Saturday, November 26, 2016
Advent I - Year A - November 27, 2016
Sermon for the First Sunday
of Advent
Year A ~ November 27,
2016
Holy Trinity & St.
Anskar
Let us then lay aside the works of darkness
and put
on the armor of light.
+In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided
Trinity
Vigilance, repentance, and birth — or, better, gestation —
are the themes of Advent.
Christians are forward-looking people: people who expect
redemption in the future. We expect redemption not only for ourselves, as
persons, but for the world as a whole. Therefore, what happens in the history
of this world is spiritually significant for us. Something that I predict will
come to be seen as a major historical event is now taking place at Standing
Rock.
Plenty of disasters happen in history. The Gospel does not
promise otherwise: to struggle against the Prince of this World is to struggle
against human sin and wickedness — spiritual wickedness in high places. We who
believe the Gospel and hope in its promises are not surprised by the apparent
triumph of those forces. Our hope, which the Epistle to the Hebrews calls the “evidence of things unseen,” is
the assurance that such setbacks are but temporary. After all, our world is a
world of darkness — or rather a world in which light struggles with darkness
and all its works. Today, we hear the Apostle call us to cast aside those works
and to put on “the armor of light.” As in any struggle, there will be setbacks,
but the outcome is not in question: God has judged the world, made it right, re-created it.
Darkness and light — these images come straight out of
Persia. It was the Zoroastrian Cyrus of Persia who restored the captive Jews to
Zion. The Scripture calls him liberator and actually Messiah. “You are my Anointed though you do not know my Name."
Zoroastrianism is a form of monotheism, with a strong emphasis on the struggle
of light and darkness in this world. In the process of liberating the Jews,
Cyrus had a very big influence on later Judaism, and hence upon early
Christianity.
This influence extended throughout the Roman Empire, to such an
extent that Christianity’s biggest competitor in the first and second centuries
was a universal religion called Mithraism.
Mithra was a soldier in the army of Light, fighting the forces of darkness, in Zoroastrian tradition. No doubt Christianity picked up some of its themes.
Advent is the season of gathering darkness. Each of the
seasons of the Church year invites us to look at our own historical
circumstance in a particular way. Right now, the darkness is gathering, but so are
the forces of light. We must bear in mind that darkness is the absence of light, not its opposite. This is how we avoid the
mistake of dualism, to which Zoroastrianism is sometimes compared. Christians
say that Evil has no substance. The Light of God shines in the darkness, and
the darkness cannot overcome it. There is no Power in the universe that can
oppose God. God has no equal, and therefore no opposite.
That is why, in our
ancient mythology, it is the holy Archangel Michael who fights against the
apostate angels. Lucifer is opposite not
to God, but to Michael. God has no opposite. To “cast away the works of
darkness" is to oppose Lucifer with the “armor of light.”
The name, Lucifer, bearer
of light, is therefore ironic: Lucifer is the angel who imagines himself to
be an alternative source of light — just as much a source of light as God.
Lucifer thinks that he bears light in
himself, not merely as a reflection of the Divine Light. Lucifer insists that
he is in his own right, like God. Michael opposes that pretension, asking
derisively: “Who is like God?”. Tat is what his name means. Michael is Lucifer’s opposite, not God.
Like
Michael, we are God’s instruments in opposing the Prince of this World. The old
rite use to pray that the newly-baptized might “fight manfully under Christ’s
banner against the world the flesh and the devil.” This prayer for a tiny, newborn
infant usually elicited at least some giggles. But it is not a joke.
The ultimate instrument of God’s Liberation is the Cross: the
tool of ultimate, imperial evil, the worst thing that the Prince of this World could do.
Jesus Christ has turned that pinnacle of evil into ultimate good. The strongman
has been bound, and his house despoiled — his slaves set free. He writhes around
kicking in fury, his death throes unleash destructive power; and they can
inflict a great deal of damage. But in the end there is no question of his
winning. The Prince of this World has been defeated.
We believe in this Gospel and hope in its promise; we do not
hope in the natural processes of this world to bring forth the Kingdom. The Son
of Man will come like a thief in the night, that is, when we least expect it,
and not as a result of the natural fruition of the world’s own internal
processes. Our calling is to expect His Coming always — to stay awake during
the night and watch, clothed in the armor of light. While the Prince flails
around, not knowing what he’s doing or that he is doomed, we are called to stay
awake to the fact that we are no longer his subjects, but heirs of the promise.
As the forces of darkness, in the form of meaningless, lying promises, xenophobia, and bigotry of all kinds, seem to be getting the upper
hand, it is not mere coincidence that forces of light make their appearance at Standing
Rock. There gather people from all walks of life from all over the world, from
all nations and peoples, led by the most oppressed of all, in the largest
gathering of indigenous peoples ever to take place in North America, or
anywhere. The symbolism is profound: the Missouri River, the centerpiece of the
Louisiana purchase, which Pres. Jefferson got from Napoleon, doubling the size of the United States and ushering in our own Imperial period, which is now coming
to an end. Thomas Jefferson, who referred to the ancestors of the Protectors as
“savages” in the Declaration of Independence. The river where they gather calls
to mind many of those “works of darkness” that we must “cast away.” So the Standing
Rock Protectors gather at the Missouri River to oppose the darkness of
imperialism, white supremacy, greedy despoliation of creation, and the mindless
lemming-rush of global-warming denial.
To stay awake means to “put on the armor of light” and to watch
in hope, but that does not mean passive waiting. Gospel hope means repentance,
and work to prepare the way of the Lord, which we will consider next week.
AMEN!
MARANATHA!
COME, LORD JESUS!
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