Sermon of December 1, 2002
Rev. Molly Vetter, Justice and Outreach
“Now Is a Good Time to Stay Awake”Isaiah 64:1-9
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Jesus advises us that now is a good time to stay awake, and it’s not without a little irony that I admit my own suspicion that one of the reasons I became a preacher is that I have trouble paying attention to sermons. I don’t really have trouble staying awake; I’m not one of those, although they’re around. I’m one of those whose mind tends to wander around during the sermon. In Mark’s gospel, the command is to stay awake—not only to the sermon, but awake to the world around us and to God’s movement in our midst. And there is so much to stay awake for here as we prepare for Christmas. It’s Advent now and there are Christmas parties to plan and attend, Christmas gifts to buy, holiday programs in our parks, at the zoo, in our community organizations, plays to attend here at the church, and an All-Church Advent event tonight—so much going on in our midst, so much to get ready. The stress and anticipation just keep building. Will it all fit in? And will Christmas come? So, we gather in worship together here. We gather to remember that Advent is about waiting and expectation, and also about longing. The scripture passages today are filled with longing: Isaiah cries out, “Oh, that you tear open the heavens and come down”. We long for God to come to earth, to make all things right. Christ’s words in the gospel of Mark likewise invite us to prepare ourselves, to get ourselves ready for God’s work in the world. Christ uses three images to describe the coming of God. The first is this apocalyptic, end-time, cosmic vision of the sun and the moon being darkened and the stars falling from the sky—it is the text the Choir just sang for us. It’s like those Hebrew prophets, Isaiah, Ezekiel and Daniel and Joel wrote. The end of time will come in a cosmic way. We’ll see it in the heavens and it will bring a new time to earth, a time of peace and justice. But Jesus doesn’t stop there; he continues describing the coming reign of God using two more images. He describes it also as a fig tree. As the fig tree grows and sends out is shoot and begins to turn green, we know that things are getting ready. We see around us in the growth of the fig tree that the earth is coming closer to God’s kingdom. Signs are here all around us. It is also like a master who leaves his household in charge of the doorkeeper. That doorkeeper must remain the ever-vigilant, not knowing at what time and on what day the master will return. We have to be ready and we have to stay awake. As I studied the Word this week, I was taken by the drama, particularly of that first story that Jesus uses. This world is shaken up by a sun and a moon that are darkened and by stars falling from heaven. Maybe you saw the meteor showers recently or maybe you’re feeling the movement of the stars and moon as the days grow shorter and night grows longer, affected the movements of the earth rotation. One, I traveled to Italy with a group from Seminary. We stopped to visit a small, 12th century church in Northern Italy called San Secondo. It had been built in the year, scholars believe, of a solar eclipse. The capitals atop the columns in the church depict, on one side, the signs of Christ’s coming and, on the other side, signs of the dramatic eclipse. The faithful there in San Secondo wondered what this event in the heavens meant about God’s coming in their own time. The darkness is growing around us and we wonder what it means about God coming in this time. The song that the choir sang, “Oh Lord, What a Mornin’,” invites us to look forward with hope to the time when the stars will fall from the heavens. This song comes from our American Spiritual tradition, written by black slaves in the American South. It was written by a people for whom hope for the end-times was not an option. The eschatological vision of the ends of things when the stars would fall and the sun would be darkened provided the hope necessary to keep alive for another day. We know also that the slaves sang of the stars in part to give coded directions to one another about how to catch the Underground Railroad—to make their way, literally, from slavery to freedom. Perhaps this song includes, imbedded in this cosmic vision of the end of all times, a passageway to freedom in this time. Oh, Lord, What a Mornin’ when the stars will begin to fall! When God tears open heaven and comes down and makes all things right. But, now, the darkness is all around us… Oh…. That you would just tear open the heavens and come down and make all things right! As I read the news, I hear of too much darkness, of children downed in backyard swimming pools in our own community. Of youth killed in street racing accidents. Of too many people in our community without food for their Thanksgiving feast—who are thankful for having to find a feast at the Rescue Mission or the Salvation Army. We hear the stories of too many people who die homeless and alone on our streets here in San Diego, America’s Finest City. And so today, we gather together to ready ourselves for Christmas and to raise concern for the justice that Christ ushers in. On this Social Justice Sunday, we’re aware not only of the injustice and the tragedy in our community, but all around the world. We hear of oil spills of the coast of Spain. We hear of more stories of violence in Israel and in Palestine and now in Kenya. As a nation we prepare ourselves for war in Iraq, but we cry out for peace. Oh, would you just come down and tear open the heavens and make all things better?! And to top it off, it’s Christmas. Of all times for tragedy be around us and to be aware of the darkness in our midst: why now at Christmas, when we gather with friends and family to celebrate the birth of Jesus the Christ? One of my favorite rock groups is a band called U2. They sing a song, “Peace on Earth” that echoes Isaiah’s longing for things to be right. “Heaven on earth, we need it now,” they sing. “I’m sick of all this hanging around, sick of sorrow, sick of pain, sick of hearing again and again that there is going to be peace on earth.” As the Holidays grow closer, our cry for peace is met with knowledge and awareness of the darkness. And U2 and their song remind us of the cry of mothers who have lost their children in war. We cry out for peace on earth but we know the darkness. Oh…. That you would just tear open the heavens and come down and make all things right! In just about half an hour, Bono, who is the lead singer of U2, will be gathering with activists at St. Paul United Methodist Church in Lincoln, NE to talk about the AIDS crisis, particularly as it devastates Africa, and about what we as American’s can do to make things different. In Lincoln, which is my hometown, Bono gathers with people of faith, on World AIDS Day, to turn our attention to the darkness and so strategize about how we can bear light. We are called to be aware of the darkness around us and to take action for things to be different. Today, on World’s Aids Day, we are aware that AIDS is spreading around our world at an alarming rate. In China, we are told the spread of AIDS continues to multiply, as the government refuses to acknowledge the fullness of its culpability in the spread of AIDS. From Africa we hear the gruesome statistics: that 75% of the world’s AIDS cases are there in sub-Saharan Africa. We hear of countless children orphaned by AIDS. And we know that it is also in our own community. For the past two years I have been blessed to be a part of the Strength for the Journey retreats—a retreat for adults living with HIV/AIDS in the San Diego area. This year has been particularly hard year. Since camp in September; we have already lost Roy, Max and Fernando. And I ask: “When will it be enough?” When will there be no more AIDS. Oh… God, if you would just tear open the heavens and come down and make all things right! Matilda Elena Lopez writes poetry in El Salvador and she sings of the difficulty of hope in the present darkness. “I cry in the cocoon for the wings of tomorrow / The future is a tortured of today that doesn’t yet have wings,” she writes. (1) We’re forced to live in the midst of a today where hope is difficult and where the darkness is far to dark. Oh…God that you would just tear open the heaven and come down and make all things right! Jesus asks us to be awake not only to the light but awake also to the darkness. Now, I have a brother who is an interesting person, and always eager to learn more. He conducted an experiment when he was a freshman in college, in November of 1993. The experiment was to see how sleep works. He had read that our sleep is the deepest and most restorative in the middle of the sleep cycle. So, he postulated that by sleeping longer on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday and Sunday, and staying awake Monday, Wednesday and Friday, he would be at least as rested as otherwise. His experiment lasted one whole week. He discovered that it is useless to try to plan when we will be asleep and when we will be awake to fight against the cycles of the earth’s rotation and the cycles of light and dark. It useless to think that we can delay our sleep and delay our awakeness to meet our own needs. We invited by Christ to pay attention to this moment and to this “now” as an investment in the building of God’s Kingdom. Both Isaiah and Jesus in Mark’s gospel remind us that we are not in control. Isaiah reminds us that we are merely the clay; God is the potter who shapes and builds us into God’s people and builds our land into God’s Kingdom. Jesus reminds us that none of us know the day or the hour when God will come again. It’s useless to spend our lives concerned with figuring out when the hour will be; instead, we are supposed to wake up now. You are invited to be alive and to be ready. “People look east,” the hymn sings. Look east and get ready, for the morning is coming. The light is dawning in our midst. Look east and ready yourselves for the light. In the midst of that hymn, “People Look East,” reminds us of our role in the building of the Kingdom. “Give up your strength, the seed to nourish, but in course the flower may flourish.” We cannot control when God’s Kingdom will come, but we’re called to come do our work of nourishing the seed, which by the grace of God will flower in God’s Kingdom. We’re invited to be awake, and alive and engaged in this time and in this place. There are lots of ways we can do this. Here at this church, on this Sunday morning, there are lots of ways that you’re invited to action as we observe Social Justice Sunday. You’re invited to see the ministry programs of our congregation. You’re invited today to be a part of the Missions Task Force, which has prepared for us an Alternative Christmas Gift Fair. Instead of choosing more things to buy for one another, we invite you to make donations to mission work in honor of one another. You’re invited this morning to consider becoming a Mentor either to a youth or a family in our community as they struggle to pull lives out of poverty into prosperity. You’re invited to bring food with you to worship and leave it in the coolers or boxes below the sanctuary or in Linder Hall so that on Sunday afternoon, we can distribute to families in need in our own community. You’re invited to care for your children, the children here, and the children of our church family—to welcome them and love them and raise them up in this church of knowledge of God’s love. You’re invited to also love the children of our community, to take care of foster children who have had to be removed from their families and placed them in our own care. You’re invited to take care of our earth, to participate in our environmental ministry. To walk or bicycle to work, to buy less, to need less and enjoy more the life given to us. You’re called to make a financial commitment to our church—to use your own personal finances in making a clear commitment of God. You’re invited to help the church grow--not to grow for the sake of growing, but grow into God’s Kingdom, to grow in spirit. As we come closer to God, to grow in evangelism as we share the good news of Christ and to grow in engagement as we take ourselves and ministry to the world. This morning, we shared together the Social Creed of the United Methodist Church. Through out the last century, the Methodist Church and, later, the United Methodist Church have preoccupied ourselves with the sake of social justice in our world through this creed. The Creed is a long creed because it is full of all of the things we think are important, that we believe are a part of God’s work. In front of you in the pew pockets, you’ll find copies of our church’s Social Principles—statements that outline the faithful thought of the people of the United Methodist Church. It relates to a wide range of issues that face us in this time and in this place, issues that we are called to pray about and act about as we “stay awake” in our lives of faith. Gusto Gonzalez writes of “Jesus Fiestero,” the “Jesus of the Fiesta,” the Party Jesus. (2) We are invited to celebrate a Christ who comes to us so that things will be different so that we will enjoy abundance—the treasures of life and a loving community that are given to us. Gonzales suggests that the difference between here and God’s Kingdom is less a difference than “here and there”--some “there” that’s far off—and more a difference between “now and then.” We are called to make God’s “then”—God’s Kingdom, a part of our “now,” by our work. This feast, this party, this fiesta that we are invited to this Christmas season, welcomes and involves everyone. It’s concerned with Justice for all of God’s children and for God’s own world. Daisy Machado writes about this party to which we are invited this Christmas season. It doesn’t require that you have a green card or that you speak with the right accent. Christ invites all of us. (3) But it also requires that we welcome in those that don’t have a green card or speak with the right accent, or who where funny clothes or who don’t think like we do. We are called to invite everyone to this feast because Christ’s feast invites everyone. We’re called to be awake to the movement of God in our midst, in this time, in this place taking us from here to the Kingdom of God from now to Christ’s then. The theologian Catherine Keller ends her book, Apocalypse Now and Then, with this statement: “In the end as in the beginning, what you have is the time of your life.” What we have is the time of our lives, and we’re called to be awake to the light that is coming now. Awake to the darkness all around us, and ready for transformation. Now is a good time to be awake. The darkness remains around us but Christ comes again, bringing light and hope. Our call to discipleship is a call to vigilant, waking faithfulness. Will you be awake with me?
(1) In Apocalypse Now and Then: a feminist guide to the end of the world. By Catherine Keller. Boston: Beacon Press, 1996, p. 124. (2) In Teologia en Conjunto: a collaborative Hispanic Protestant theology. Jose David Rodriguez and Loida Martell-Otero, eds. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997, p. 40-41. (3) In Teologia en Conjunto: a collaborative Hispanic Protestant theology. Jose David Rodriguez and Loida Martell-Otero, eds. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997, p. 42. |
