'Stand and raise your heads' - a sermon for Advent Sunday 2012

(Readings: Jer 33:14-16; 1Thess 3:9-13; Lk 21:25-36)

We had around 50 Muslims visit church on Thursday. Most of them aged 5-6. They'd been told to have their eyes open, to look for clues as to what goes on here.

They'd seen a cross - the big one outside, and several inside. They'd seen the big candle in the middle (our Paschal candle, powerful symbol of Easter life). They'd seen the font, the place of baptism, and the altar table, the place around which we share bread and wine together. They'd seen the lectern, from which we read from the Bible... and they saw a Christmas tree... They knew Christians celebrate Christmas, and I asked them where else they might have seen Christmas trees? In the shops, and on the telly, they replied.

I was left wondering what kind of Christmas they thought Christians like us might celebrate. Would the images in the shops and on the telly give them a good idea? Is a 'Christian Christmas' all about over-eating & arguing? And how about Advent, Christianity's four weeks of preparation? From the shops and the telly, my Muslim friends would be forgiven for thinking it was all about parties and drinking and shopping...


And then I looked at our gospel for today...

One version, Eugene Petersen's The Message, renders Luke 21:34 as follows: "But be on your guard. Don't let the sharp edge of your expectation get dulled by parties and drinking and shopping. Otherwise, that Day is going to take you by complete surprise...."

As always, as we enter Advent, with the jolly Christmas songs that have already been jingling out of our radios for too long ringing in our ears, the words we are given from Scripture sound a sharp note of warning, of dissent, an alert to those with ears to hear... to stop, unplug the Christmas tree lights, turn off the TV and radio and look, and listen... Just as our Muslim sisters and brothers in Ramadan very clearly mark themselves out as doing something different to the rest of the world, so in Advent, we Christians are summoned to do December differently... But how...?

If we dig a little deeper into gospel passage, we find Jesus painting a picture of a world in ‘distress, confusion and fear. It doesn’t take much effort for such a picture to ring bells with the world we see on our TV screens and hear on our radios: with Israel & Palestine sending rockets at each other; with floods that tell of environmental disaster; with drastic government cuts in this country that mean, among other things, here in Birmingham we’re witnessing ‘the end of local government as we know it’ (as the Council Leader recently described it).

It is enough to bring us to our knees...

But Jesus says something different. He says: ‘stand - and raise your heads’.

Jesus invites us, particularly through the weeks of Advent, into a different way of looking...

It is all too easy to get enthralled by the smoke of pollution, destruction and war playing out on our news reports, seduced by politicians’ promises that things are about to get better, or indeed by the TV ads for ‘the perfect Christmas’ (if only we bought this, or shopped there...). But Jesus says ‘look somewhere else’ – ‘look at the fig tree’, stare long and hard at the dead branches until you begin to glimpse tiny signs of new life... sit still, quietly, listening long and hard for the ‘still small voice’ whispering to us words of truth & hope...

Because in the midst of the big dramas of our TV screens, both real and fictional, there are little stories of real people – stories of desperate need, stories of courageous care, stories of fragile hope. These are the stories, the people, Jesus summons us, in this Advent waiting time, to pay long, hard, careful attention to. And they are not only in little places half way across the world – they are right on our doorstep...

In September, we began 'Open Door', down the road at The Hub. Offering a place to 'drop in' to, offering a cuppa and some toast, a warm welcome, friendship, and the possibility of practical support - with finding work, putting together a CV, managing money, finding volunteering opportunities, and the like. Nothing dramatic, really simply, literally, opening a door and waiting... And slowly but surely a trickle of people started coming. Coming with real needs, but also with real gifts, real passions, real possibilities - and horizons have opened up, and new and genuine friendships have begun to grow, shared journeys have begun.

In the summer, we did an activity week on the wasteland, at the end of Bromford Drive. Alongside music, games, and art & craft,  a handful of people, younger and older, cleared a path through the most bramble-tangled, nettle-infested, rubbish-strewn part of the wasteland. Some passers-by thought we were mad: it would make no difference, it was futile effort. But many children and adults use that path every day, to get to school, to a playground, to the shops. Echoing the ancient prophets, in our own small way we were ‘preparing a way’ through the wilderness - a highway for young and old, a path for God to walk with human beings.

Two small examples of what we think we are doing here, in Hodge Hill. We're in the business of looking for, and living out, little signs of God’s big future. Those little signs might look, and feel, irrelevant, insignificant. It might feel like we're fighting a losing battle... But those little signs are, in fact, like the first tiny specks of blossom on the fig tree. The beginnings of spring, even in the icy grip of winter. The first fruits of the coming kingdom of God.

If we are to ‘stand and raise our heads’ – to see, and to be, Christ’s body in the world – then we need each other. And we need to pray for each other, as Paul does in his letter to the Thessalonians...

We will need to pray with joy & thanksgiving & abundant love. To pray that we might truly see each other face to face. To pray for our faith to be restored where it is lacking, and for our hearts to be strengthened. And, most importantly, to pray for love to increase and abound among us – for each other... for all God’s children, and for all creation... this Advent, and in the year to come.

I want to finish by offering you an Advent gift - a poem by our outgoing Archbishop, Rowan Williams:

Advent Calendar

He will come like last leaf's fall.
One night when the November wind
has flayed the trees to the bone, and earth
wakes choking on the mould,
the soft shroud's folding.

He will come like frost.
One morning when the shrinking earth
opens on mist, to find itself
arrested in the net
of alien, sword-set beauty.

He will come like dark.
One evening when the bursting red
December sun draws up the sheet
and penny-masks its eye to yield
the star-snowed fields of sky.

He will come, will come,
will come like crying in the night,
like blood, like breaking,
as the earth writhes to toss him free.
He will come like child.

What’s the point of Lent?

(A sermon at Hodge Hill Church, 26/2/12)

The desert waits,
ready for those who come,
who come obedient to the Spirit’s leading;
or who are driven,
because they will not come any other way.

The desert always waits,
ready to let us know who we are –
the place of self-discovery.

And whilst we fear, and rightly,
the loneliness and emptiness and harshness,
we forget the angels,
whom we cannot see for our blindness,
but who come when God decides
that we need their help;
when we are ready
for what they can give us.

(Ruth Burgess)

One of the gifts of the ‘Everybody Welcome’ course that we’re following during Lent in Hodge Hill is the way it seeks to open our eyes to how church looks and feels to someone who comes as a ‘stranger’ – passing by, coming in, meeting people, joining in, for the first time. And thinking about this again, I was moved to remove a poster which has been bugging me for, oh, the 18 months or so since I started here.

The poster has a simple message: “Life before Jesus” (sad face), “Life after Jesus” (happy face), “Any questions?”. I have two big problems with it. The first is it’s not true. Any of us who have lived through the loss of a loved one, or illness, redundancy or divorce, or who have suddenly found ourselves unable to do what we’ve always done or loved dearly, or have found ourselves suddenly ‘not at home’ – we know it’s not as simple as that. As if being a Christian somehow makes it ‘smiley faces all the way’, no questions, no doubts, no struggles.

My second big problem with it is that it’s not anything like the gospel. Or to put it in Lenten mode, it hasn’t been ‘tested in the desert’. In Mark chapter 1, just before the desert, we see Jesus baptised: the heavens are torn apart, the Spirit descends like a dove, a voice from heaven says, “you are my son, my beloved, with you I am well pleased”. Wonderful. Awesome. Joyful. And then he’s slung out into the desert.

And then just after the desert, out comes Jesus, proclaiming to anyone who’ll listen, “the kingdom of God has come near – repent, and believe in the good news”. But he doesn’t just proclaim it, he lives it – he brings the ‘good news’ to life, and specifically among those who have been pushed to the very edges of society. Those who know the desert as he does.

The ‘good news’ of Jesus is good news that has been tried and tested in the desert. We talk about Lent as a journey, and it is – but a journey through the desert – the ‘testing place’, the ‘training ground’, of Christian faith. The place where we learn to live with limits (some chosen, many more unchosen). The place where we discover our attachments (what are the things we think we can’t do without?). The place where our insecurities emerge (what are the things that make us ‘edgy’? what inner voices come out when we’re not feeling ‘at home’?). The place where we learn to live with boredom! The place where we find ourselves wrestling with ‘internal dialogues’ like this:

Are you hungry?
I am famished.
Well, what's wrong with that?  Are you dying?
No.
Can you stand being hungry for a while longer?
Maybe.  I guess so.
Okay, so what else?  Are you lonely?
Yes, I am!  I am terribly lonely!
What's wrong with being alone?  Will it kill you?
I don't like it.
That's not what I asked.  Can you live through it?
Probably not, but I'll try.

(Barbara Brown Taylor)

I want to offer three ‘rules of thumb’ for the desert journey of Lent. The first comes from the Iona Community’s daily liturgy: “We will not offer to God offerings that cost us nothing”. Or, we might also say, “We will not offer to others ‘good news’ that has cost us nothing”. The second is this: “We will not give up, or take up, anything during Lent that we don’t expect to leave us changed by at the other end.” What’s the point, if it’s just a 40-day blip and then ‘business as usual’? And then the third: “We must expect to be changed, not just for our own good, but for the good of others.” The desert is for anything but self-indulgence, or self-improvement. In the desert, we learn to resist turning stones into bread for ourselves, so that we come out of the desert ready to share our bread with our neighbours.

And if none of that is specific enough, let’s remember the five ‘values’ that we as a church committed to nurturing, just over a year ago – compassion, generosity, trust, friendship and hope – and which we explored together last Lent. Easy to say, harder to do. But let me share with you just a little of the hard-won, painstakingly-learnt wisdom we shared and discovered together last year, that points us not just to the ‘what’, but the ‘how’ of Lent. Maybe pick one, rather than feel like you need to try all five. And stay with it for the next six weeks. And see what happens…

1. Let a stranger in. Physically perhaps, but certainly ‘emotionally’. Notice someone – maybe in the news, maybe on the street, perhaps even your next-door neighbour. Maybe someone who’s been labelled: ‘old’, or ‘young’, or ‘disabled’; ‘single mum’, ‘homeless’, or ‘asylum seeker’. And try asking them (or, if that’s not possible, ask yourself), “what’s your story? how do you feel?”. And you’re learning the beginnings of compassion.
2. Give up grumbling, take up gratitude. Simple! Well, for some of us, moaning takes a lot of ‘weaning off’, so 40 days might end up feeling like an eternity. But as we discover the gifts that we have been given, and slowly open our hearts to be thankful for them, we discover that we are freed to share those gifts generously with others too. And we discover that generosity, like gratitude, is infectious.
3. Admit a mistake or two. This is one that I find really difficult. I hate having to say I’m wrong. But how about finding someone that I need to say ‘sorry’ to, or even just to tell them that I’ve screwed up somewhere, each week of Lent? What better way is there to restore, and nurture, trust?
4. Listen to someone. I mean really listen. Not necessarily a stranger – maybe someone you know well. But give them a good listening to, rather than our normal half-distracted efforts. And don’t try and get in there with ‘answers’. Don’t try and ‘fix it’. Don’t even dare to suggest you ‘know how they feel’. Try practising a bit of gentle, patient attention. It’s how real friendships are grown.
5. And finally, how do we nurture hope? It’s easy to tell people there’s hope, to talk about hope, to encourage people to ‘be hopeful’. But that’s to fall back into offering good news that hasn’t been tried and tested in the desert. It’s not about talking, it’s about doing it. ‘Enacting’ hope. Making it a reality that can be seen, felt, lived in. Gandhi said: “Be the change you want to see”. We can’t do better than that.

(with thanks to Stephen Cherry for many of the insights here)