Sermon: First Sunday of Advent

November 29, 2009

The First Sunday of Advent

Luke 21:25-36

Holy Trinity Parish, Decatur, Georgia

The Very Reverend William T. Deneke, rector

Advent is upon us; we have only four weeks to prepare for Christmas. Four weeks of shopping, decorating and partying. But that is not the preparation called for in the Bible readings for Advent.

The Psalm for today sets a tone that causes us to pause. It is a lament, a plea for God to reveal the ways and paths of the Lord. No “city sidewalk, busy sidewalks dressed in holiday style”. But rather a plea, even a demand, to be taught.

The epistle provides a window into the struggle of the early church to grasp the wonderful and bewildering future inaugurated by the risen Christ. Paul responds to the embryonic faith of the Thessalonians by blessing the young church. He holds up for them the promise of their faith and reveals his love for the community. “And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all people, as we do to you.” This is heartwarming and encouraging.

Then Paul adds a prayer that the Thessalonians may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.

Writer and teacher Reynolds Price developed a spinal tumor that was not only deadly but also incredibly painful. He tells us that he was not an especially religious person. But very early one morning he had a vision that transported him to the shore of the Sea of Galilee. He saw twelve persons that he knew were the disciples and a sleeping man that he knew was Jesus. Jesus then stood up and walked toward him. Taking his hand, he led into the water. He took handfuls of water and poured them on Price’s head and damaged back. Then Jesus said: “Your sins are forgiven.” Price asked, “Am I also cured?” And Jesus said, “That too.”

It is the grace and forgiveness of God that rends us blameless. Jesus comes to us on clouds of forgiveness. The great poet Tennyson wrote of his faith. “Not one life shall be destroyed or cast as rubbish to the void.”

Paul focuses on and draws out that seed of faith, that kernel of hope and projects it onto the large screen of promise revealed in Christ.

Both the psalm and epistle plea for a future shaped by God and both draw from this promise to embrace hope. They have as a backdrop the words we heard from the prophet Jeremiah. His vision of hope was also set against a background of destruction. As the first, lone candle of Advent burns, Jeremiah recalls his own city burning, yet speaks of God’s future of hope.

The hope revealed in these scriptures is not just holiday cheer. Nor is it a denial of suffering and death. The hope of which we hear this morning is so drawn from the love of God that we, too, can dare to proclaim, even at the grave, “Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia”.

And then comes the gospel for this First Sunday of Advent. And, on the surface, it seems to have no real connection with the lyrics “In the air there’s a feeling of Christmas.” But if we go beneath the surface of the holidays to the place where redemption is at work, there is, indeed, a feeling of new life in the air and in the heart and throughout the world.

Luke presents a vision of a redeemed future that embraces all reality. The coming of the long expected Jesus is not divorced from the turmoil and suffering of the world. Hang onto your hats, keep the faith, do good works, get ready to have your socks blown off. Jesus is coming and a new realm of truth and justice is emerging. We are being redeemed.

The Jewish Talmud proclaims, “Do not be daunted by the Enormity of the world’s grief.

Do justice now.

Love mercy now.

Walk humbly now.

You are not obligated to complete the work,

but neither are you free to abandon it”.

New Testament theologian Gail O’Day points out that the lessons for this Sunday may seem foreign or discomforting. Yet, she says, “Without this eschatological vision, our celebration of Christmas can become solely an occasion of nostalgia and sentimentality rather than a bold enactment of God’s hopes for the world.”

An issue for many of us is that nostalgia and sentimentality are pretty attractive. We may be looking and listening for silver bells. The sentimental side of Christmas is bigger than life and clearly gets our attention. That’s why O’Day’s words ring true. Is the real promise of Christmas more than can be found under a tree?

The scriptures maintain that Advent points not to what is under the tree but to who was killed upon the tree and rose again. And maybe we don’t want to be reminded of this in late November and December. Maybe we had rather focus only on the promise of new birth and joy and happiness.

But the scriptures know the whole story. And when they speak of the hope of the future, they bear witness to the great drama of redemption in which the love of God is transforming sorrow into joy and hurt into forgiveness.

The scriptures bid us to prepare for the fullness of God’s love, the fullness of redemption and forgiveness. Opening our hearts and minds and lives to this hope that embraces both love and suffering, prepares us to receive grace even now.

Lately, I’ve heard story after story of individuals being called into offices and told they are no longer employed. Often they are told to leave by another door and not return to their workplaces. Sometimes they are even escorted from the building by security guards. These are people who have been loyal employees. Many who have sacrificed for their companies.

Such practices dehumanize and try the souls of men and women. They are a reminder of cruelty and suffering and the need for redemption. And they lead us to the Advent cry, Come, Lord Jesus.

Jesus, who is redeeming humanity, is the Expected One known to scriptures. Not just a jolly, benevolent father figure, but a man who loved and suffered and died for others. A man who revealed the presence of God in forgiving and healing and sacrificing. A man who revealed God’s faith in the future despite the suffering of the present, and did so by entering fully into the joys and sorrows of humankind. A savior and lord who rose from the dead and will come again. It is this long expected savior for which this season invites us to prepare.

The Advent vision of hope is salvation for a troubled world. Writer Edward Hays has said that Advent is a winter training ground for those who desire peace. It is not afraid to look at the sins of the world and still dare to hope that the world is being redeemed.

It is a short season, only four weeks. But Advent has much to offer. The good news it conveys means that we can hope, despite all that is falling apart in our lives, our communities, and the world around us. Advent offers us expectation and hope for something new. “Stand up and raise your heads”, says the gospel, “because your redemption is drawing near.”

Sermon: Christ the King Sunday

November 22, 2009

Christ the King Sunday

John 18:33-38a

Holy Trinity Parish, Decatur, Georgia

The Reverend Allan Sandlin, associate rector

Late November has snuck up on us once again. The last leaves are falling from the trees in our back yard. Our suddenly very tall children are looking forward to one more family Thanksgiving before the oldest one heads off to college. (Tell me I’m not the only one thinking about that?) For Gretchen and me, our thoughts always turn to memories of our fathers, both of whom had late November birthdays. The fading memories of Thanksgivings past get added to the mix. And since we were both born in a certain decade, memories of an infamous November 22nd when our childhood innocence and the nation’s Camelot dreams were shattered.

That’s late November in our world. Late November in the church is all about endings and beginnings. T. S. Eliot poignantly reminds us that

What we call the beginning is often the end

And to make an end is to make a beginning.

The end is where we start from.

And so on this last Sunday in the long season of Pentecost, the Church celebrates the Feast of Christ the King as an end where we start from. If you think about it, today’s sort of like New Year’s Eve in the Church, for next Sunday the church year begins again—the First Sunday of Advent is our New Year’s Day.

If you Googled images of Christ the King, you’d find pictures of Jesus with bright, shining crowns on his head, some of them pure gold, others crusted with jewels. And you’d see icons with muted colors, brilliant halo rays surrounding Jesus’ head. Sometimes he’s sitting on a throne, dressed in flowing red velvet robes. Royal Jesus, looking very much like an earthly king might look. Those images are very much in tune with this morning’s first three readings.

From the Hebrew Scriptures, the book of Daniel presents an apocalyptic vision of a throne engulfed in fiery flames, with an Ancient One seated on it and waited on by ten thousand times ten thousand servants. The king in Psalm 93 has put on his most splendid, beautiful clothes and is acclaimed as mightier than the sound of many waters, mightier than the breakers of the sea. And, of course, leave it to the book of Revelation, the last book in the Bible, the Omega of Holy Scripture to describe Jesus Christ, “the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead and the ruler of the kings on earth”, as the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end… It’s all so rich and wonderful, it’s almost too much to bear, isn’t it?

If we stopped right there, we could go on singing our triumphal hymns, crowning Jesus King of Kings and Lord of Lords, with all the glory and grandeur we can muster. It’s a fitting grand finale to the long season of Pentecost, the final hurrah before entering the quiet days of Advent. We’ve selected hymns this morning that sing of Christ’s reign and God’s glory and if we’d thought about it, we could have hired trumpet players for today. It’s entirely appropriate to celebrate the reign of Christ, the coming of God’s kingdom with pomp and circumstance.

But we can’t close our prayer books and go home just yet. We can’t leave without hearing this brief scene from Jesus’ trial as told in the gospel of John. Our glorious Christ the King stands in handcuffs before an earthly king named Pilate and we know where this will end. On this day of endings, the gospel lesson lands us right in the heart of the Passion of Christ. Standing in the courtroom of an earthly king, on trial for his refusal to play by the rules of an earthly kingdom. The end of our Lord’s life is just around the corner and the story doesn’t need to mention the cross for us to sense its shadow hanging over the scene. And it will be an ending that is also a beginning for if the crucifixion is coming soon, then resurrection is also near and once again, beginnings and endings are so close they almost touch each other…

In this scene, Pilate asks most of the questions, poking and prodding at Jesus. On the surface of things, Pilate’s the one in control. Jesus is in his courtroom, under guard of his soldiers and yet who do you think is the one in control?

Are you the King of the Jews?

Jesus answers Do you ask this on your own, or did someone put you up to it?

I am not a Jew, am I? Your own people handed you over to me. What have you done?

Jesus says My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my followers, my soldiers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to you. My kingdom is not from here.

So you are a king after all?

You say that.

And then Jesus gets to the heart of the matter: This is why I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.

In this very brief scene, two worlds, two kings, two kingdoms collide. Pilate’s questions make clear that this is not a religious conflict but a political one and he’s feeling the pressure of the mob just outside the palace doors, perhaps worried about losing his job if he makes the wrong choice.

When Pilate called Jesus king, according to John’s version of the story, it was as a term of derision. A few scenes further on in the story, Pilate will instruct his people to inscribe “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews” on a notice tacked to the cross in 3 languages.

Jesus, even with his hands tied behind his back, is calm and epitomizes what we today might call a “non-anxious presence”. His royalty permeates the air. My kingdom is not of this world he says. And with those words, Jesus separates himself from Pilate’s world of politics, military might and the banalities of life in the royal court. But Jesus is not taking himself or his followers out of this world. God’s kingdom is not some ethereal place up in the heavens, removed from contact with all the messiness, the pain, the corruption and disease and death of this world. The kingdom Jesus points toward is not on the other side of the cosmos. It is here and now.

John’s gospel from beginning to end, is all about the reality of the in-breaking Kingdom, it’s all about incarnation. And we hear it right away, in the first chapter of the book: And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

The Word became flesh and lives among us still and we catch glimpses of it if we are paying attention. But how and where do we see it?

Those of you who are in DOCC this fall, the Disciples of Christ in Community course here at Holy Trinity, will recognize this poem by R.S. Thomas entitled “The Kingdom”. It’s a long way off but inside it here are quite different things going on: Festivals at which the poor man is king and the consumptive is healed; mirrors in which the blind look at themselves and love looks at them back; and industry is for mending the bent bones and the minds fractured by life.

It’s a long way off, but to get there takes no time and admission is free, if you will purge yourself of desire, and present yourself with your need only and the simple offering of your faith, green as a leaf.

Can you imagine a festival, a Mardi Gras perhaps, where the poor man is king and the sick are healed? Where blind people look at themselves in the mirror and love looks back at them? Can you imagine a time when our resources, our intelligence, our systems are focused not on war or making more money than we need but on mending bent bones and minds fractured by life? The kingdom of God is like that.

Author and theologian, Daniel Clendenin, sees another way of envisioning the Kingdom of God embodied by Jesus. Imagine what life would be like on earth, here and now if God were king and the rulers of this world were not. Imagine if God ruled the nations, and not Obama, Kim Jong-il, Mugabe, or Ahmadinejad. Every aspect of personal and communal life would experience a radical reversal. The political, economic, and social subversions would be almost endless—peacemaking instead of war mongering, liberation not exploitation, sacrifice rather than subjugation, mercy not vengeance, care for the vulnerable instead of privileges for the powerful, generosity instead of greed, humility rather than hubris, embrace rather than exclusion. (from an on-line essay at www.journeywithjesus.net)

You’ve heard the Hebrew word shalom. We usually think it means peace. But a better translation of shalom is human well-being. And the kingdom of God is like that.

I wonder this morning as we end another year in the church and slow down long enough to consider all our endings and beginnings, can we pay close enough attention to recognize encounters with God’s kingdom happening in our lives every day? There’s definitely some kingdom work happening at the Fair Trade Sale in Tisdale Hall today. If you think of this annual Holy Trinity event only as a great chance to do some early Christmas shopping, think again. More significant is the help we are able to give people all over the world. We are supporting artists and craftspeople whose faces we’ll never see, whose voices we’ll never hear. And they are not artists living and working in Buckhead or on the Upper West Side of New York. They are from Haiti and Bangladesh, from South Africa, Honduras, Vietnam and the Philippines …the dollars we spend go directly to help lift them a little ways out of the poverty engulfing them.

This year, we have some new friends with us, friends who live and work in Clarkston, Stone Mountain and Decatur. They are part of a community of refugees, Bhutanese people who fled their homeland because of ethnic cleansing. Many of them lived in a United Nations refugee camp in Nepal for 18 years before coming to the United States. Here in Georgia, they’ve been making stunning baskets, woven from kudzu and bamboo.

Yesterday at our Fair Trade Sale, they had the best day of sales they’ve ever had, selling over $1,300 worth of baskets. That will pay for 3 month’s rent.

Who would have imagined that our ubiquitous Southern vine could be turned into something so useful and so beautiful? Supporting these Bhutanese people, who left their homes in Asia, came to the United States and discovered a use for kudzu we’d never thought of, gives us the opportunity not only to glimpse the kingdom but perhaps to have a small part in opening up a new corner of that kingdom.

The Kingdom of God is like that.

In a few minutes, we’ll pray the prayer Jesus taught us how to pray, the Lord’s Prayer, the Our Father. It’s a prayer that I suspect we find comforting most days. But I wonder about one petition, in particular, that may be less comfortable for us to say. It might even be a little disturbing. When we look at the way the world really is, in light of what Jesus was saying and doing as he ushered in the Kingdom, do we mean it when we pray Thy kingdom come, thy will be done?

Sermon: Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost

November 8, 2009

The Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost

Mark 12:38-44

Holy Trinity Parish, Decatur, Georgia

The Very Reverend William Thomas Deneke, rector

In today’s gospel, a poor widow who contributed a couple of coins, which were all she had to live on, is said to have been a more faithful steward than those who gave large sums but with little sacrifice.

The faithfulness of the woman was not guaranteed by her status as a widow or by her poverty. Those attributes simply predisposed her to a hard life. She could have become bitter and cynical. But in her suffering, she had learned where to place her hope. She had discovered what was ultimately trustworthy. So, perhaps out of thanksgiving or love of God or a desire to share her faith, she gave all she had.

The poor widow’s stewardship response is contrasted with that of those who gave out of their wealth without any sacrifice. Although they gave more money, their giving was less faithful than was the poor widow’s.

It is important to remember that we may hear the story quite differently from Jesus’ original audience. We may wonder at the wisdom of the poor widow in giving away every cent she had. In this part of the story there is a sub plot.

According to Jewish law the widow should have been afforded some security. She should not have been in the position of having no more than a penny. In the account Jesus not only points out the hypocrisy of the religious hierarchy, but also indicts them for neglecting to care for widows. The story’s intent is not to say that every penny should be given to the church but to hold up the injustice of a corrupt system and show how such corruption was revealed in the very ones who should have known better. The poor widow, who was easily dismissed, modeled the devotion that should have been found in community leaders.

None of this is surprising to anyone who has heard the good news of Christ. The kingdom he proclaimed always turned things upside down. The reading reminds us that things are not always as they seem. Irony and paradox commonly frame truth.

This weekend, the Presiding Bishop of our Church addressed Diocesan Council and presided and preached at the Council Eucharist. Bishop Katherine said the call of the Church now is mission, mission, mission.

I was struck by her description of the Church as an organization that exists to serve others. The Church belongs to God, not us. It’s important to remember that. We are not so much drawn into this faith community to be served, but through the power of the Holy Spirit to learn how to share and serve in the name of Christ. That is the DNA of ministry. What we have at the heart of our community is mission. The mission given us in our baptismal covenant.

It is wondrous to see how God is leading the Episcopal Church into mission. The various testimonies at Council surely revealed this. Through the grace of God we are being enabled to share our gifts and open our hearts and grow in faith. God continues to raise up our church as a blessing to many, and to lead us into deeper faith and mission.

That was so evident at Diocesan Council as we heard, for example, of two new congregations. One is the parish of Christ the King in Lilburn, an international community representing nationalities from around the world. The other is the Church of the Common Ground, which serves the homeless in downtown Atlanta. There were stories and more stories that told of the difference Episcopalians are making around the world in our ministries of compassion.

At Holy Trinity we know of many of these ministries first hand as we seek to bring clean water to Haitians without it, home improvements and educational opportunities to poor Hondurans, home rebuilding to people in New Orleans and flood relief to people in our own area. We reach out in these ways and others, such as supporting one another in our Christian formation and being with one another in our joys and sorrows, because our DNA is ministry and we are a people in mission.

When we seriously seek to live into our baptism and mission, our stewardship is less likely to reflect that of the pious folks described in the gospel and more likely to resemble that of the poor widow. And we are more likely to place our hope in God rather than in things such as getting ahead or in having what we want or in just surviving. We come to know as we mature in Christ that church is about serving others and blessing God.

In the gospel today all this activity of the Spirit is witnessed in a poor widow who gave all she had to live on. She is a metaphor for faithful sharing. She is both an inspiration and a challenge.

The question the reading raises for us to ponder is how do we give out of the faith with which we are blessed? Or, in other words, how do we give faithfully rather than just offer what is left over?

Two quotes from two of the saints of our time speak to this: The first is from Mother Teresa of Calcutta, and the second is from the English author, C.S. Lewis.

Mother Teresa once said, “If you give what you do not need, it isn’t giving.”

And in a similar vein, C. S. Lewis wrote: “I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare.”

These two people of faith lived and served with openness to the Holy Spirit. They were not perfect; they struggled with their faith. But in Mother Teresa and C.S. Lewis, can be seen two people who through grace came to the place of the poor widow.

We can go there, too. And we do so whenever we open ourselves to be transformed by the grace of God. Whenever we come to know the joy of serving God and our neighbor. And whenever we understand that life is about ministry and mission.

It is through this baptismal path that we come to place our hope in God. In this way we stand with the poor widow, knowing where our true salvation lies and that God’s grace is abundant enough to share. In fact, it is in sharing that we receive the best gifts. Another thing the kingdom of God turns upside down.

For many of us, living this way involves some struggle. We have to die to something. Maybe even to our desire to find an alternative to God. The baptismal life is about dying to just these sorts of things. Turning away from whatever draws us from the love of God.

But while entering the tomb with Jesus can be hard to undertake, the promise is that we will find new life. We will be transformed and made free to serve in the power of the Spirit. We will be free to love, to give from our faith and not from what is left over.

I doubt that we will see the poor widow on many billboards or in many commercials. But she points the way to abundant life, and she reminds us that within all of us there is a call to live more fully into Christ our Savior who said it is more blessed to give than to receive.