Sermon: Christmas Eve & Christmas Day

The Very Rev. William Thomas Deneke, rector
> Scripture for the day

Delane, Haitian projects manager for Food for the Poor and a friend I have gotten to know on trips to Haiti, had returned to her hotel in Cap-Haitien after visiting a poor village in the middle of a swamp. The village was so poor that rather than attend school, boys spent each day combing the dirty swamp water for tiny crabs that would be added to a weak soup for their supper. Even though the sun was fading, Delane had a sense that she needed to go back to the village that evening. She and a fellow worker drove to the village and began to walk along the paths built on islands in the swamp, islands created by mounds of garbage. They came to a hut. Able to see through the stick walls, they saw a woman inside placing a frying pan over a charcoal fire. It was suppertime. Only, the frying pan was empty.

As darkness began to fall, Delane and her companion knocked on the door. The woman welcomed them and explained that she had no food. She had prayed that God would provide her with food for a meal and placed the pan on the stove in faith that God would respond. And God did. Delane made sure the woman had something to eat.

Christmas is a story of discovery. A story about discovering light in the midst of darkness. About discovering wonder, hope and love.

Here is another Christmas story. Maybe you’ve heard this one.

In 1914 on a World War I battlefield in Flanders, German, French and British troops faced one another on Christmas Eve. A young German soldier began to sing “Silent Night” and others joined in. When they had finished, the British and French responded with other Christmas carols.

Eventually, the men from both sides left their trenches and met in the middle. They shook hands, exchanged gifts, and shared pictures of their families. Informal soccer games began in what had been "no-man's-land." And a joint service was held to bury the dead of both sides.

The generals, of course, were not pleased with these events. Men who have come to know each other's names and seen each other's families are much less likely to want to kill each other. War seems to require a nameless, faceless enemy.

So, following that magical night the men on both sides spent a few days simply firing aimlessly into the sky. Then the war was back in earnest and continued for three more bloody years. Yet the story of that Christmas Eve lingered - a night when the angels really did sing of peace on earth.

There are so many wonderful Christmas stories. Stories of hope. Stories of wonder. Stories of love.

Throughout the days of Advent we were reminded of how important it is to be ready to receive the gifts of God. Be prepared; be ready. In the twelve-day season of Christmas we embrace the wonder, feast on grace and sing with joy. Then the work begins.

Listen to a Christmas prayer by Howard Thurman:

When the star in the sky is gone,
when the kings and princes are home,
when the shepherds are back with their flocks,

The work of Christmas begins:
to find the lost,
to feed the hungry,
to release the prisoner,
to rebuild the nations,
to bring peace among the people
to make music in the heart.

Preparation, celebration, and the work of thanksgiving. This is the pattern of living out Christmas.

Consider again the story of Delane in Haiti. Delane was prepared to receive God’s gifts. She had grown up in a poor family and empathized with those in need. She had chosen a vocation of service to the poor and had worked in places around the world to this end. Delane was fervent in her faith, possessed a keen mind and considerable organizational ability. She was ready to be led by God’s Spirit.

That evening in Cap-Haitian Delane was prepared to hear a call to return to the village in the swamp and she was prepared to give as a Christ bearer.

The same was true for the woman with the empty skillet. Despite her dire circumstances, she clung to hope. She trusted in God as darkness descended. She was prepared to be filled with grace.

Then came that miracle moment when these two lives touched. Both women knew the Spirit of the Lord was upon them. And the celebration began. There was joy. There was gladness.

There followed the work of giving thanks, the work of Christmas. And since that night when Delane saw the woman standing before an empty frying pan, the village built in a swamp has been transformed. New homes are being built on dry land. Boys and girls are in school. New boats enable the fisherman to catch larger fish. In the center of the village is a stone tower that stores clean drinking water. And on its sides is written, “Hope”.

All of this is about Christmas. It is about opposing troops’ singing on a battlefield, having food in a frying pan, and learning to read rather than dig for crabs in polluted water. It is about discovering reconciliation in animosity, hope in emptiness and promise in despair. Christmas is about finding compassion, meaning and gratitude.

God comes to us not only in ancient stables but also in all sorts of unlikely places and not simply on Christmas day. We are asked only to be ready to behold Christ among us, calling us to be prepared, to celebrate with joy and to do the work of Christmas.

What a night of wonder this is! Heaven and earth have kissed each other. We celebrate with our hearts full to the brim with hope.

And when gratitude fills our being, when the spirit of Christmas opens us to God’s presence, and the star in the sky is gone, and the kings and princes are home, and the shepherds are back with their flocks, we will in gladness embrace the work of Christmas:

To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among the people,
To make music in the heart.

That is the call of such a night as this. Our hearts are born again into the fullness of grace and the work of Christmas. Glory to God in the highest and peace to all people on earth. Amen.

Sermon: Fourth Sunday of Advent

The Very Rev. William Thomas Deneke, rector
> Scripture for the day

This Christmas there has been more preparation than usual going on for my son, Chris, and his family. They have also been getting ready for the birth of their second child – a boy – William Courtland Deneke.

Ella, my son’s four year old first born, has been very excited about becoming a big sister. However, when it became apparent that her baby brother might arrive earlier than expected, Ella voiced her concern. “I want him to come after Christmas, and I want snow!”

Well, this past Wednesday, December 17, William Courtland Deneke was born. When Deborah talked to Ella on the phone after Ella saw her new baby brother at the hospital, Ella said with a deep sigh, “Mimi, he’s already here!” Ella might have thought she was all prepared for Christmas, but I don’t think she was truly ready for her baby brother’s birth.

Are you ready for Christmas? That’s a question we hear a lot. And the truth is we are never fully ready for Christmas. We are never totally prepared for the birth of the Christ child. The good news is that’s ok. Getting ready for Christmas means in part realizing that it is not all up to us.

That is one of the things so appealing about today’s gospel story of Mary. We have heard John the Baptist admonish folks to make a straight path for the Lord, but today we hear of another kind of preparation. An angel says to Mary, Do not be afraid; you have found favor with the Lord.

Advent weaves together the themes of judgment and grace. On this Sunday before Christmas the emphasis is upon grace, upon finding favor with the Lord. And that is something we need to hear.

I remember Christmas celebrations from my childhood. There was an emphasis on getting everything just right and working ever so hard to make sure it was. You had to be ready for Christmas. Nothing could be left to chance.

Today in the scriptures, we hear of a different kind of preparation: one of the heart. A letting go of our anxieties and fears. Mary trusted that God would do God’s part; it was not all up to her.

What a refreshing model of discipleship. Letting go of the need to be always in control, giving up the belief it is all up to us. Taking on the faith to trust in God and to let ourselves be empowered by God.

The early church struggled mightily with understanding the incarnation of God in Christ. Finally the vision emerged of seeing Christ as both fully divine and fully human. In Christ we see a partnership of humanity and divinity. In Mary we see humanity trusting and accepting the divinity of God.

Getting ready for Christmas is not only about making straight paths in our lives for God, but also about receiving the grace that transforms us into Christ bearers.

The frightening part of that is trusting God to do God’s part. Yet if we are to respond faithfully to the Christmas invitation to partner with God, we cannot stop with John the Baptist; we must also embrace Mary. With Mary we must find the courage to say, Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.

I like what Barbara Brown Taylor says about our fear of accepting God’s favor. She writes,

You can decide to say yes. You can decide to be a daredevil, a test pilot, a gambler. You can set your book down and listen to a creature’s strange idea. You can decide to take part in a plan you did not choose; doing things you do not know how to do for reasons you do not entirely understand. You can take part in a thrilling and dangerous scheme with no script and no guarantees. You can agree to smuggle God into the world inside your own body. Deciding to say yes does not mean that you are not afraid, by the way. It just means that you are not willing to let your fear stop you.

Following our Lord does not take away all fear. We can imagine that Mary had many fears over the years. As his mother, there were doubtless many times she was overcome with anxiety and fear of what lie might ahead for Jesus. However, she must have reminded herself time and time again that she had put her trust in God. She had accepted the mission presented to her by the angel. She would not let fear deter her from serving her Lord.

Today’s gospel reminds us that Mary was invited to step out boldly and act in faith. And to do so trusting that she was in partnership with God. It was not all up to her.

That invitation comes to all of us in some way. Somehow life conspires to lead us into holiness, into making decisions as servants of the Lord. In Mary that invitation was presented and received in such grace that we count the story as special and unique. But God’s spirit calls all of us. Calls us to be Christ bearers. Calls us through grace to give birth to God’s incarnated presence. From our humanity blessed by God can come hope and life and salvation. From us can emerge forgiveness and redemption not just because we have gotten ready for Christmas by making paths straight, but also because we have trusted the favor of God that rests upon each of us.

Thanks to Mary, we know that getting ready for Christmas is a process pregnant with possibilities beyond our imagining and beyond just our doing. Possibilities as wondrous as the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Sermon: Third Sunday of Advent

The Rev. Allan Sandlin, associate rector
> click here for the Scripture for the day

Come, Lord Jesus, come. We wait, we hope, we yearn. Come, find a people who wander in the wilderness. Come, bring hope to people who have given up hoping. Come, be light to our darkness. Come, speak a word into our silence. Come, Lord Jesus. We yearn for you, even when we don’t know it is you for whom we are yearning. Amen.

John the Baptist faithfully shows up on the church calendar every year around this time during Advent. We hear his story told and retold in the gospels and in fact, the same basic outline of the story is told in all 4 gospels—very few biblical characters rated that kind of coverage in the New Testament—and today we’ve listened to part of that story from the 4th Gospel, the Gospel according to St. John.

But did you notice? If you’re familiar with the character of John, did you notice he forgot to wear his camel-hair coat and he wasn’t munching on locusts and wild honey the way he does when Mark tells the story? In the 4th Gospel, the author doesn’t paint him with the same brush that Matthew, Mark and Luke do—we hear nothing about his being Jesus’ cousin, and there’s not a word about his baptizing Jesus. In fact, he’s not even called the Baptist. He’s just “a man sent from God, whose name was John.”

In this morning’s version of the story, his song sounds plaintive, restive, mysterious.

I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord…
Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me…

We can almost hear him singing…

What is the crying at Jordan? Who hears, O God, the prophecy? Dark is the season, dark our hearts and shut to mystery.

In the dark night, the uncertain crying of this mysterious stranger still catches us off-guard and unsettles us, asking questions, leaving space for us to wonder. Who is he, where did he come from? What is the crying, who can hear it?

He came as a witness to testify to the light…
But he himself was not the light…
He came to testify to the light.

It was the disbelieving clergy, priests and Levites from Jerusalem, who questioned him saying “Who are you?” and he replied, I’m not the Messiah. Well then, maybe you are Elijah? In other versions of the story, we almost imagine that John fancied himself a prophet like Elijah but not today. I am not, he says.

Ok, then, how about the prophet? Are you the prophet? No. Each time his answer gets shorter and shorter. I am not the Messiah. I am not. No.

And then finally he finds his voice. Pointing toward the One who was coming out of the darkness, pointing toward the light breaking into the world.

John the Baptist is particularly important to us in the season of Advent. All around us Christmas has already come. I know some us get frustrated that we aren’t singing Christmas carols in church yet, we’re not talking about baby Jesus yet. Ok, I’ll admit that at home, I’ve pulled our favorite Christmas carol book off the shelf and once or twice, just once or twice, I’ve sat down at the piano and played a few carols.

But John the Baptist helps us keep our eye on the coming light, reminding us of what has not yet come, pointing us in the right direction but saying “not yet” and reminding us that he is not the Messiah, nor are we.

A minute ago Ruby sang the 1st verse of a hauntingly beautiful hymn that reminds us of John the Baptist. It’s a song that sings of the mystery and darkness of Advent.

Who then shall stir in this darkness, prepare for joy in the winter night? Mortal in darkness we lie down, blind-hearted seeing no light.

John could have claimed greatness, he could have reminded the crowds that he was a blood relative of the One who was coming. But John cares nothing for his own fame. Not even to justify the good news he heralds. He is not the light coming into the darkness. He is the voice that announces the coming of that light. He is the trumpet blast, the resounding organ, he is the soft, humming cello that wakes us up, that rouses us from our deep slumber. He is the opening act for the main event.

He refuses to cooperate with his audience but he does have something of earth-shattering importance to tell them. And here’s the thing: If they have been confounded about who he is, if they have had a hard time fitting him into a category, just wait. Just wait for the one who will come after him. The light that is coming into the darkness will be so dazzling, so brilliant that it will shatter their illusions of life in the dimly lit world.

Yet, the light will not fit their expectations, conform to their carefully drawn plans, submit to their domination. In his response to the religious leaders, John turns out to be a very good witness to the light. But neither John nor the One coming after him will ever fit into anyone’s little box. John cannot be classified or catalogued—as such, he is witness to the indefinable, unknowable Messiah. No one can define this Lord, no one can conform this Lord to a pre-determined mold. John simply invites us to pay attention to the light that is coming into the world, to watch and wait. And trust that God will open our eyes when the time comes. It is enough to trust the light to be light enough to see…

We’d been waiting awhile. I think Mom knew the end was coming and maybe I knew it, too, though we’d not spoken about it. Shortly after we ate lunch in their apartment, Mom went back to Dad’s bed-side in the nursing home and found his breathing was becoming more and more shallow. She called the apartment and just said, “You should come.”

We stood around his bed, the priest prayed the Litany with us, Mom and I sang a hymn, we told him how much we loved him. And he died. I’d arranged with a local funeral home for someone to come immediately to take his body to the hospital so they could do an autopsy requested by his doctor. Two hours went by and no one came. They said they were short on ambulances and no one was available.

Finally, someone from Hospice said she knew a man could help. “He works for himself and he works by himself. Lawrence is a strong, black man and he’ll probably come dressed in overalls. Oh and he’ll probably want to say a prayer with y’all.” 20 minutes after my phone call asking him to come, Lawrence came around the corner, pushing a gurney with a dark red velvet body bag folded on top. As he approached us, he offered his outstretched hand, introduced himself and went straight into the room. My brother and his wife were standing with Mom at the bed.

While were waiting for someone to come, we’d been playing a Willie Nelson cd that Dad loved, crying one minute and laughing the next at the strangeness of it all: the family of this Baptist preacher, gathered around our dead father, listening to “On the road again” as we kept vigil.

Lawrence came into the room, gathered us all together in a circle and announced “We’re gonna have a prayer now.” And we grabbed each other’s hands and this big man prayed. He prayed that God would take Dad and welcome him home and bless his family and I don’t remember any more of his words but I’ll never forget the certainty of his presence, the certainly we all felt that God was very near.

When he finished praying he asked us to step out of the room so that he and the nurses could do their work. I was told later that he treated Dad’s body with care and reverence and in a few minutes, he was done and on his way. We never saw him again.

Now, Lawrence wasn’t Jesus. I told one or two people I thought he might have been an angel. But now I’m not even sure I’d go that far. But he was certainly a witness. At a moment when we most needed it, he pointed us toward the light and that light filled our hearts and brought comfort and relief and courage.

Lord, give us grace to awake us, to see the branch that begins to bloom; in great humility is hid all heaven in a little room.

Lawrence was a little like John the Baptist—one who’s willing to stand where few are willing: alone, in the wilderness of people’s lives, in the darkness.

You know, John the Baptist never said, Just follow Jesus and everything will turn out the way you have always wanted it to. No. That is not the promise of John. That is not the promise of Christmas.

Methodist Bishop Will Willimon once said, In order to see the fragile light of Christmas, one has first got to become accustomed to the dark. In order to see the stars in the highest heavens, one must sit for a while in the darkness here on earth. Are you up to such honesty?

If you are experiencing the wilderness this Advent, if you are feeling lost and cut-off, alone and bewildered, wandering in a sea of uncertainty…God is making a way. God will come again and will bring good news to the oppressed, God will bind up the brokenhearted, God will proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners, God will comfort those who mourn. God is making a way in the wilderness of our hearts, our lives.

So, stay awake. Wait and hope for the coming of our Emmanuel, our God who comes to be with us. Come, Lord Jesus, come.

Now comes the day of salvation, in joy and terror the Word is born! God gives himself into our lives; O let salvation dawn!

*The hymn is St. Mark’s, Berekley (“What is the crying at Jordan?”), #69 in the 1982 Hymnal.

Sermon: Second Sunday of Advent

Angela Wiggins, seminarian
> click here for the Scripture for the day

North Florida is a beautiful place to live,
but it seems to attract – or maybe inspire –
more than its share of roadside prophets.
Nearly every time we drove to the coast,
somewhere along Highway 319
we would see a prophet standing beside the road.
He – and they were always men – would park his pickup truck
and hold signs exhorting travelers to repent and follow God.
Then, at dusk, they would pack up and head back to their regular lives –
whatever regular means for a roadside prophet.
Without the posters, though, they looked pretty ordinary.
You would never pick them out at the grocery store.

But there was one prophet in Tallahassee that stood out from all the rest.
His signs had the same themes as the other prophets,
but he was a little more creative and
more concerned with justice and the poor.
He worked at the intersection of Monroe and Tennessee streets,
close to the capitol and the universities.
This was the premier location for prophesying.
Traffic moved slowly at that intersection and
there were pedestrians and bicyclists.
So, unlike the prophets out on the highway,
his audience could hear him preach.
Soon everyone recognized him.
He called himself King Love.

As you might guess, King Love did not dress like just any prophet.
After all, he was a king.
He wore a big gold crown like we put on the Magi in Christmas pageants
and he had big black boots.
But, best of all, he wore a floor-length red velvet cape
trimmed with gold embroidery and white fur.
You couldn’t miss him.
Like Santa Claus, he had big red cheeks and a long white beard.
And after a few humid days in that red velvet cape,
he smelled like a Herd of Reindeer.
I know this because I once stood in line behind him at the grocery store.

Even without his signs, you knew he was different.
You knew this was a prophet,
a man with a message.
Even if you could not see the words on his signs,
you could read his clothes
and know there was something he had to say.

It doesn’t take long to get noticed
when you stand on a street corner dressed in a
gold crown and a red velvet cape.
Soon people were pulling over to talk to King Love.
Students would linger on the corner and
strike up conversations with him.
The newspaper did a story on King Love.
Everyone wanted to know why a man would dress that way.

Once there was another prophet with wardrobe issues.
The Gospel lesson tells us John the Baptist also wore distinctive garb.
Like the prophet Elijah,
he wore a leather belt around camel hair clothes.
Can you imagine what he smelled like?
Mmm – wet camel.
Not only that, but his diet was locusts and honey.
A very unusual man.

People would have noticed John the Baptist.
It’s no wonder he attracted a following.
Those clothes said “prophet,”
but it was clear he was not just any prophet.
Those clothes said: “Elijah.”

That’s when you know it’s time to listen up –
a prophet like Elijah doesn’t come along every day.
The resemblance to Elijah was significant
because of the prophecy that Elijah would return
with the coming of the day of the Lord.
If he dressed like Elijah;
maybe he was Elijah.
The appearance of Elijah would be great news.
So the appearance of an Elijah-like prophet was big news.

Even before John said anything,
the people knew he had something to say.
They knew something big was happening.
They knew they had to hear John the Baptist,
And they wanted to know what he was all about.

His diet and wardrobe are hints that John
may have been part of the Essenes.
a Jewish sect with separatist tendencies.
That would explain why he was out there in the wilderness.

So there’s John out in the wilderness
preparing the way of the Lord.
And the people are coming to him, out there in the wilderness.
Coming to hear that they should repent and be baptized.
Now that’s a long way to go to get bad news.
But, John also brings good news, Mark tells us.
John brings news of the coming of the Lord.

John’s message was
“the one who is more powerful than I is coming.”
Imagine that – John is drawing crowds to himself and
proclaiming baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
That’s power, but John says,
“you aint seen nothing.”
“Wait ‘til you see what’s coming.”
“Wait ‘til you see who’s coming.”

The message from John the Baptist brought the past and
the future together in a strange intersection.
The intersection of urgency and waiting.
The intersection of prophecy and fulfillment.
The intersection of heaven and earth.
The intersection where the new creation is born.

The first verse of the Gospel of Mark is about that new creation –
“the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”
This could be the title of the Gospel.
But notice how Mark 1:1 sounds a lot like Genesis 1:1.
Compare “the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” to
“In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth.”
Mark says that’s what God is up to – a new creation.
The good news of Jesus Christ is the news of the new creation.

The Baptist tells them to prepare for the coming of the Lord.
“Repent,” he says.
By that, he doesn’t mean, “say you’re sorry,”
or “say you won’t do it again.”
He means metanoia.
Metanoia, that beautiful Greek word for a complete change of heart.
When John preaches a baptism of repentance,
he is not offering a purification rite
for them to do whenever they felt guilty.
He is offering metanoia,
a complete change of heart,
a new creation.
He is inviting them to stand at the intersection
where the new creation is being born.

In Advent, we are standing in that intersection,
the intersection of ordinary time and the incarnation.
the intersection of heaven and earth.
the intersection of prophecy and fulfillment.
In Advent we wait with urgency and with patience
for the coming of the Lord and
for the coming again of the Lord.

While we stand at the intersection
of ordinary time and the incarnation,
we wait…and we prepare.
We stand at the intersection of heaven and earth
where God becomes one with us
that we might be made whole.
We stand at the intersection of prophecy and fulfillment
where we see the fulfillment and the not yet fulfilled.
And we wait.

The Gospel tells us what we are to do while we wait:
Pay Attention.
We are to be on the lookout.
We are to expect the coming of the Lord.
We are to prepare a way for the Lord.

Today’s Epistle lesson tells us how we are to live as we wait for the Lord.
We are to lead “lives of holiness and godliness.”
The holiness we are called to is not
the holiness of separation from the world.
We are called to be holy as God is holy.
This is the self-giving love we see in Christ Jesus.
This is the holiness that is our calling,
a face-to-face self-giving love.
We are to live in peace. The peace of Christ.
Yes, we are waiting, but this is not passive waiting,
It’s active waiting.
We are to strive.
We are to hasten the coming of the day of God.

As Isaiah tells us,
we are to join the proclamation,
“Here is your God.”
The prophet tells us
the word of God does not wither or fade.
While we wait, we can trust God.

The old is passing away and
“we wait for new heavens and a new earth,
where righteousness is at home.”

Maranatha. Come, Lord Jesus.

Amen.

Sermon: First Sunday of Advent

Tracy J. Wells, guest preacher
> click here for the Scripture for the day

"Then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven." (Mark 13:26-27)

For many years, I missed this part of Advent.

"Oh, it's the first Sunday of Advent, what a lovely season," I'd think to myself. Time for Advent wreaths and the lovely greenery decorating the church, time for the beautiful Advent lessons and carols, time for those fun chocolate Advent calendars to help us count down the days to Christmas.

I had never really looked closely at the Scriptures that we read this time of year - Scriptures that are not just about foreshadowing the birth of Jesus in the first century, not just about waiting for Christmas, but about waiting for that other coming of Jesus - the Second Coming - which we affirm every week when we recite the Nicene Creed - "he will come again to judge the living and the dead."

In all the loveliness of the pre-Christmas season, somehow my mind conveniently edited out the judgment part of Advent.

This is easy to do, especially when you're part of a church that doesn't like to focus too much on judgment. We are a church of welcome, of inclusion, not a church of judgment and exclusion. It's one of the main reasons I chose in my adult life to become an Episcopalian. (I'm not a "cradle" case like some of you out there.)

But we don't get to edit out the judgment part just because it makes us uncomfortable. Whether we choose to acknowledge it or not, every year during the end of Pentecost and the beginning of Advent, we read these passages of Scripture that speak about Jesus's Second Coming and the final judgment of all humanity. And today, I am inviting you to engage with that part of our tradition that we so often want to gloss over.

Now, don't start squirming too much. I'm not going to launch into a fiery "hellfire and brimstone" kind of sermon here. We are still in the Episcopal Church, after all. And actually, I think most of us don't need fear-mongering tactics to get us to reflect on God's judgment. I suspect it is a question that many of us reflect on quite often, however quietly and privately. It is a question basic to the human condition, a question that we revisit every time we encounter sudden and unexpected death.

At its most universal, the question is this:
"If I were to die tomorrow, what meaning would my life have? What would I have contributed to this world?"

At its most specific, within the Christian faith, the question is this:
"When I meet Jesus, at my death or at the Second Coming, what will Jesus think of the way I have been living my life? How have I served God with this gift of life God has given me?"

Christian contemporary artist Nichole Nordeman asks this question in a song called "Legacy" that has spoken to me over the years. "I wanna leave a legacy," she sings in the chorus. "How will they remember me? Did I choose to love? Did I point to God enough to make a mark on things?"

The Scriptures we have been reading lately invite us to reflect on these questions. Last week we heard the parable of the sheep and the goats, from Matthew 25 - an image of the final judgment in which Jesus measures the faithful not by how many vestry meetings they've attended or how many church functions they've organized, but by how they've treated the "least of these" - the most vulnerable members of society - those who are hungry, thirsty, sick, or in prison.

And so on this first Sunday of Advent, as we begin to wait for Christ's coming - both on Christmas and in the Second Coming - we are invited again to reflect on this question. How are we living our lives? Are we living in accordance with the kingdom of God as described by Jesus in the Scriptures? Are we choosing to love? Are we pointing to God in all we do? Are we caring for the most vulnerable members of our society? Today marks the beginning of a year of carefully and intentionally asking those questions of our common life together.

Two weeks ago, the diocesan annual council voted to pass a resolution that commits the Diocese of Atlanta to focus intentionally on poverty for the next full church year, beginning today on the first Sunday of Advent and ending on Christ the King Sunday next November. The resolution instructs that every gathering of the church for the next year should begin with the question, "How shall what we are doing here effect or involve the poor?"

I have talked with some clergy from around the diocese who felt frustrated by this resolution and the demands it makes. They felt if they voted against the resolution, it would seem like they were "voting against the poor," and yet they didn't think simply asking this question at the beginning of Bible study or worship or vestry meetings would really accomplish anything - and worried that it would seem forced and inauthentic.

I can understand their concerns, but I was excited when I heard about this resolution. Call me naïve, but I think this kind of question is exactly the type of question the church should be asking every time it gathers as the body of Christ. To me, this is a "final judgment" kind of question.

In my vision of the Second Coming, if Jesus were to walk through those doors right now, I feel fairly confident he'd be asking us just such a question - how has what we have been doing here, in this place, effected or involved the poor, the most vulnerable of society? Would Jesus recognize this place and our work here as a continuation of the work of reconciliation and justice he began in first-century Palestine?

I acknowledge how cumbersome it may seem to keep this question at the forefront of every gathering of the church for the next year. But I think that is precisely the point. The prophetic voice has never been easy to hear. Sure, it may seem awkward to bring this "agenda item about the poor" into situations where it doesn't seem to "fit" - the Seniors in Action trip to hear the Atlanta Symphony's Christmas concert later this month, or the Feminist Theological Reflection Group's Advent party, or the next young adult dinner gathering - what do any of these activities have to do with the poor? Well, perhaps that is precisely the question we should be asking of all these activities.

At its best, this exercise will bring an awareness of poverty into those situations and circumstances where we do not usually think about it. Perhaps if we approach this year remembering how deeply and inextricably God's judgment is linked to our treatment of the most vulnerable among us, we might allow the prophetic voice of God to create in us a conversion of heart, mind and action with regards to our relationship with the most vulnerable in society.

As a parish that already does a great deal of outreach to "the poor" of our own city and around the world, I would encourage you, the people of Holy Trinity, to reflect particularly on this aspect of the question: "How shall what we are doing here effect or involve the poor?" We already do so much to "help" the poor; how can what we do in this place more fully involve the poor, so that we can break down the barriers between "us" and "them" that the language of "the poor" and "the rich" often creates? How can this community bring together people of different social classes to worship and share a common life together?

What would it look like, for example, if we both donated food to DEAM and invited our DEAM customers to worship with us on Sunday mornings? What would it look like if we went and spent time with the poor by becoming involved in the ministry of the Church of the Common Ground, an outdoor worshipping community for homeless men and women in downtown Atlanta? When we look around the table as we are gathered for Eucharist or for the many meals we will share together in this place over the next year, may we continually ask ourselves the question - who is not here? And what can we do to invite and involve those people in our life of worship and ministry in this place?

These are "final judgment" kinds of questions. How shall what we are doing in this place effect or involve the poor? How will our lives make the love of Christ known to the world? What would Jesus find in this place, and in our hearts, if he were to return today? The answers have implications not just for our personal reckoning as we stand before God in the final judgment, but for the kind of church and community we will be here and now.

Amen.

Tracy Wells is Holy Trinity’s communications coordinator. She holds a master of theological studies from Harvard Divinity School and is a Postulant for Holy Orders in the Diocese of Atlanta.