It seems as though we preachers are challenged to come up with new sermons every Sunday, and this can be especially tricky during the holidays. How many ways can we find to talk about Easter, Christmas, and Advent? I had a minister for many years who used to joke with me that he basically had about 12 sermons, and he just recycled them with different content and in different ways.
I used to think that was a little rude, I mean seriously, you’re the preacher, feed me with your insights and spiritual genius! Then I realized that Jesus basically had one message, so maybe having twelve sermons was ok. Jesus’ one message was essentially about “the kingdom” and he taught this message in multiple ways. He used parables and metaphors to literally make us think in ways we never had before, and he did it over and over with that one message. He used ordinary, everyday objects and analogies to direct us to the “not so obvious” so that we could love our God, and love our neighbor. How many can say they are experts at THAT?
A Not So Obvious Message
For instance, most everyone I know contends that the mustard seed parable (Matthew 13:31-32) is about faith. I think that’s an easy route to take. When you read the parable, on the surface it’s about something tiny growing into a large tree or bush, and it seems to make sense why someone may think it’s about faith. For me the power in Jesus’ teachings is that he posited the NOT SO OBVIOUS, in order to short-circuit and dismantle our conventional ways of thinking and being.
Jesus wanted to wake us up and make us alert, attentive and alive as never before. We are invited into a journey of discovering what matters most in life, and to BE that which matters most. An invitation to touch the dark, so that we might be the light. A tall order to say the least. His teachings are about bringing to the conscious mind our unconscious, unexamined assumptions.
So back to our mustard seed parable. Mustard was considered a weed in the time of Jesus. That means the parable is potentially about the things in life we consider “weeds” – those experiences that choke the life out of our goodness. The kingdom is not about a destination or a place to get to, it is about what is unfolding when we can’t see the goodness, when we are overwhelmed with the suffering in and around us, and forget that it is through the darkness that the light is awakened.
Jesus gave us a highly, counterintuitive message so we might continue to evolve, to be more divine through being more human. His message, regardless of your religion, is to live courageously, to be in relationship with the darkness and challenges of life. To be “creatively maladjusted” as Martin Luther King, Jr. would say.
There Is A New Advent
Which brings me back to Advent. The word means “to come” or “arriving.” Like many holidays, I find it becomes harder and harder to preach. How many different ways can you talk about the anticipation, the waiting of what is to come, about a story to which we all know the ending? Naturally these questions get me to excavating my own theology, my own deeply held beliefs, that, as usual, are not quite mainstream, but nonetheless necessary for today’s world. So for this preacher, I have found at least one new way to talk about Advent.
I grew up with Advent as an integral part of my religion, for a month we engaged in a daily ritual of lighting a candle on a wreath, reading particular scriptures from a small booklet, the Hebrew as well as the Christian scriptures. It also typically involved singing a song or two. Mom was lucky if she could get us to sing one song! But the one I remember most fondly is “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.” I never really understood why. Today, I do. The word “Emmanuel” means “God with us.” More than anything in life I want God right here and right now, in my life, in your life, between us, through us and as us.
Advent is preached about as a time to focus our expectations on the birth of the “Christ” in each of us – where we are emptied, and surrender to what it really means to be the “Christ” in full expression. To me that means glorifying this human condition. To bring God to this very present moment, especially in the most difficult moments. Yet, where do I see it happening AS me or AS you?
Listen To The Stones
This is a time of an inward journey of self-reflection and self-awareness – how else can I know my own blindspots to becoming an ever-expanding expression of God consciousness, of being that “Emmanuel?” Thomas Merton says, “Be still. Listen to the stones of the wall. Be silent, they try to speak your name. Listen to the living walls. Who are you? Who are you? Whose silence are you?”
Considering Thomas Merton’s directive, what concrete ways am I not demonstrating how powerful it is to be human? Is that not what Jesus birth is about – telling us it’s good to be human and to glorify humanity? It’s pretty easy to be spiritual in a cave, so in what concrete ways will I carve out time for my own contemplation which leads me to be “Emmanuel?” There is entirely too much suffering, devastation, injustice, desolation, loneliness, violence and poverty on our planet to continue seeing and practicing Advent as a sentimental season about “an infantile Jesus or infantile gospel” as Richard Rohr puts it.
The kingdom is always here because I can imagine and affirm what “God with us” looks like through me – as moving toward what is most uncomfortable, AND most importantly I can BE it. I can be God with us – kindness, peace, service, support, faithful and open with those unlike me. I can be the active “Emmanuel” among those whom I feel most challenged by – family, friends, colleagues, co-workers, people of different religions, creeds, colors and politics. I can practice compassion, I can do unto others as they would like to have done unto them. That is the kingdom that is always here.
And the kingdom that is always not yet here encompasses all whom I have yet to love as my neighbor – those who have harmed me, enemies, those who actively seek to be racist, who assault the helpless, who seek to wage war and dismantle the glory of being human, who work to tell groups of people they are not created with sacred worth because of their age, race, sexual identity, creed, religion, lack of religion, or gender identity. It also begs me to ask myself, “Am I willing to be ‘Emmanuel,’ to create a world through a consciousness of compassion and wisdom knowing I may never see the fruits of my labor? Also knowing I may be hurt in the process?”
The Price of Advent
This paradox is the price of Advent, of engaging the kingdom of heaven, which is always unfolding, always arriving – not yet here – and yet always here. Really, this is what makes our lives one giant “advent,” and not that one month out of a year before the birth of a baby. Ironically it is this baby, Jesus, who taught us about Advent and the price of Advent centuries before Advent even existed!
Because it has nothing to do with a particular date on a calendar, and everything to do with me, Advent is always arriving. Frankly, it has everything to do with ALL of us being “Emmanuel,” being God with us. Through the listening for my name at the stones of my walls, by emptying myself of what I think I know, and surrendering to whatever darkness there may be, and moving through that darkness with my fellow humans into an ever-expanding, healing, joy-filled light – I glorify humanity.
The next time you hear the song “O Come, O Come Emmanuel,” hear it as your rallying cry to be the light shining the way for the world. It is the symphony of YOU gladly paying the price to restore yourself and all of humanity to our original goodness. You are God with us. Peace.
