Sermon: November 29, 2009

In my mind, Advent begins the day after Thanksgiving. Now that’s a tough one, being Black Friday and all, but Friday morning when alot of other people had already been up for several hours finishing their shopping, I woke up, needing to spend the morning finishing my work on this sermon before our daughter arrived from Portland. As I lay in bed, all I could think about was my family’s big win in the Thanksgiving Turkey Bowl Game.

You may have that kind of tradition in your family where, after you eat turkey the family assembles for a little touch football game before you eat the pie? Well there we were again, playing football in the mud by the Sherwood United Methodist Church where my Dad’s clan has gathered with his brother’s clan since the beginning of time. And this year our family won!!! Now this is a big deal and I’m so grateful, so I think we oughta continue what Debbie taught us last week in her sermon. For those of you who missed it, Debbie showed us a way to share gratitude. She learned it from a friend who practices Laughing Yoga. I say, “I’m so grateful my team won the game.” And you all respond twice (with the appropriate motions): “Very Good! Very Good! Yea! Very Good, Very Good! Yea!”

But it’s Advent now and I need to explain about that Turkey Bowl. When I say “my family won” I don’t mean my Dad’s team scored more touchdowns than my Uncle’s team. In fact we always play to a tie. Our family won because one of the twin nieces, 11-year-old Maria, playing in her pink raincoat and pink rubber boots had 6 passes thrown to her during the game and she caught 4 of them. Our family won because one of the nephew’s wives, who had never played football in her life, faked out one of the opposing super-jocks for the tying touchdown and Samuel, who a few years back could do nothing but cry and whine, scored on a double reverse that would’ve put even LaMichael James to shame. I say our family won because the whole family won, because everyone was included in the action, no matter what age, gender or ability, we even tried to get a pass to dad, sitting in the wheelchair, cheering on the sidelines! But here’s the thing, it hasn’t always been that way, like the year one of the cousins played as though it were the Super Bowl and my sister Nancy went to the hospital with a broken collar bone. This year something changed and we all felt it.

Our Advent begins with the prophet saying (something’s changed), “Behold the days are coming when the wolf shall dwell with the lamb.” “Speak tenderly to the nations that their warfare is ended.” “The earth shall be filled with the glory of God.” “The proud will be scattered, the lowly raised, the hungry filled, the wealthy emptied.” Advent begins with the prophet saying, “In those days a new President will be inaugurated, not like the President you know who judges by hearing and sight. This is not the Caesar Augustus Administration, this government will decide with equity and seek justice for those most in need.” Our Advent begins with the prophet saying,“Behold the days are coming when people will not be judged by the color of their skin or their religious or sexual preference or their zip code or by whether or not they have a Victoria’s Secret Body but by the content of their character.” “When you see the first leaves on the fig tree you know a new season is beginning.”

Debbie and I always joke with each other as we watch the TV ads during Thanksgiving week that we oughta get up and get into the spirit of the season on Black Friday. We plot it out in our minds: at 3:30 am we will hit Old Navy, Penney’s by 4, to the Shack by 5:30am and be back in bed and to sleep by 7.

What is going to keep this Advent from being a time for you when you wake up just long enough to go shopping, go to the Christmas Eve candlelight service, make sure your kids know Santa Clause, stuff yourself silly and go back to sleep? In fact maybe we all should’ve gotten up on Black Friday, so we could observe the signs at 3am and see the lines and wonder what in God’s Realm is happening to us.

Eugene Peterson’s translation of the words of Luke that follow our reading this morning say, “Be on your guard. Don’t let the sharp edge of your expectation get dulled by parties and drinking and shopping. Otherwise that Day is going to...spring on you suddenly like a trap.”

What will you do during this season of Advent to keep the razor-sharp edge of the Gospel from becoming dull as the knife you use to spread cream cheese on your cracker at the New Year’s Eve party the night before your same old life starts over again? What will we do to keep God’s dream from becoming a pipe dream? This is the tone of the message on the first Sunday of Advent...God in your face, be on your guard, the kingdom is near, don’t get seduced by that other world.

So how do we keep from getting taken in by that other world? Well, here’s the good news: when Blake and JoAnn English lit the first Advent candle on our behalf, we gave the world notice that we intend to live by a different calendar. When we move from this sanctuary to participate in our Advent Festival in the fellowship hall this morning, we will be making calendars and Advent wreaths. We will be writing cards to people who need to know they are loved, filling food backs to give to street people everyday of the week and, while the rest of the world sleeps, we will ring bells and dance because this causes us to stop and see another reality. Then even our children will know we aren’t marking the days till we get to open the first package. We are marking the days to birth. We are in the final trimester of a new world about to be born, and we are feeling the first contractions.

If you weren’t planning on going to the party, think again. Today, as that other world prepares to gorge itself again and by that consumption put all life in peril, we celebrate the New Year first. Today is the Christian New Year. It’s when we start our lives over again with the conviction that it’s not all about us. So get started right away this week. Make sure you put that advent wreath in a prominent place at home where you can’t miss it. Then, as you gather around that wreath to light the candle each day, why not do together what Debbie practiced with us last Sunday. Take a moment before you light the candle. Let each family member witness a moment of gratitude in their lives. Say “Very good, Very good. Yea! Very Good, Very Good, Yea!” If you live alone, call one of us up!

We need to have that laughter in our season, because these Advent readings today aren’t fun. Eugene Peterson’s words for Luke 21 are right on. He paraphrases:

It will seem like all hell has broken loose----sun, moon, stars, earth, sea, in an uproar and everyone all over the world in a panic, the wind knocked out of them by the threat of doom, the powers-that-be quaking...

“Look at a fig tree. When the leaves begin to show, summer is right around the corner...when you see these things happen, you know God’s kingdom is about here. Don’t brush it off! This isn’t for some future generation, but for this one---these things will happen. Sky and earth will wear out; my word won’t wear out.

All hell has broken loose. Luke says if we don’t see it we aren’t paying attention. We are so entrenched in greed, the only way out we can see is to keep lining the pockets of the most greedy, to keep overcharging our credit cards, to keep exerting our independence in more car-miles driven and more possessions accumulated and more blame placed on others and we annoint our independence with the blood of the innocent in wars foreign and domestic, pandemic hunger, homelessness, disease, addiction and environmental degradation while imagining, we are happy. Where is Advent in that? Luke and all the prophets say,” Read the signs and don’t look away. Don’t even blink.”

It’s time for all of us to plan our Christian year. Don’t make empty resolutions. Plan what you will do in December, January, February and beyond and resolve not to look away. Start now. Get your wreath made. Then, next Sunday, you can join us for our December Symposium when we will be privileged to hear the stories of soldiers of our community who have been to Iraq and Afghanistan. Come, listen, don’t look away. A world filled with shalom isn’t God’s pipe dream, it’s God’s plan. So how will we care for these children of God who we have asked to be our warriors in this time of the Prince of Peace?

The next day, our building becomes a real sanctuary for 2 weeks when the Shelter families come to live, you can be part of that too. I always remember the story of one of our own church families who, a few years back were making their plans to serve one evening here at the shelter. As they readied themselves, one of the children asked mom and dad what the homeless people would look like and his parents told him, “Well just like us.” As they gave their time at the shelter, they discovered it was true, in fact, the kids realized that the homeless parents got them mixed up with their own kids. How often in our December shelter weeks has a baby of the homeless families played the infant Jesus in our Nativity here? 10 years of Sunday School won’t teach the real meaning of Advent like that.

The Advent of the Messiah was both deeply personal and profoundly political so as you plan your Christian year, include both activities to feed your soul and actions to change God’s world. Our President has finally now pledged to be present in December when the international community gathers in Copenhagen to continue efforts to heal God’s creation from the effects of climate change and strive to live differently together. The Advent vision is a world full of the Glory of God where “all flesh will see it together.” Nothing threatens this Advent of Glory more than climate change. We are responsible for most of it and we must be at the table. While we light our Advent candles let us also write to President Obama thanking him for getting us there and encouraging him to urge China and India to join with us.

No sooner will the 2010 Rose Bowl game be in the history books (with the Ducks or Beavers victorious) than we will be called to the polls to vote on tax measures 66 and 67. The Advent dream is the certainty of a world where the poor will be raised and the wealthy will free themselves of wealth so all can live in hope. No sign of the times threatens the dream more than the growing disparity between rich and poor and these tax measures in my opinion are a step toward closing the gap. Plan, early in your Christian New Year to decide for yourself if these measures advance God’s kingdom of justice and do your job as a citizen in Christ.

Friends, this is our New Year’s Day. This is the beginning. In Advent we launch a new era. Then January begins with an Epiphany Party and we start an exciting small group experience designed by Marcus Borg called “Experiencing the Bible Again for the First Time.” It’s not just Bible study, it’s about seeing the vision again, rethinking church again and recommiting ourselves to a new world again for the first time. While we continue to worship and baptize and do ministry with all ages of people and visit in the homes and nurture in Cgroups and men’s groups and women’s circles we will begin to look at how we can reach out to those in our community who live with HIV-AIDS and continue to figure out how to get at the root causes of hunger, adopt more farmers and heal our warming climate. Some of us will make plans to go out and witness needle exchanges in Eugene as others go on mission trips, with at least one trip to the Mexican Border to witness how we treat the sojourners in our land. All of this we will do as we take one of the most important steps our congregation has ever taken---a monumental capital campaign opening the door to a new era and how First United Methodist Church will continue to show the world how God comes in flesh and bone to dwell in Eugene. The days are surely coming. Are we ready for this? Let’s make our plans now and keep lighting the candles all the year long. Happy New Year Christians!!!