Sermon for Advent II—Year B 2011
The Beginning of the Good News
Someone recently reminded me of the
Thanksgiving Day prayer of that great theologian: Homer Simpson.
If you are not a fan of the Simpsons, I apologize,
however I do want to point out that “The Simpsons”
is not only the longest running prime-time comedy series in television history—
and it also has some Lutheran “creds”:
creator, Matt Groening, was raised a Lutheran.
As I was saying, a friend of mine,
who happens to be an Episcopalian priest,
reminded me of what I think could—or should be—
considered a great prayer for the beginning of Advent.
Here is Homer Simpson’s Thanksgiving Day prayer,
(a prayer which he prayed surrounded by his wife with the blue beehive hairdo,
his daughter and son, his two chain-smoking sisters and others):
“We’d like to thank you for the occasional moments
of peace and love our family’s experienced.
Well, not today, you saw what happened!
Oh Lord, be honest, are we the most pathetic family
in the universe or what?”
Now, in my humble opinion, there is much to be admired in Homer’s prayer.
Not only is Homer thankful but above all, he is honest!
He does not attempt in any way to hide or even explain or justify the flaws
of this very human family—blue beehive hairdo and all!
There is no pretense in this prayer.
And that lack of pretense,
despite the laughter or perhaps because of it,
is the reason I found myself thinking about how this prayer of Homer’s
is in so many ways a wonderful prayer for Advent.
Advent, the season in which we find ourselves
watching and waiting for the coming of the One who brings us
those blessed respites of peace and love we have experienced
(however occasional and even fleeting such moments may be).
Advent, the season in which we watch and wait for the One who
has “seen what has happened”—not just today
but every day; the One who certainly knows, well, (let’s be honest!)—
how pathetic we can be and how in need we are of saving.
What does it mean for us to confess that we don’t have everything figured out
and completely in order?
What does it mean for us to admit that, well,
our house is a mess and we’re not really ready
to have God (or anyone else!) make that long expected visit?
Given the choice, which do we prefer?
God to come and help us clean up our mess
or
God to come and give us a gold star for making
such a valiant effort at cleaning up our mess on our own?
or
do we prefer God not to come at all
because we don’t want God to see our mess?
Perhaps, the answer is . . . “all of the above”?
The good news is that indeed God does come to us
in Jesus of Nazareth the Christ
and in him God does for us what we can’t do for ourselves—
that is, free ourselves from the prison, the mess of our sinful, pathetic ways.
And God comes to us through the gift of the Holy Spirit—
so that we might have the power to be disciples
of the One who is the Way, the Truth and The Life—
so that we might be the compassionate,
loving hands of Christ so that we might be
co-workers in cleaning up the mess.
That said, just what are we waiting for?
And how shall we wait?
(Especially if our answer is that we prefer God not come and see our mess.)
These are the questions the writer of the second letter attributed to Peter takes up.
I think Eugene Peterson’s translation of these verses in The Message are helpful to us:
Don’t overlook the obvious here, friends.
With God, one day is as good as a thousand years,
and a thousand years as a day.
God isn’t late with his promise as some measure lateness.
He is restraining himself on account of you,
holding back “the End” because he doesn’t want anyone lost.
He’s giving everyone space and time to change.
Since everything here today might well be gone tomorrow,
do you see how essential it is to live a holy life?
We’ll be ready for the promised new heavens and the promised new earth,
all landscaped with righteousness.
Peter makes it clear that we are not just waiting for Christmas!
What we are waiting for is a new beginning—
The coming into being of God’s promises,
new heavens,
new earth,
a brand new life,
with everything to live for.
In our gospel text for today, Mark wastes no time in getting down to business—
a single-sentence introduction announces the new beginning—
An event has taken place that radically changes
the way we look at and experience the world,
and Mark, for one, can’t wait to tell us about it.
In every sentence Mark writes in his gospel, there’s an air of breathless excitement
and as far as Mark is concerned the sooner we get the message,
the better off we’ll all be.
For the message is good, incredibly good:
God is here,
God does not think we are pathetic
and God is not afraid or put off by our messes.
God is on our side.
And, most blessedly and importantly, God is passionate to save us
and to empower us so we can get moving on God’s new beginnings.
All the texts we hear today—on this 2nd Sunday of Advent—
remind us that we need to pause,
to take stock,
and to empty our hearts so that there is room in them
for the birth of something new and altogether unforeseen.
“Clear a road for the LORD,” the prophet Isaiah says—
“Prepare a highway across the desert for our God!”
(And the desert Isaiah is speaking of is not some faraway desolate geography
in the Middle East; no he is talking about the desert places in our lives,
in our souls, in our hearts.)
Isaiah—every bit as brutally honest as Homer Simpson—
reminds us of our limits, our fragility, our mortality.
After everything else has passed away,
all the grass has withered,
after the flowers have faded
and all the glories of the flesh have perished from
the face of the earth—
only God’s word will stand forever.
Only God is forever.
Only God will never let us down.
Then John the Baptist cries out—another rough but utterly sincere
and refreshingly honest character, a prophet who appears as wild as the wilderness
in which he lives and preaches in announces again:
“Make straight the way of the Lord!”
So what does it all mean for us?
Because we need to know that when the prophet speaks,
he’s not speaking only to those people who lived long ago
or some other people over there.
No, when the prophet speaks, he’s speaking to us.
As one commentator on today’s texts wrote:
“Certainly it is true that most of us are waiting,
if not for the day of the Lord then for something else—
for true love,
for the return of health,
for a job that challenges us,
for a house to call our own,
for peace in our families,
in our nation,
in our world.
Most of us are waiting for something,
and many of us yearn for something better
we cannot name.” (Barbara Brown Taylor, Mixed Blessings, p. 9)
Perhaps the one phrase out of all the texts for today
we resonate most with is Isaiah’s imperative:
“Cry out!”
And together we ask with Isaiah, “What shall I cry?”
although the paradox is, of course, that most of us have
something very specific in mind to cry out to God for.
Just this morning I was listening to the radio show on faith and spirituality
called “Being,” hosted by Krista Tippett.
The topic this morning was “Monsters We Love” and
she and her guest were discussing the proliferation of
vampire movies and television shows—
Twilight and the Vampire Diaries and the like,
But also shows that feature zombies and serial killers.
(You can thank Pastor Dreyman for opening the door on this in last week’s sermon!)
One of the things they said about all of this is something
I have been thinking myself for quite a while:
Such shows are a reaction to our time’s hyper-rationalism,
they express our yearning for transcendence,
they express our deep questions about life and death
and our fear that our souls are, well, dead or
at the very least numb and indifferent to awe and wonder.
Like Isaiah and John, we too yearn for something better,
something we cannot or perhaps dare not name.
For Isaiah it is the revealed glory of the Lord—a mystery higher than all others.
For John it is the One who will come after him—
who is mightier and greater than himself.
Neither of them know the details but
they know that the old ways of life are passing away
and new life is on its way.
Do you know that too?
Do you know that the old ways of life are passing away
and new life is on its way?
They call us to prepare for that new life,
to clear away anything that might get in its way
and to wait without knowing when it will come,
or what it will exactly look like
or even how it will change our lives.
A brand new life—a new beginning.
During Advent we are invited to empty ourselves
by being completely honest before the Lord.
No pretense allowed!
We are invited to come out,
to let go,
to open up—
to hold the things of this world lightly in our hands
and even to give up those things,
those ways of being,
that are clearly taking up too much room.
During Advent we are invited to prepare the way
for something new and unknown in our lives,
brought to us in person by the living God—
In Advent we give voice,
we cry out our yearning for awe and wonder and transformation.
What will that new life mean for you and I?
What do we have to let go of first?
What is taking up too much room or
blocking the way of God’s entrance into our lives?
We might not know the answers yet to these questions—
That, too, is what Advent is about.
But one of the answers we do have comes from the letter of Peter—essentially he says:
Be the change you want to see.
Use the space and the time God has given you for a new beginning, a new life.
Advent is about preparing a place for something new in our lives,
for new life in us,
and then waiting without knowing,
waiting with nothing but faith, hope, and love
in the promise that God himself is with us
and his face will shine upon us and
God will offer us in Christ
all that we are yearning for
and so much more!
1