Saturday, December 10, 2016
Advent II ~ Year A ~ December 4, 2016
Sermon for the Second Sunday
of Advent
Year A ~ December 4, 2016
Holy Trinity & St.
Anskar
In this world you will have trouble.
But be of good cheer: I have overcome the world.
+In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided
Trinity
The Gospel in which we say we hope
is not reassuring for those who are looking for peace and comfort, “in our
time”. In our world and in our time, we
will have trouble. The Messiah comes with conflict: tyrannical rage and mass
infanticide. The Holy Family has to flee the country as refugees. The Godman
promises to set family members against one another: not peace but division. The
horror of crucifixion comes before resurrection. Everyone sees the Cross, only
a handful see the Empty Tomb.
The Gospel has no worldly comfort
to offer us. The one Jesus called the “greatest among those born of woman” —
that is the greatest and holiest this world had produced — ends up with his
head on a silver platter, a reward for a teenaged girl’s lustful entertaining
of a tyrant.
John the Baptist represents all the
God-inspired prophets who speak the truth to power. He appears in our
iconography as a scruffy, unkempt, winged man. This indicates his ancient
identification with Elijah, taken up into heaven by a fiery chariot. The
Prophet turned into a celestial being in his body. Elijah, who denounced tyrants in his own time,
was widely expected to return as the forerunner of the Messiah. Christians
identify John the Baptist as this heavenly Elijah.
Last week, the Holy Apostle Paul
advised us to “cast away the works of darkness and put on the armor of light,”
and we heard from our Lord Himself, that we must stay awake, be vigilant, because He will come “like a thief in the
night,” that is, unexpected, and not as the result of any natural historical
process. To stay awake means to “put on the armor of light” and to watch in
hope.
Vigilance, repentance, and
expectation or (gestation) are the
themes of Advent. But holy vigilance is not passive waiting, and this week, we
hear that Gospel hope means active repentance in the form of work to prepare
the way of the Lord. Changing our mind is not enough. We have to bear fruits
corresponding to our repentance.
As the forces of darkness, in the
form of meaningless promises, lies, 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 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, for that matter. The symbolism is striking:
·
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.
Those who gather with them “heed
the words of the prophets and forsake their sins,” in the words of today’s
Collect. We pray for the grace to do the same. Go to Standing Rock if you can.
If not, do whatever you can do to support the effort. Do not imagine that we
live in ordinary time. We are living in Advent — latter days — and the exalted
peace Isaiah foresaw comes not without a struggle. As the forerunner said,
His winnowing
fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his
wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.
AMEN!
MARANATHA!
COME, LORD JESUS!
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