Advent 1, 2022

 Advent is a coming, a beginning.  We romanticize the coming of Christ, a baby, so sweet and mild who doesn’t even make any crying even though he’s laying in a manger.  How quickly we forget how it was bringing a newborn home, no sleep, constant worry—is the baby eating enough, is the baby growing, will the baby ever sleep, is the baby sleeping too long?  Beginnings and entrances of new people and situations often doesn’t mean peace and comfort and joy.  It often means chaos and noise and disruption.

So we prepare—we get ready for chaos and we get ready to feel that our house is invaded by a thief.  We prepare by letting go.  We let go of control of knowing when and where the disruption might happen.  We simply enter a state of being ready, knowing that we can’t fully prepare.  We do what we can, but we let go of what we can’t know and do.

We prepare by listening.  God had an invitation for Noah.  Noah listened no matter how preposterous the situation, and so he was ready.  God had an invitation for Joseph, for Mary.  They both listened and prepared as best they could.  God has an invitation for us, so we listen.  We listen to the cries of the hungry.  We listen to those whose grief is intensifying this time of year.  We listen to those who are out in the cold.  We listen to the young.  In all these situations we listen to Jesus and he isn’t comforting us.  He’s telling us to get ready, to act, to do something as if we are doing it to him, to respond with love and openness and a sharing spirit as God has to us.

We prepare by noticing.  We notice who is and isn’t here.  For Matthew’s congregation, maybe some had been arrested and taken away, some had become martyrs.  There was survivor guilt.  There was a lot of grief and pain and fear.  In our times we have been facing a time of loss.  Two people who were serving together at Zarephath three years ago are not serving together today.  Some are still working there and some have died.  Some people you sat next to in the pews have died.  One is left and the other is gone.  For me, I am grieving our third Thanksgiving not joining in a family meal.  It is a choice we make because we are not confident that it is safe to be together unmasked indoors.  But I still grieve because those are empty seats at the table.  

We prepare by letting go.  I know I already said that one.  We let go of the knowing, but we also let go of the old order.  Jesus is coming like a thief in the night.  We established last week on the cross that he wasn’t a thief, and yet here he comes invading our house at Advent.  He is breaking in.  His Kingdom is breaking into our world.  This Kingdom demands that we let go of what came before, what we have come to think of as ours, and to let him rule in our lives, let his values be the most important ones.

Advent is a beginning, a coming of something new.  We have had a year of new beginnings together, getting to know each other as congregation and people.  Much grace has been extended to me as I was a force of chaos breaking into your church and mixing things up from what you knew before—not on purpose but just because of how I tend to minister. 

(We have another Advent this year, the coming of children into our midst.  This is preparing us for the Advent of our God.  Jesus comes as a little child—not quiet and fitting into our norms—but excited, interested, involved.  God calls them to lead and to participate and to be interested, and they are.  And it brings some chaos to our worship space.  They are Jesus in our midst, little children challenging our comfort, challenging our sense of control.  They are God’s Kingdom breaking into this church.  Not our church, but God’s church.  God is us up a little this Advent.  God is preparing us.

Some churches have responded to children’s excitement and interest with frowns, wanting the kids to do things a certain way, for them to do things our way.  But Trinity has a different tradition.  Long ago, it was the youth who stood up to the adults and insisted that Trinity would go from speaking Swedish, to speaking English.  They brought the congregation through to be able to minister to a wider community.  It won’t always be this chaotic, but we can’t ask the kids to wait or they will go find other places to belong and participate. 

And it isn’t just cute, either, it is an honor to be served by these young people.  Maybe they don’t fully grasp the seriousness of this meal, yet, but they are growing in the depth of their faith and as they grow and face their own challenges, they will be reminded in this meal of how much Jesus loves them and how they belong.  It is an honor to be served by these young people, in eagerness and wonder.  It is an honor to be served by these young people who are teaching us to open our eyes to see Jesus in them.  When you take communion from one of these youngsters, you are invited to listen to God’s voice welcoming and blessing you through their young voices.  You are invited to let go of your ideas of who is worthy to serve.  You are invited to notice all the ways that God comes to you through unexpected people.  You are invited to let go of the old world order and to embrace the new life that God  is giving you in this meal in this community.  And you are invited to imagine the day when these youngsters will receive communion from their children and grandchildren as this community continues into the future.)

At the first Advent, Joseph and Mary and all of heaven and earth awaited a Savior who would break into the world and disrupt the violent and corrupt systems of oppression.  Jesus came and he showed how to live a different way.  He invited us all to live that way.  He gave his life—he was arrested because he lived that way.  He was violently killed because he lived that way of peace and love.  And he invites us to follow him and live a new beginning, to live the Kingdom coming to this world and to risk everything.

We celebrate Advent believing that Christ will come again to bring the reign of God fully into this world and we celebrate Advent knowing that Christ is already here.  This understanding that God is already here changes how we live.  Christ is already here in every child disrupting our routines.  Christ is already here in the people who were murdered and wounded in the Colorado nightclub shooting.  Christ is already here in refugees and immigrants looking for safety for themselves and their children.  Christ is already here in this beautiful earth, exploited and suffering and crucified.

So how do we respond differently knowing that Christ is here?  We listen, we make room, we notice, we let go of control, we let go of comfort, we let go of what we have claimed for ourselves and invite new voices and helpers to teach us.  We follow the way of a disquieting Advent taking on new values of God—sharing, loving, being open.  And we grieve—we admit where we are disturbed and hurting and tend to our wounds, we listen to our fears for a moment until we remind ourselves that we were never in charge and this was never mine but always ours.

We let go of violence—against each other, against this earth, against ourselves—and we vow to study war no more.

There was another Advent long ago, another time the light came into the world, when the world was created.  God made all the heavens and the earth and still God wanted to have a conversation, a relationship, someone in God’s own image and so God created human kind.  It wasn’t peace and joy and quiet anymore.  It was chaos and conflict and misunderstanding and hiding.  And still God did not give up in dismay.  God has always been coming to us, even though we are often violent and hard-hearted and selfish.  Far from giving up on us, God has love for us and continues to patiently guide us, give us every good gift, and forgive us so that we can try again to live in God’s Kingdom way of peace.  Since God has treated us with such grace, we might find ourselves especially inclined toward grace for each other in this community God has given us as a gift.