Saturday, December 10, 2016
Advent III ~ Year A ~ December 11, 2016
Sermon for the Third Sunday
of Advent
Year A ~ December 11,
2016
Holy Trinity & St.
Anskar
The wolf shall live with the lamb,
the leopard shall lie down with the kid…
the leopard shall lie down with the kid…
The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,
and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder's den.
+In
the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity
The messianic peace seems unnatural to us: the wolf and
the lamb, the lion and the calf, children playing with deadly snakes, and so
on. Arresting images, intentionally shocking, because it is so unnatural.
Theologically speaking, however, this peace is not unnatural but preternatural. That means that what we
think of as natural is really fallen nature or nature in its fallen
state — outside the Garden. The Messiah will restore Creation as it was
intended by God, and before human beings screwed it up.
Now, we don’t have to think
of the Garden of Eden as literal pre-history in a paleonotological sense in
order to accept the deep truth of the mythology. Somehow, the world is not as
God intends it to be, and there is nothing we can do about it. The world cannot
fix itself: it’s own inner processes — the ones we call “natural” — cannot
evolve into anything better. The messianic peace comes from outside the world and its natural
processes, the processes of its fallen nature. That is why the beloved images
of Isaiah are so striking to us. They portray the world as it ought to be, not
as we know it or even think it can be.
Above all, the healing of
the world’s deformities means the healing of the perfection of God’s image on
earth in the world:
Then the eyes of the blind
shall be opened,
and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
then the lame shall leap
like a deer,
and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.
and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.
This is a promise of God’s intention for creation. These
are the signs of the Advent of the Messiah, which is why Jesus pointed to them
rather than testifying to Himself, when asked by John’s disciples whether or
not He was the Messiah. He didn’t say “yes I am the Messiah;” but “look at
what’s happening: judge for yourself whether the Messiah is among you.”
Vigilance, repentance,
expectation or gestation: these Advent themes present another paradox: we are
to watch, but also to work. To change our minds and forsake our sins means not
passive waiting, but working to bear fruits worthy of repentance: working to
build the highway in the wilderness for the coming Messiah. And although the
world cannot produce its own healing, by its own natural processes, our
expectation is, nevertheless, like the expectation of a pregnant woman. The new
creation will be born of the old. But not in an entirely “natural” way — the
expectant mother is a Virgin.
AMEN!
MARANATHA!
COME, LORD JESUS!
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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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