Sunday, December 6, 2015

December 6 Sermon at St. Matthew/San Mateo Episcopal Church, Auburn


Every year during December
            John the Baptist shows up on a Sunday morning
                        proclaiming the quintessential Advent theme:
Prepare the way of the Lord!
                                    Rather a catchy phrase, isn’t it?  Prepare the way of the Lord!

The image that is given for this preparation comes from the Prophet Isaiah.
            It is an image of road excavation described on a gigantic level –
                        mountains bulldozed into valleys,
                        taking the bends out of the road,
                        one straight, well paved super highway
            to drive home the point that
“…all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”

Clear away every visual obstruction
            so that nothing obscures the view of what everyone needs to see:
                                    the salvation God reveals to us in Jesus.

I think it is important to ask right now,
            What is meant by this word, salvation?

This is very important because salvation is one of those key words
            associated with the heart of our Christian faith,
but somehow we Episcopalians
                        don’t directly talk about salvation very much.

Salvation, simply put, is liberation, being set free.
We then have to ask, “Set free from what?”
It is liberation from whatever imprisons us, constricts and binds us,
whatever thwarts living out our full humanity,
            that is, in a word, sin,            whatever thwarts living out our full humanity,

Sin can be expressed blatantly
            in all kinds of violence, greed, and hard-heartedness
                        seen all too often all around us,
but there is also sin that is more subtle,
                        the littleness of our minds,
                        our self-centered focus of attention turned in on ourselves,
                        providing blinders to wear so as not to look too much
                                                            at all the human suffering around us.
We need saving from that just as much as from the more spectacular sins.

Salvation is the result of Jesus working intervention in our lives,
                                    the outcome of the Cross and Resurrection,
            and when we come to recognized that we are saved,
                        this comes as revelation,
                        as a given awareness of Jesus present with us.

So the John-the-Baptist Advent message is
                                                to prepare the way for seeing salvation.

Now, December is a very dark month,
            not just for lack of daylight,
                        this being the time around the winter solstice
                        when nights are longest,
                        when seasonal affect disorder kicks in.
December is dark
            because it is also a depressing time for many
                                    who are in grief or want or loneliness,
                        for whom the holiday cheer
                                    associated with rosy family scenes
                                    and full of happy expectation,
                        is more like a cruel taunt,
                                    something hopelessly out of reach,
                                    a painful reminder of your isolation and loneliness,
                                                                                                of how bereft you are.

Every year during Advent
I think it is important to talk about this, especially in church.

This has come out of past experiences of innumerable Decembers
in which pastoral care situations would present themselves,
and it became obvious
that December was a particularly difficult month
for more people than you would expect.

As we look around the pews this morning,
the one you are sitting near
could be facing some bleak situation right now,
or it might be you yourself.

What is the personal darkness that you may be in at the moment?
            Is this a time of facing illness, disability, or the death of a loved one,
                        or the memory or anniversary of a death?
            Is it some other form of personal loss?
            Is it loneliness, isolation, or “spiritual dryness?”

Perhaps you have been struggling with uncertainty about the future,
                        fear of transition, the pain of self doubt,
both personally and for the parish.

            Or economic hardship,

            or the various ways we can become paralyzed and imprisoned,
            psychologically, emotionally, spiritually.

            Or take your pick of addictions,
            where there are attachments that bind and imprison us.

            Or relationship issues,
                        or the effects of sin in your life
                        where you find yourself as the one who sinned
or the one who was sinned against - or both.

 Too often all this can seem as though
            we are left facing a very real and personal challenge
                        of living in a crumbling culture,
                        seeing the end of life as we have known it
            without a clear view through the terrain to the salvation of God.

Too often, I fear, suffering people just quietly give up
                                    in a search for faith or hope or being saved,
and silently drift away from church; they just quit coming.
They don't have a connection with or identity with Gospel hope.

So let’s look at what the Apostle Paul,
            corresponding with the Church in Philippi, wrote.
                        Paul was in prison at the time of writing.
                        He knew incredible difficulties.
And yet this letter he wrote to the Philippians
                        stands out particularly among all his epistles
                                                                                                            because of its joy.
He wrote:
I thank my God every time I remember you,
            constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you,
            because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now.
I am confident of this, that the One who began a good work among you
            will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.
It is right for me to think this way about all of you,
            because you hold me in your heart,
            for all of you share in God's grace with me,
                        both in my imprisonment
                        and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel.”

Verse 6 again:
“I am confident of this,
that the One who began a good work among you
will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.”

Now and again we need to hear a message of hope,
            not the pie-in-the-sky-by-and-by kind of hope,
but the Gospel story of God's mercy and saving grace and loving kindness.
This kind of hope grapples with all the negative stuff,
            and faces up to the suffering which is universal,
so that negativism and grief and disillusionment
do not end up siphoning off all that is positive, joyful and hopeful,
or obscuring from view the tremendous salvation love
                                                                                                of God for all of creation.

Paul spoke out from such a capacity of joy:
                  because (he said) you hold me in your heart.” (verse 7)

Now for Paul this was obviously more than
            people just having a warm feeling about Paul.
He was being held in the heart of the community.

What does this look like if we were to apply this in the same way
                                                                                                to this congregation?
            I think you have stories you could tell me.
Holding each other in the heart of the community
            is our work of bringing peace to others, our work of reconciliation,
                        standing by one another,
                        asking how your neighbor is
                                    with the intention of really wanting to know how they are.

These are small ways in which a faith community expresses
            holding one another in our hearts.
And in these challenging times may that Spirit-given love and compassion             rapidly expand within us
                        to meet ever increasing needs.

With the Apostle Paul I trust that
            “…the One who began a good work among you
            will bring it to completion/to fulfillment/to fullness
                                                                                     by the day of Jesus Christ.”

In Advent we recall that the life of the whole church
            is an in-between time of waiting, watching and preparing
                        between the first coming of Christ
and his appearing in fullness in our lives and at the end of time.

But it is also a time of great hope
            in which we too can become like John the Baptist
                        and cry "Prepare the way of the Lord."

BECAUSE our hope is based in God's love for us,
            a love so profound that God became one of us,
                        and was born in Bethlehem
            just so that the times of grief and loss,
                        the times of hardship and difficulty,
could be overcome through and dissolve away in
the love of God
present here and now in the Spirit of the Resurrection Jesus.

And so I would join with Paul in saying:
“…this is my prayer (for you),
that your love may overflow more and more
with knowledge and full insight
to help you to determine what is best,
so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless,
having produced the harvest of righteousness
that comes through Jesus Christ

for the glory and praise of God.”