Sermon Text: Luke 21: 25-36
If you were a fly on the wall of the
Wood household at about 8:00 every night, you were have the opportunity to observe
some really bizarre parenting. Our almost-three-year-old has started
complaining mightily every night when it’s time to get ready for bed. This
falls into the category of a developmental phase that I just KNEW was coming at
some point but REALLY hoped would magically never happen to my child.
So the conversation most nights goes
something like this:
Parent: Okay,
buddy. It’s time to head upstairs.
Child: NOOOOOO!
I don’t want to go upSTAAAAAAIIIIIIRRRRSSSSS!
Parent: Oh,
I know. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just stay downstairs all night long!
What do you think we’d do down here? Would we sleep on the floor? Or maybe on
top of the kitchen counter? Even better! Maybe we could go outside with a
flashlight and play in the yard all night long, just looking around in the
dark. Going upstairs is no fun. I wish we could play all night instead. Maybe
when you’re grown up you can stay up all night long.
There is usually a lot of giggling
happening by this point. We typically get a few more complaints out of him but
he reluctantly gets ready to go to bed. Before we started doing this silly
little fantasy tap dance we were saying things like, “Well, I’m sorry you’re
upset, but we do have to go up now. I gave you a warning. We go upstairs every
night. It’s important to sleep so we can feel rested.”
I had read in several books that if
you just go with whatever you child really wants and make it into a big game,
imagining wilder and crazier things with them, it will often alleviate their
frustration. Somehow they feel heard and understood. I was very skeptical about
trying this because my adult brain told me, “But if you say something like
‘let’s go outside with flashlights’ then he’ll just be even more angry that you
can’t actually DO that, right?”
Nope. It doesn’t make him more angry.
It calms him down. It’s astounding. I don’t pretend to really understand how it
works, but when it comes to parenting I don’t really need to understand why
something works. If it works, we keep doing it until it stops working. So we’re
going with this whole fantasy thing.
Today’s passage from Luke takes us
into the realm of fantasy, too. Last week I thought to myself, “Oh, good.
Advent starts next week and we’re doing the Gospel of Luke this year, so that
will be nice.”
But I had forgotten that Advent with
the Gospel of Luke begins with a big apocalyptic bang. This is not a touchy
feely text. Instead it’s filled with signs of the end times and warnings about
tribulation.
Why on earth would the season of
Advent begin with a text like this? Well, for starters, this is a text about
waiting. And Advent is, of course, the season of waiting. Waiting for Christ to
be born in our midst. Waiting for the strange warming that comes to our hearts
when we greet the Christ child in the manger. Waiting for that kindling of hope
that comes with the realization that God comes to us again this year in
unexpected ways.
Apocalyptic texts like this one are
all about waiting, too. Written to give hope to those cast out into the margins
of society, apocalyptic is meant to strengthen people living in the midst of
chaos. It asserts that there are unseen rules governing all of creation. It
asserts that judgment is coming on those who live in ungodly ways. It promises
that the poor and the least and the lost will one day be lifted up in glory.
David Lose, a preaching professor at
Luther Seminary up in St. Paul, brings forward another reason this Luke passage
is appropriate for the beginning of Advent. Lose says that in order to really
grapple with this text “we should first and foremost admit that it will sound to most of our
hearers – and, quite frankly, also to us (if we really listen to it) – as sheer
fantasy.”[1]
Now,
lest you think that calling a biblical text fantasy is heretical, hear him out.
Here’s a long quote. I’ll let you know when it’s over:
Notice, however, that I didn’t say it’s not true,
but rather that it’s fantasy – as in fantastical, beyond our experience,
extraordinary, not of this world. And, I would argue, precisely because it is
not of this world, because it is beyond our physical and material
existence and experience, it has the power to redeem us. That is, I believe the
Bible not because it tells me of things I have seen and know for myself
but precisely because it describes a reality that stretches beyond the
confines of my finite, mortal existence and therefore has the capacity to
redeem me…and you…and this life and world we share.[2]
End
quote.
Fantasy
has the power to redeem us precisely because it is not of this world. I don’t understand
how this works any more than I understand why spinning tall tales for my two
year old helps him make peace with the idea of going to bed, but something
about this rings deeply true for me.
As the
nights grow longer and the days grow colder, my soul aches as I try to hold
together all the things this season brings.
Cheerful
holiday gatherings : tense interactions with those we are supposed to love
best.
Hymns
and prayers urging us to slow down and savor this time of waiting : a sense
that December 25 will be here before we know it and there’s still so much to
do.
Letters
in the mail urging me to do my part to help those in need : catalogs begging me
to buy my children more and more toys they don’t need.
News
stories of violence in lands far and near, super storms, fiscal cliffs : the
warm smile of a perfect stranger who opens the door for me at Target as I rush
in out of the cold.
Being
human means holding together all of these things.
Living
fully into the season of Advent means letting go of much of the familiarity of
the rest of the year. This season calls us into a unique time.
It’s a
fantasyland, really. We crane our necks to witness the birth of a poor nobody
child in a barn. We give beyond our means. We wait for the sound of hooves on
our rooftop and leave out cookies for a jolly old elf who comes bearing gifts.
It is a time unlike any other in the year.
Like
fantasy, I think Advent has the power to redeem us precisely because it is not
of this world. If we allow ourselves to live more fully into this fantasy time
– to lose ourselves in the midst of the radical, life-giving promises of Advent
– we will find ourselves changed.
I have
some dear friends at Broadway United Methodist Church up in Indianapolis. At
Broadway they have a saying, “Live as if the gospel were true.”
It
doesn’t sound like much, right? I mean, surely, as Christians, we should be
living as if the gospel were true.
I’m not
here to tell you what I think your gospel should be. And, yes, I really do
think we can each have our own. In fact, I think it’s one of the great quests
of the Christian life to find your own gospel and proclaim it to the world.
After all, we have four books that are titled “gospel” in our holy scriptures.
That alone should tell us there is room for all kinds of good news in this
world.
My
gospel is constantly evolving, but the core of it is this - I believe the
opening lines from the creed of the United Church of Canada, “We are not alone.
We live in God’s world.”
We are
not alone. To me, that is some of the best news I can imagine. We are not
alone. On days when I am living as if that were true, I feel a little less
despairing. I feel more loved. I feel stronger. And, in turn, I am able to be
kinder. I am able to remember my connections with others. I am able to find
more patience with the things that frustrate me. And in the face of deeply
frightening situations, I am able to find a sense of peace, knowing that I am
not alone.
And we
live in God’s world. The beauty that I encounter belongs to God. The horror
that I sometimes find still rests in God. There is nothing in this world that
can be separated from the love to God. It all exists in God and God exists in
all of it.
So what
is your gospel? And do you live your life as if it is true? Don’t worry – I’m
not asking you to answer that question right now.
What I
am asking is that you consider yourself invited to live more fully into the
fantasyland that is Advent.
As you
hold together the highs and lows and wrongs and rights and darkness and light
of this odd season, give yourself over to the fantasy of it all. Set aside some
of your need for concrete answers and facts and rest in the beauty of asking
why or how….and finding no answer. Seek out your gospel – whatever it may be –
and live as if it were true.
Fantasy
has the power to redeem us because it is not of this world.
Advent
has the power to stir our souls because it is not ordinary time.
The
gospel has the power to save precisely because it is incredible.
This
Advent, may your imagination run wild and may you live as if the gospel is
true.
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