1 December 2013

“A stirring beginning to Advent”
Isaiah 2:1-5 / Romans 13:11-14 / Matthew 24:36-44
1 Advent A
1 December 2013


Stir up your power, O Lord, and come.

Every year, on the first Sunday of Advent, we being worship with those words, in the Prayer of the Day, what used to be called the Collect … because the presider would, historically, use this time to collect the longings and rejoicings of the congregation, and put them in a short form prayer.

Stir up your power, O Lord, and come.

Actually, each Sunday of Advent begins with those “stirring” words, the Prayer of the Day focusing us on what this Season of Advent is all about:

Stir up your power, O Lord, and come …
Stir up our hearts, Lord God, to prepare the way of your only Son …
Stir up the wills of all who look to you …

And finally, on the fourth Sunday of Advent, we come back full circle to …

Stir up your power, O Lord, and come.

It is a stirring beginning, middle, and end to this season, which is all about being stirred up … paying attention, watching and waiting in expectation and hope.
But perhaps we don’t feel too stirred up this morning.
Our Gospel text certainly can have the effect, of casting a pall over things.
Yes, we have begun a new lectionary year, this first Sunday of Advent, now we are in Matthew’s gospel, but the text we have before us is a continuation of the story we had two weeks ago, from Luke’s gospel.
The story, it starts with Jesus and the disciples walking before the Temple in Jerusalem, during those last few days’ of Jesus’ earthly life, and swiftly moves to Jesus’ discussion of another End … End events, what is formally called Eschatology … words and sayings and teachings about what shall happen, what shall occur, as we enter the times of The End … the End of this Age … and The Beginning of the Eternal Reign of Christ.
Here, today, Jesus starts this text of The End with words meant to urge us to be alert and expectant.

But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father … therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.

It is, most certainly, a text which creates feelings of uncertainty and ambiguity. Though we are assured of Who the End is … Jesus Christ, crucified, risen, reigning as Christ the King … we still crave knowing the When.
Like the disciples, we would like the answer to their question:

Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?

When? We just don’t know.
We just don’t know.
Words which, also, well apply to this faith community, this morning.
The pastor is leaving, yes, it’s true. I have received and accepted a call to serve Faith Lutheran Church and School in Redmond, and I have tendered my resignation as pastor of Nativity effective December 31st.
That announcement, itself, I know, has brought many different emotions. I thank you for the prayerful notes of thanks, congratulations and blessing I’ve received over the past week. But I know that there are other feelings at play in us here today … sadness, anger, mourning, and perhaps, most of all, uncertainty.
What will happen now?
Some of you know the process, because you’ve been through it before.
I tried to describe it in broad strokes, in what I wrote in my letter to you this past week:

The pastor is leaving; but another pastor is coming, a temporary shepherd to partner with you in the interim, to help you discern who you are as God’s people in Fairwood, and who and where Christ is calling you to be next. Welcome her. Pray for him. Offer yourselves in service with them. I would expect, hope and pray for nothing less from you. Our bishop, Kirby Unti, and assistant to the bishop, Kathryn Buffum, will soon be in touch with Nativity leaders about an upcoming interim ministry and beginning the preparation process for a new servant leader in your future.

Of that process, you will hear more from our elected leadership, soon … most certainly at our congregational meeting next Sunday evening.
But there’s more for you of this faith community, this place and people called Nativity, people of new birth, people of new life … and this Word is with and for us ABUNDANTLY in our texts today.

Therefore, you must be ready …
Now is the moment for you to wake from sleep …
Let us live honorably in the day …
Put on the Lord Jesus Christ …

The Word for us, followers of Jesus, in the broad, broad sense of being part of the Body of Christ in the world, as well as being particular disciples of Jesus in this faith community called Nativity, that word for us this morning is:
Keep awake. Keep alert. Be ready. Live as God’s people, in faith and hope and love.
In other words, keep on keepin’ on. Keep doing what it is you always do. The pastor is leaving, yes, but the faith community remains. Keep on worshipping, keep on confessing and being forgiven, keep on eating and drinking at the Lord’s table, keep on being sent in other-serving love, be generous in giving, generous in living and serving, for the sake of the world God loves, God gives, God saves in Jesus Christ.
And Jesus Christ is with and for us, in all of that.
And there is more good news for us in the word from Isaiah:

Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord … that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths … they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

Hear these words as promise and hope this morning, people called Nativity, people of new birth, new life. Yes, they are still unrealized hope … for God’s ways still have not been learned by the people God loves. Plowshares are still swords, and pruning hooks remain spears. War … which is abhorrent to God … still remains the way we sinners live here on earth.
And yet … the prophet’s words … God’s Word, through the prophet Isaiah’s mouth … is for us, too … in giving us, encouraging us to a sense of living “as if” … no, it’s not here yet, but it’s coming.
It’s coming … The Advent of our God … and the new life, on earth as it is in heaven, it’s not here yet, but it’s coming.
We are given little windows into it, we see little windows into it, in our worship, in our serving, the ways we are led by Christ, sent by Christ, empowered by Christ to be, right here, right now.
The Lord’s Advent gives us hope.
Because we know how this story turns out.
The Son of Man is coming … the Son of Man is coming, Christ the King, to establish his reign of love on earth as it is in heaven.
So we can wait.
And this season of the Church we are now in, this Advent, why, it’s perfect for us, a perfect place and time for us to be in, Nativity.
Because Advent is all about waiting … not the headlong rush to what the false gods of commerce and capitalism call “the Christmas-shopping season” with its Black Fridays and Cyber Mondays … more greed, more stuff, more consumption and debt … no, God’s people, Jesus’ people, we are called to live simply and simply live. And wait. And be ready.
And to world-defying taking Joy in the Waiting.
For us, the waiting is delightful ambiguity … a joyful unknowing. We can take delight in the ambiguity of not having everything nailed down, we can have joy in not knowing how it will all turn out, precisely because we do know how it will all turn out.
What will the next year bring for you, Nativity? Who will come as interim pastor? What will the interim time be like? Who will be your next settled pastor? When will it all be done?
We just don’t know. We just don’t know. And that, Jesus says, that is just OK.
Because “I am with you always, to the End of the Age.”
So for this season … this Advent … we wait, and watch, and hope.
We don’t give into the rush to “Christmas,” but we wait and watch and prepare and hope for the return of our Lord. We look for and celebrate the signs of his presence among us still … Water and Word, Bread and Wine, gathered community, called and sent in service to and for the world God loves.
And then, when it is time, we mark the anniversary of his coming among us once more … the Nativity of our Lord … all the while, looking ahead, watching and waiting, for the day when he will come again to us, and make all things and all people right, and whole, and new.
And so too with you, Nativity, people of new birth, new life.
Yes, it is all right to be sad today, about the news that I gave you last Monday.
But please, DO NOT STAY THERE.
And please, please, DO NOT RUSH THROUGH THIS INTERIM TIME, THIS GIFT OF TIME, TIME OF GIFT FOR YOU.
Just as God calls us to live and be in the moment, the moments, leading to Jesus’ return, to use the time to prepare and be ready, so too, Nativity, you are called to use this time to prepare, and work, and become ready for all that is to come.
So find joy in the process of finding out who you are, who God is calling you to be, where God is leading and guiding. Delight in the ambiguity, take joy in the unknowing.
Because you know how it all turns out in the end. Or rather, with The End.
For The End, our End, is always, always, Jesus Christ our Lord. The One who en-fleshes God’s loving, God’s giving, God’s saving, for you and me, for all the world.
Amen.