First Advent
Is.: 2:1-5, Mtt. 24:36-44
It seems to me that there are two types of people in life; those who make lists and those who don't. There are those who need to wrest control of the chaos of circumstance and those who are willing to just let it all come as it does and sort things out afterwards. This sermon, and indeed our texts for today are directed at those of us who are list makers. Those of us who want a plan in life, a direction, goals, steps, processes. Those of us who can organize our experience so we can take control of it.
The practice of list making can take us a ways but somewhere along the line we have to realize that it is a myth, a feeble attempt to make order out of what is inherently orderless--life.
She was the perfect hostess. Everything was in order. The guests were invited, the tablecloth pressed, the silver polished, the glasses put at 1:00 and 2:00 off the plate, the food purchased and prepared. The event was all so organized and agreeable. Who could have known a month ago that there'd be eight inches of snow precipitating a flurry of phone calls of regret? The perfect party, foiled.
As much as we'd like to think we're in control--we're just not.
Through science and technology, through our expanding knowledge of how the world works, we have learned to work the world, or so it seems. So we have control of light and dark, of the climate, of noise and sound, of food supply and indeed of population. Having been so successful, controlling so much of the world, we just quite naturally tend to think that, given enough research, enough effort, we shall be in control of everything.
So when 9/11 struck and our world was rocked, President Bush sent our ships out to sea and put planes in the air, not because our military thereby thought surely it could catch the perpetrators of this deed but rather, in the words of one commentator, "because it is important for the president to prove to the American people that he is in control.
Excuse me, but I think the whole reason why we felt as we did after Sept. 11 2001 was that we were not in control. We had a perfect nation, with perfect defenses and perfect security, then suddenly, out of control. We felt ripped off, as if some thief had sneaked in and had stolen the safe, secure world in which we thought we lived.
True, much of the time we are in control. Most of our days go just as we plan. We have our burglar proof locks, our home security systems, and our insurance policies against disaster. But then there is that late night phone call, that flat voice on the other end, or the bulletin "interrupting our regularly scheduled programming" and then what? It is a crisis. A crisis of control.
Today's first lesson, from the prophet Isaiah, comes from a time during Israel's exile. For a time, Israel had it made. When Solomon was king, they had an army and great security. Then came from the North the Babylonians, the Assyrians, and they laid waste Israel's cities, killed many, carted everyone else off as slaves in exile.
We fear such Biblical truth. We desperately want to believe that we have at last found some means to insulate ourselves from such flux and vicissitude. We have to insolate ourselves from the hard truth that, for much of human history, much of humanity has lived in the crisis of being out of control, jerked around by forces over which they had little control, pushed toward some future that they did not want.
Truth to tell we are not in control. I'm only a heartbeat away from crisis. This world, my world that seems so together so safe and secure, is not as substantial as it seems.
Our Gospel lesson uses an odd image today. The day of the Lord comes to you without warning, says Jesus, like a thief in the night. "But understand this; if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have allowed his house be broken into" Five times in the New Testament the coming of God is compared to the intrusion of a thief. Twice in Revelation; "I will come like a thief" You may be attracted to various images of God: God the shepherd, God the waiting father, God the mother hen who gathers her chicks. But God the thief?
When we lived in Chicago the parsonage was right next to the education/office building of the church. We lived and slept not 20 feet away from Doug's office. Three times in the seven years we were there the office was broken into. Once through the door, this then got a much bigger lock, then through a window.
Somebody took the radio, and then the answer phone ripped right out of the wall. But the drawers had been ransacked. The files had been riffled.
How do you feel once the thief has entered your life? Violated?
Yes that's exactly how it feels. Violated. That safe secure sanctuary called home never feels quite so safe. An intruder has had the gall to break in to touch your special stuff. For months perhaps years after you never enter the space with out a tad bit of trepidation, without entertaining the possibility that someone has been there.
Look at us, we take out insurance policies, we install security systems, we shore up our defenses. We hold tight, there's a guard at the door.
Then the thief! The thief the thief is a grim reminder of a truth we are reluctant to face. We are not really ever in control.
Advent is an invitation to wake up, to open our eyes to our own insecurity, our true security. This news, this dark difficult news is our God news, portent of our deliverance. A world is shaking, being dismantled, but a new world is being born. Perhaps an old false world built upon the shaky foundation of our pride, our empires, our smug modern self deceit, must give way to a new world. "The kingdom of God is near," preached Jesus. Maybe all of life is a long process of honestly admitting that we are not in control, and then praying for the grace to let God be in control. Maybe that's what real faith is: a willingness to let God be creator, a yearning to let the creator finish what was begun in creation. The world is not in our hands, thank God. The world is not under our control. Look up and take heart.
Time of dismantling and distress, time of deliverance and redemption? Which is it for us?
On that answer hinges our hope, our true hope in a God who gives us what we can not obtain for ourselves.
Happy Advent!
Amen