prediction of a day when, apparently, not every person, but every other person, would be unexpectedly “taken.”
Two men will be working in the field—one will be taken, one left behind; two women will be grinding at the mill—one will be taken, one left behind.
Unexpectedly.
No warning.
Some people read this prediction and take it quite literally.
You’ve probably seen a bumper sticker or two:
Warning. In case of rapture this car will be unmanned.
It’s a warning to nonbelievers.
Or this:
After the rapture, can I have your car?
A response to that warning by those who don’t take the prediction literally.
I don’t it literally either.
I don’t think there will be any kind of “second coming” resembling the scene described by Matthew.
Scholars will tell you that these warnings are not thought to be words of Jesus, although attributed to him.
It was out of poverty and hopelessness that the Jews began to dream of God’s restoration, and envision exactly what might take place at the end of history when God’s kingdom would finally be established.
It was poverty and hopelessness that fed the yearning for a messiah who would come, reestablish a Jewish nation, restore a Jewish throne, and usher in a new Kingdom of God.
They found comfort and hope in apocalyptic fantasies that anticipated the end of the world.
The promised one, they said, would descend out of the sky at the end of time, and usher in a new age of peace.
Many definitions of the messiah floated around in Jewish circles.
He would be the son of David and heir to David’s throne, some said.
He could be the new Moses or the new Elijah, others guessed.
He would be the “Son of Man”, even the Son of God.
All of the apocalyptic language is mythological language, language expressing hope not bound by the pain of this world.
It was never meant to be literalized.
Literalizing those myths has actually falsified the Christ experience so extensively that it’s actually difficult for many, many contemporary people to relate to Christianity at all, difficult for many even to call themselves “Christian.”
The end of the world?
When will the world end?
When will God-in-Christ return?
When will God act?
What will happen in the future?
No one can know the answer to these questions.
More than anything else, this passage from Matthew is not about knowing.
It’s about not knowing.
Theologian Paul Tillich said that the most painful human reality is that we don’t know.
Yet, at the same time, we must choose.
And our most informed choice is never more than an educated guess.
The future remains mystery until it’s happened.
The experience of Advent
This is what the experience of Advent is supposed to be about.
“Watching and waiting.”
Hoping without knowing.
Anticipation that something wonderful is about to happen.
We’re not sure exactly what will happen, or exactly when it will happen, or exactly how it will happen, but something wonderful is beyond, readying itself, maybe it’s just a baby, readying itself for a miraculous entry into our world.
What will happen in the future?
More than anything else, probably, this morning’s passage from Matthew’s gospel is about not knowing, about trusting, about simply watching and waiting.
Jerry Brooks
The 1st Sunday of Advent, December 2, 2007