Christian Testament text for 1st Advent 1 December 2019

Romans 13:11-14        You know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

Reflection        What an invitation for the first Sunday in Advent, the first day of our liturgical year!  “Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us live honorably as in the day… put on the Lord Jesus the Christ.”  Yes. It is time for us to take responsibility for our divine inheritance, Christ within us.”

If you are wondering,“How?” I have an invitation for each one of us. Let us begin this liturgical year by saying “Yes, I choose to actively participate in the revelation of God’s presence every single day.”  This year I invite you to consciously and conscientiously hold yourselves accountable to be the Holy Women and Holy Men we are intended to be because God has always depended on us humans to do God’s bidding. 

Our world is crying out to be changed and God depends on each of us to act decisively to turn things around for the good of all. This is the same message the illegitimate peasant son of Mary, Jesus brings to life in the world of the ancient mideast. The kingdom of God is meant to be right here in the dust and dirt we stand on. The kingdom of God is meant to heal the sick, feed the hungry and release the oppressed. The kingdom of God depends on each of us to act decisively for the good of all.

It is that simple and really hard. Surely it was hard for teenage Mary to say Yes to God and accept her unplanned pregnancy as a supreme blessing. It had to be hard for Joseph to say Yes to God and receive rather than reject his pregnant fiancee Mary and then respond to God’s dream message to escape with Mary and her baby to Egypt to avoid Herod’s scheme to kill all male infants. It must have been hard for Jesus whose own mother and siblings thought he was crazy and whose best friends abandoned him when things got really heated to carry on alone. 

But standing up, saying “Yes” and stepping out to reveal God’s presence is not the sole purview of famous Biblical characters. In the wake of the 9/11 tragedy we witnessed the best of our humanity. Then President Bush reported,  "We have seen our national character in eloquent acts of sacrifice. Inside the World Trade Center, one man who could have saved himself stayed until the end at the side of his quadriplegic friend. A beloved priest died giving the last rites to a firefighter. Two office workers, finding a disabled stranger, carried her down sixty-eight floors to safety.”

—http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010914-2.html

Dr. Paul Farmer says Yes and steps out to reveal God’s presence in the world.  “He works about two months a year in Boston, MA where he heads the Infectious Disease program at Harvard Medical School but the rest of the year he spends most of his time in Haiti, a poverty ridden country with no affordable health care, treating the "disposable people" of the world. Why? His faith compels him to help those less fortunate than himself.”

https://sermons.faithlife.com/sermons/80703-six-true-stories-of-sacrifice

Our world is crying out to be changed and God depends on each of us to act decisively to turn things around for the good of all. And so, this liturgical year I invite you to join me saying Yes and stepping out every single day and doing one small thing to change our world. To make this very easy, throughout the month of December you can sign up to receive a short email blast  first thing every morning. The one for today reads like this:

"A year of revealing God’s love every day.

The next time you receive a text, email or call today, tell the person who sent it something you appreciate about them." If you are not already on Apostles' email list please send a request to admin@ovapostles with “Revealing God’s Love Every Day” on the subject line. Let's step out and change our world. 

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Gospel text for First Sunday of Advent 3 December 2017

Mark 13:24-37        Jesus said, “In those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.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.

“From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

“But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. Therefore, keep awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.”

Reflection   Jesus’ graphic words remind me of most mornings when I turn on the computer to read the breaking news; sexual harassment and misconduct, firing of intercontinental ballistic missiles, challenges to privacy and free speech, inflammatory twitters, racism, sexism, agism, classism, cronyism, lying, cheating, killing innocent people, hurricanes and wildfires, starving children, seas of refugees. The list goes on and conjures images of the sun and the moon going dark, and the stars falling from the sky.  I am tempted to pull the plug on my computer, go back to bed and drag the covers over my head. But the news of the day does not go away any more than Jesus’ concluding instruction. “Keep awake!”

Jesus counsels, “When darkness sweeps over the earth and all that you have counted on to be reliable and true seems to be falling from the sky into the abyss, keep awake, for it is out of the midst of darkness that new light rises.” When dark is at its darkest and things appear to be at their worst, that is when we must keep awake, to have hope for something new, to expect something good to arrive. The thing is, we cannot predict when this new light is coming so if we pull the covers over our eyes and succumb to the temptation to go to sleep, there is every chance we will miss the experience of something new and good and surprising. And if we miss it, how will we share it? How will be pass on the revelation of God’s light? 

I believe the answer is fairly straightforward. When we “keep awake” we refuse to succumb to the darkness and we become the revelation of God’s light. Every time we choose to be emissaries of peace rather than purveyors of disharmony and discord (rather than forwarding the nasty political cartoon, delete it) we are the revelations of God’s light.  We are the revelations of God’s light every time we choose to cultivate love rather than breed neglect and enmity (by generously giving to the panhandler rather than speculating about how they are working the system). We are the revelations of God’s light every time we choose to express joy rather than misery and desperation (talking about our blessings rather than complaining about our difficulties or scouring the news for perversions or people to castigate). 

When we refuse to succumb to the subterfuge of darkness and decide to “keep awake”  we become the revelation of new light which is nothing less than a new way of being human, a new way of being the peace, love and joy we hope for all humanity.

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