1st Sunday of Advent: Cycle B 23-24

The 1st Sunday of Advent
Isaiah 63:16B-17, 19B; 64:2-7 | 1 Corinthians 1:3-9 | Mark 13:33-37

Grant your faithful, we pray, almighty God, the resolve to run forth to meet your Christ with righteous deeds at his coming so that, gathered at his right hand, they may be worthy to possess the heavenly kingdom.  Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God forever and ever, amen.

We begin this Sunday with a new season, season of Advent, and it’s the beginning of our church year. I always want to tell people on this Sunday happy New Year, because in the spiritual world, it’s not on the same exact time as the calendar that we follow in the world. But maybe it makes sense that it’s a little bit off, because it’s a different kind of time. And what I want you to think about with me is where you are in this journey with God, and it’s important that you take stock of that, because it’ll give you a beginning point. And you can move forward and invite God into those places in your life ⎯ in my life, I want to do the same thing ⎯ where he isn’t yet fully alive, fully infused into our understanding of life.

So I love the opening theme. It's always the same for each of the Sundays of Advent in the three seasons of A, B and C cycle. Wake up, watch, watch, watch. Watch what? Look at what? The image for me is that at this time, when I start a new year, I’m wondering where I was years and years ago, and I look back on those years and realize how far I’ve come, how much I’ve changed. Each season has brought with it some gift, some interest in something that I didn’t talk about before, and when I think ⎯ if I go way back to my seminary ⎯ for some reason I was thinking about that today, and I remember Advent was always the time we were getting ready to go home for Christmas. So the first two weeks, we were in the seminary. The last two weeks, we’d be home, and I remember it was always an interesting time. It was about family, about relationships, about coming home. That was my experience of it, being in a seminary, but what I really look back on is there was a lack of enthusiasm in me for the challenge that I was being offered in the seminary, because it seemed to me, over and over again, what I was being asked to do was to perform rituals. And that was important, but to know that your major job is to say mass and do it with solemnity and dignity and belief and forgive sins, and we were encouraged to also be sure that we encouraged people to go to confession, even though it was just a venial sin, but weekly confession, monthly confession was considered a very good practice. So sin was always on the table as an issue, and then at the same time, there was this whole notion of preaching. And somehow it wasn’t really talked about that much. I didn’t even have a course in homiletics, because the seminary I went to wasn’t offering it at that time. And so I skipped that, but I don’t remember the enthusiasm that I have now. I don’t remember anyone filled with it when they would talk about telling people about this God who is so incredibly wonderful and powerful and transformative. It was just more about, “Do what you’re told, and you’ll receive what you need.” And it was kind of bland and not very exciting or mysterious or frightening or enlightening.

So I want to look at one thing that I’m looking at in my own heart right now, and it came from these readings. And I think it might help us all think about where we are in our relationship with God, because in this set of readings, we have a great contrast, particularly the first reading and the second reading. And the first reading, it reminds me so much of the way I used to think about myself. I was always considering myself as not being yet what I should be. I was always considering myself as being ashamed of who I was. The focus of my training was sinlessness is the goal, and if that’s the goal, which you can’t ever accomplish and shouldn’t ever try to actually accomplish ⎯ you should pay attention. Watch your sinfulness, learn from it, but in the beginning, it was the thing that I was burdened with. I lived in a world of shame. It was just natural, and when I listen to this reading, it’s so perfect when it describes that kind of understanding of God as someone so different, so contrary to the sinful, broken humanity that there’s a great divide between us. And the images of we are nothing but polluted rags and withered leaves and unclean and that we have nothing to offer God at all, and yet we do say in that reading, which is hopeful, “But we’re in a place of work. We’re in a place where you are molding us.” And that’s the most positive, wonderful thing, I think, we can say about this set of readings, and that is be aware, be alert, watch the way in which you are being molded, the clay that you are, the influences. We are such clay-like when you think about it, in terms of our families of origin, what we learned at the beginning. It forms us, and it's really hard. It gets baked in. Sometimes you have to break the pot again to start over again. So that’s a beautiful image to stick with in this set of readings as we begin with Mark’s gospel. So listen to his insights as we weigh them against where we are in this journey. We are being molded, remade, broken and then remade, broken and remade.

Then we listen. It’s so clearly in St. Paul’s letter about the beauty of the fullness of the revelation that came in the New Testament that this God is a seeker, a God who longs for us to be open to him. He is pursuing us. In the Old Testament, it seems we were always pursuing God’s favor by trying to do the right thing. Follow the rules. Follow the regulations. There was ⎯ in my early years, it was really a very clear thing. You do what God wants; you receive what he needs to give to you so that you’ll be even more pleasing to him. So it was almost impersonal. Do this; get that. Do this; get that. Nothing is further from the truth. Paul alludes to it so beautifully when he says, “We have been given Christ.” When I say the word Christ, know that that’s not Jesus’ last name, as I used to think as a child, but it means anointed. And what I want you to believe with all your heart, that this work that I do as a priest in my preaching is to anoint you with this awareness of the power of God living in you, manifesting through you, because you said yes. You said yes. Watch what you’re saying to God. Do you say, “Yes, use me. Make me into what I need to be,” or do you say, “Wait, I prefer to be in charge of this, and I’ll do what I think I have to do in order to please you”? No, human beings, by nature, are longing for a relationship with God, God by nature fully, finally revealing himself. Throughout the New Testament is a God with a passion, a longing, a desire to be a part of your life and my life. That’s what’s so radically different about where I was back in the seminary days and where I am now. I never had an image of God longing, desiring, passionately wanting an intimate relationship with me so that I would feel his presence floating in my heart, being there with me, resonating through my heart, through my very being.

The miracles that Jesus performed, that is so exciting to me, and I remember at times in the seminary, I didn’t really think about anything in my ministry that was that exciting. Obviously it was so unknown I couldn’t really figure out what it was going to feel like to be a priest, but I knew it didn’t demand that much. Everyone can learn these rituals, but I had no idea the depth and the breadth and the beauty and the frightening aspects of this journey of intimacy with God. And that’s what I want you to be watching for and looking at. Jesus uses an image with his disciples that’s very, very often used in all the scriptures, in the synoptics rather, and basically he’s saying, “You, disciples of mine, you’re going to be managing a household of servants, and this is my house.” So we know the kingdom of God is a house, often considered a people gathered together, believing, trusting in God, listening to his marvelous personality, if I can say that. That’s funny. I’ve never said that before. God’s personality is so complex, but at the same time, it is so endearing, so intensely in love with us, almost it seems at times wanting to tell us how much so that he can shake us up and make us feel like we have to work a little harder to be open to him. But ultimately his desire is just to be inside of us. Watch for that. Say yes to that. And then he says about this house, he said, “It’s like you’re running this household.” That’s you in charge of all the people in your life. You’re not in charge of them. You’re just living your life with them, and the good steward of the house is the one who takes care of his ⎯ of the others and cares for their needs and makes sure that they’re well-paid, that they’re cared for and that they know what they’re doing. It’s this image that God has placed in our hearts that we are not individuals working on a salvation track with him. We are on a track with a community of people called our church, our friends, the people God has called us to share our lives with. That’s the work, is to be somebody for them, not to be somebody just so I can please God, and then he can give me what I want. It’s not that kind of one-on-one solely. It’s about God in me, the Christ in me ministering to the people in my life, and there are multiple opportunities. Watch for those opportunities. Watch for the mystery of the way in which God will give you something, a longing and intention in your heart for someone that you know and you love, and believe with me that that intention is the most powerful prayer that you could ever offer anyone. Watch for those signs, those longings in your heart for those around you. Know that they are powerful agents through which God is working.

There’s much to learn. There’s much to see. There’s much to wonder about. That’s my promise to you, that I will give everything I can to this work that we have for this next year and then another year and another year I hope, I hope. I hope it keeps going. So let us be blessed with the attention we’re called to have to the great mystery of a God who longs for us and we who long for him. Amen.

Father, we celebrate a wonderful mystery, our union with you, you in us, we in you, and that unity is something that we need to pay attention to.  So help us in this time of watching and waiting and hoping and longing for the growth that is this intention of the season.  Every season prepares us, but these first Sundays of Advent call us to a beautiful opening.  Bless us with that eager desire to see, to know, to feel you, and we ask this in Jesus’ name, amen.