"Puts forth its leaves"-Sermon for Advent 1, Mark 13:24-37
So, as many may know, today, December 3rd, is my birthday. And, I’ll admit it is sort of a special birthday…one of life’s milestones…if you will…as today I turn 50. Now, for good or for ill, I will say I don’t feel 50…or whatever I think 50 should feel like. But, I do have my moments. For instance, I was having coffee with Jonathan and Jennifer Garen just a couple of weeks ago, and the barista working the coffee machine and cash register asked if I was their father…she wasn’t kidding. I responded, “Kind of…but not in the way you are thinking.” But, with that said, I actually believe occasions in life such as this...career transitions, rites of passage, milestone birthdays, and the like…are opportunities for perspective taking and reflection…that can lead to growth in heart and mind. So, perhaps like the late great, Jimmy Buffet’s song “A Pirates Look at Forty”, as I was sort of reflecting on this sermon…it felt like what was emerging was “A Priests Look at 50”.
Now, though I am happy to assure you that I am neither a pirate nor a drug smuggler, I do love the songwriter and the song, and I think it could be described as a bittersweet reflection on a life-lived…that includes some adventure, some joy, and some lament, while still looking hopefully to the future…perhaps one better lived and even more rewarding. And, thematically speaking, that resonates with me. For my life has been filled with great adventure…sleeping in a tent on a roof top in the Armenian Quarter of the Old City in Jerusalem; standing on the border with Turkey and Syria on an Interfaith Dialogue trip; toting Bevo, the mascot of the University of Texas, around the country; serving an orphanage and clinic in the Andes Mountain’s outside of Cochabamba, Bolivia; building 7 simple homes in the outskirts of Tijuana, Mexico; climbing Helvellyn the second highest mountain in England; fishing countless streams and rivers along the Rocky Mountains from New Mexico to Canada; and, on one occasion, getting lost in the rainforest in Costa Rica on a hunt for a magical waterfall…and I will stop here before you start wondering what you pay me for…that is if I actually ever work. I promise I do…actually pretty hard most of the time.
And, surely my life has had its share of joys…really too many to speak…but at the very top of the list…they include deep lasting friendships; growing up in a family that loved and supported me in all things; being ordained a priest and building this church, St. Julian’s, together, and I speak much more here of people than buildings; and, of course, at the center of it all, is my marriage to my best friend a adventuring partner in all things Ashley and our two amazing, talented and, most importantly, big-hearted daughters, Amelia and Mary Ellen. And, there has been in my life lament and even regret…which is harder to speak about…but I have lost a brother and father to addiction…other loved ones to young…and I have disappointed and hurt, deeply, people who I love and who have loved and trusted me. And, lastly, as I reach 50, I am looking forward to the future with hope and excitement…believing that the best is still to come. Which is all perhaps to say, I have lived an altogether human life. That is like all human lives, one that holds in tension the great theological truth that we are each and every one broken, self-oriented, sinful people, who are, in the very same breath, immensely capable and breathtakingly beautiful…created in the very image God…of love and beauty and creativity itself.
And, I share this joyful and solemn confession…this Priests Look at 50, if you will…not only because it is the occasion of my birthday…but because also, this year, it happens to be the birth of Advent 2023 and a new liturgical year. And, Advent itself, is our annual invitation and occasion provided by the church to look both back and forward at the same time. We say that Advent is both a season of preparation…that’s the looking back part…and joyful anticipation…that’s the looking forward part. And I think both of these ideas are also addressed by Jesus in our Gospel lesson this morning.
And, to dive into the passage, I think it might be helpful to note that Jesus’ teaching today stands within the biblical narrative genre that we call apocalypse. A word that reasonably calls to mind ominous sorts of things. Jesus himself begins, “In those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.” And, such words are intended to get our attention…and I hope they are accomplishing that now. But, such words are not intended to drive us to desperation or scare us out of our wits. Instead, such words are, again, intended to call us to attention…that we might begin to pay attention to the world and our lives as they actually are…not as we want to pretend they are…not as we nostalgically believe they were in the past…and not as we fear they will be in the future…but as they are right now.
You see, the word apocalypse has nothing to do with zombies…or even pandemics…or wars...or famine…or storms raging in a warming climate…or political division…or profound social unrest. Apocalypse means simply a revealing. All apocalyptic literature in scripture, including Jesus’ teaching before us today, is like a mirror that when we peer into it we can only see the truth. God in Christ is revealing to us and asking us to see the truth…to be honest about the condition we find the world in and the condition we find our lives in. Thus, I have never found anything in the bible’s apocalyptic literature, from Daniel to Jesus to Revelation, that, though often using symbolic language, does not honestly and accurately describe the world and human lives as they actually are right now.
So, what then do we see truthfully in our world and in our lives right now? And, what I see, like I see in a Priests Look at 50…is bitter and sweet…adventure and some boredom…joy and sadness…love and hate…hope and lament. And here is the gift that such a revealing is giving us…the blessed opportunity to truthfully name those places both within and beyond ourselves that need work…that need attention…that need help…that need all the love we can direct toward them. And…and…the opportunity to name and revel in those places both within and beyond ourselves where life is budding, like the first shoots of a fig tree in spring…where needs are being met and creatively addressed…where healthy communities are building and growing…where our love and the love of others is making hope be born afresh. And, when we see where work needs to be done, in and beyond ourselves, our mission and purpose is found. And, when we see where joy abounds, in and beyond ourselves, strength and wisdom is found, allowing us to dive headlong and unafraid into our undiscovered future.
And, friends, this is again that to which we are called in this Advent and each that follow…to slow down and take stock, get perspective, reflect on where we and the world around us really are in all honesty. For, if we are to be Christ’s own heart and hands in the world…if we are to be kingdom of God builders…if we are to participate in God’s loving purposes in and for the world…we must know first where the work and growth needs to happen and what resources we bring to bear…what innate gifts and life experiences…we each uniquely bring to bear…to do that work and create that growth…that light might shine in the darkness…hope might overcome despair…love utterly defeat hate…again…both in our own lives and in the world beyond us.
Thus, the real trick, absent some major life milestone like turning 50, is making the time to do so, in the midst of this most wonderful…scratch that…most busy and hectic and emotionally stirring time of the year. And, we, at St. Julian’s, want to help…so perhaps consider beginning or ending each day with the daily Advent devotions we are providing…giving yourself some time for journaling or quiet reflection after reading; or join us for our contemplative Taize service this evening; or schedule a time for the Rite of Reconciliation with one of our clergy; or create an Advent wreath lighting tradition in your home that includes time for sharing and reflecting on daily life with your loved ones…just as a place to begin.
And, we do this good soul work of looking back, taking stock and reflecting for a particular purpose, which is the aspect or theme of “A Priests look at 50”, the Season of Advent, and Jesus’ teaching today that I am yet to circle back to, which is the looking forward piece…the looking hopefully to the future piece. You see, Advent is leading us somewhere, and, despite what may be commonly thought, all apocalyptic literature is also intended to lead us somewhere…somewhere profoundly hopeful. Advent is, of course, taking us to Christmas when hope is born into our world in the most unlikely and humble sorts of scenarios…through the womb of a teenager, in the presence of a carpenter, on the floor of a cave, in the midst of blood and sheep manure, in an inconsequential corner of the known world. And, all apocalyptic literature is intended to remind us that in the midst of the entirely real toil and travail of a broken and often painfilled world…that Christ will come again in great glory to usher in and bring to completion what was begun at that first Christmas to which Advent leads.
Friends, Christ’s first and second coming promises us that whatever we feel like right now, whatever we are currently experiencing, and wherever we might be, we are, indeed, preparing for something greater still to come than we could ever ask or imagine. Thus, honestly identifying the work still to be done…within and beyond ourselves…and leaning on all the good that is also within and beyond ourselves…is all about preparing the heart to receive the grace that follows…to be fully prepared for God to break us and this world wide open…till nothing but love and glory…remains standing. Amen.