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1. Advent, 11/27/2011

Sermon on Mark 13:24-37 (RCL) , by David Zersen

 

"GOOD NEWS, CHARIOT'S COMIN"

The Christian Gospel is essentially optimistic, while the best message that this world can muster is excessively pessimistic.

As the Advent season begins, the focus of the Gospel lesson for this Sunday is on the negative things that surround us in our human world in order to prepare us for God's Christmas intervention to be celebrated on December 25.

There is much in the apocalyptic message of Advent I to make us feel that as humans we have no chance, no hope, no future. It is good that we sense that, and especially that we ascribe that hopelessness to human shortcomings. By contrast, the Good News that the Christmas message brings is something we could never have imagined.

Bad news is our own creation

Today's newspaper tells us that Stephen Hawking, the well-known theoretical physicist and philosopher stricken with Lou Gehrig's disease, making it impossible for him to move or speak, writes, "it's time to leave the planet:"

Our population and our use of the finite resources of planet Earth are growing exponentially, along with our technical ability to change the environment for good or ill. But our genetic code still carries the selfish and aggressive instincts that were of survival advantage in the past. It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster in the next hundred years... Our only chance of long-term survival is not to remain lurking on planet Earth, but to spread out into space (Huffington Post, 11/19).

It's an interesting comparison to set this quote over against the message of today's Gospel lesson. Hawking makes it clear that the problems on Mother Earth are of our own making, due primarily to selfishness and aggressive instincts. Whether the problem is overuse of available resources leading to, in some cases, global warming, or the refusal to employ good stewardship or responsible conservation, humans are the problem. Hawking may attribute this to our genetic code and Christians may attribute it to sin, but the end result is the same. As the prophet (Hosea 8:7) says, If "we sow the wind, (we) inherit the whirlwind." We are our own worst enemies.

At times we misread the Gospel lesson for today, the most apocalyptic message of all the lessons in the church year, to say that God is going to rain down destruction as punishment for our sins. In other words, God is into punishing us. The real message, however, is that wars and rumors of wars, nations rising against nation, earthquakes and famines (13: 7-8) may be mostly of our own making. We often create the problems from which we suffer and we don't care for those who are hurt by the problems we create. Third world countries plead with those of us in the so-called First World who ignore words like "green" and "carbon footprint" because we hope to maintain our economic strength even if we pollute. We need to "watch!" Paranoid-like concerns for keeping ourselves safe allow us to write off as "collateral damage" hundreds of thousands of people who want no part in the wars we wage. Desperate brothers and sisters in countries ravaged by hurricanes and earthquakes wonder after an initial gracious offering what happened to the promises now that months have passed.

A zoom-lens on a camera could easily focus on the apocalyptic terrors that the media watches for a while, but then forgets about as other major issues arise (like Herman Cain's potential sexual harassment, like Ashton's and Demi's break-up, like how "couples therapy" helped Tiger Woods). We do have the ability to turn such trivial and wasted emphases around. However, unless we repent of our failures to be stewards of creation and intentional supporters of our fellow humans, the end may come sooner than we think.

The difference between Hawking's messages and the Gospel's message should be clear to us. Destruction could be around the corner, but the solution to our problem is not to leave the planet, but to change the way we live. "Watch,"one of Jesus' shortest messages, is followed by another: "Repent!"

There is an interesting comparison between this message and some of the prophetic calls of people behind the Occupy Wall Street movement. Although many of the street people seem to be desperate types who are using the moment to voice whatever concern may be on their minds (greater use of Ethanol, more commitment to breast feeding, improving compost storage and using less water), there is a genuine prophetic cry to have anyone listening consider the plight of the poor and the jobless, as well as to consider the needs of all as much as one's own. It is a prophetic (that is to say, an Old Testament and New Testament) call to reject self-serving and selfish attitudes in order to assure that everyone has something to eat, to wear, and to do. "Repent" is not the word typically seen on the placards carried by the demonstrators in our cities, but it is very much the message behind the message.

At the heart of our Christian message, we should remember, is the conviction that God intends not to destroy us, but to encourage and empower us to move from the dead ends that we create for ourselves as humans to the hopeful future into which God seeks to draw us through the birth, suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus. It's interesting that the Afro-American slaves, overwhelmed by the careless and destructive attitudes of their masters, caught the meaning of the Good News more profoundly than the so-called "Christian" masters did: "Good News, chariot's coming," they sang, "Good News," hope is on the way. "Good News," God's future for us is better than the bad news that we create for ourselves. "Good News," there's a surprising message in the medium waiting to embrace us.

Good News is more than we deserve

A friend of mine regularly responds to my very Texan greeting, "Ya doin all right?" with the words, "Better than I deserve." He is right, of course. Another response might be, "Better than I expected."

In the story of Christmas, waiting for us at the end of our Advent reflections, is the message that God, recognizing our selfishness, our jealousy, our hatred, and our arrogance for the dead ends that they are, created a medium to embrace us with his extravagant kindness. It is a message so surprising that we are annually overwhelmed by it. Behind all the excitement over presents and decorations, parties and feasts, I would like to believe, is the astonishment that a God greater than anything we can imagine seeks to present a message in the medium of a humble, rejected, helpless child.

In recent years, I've come to know and represent a Christian artist from India who works in batiks and woodblock prints, Dr. P. Solomon Raj. Raj, who himself is a Dalit or untouchable, the lowest and unchangeable class in a society that is 87% Hindu, wants with his art to answer the question, "What kind of God is this Christian God?" No one may have asked the question, but when his art is contemplated, viewers can't help but voice it. There is a print of an abandoned refugee family with the arms of Christ embracing it. There is print of the crucified Christ wearing the dhoti or the loincloth of an untouchable. There is a batik of Holy Family on its way to Egypt with lotus blossoms from India blooming in the Nile. All of this is to say that God is concerned about the marginalized-- that God himself suffered the pain of being abandoned for our sakes-- that

God himself is in exile!

When Raj portrays the child being born in Bethlehem, surrounded by shepherds and magi, as well as by dancers and singers, it is a time of jubilation, a celebration in full-colored Indian costume of the emancipation, freedom and euphoria that comes as a result of being accepted, protected, affirmed and forgiven.

Do we anticipate such joy as we struggle with our shortcomings-the failures that prevent us from caring about creation or caring for our fellow human beings? Do we sense that even though we regularly screw it up with our relationships, our miserly generosity and our political debates that resolve little, God is waiting to embrace us and to help us make a new beginning?

Can we, in our heart of hearts, as we look at the troubles and burdens that we create, "watch" so that we don't bring it all to ruin? Can we today, even now, repent of those sins that lead to an apocalyptic end and focus on the hope that begins with God's new creation in Jesus, the Christ?

Can we be as optimistic as we have every right to be because of God's love for us in Christ? Can we say, as we have a right to, "Good News, chariot's comin?"

Good News, God has prepared a way for us.

"Good News," the very God who has met us in our depths is here to confront us with the new birth.

I can't wait to hear more about. Blessed Advent!



Prof. Dr. Dr. , President Emeritus David Zersen
Austin, Texas
E-Mail: djzersen@aol.com

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