Here's the sermon for tomorrow. Enjoy.
If you don't feel like watching, here's the text.
Sermon: The Third Sunday of Advent, Year A 2007
Community Church of Wilmette
December 16, 2007
Readings: Isaiah 35:1-10, Matthew 11:2-11, The Magnificat
Joyful Prophets
Christmas time is not always a time of joy…not for everyone.
“Joy to the World!” proclaims the great hymn. And yet some of us are burdened. Some of us find this time of year to be one emotional and spiritual challenge after another. I hear people speak of this all the time. It’s in the papers. It’s on the television. I read about it on-line. I hear it in our own halls.
I find these same struggles within my own heart every year. Yes, even those of us standing in pulpits and at altars are not necessarily immune. Today we prepare to enjoy Quest’s Blue Nativity. Well, I have been celebrating my own “Blue Funk” for days.
There is a certain kind of darkness that can permeate this winter holiday. The darkness comes for any number of reasons. There are reasons from our past. There are family stories, world events, or the weather (Are there grayer skies than the skies of Chicago in December?). It can be anything, really. There’s no rule, rhyme or reason.
It’s not about cynicism. Sure, we may find a cynical word rising from our lips as we wrestle with the dark.
We might bemoan the horrid secularization
or commercialization of the holiday.
We might bemoan the fact that Christmas decorations adorn store windows as early as late September.
And perhaps…perhaps, we are right to point these things out. Perhaps we are right to bear some vaguely prophetic witness to the world and write a letter to the editor that begins “I remember a time when…”
But in the end, the darkness remains.
The unsettled sense we encounter at this time of year remains.
Our hearts are still burdened.
Yes, we can, at times, distract ourselves from our own darkness, the true darkness, with these “little darknesses” and cynicism. But in the end, all they are is a distraction, a way to cope. There has to be a better way to understand all of this darkness, a better way to cope.
In our scripture passages this morning we encounter prophets. We hear Isaiah’s familiar words about blossoming deserts and sacred highways. Jesus speaks of the prophet, John the Baptist. And as is tradition in Advent, we encounter Mary’s song, the Magnificat. Prophet upon prophet. Welcome to Advent. Prepare ye the way of the Lord. Make his paths straight.
The passage from Isaiah is addressed to those in Exile. If we are in exile, what shall lead us back to Zion, the City of God, and a place of growth, nurture, and joy? Where is hope? Where is redemption? Isaiah sees a future where even the desert blooms. The dry places are watered with unending springs. The weak are emboldened. The blind shall see. The deaf shall hear. And, perhaps the greatest of all promises “no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray.” I find this to be very good news indeed. There is room enough in the Kingdom for fools. Thanks be to God!
John the Baptist is languishing in prison. He hears that Jesus is up to something and he wants to know what is going on. Are the rumors true? Have there been healings? Has death been conquered? Are the poor being cared for? John wants to know if his long stand in the desert has come to fruition. Have the words he has spoken for so long come to pass? Is there truly a light shining in the darkness? Jesus’ response is “Yes. Come and see what I have done.”
We are asked to have hope.
We are promised redemption.
Redemption is the fruition of hope.
It is spiritual.
It is physical.
It is political.
It is economic.
It is familial.
It is wrought in every facet of our lives.
God does not pretend that our inner darkness is imagined or that our pain is not real, and that our fear is false. No, God’s presence brings a light into real darkness. God enters our darkest nights. God desires to relieve our secret burdens.
God offers new ways to respond to the Holiday Malaise…mental health physicians, phone calls to loved ones who understand us and know how to reciprocate our love, finding ways of breaking cycles of isolation…Have dinner with your best friend…
…worship and prayer, a healthy spirituality…a spirituality that encourages us to open our souls to God. God is in love with us, and wants to know us…each and every part of us. God wants to venture into our dark places.
God’s love is a star in the sky, an angelic visitor proclaiming the impossible in the darkest hours of the night.
Suffering persists in the world. There is still exile. There is still imprisonment, physical, psychological, and spiritual.
We have to have hope, and find ourselves responding with Mary:
My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord.
My spirit exults in God my savior,
for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed.
The Almighty has done great things for me,
and Holy is His Name.
Mary gives birth to the Word of God, the living Word of God who was present at the beginning of all things…Jesus the Christ. Her life is the life of a prophet. She bears God into the world. Mary is the Joyful Prophet. The joy she proclaims is not a denial of the dark. Instead it comes from the night reaches. It comes from those wounded places, the places of real despair, pain, and frustration. It comes out of poverty. It comes out of loneliness. It comes out of abandonment. It comes out of destructive political systems.
He has shown the strength of his am,
He has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
And has lifted up the lowly.
Mary sees the darkness.
And instead of sinking into cynicism she offers hope.
She offers herself to God.
And through her faith God enters the world as one of us.
This is the power and the wisdom of the incarnation.
The incarnation defines God’s presence as tangible and ultimately real.
This is the wisdom offered to us in the coming of Christ, Immanuel; “God is with us.”
Our relationship with God, our expressions of faith are not to be relegated to some “spiritual” or “disembodied” place in our lives.
Our faith is the faith of Mary.
Our faith bears God’s living presence into a world
in need of grace, love, transformation and joy.
We are called to break the cycles that bring darkness and suffering.
We are all called to be joyful prophets. We are called to bear a Word of light into a world of darkness…our own and the stranger’s darkness…in Wilmette or in a far off land. Every prophetic act, every prophetic word offered is an echo of the first Word spoken at Creation…for God moved over the abyss, spoke a word and there was light…
…and, behold, it was good. Amen.
Posted by tripp at December 15, 2007 08:09 AMExcellent; and I loved hearing your voice as I was reading it.
Posted by: Mom at December 15, 2007 08:54 AM