The Days Are Surely Coming -- First Sunday of Advent

Jeremiah 33:14-16

December 2, 2018

            “A little bit of this. A little bit of that.”

“A pot. A pan. A broom. A hat.”

“Someone should have set a match to this place years ago.”

“A bench. A tree. So what’s a stove? Or a house?”

“People who pass through Anatevka don’t even know they’ve been here.”

“A stick of wood. A piece of cloth.”

“What do we leave? Nothing much. Only Anatevka.”

            Others may cry at the song “Sunrise, Sunset,” with its lyrics about children growing up in a flash, in a blink of an eye, and I do too – especially the older I get. But no song can move me to tears as readily as “Anatevka.”

For those who may not be so familiar with these songs, they are from the musical Fiddler on the Roof. Fiddler tells the story of Jewish residents living in the little village of Anatevka in late 19^th century Russia. In particular it tells the story of Tevya, the poor milkman, and his wife Golde, a woman who does not suffer fools, especially her husband, and their five daughters. The story of the daughters focuses on the three eldest: Tzeitel, Hodel and Chava. With all the amazing musicals that have been written since the premier of “Fiddler on the Roof,” and there have been many, Fiddler is still one of my favorites. Someday I’ll see it on Broadway, but for now I find comfort in the movie version.

             “Anatevka” is sung toward the end of the movie. The villagers have experienced the highs of a wedding and new babies and the low of a small pogrom. I use the adjective small, because in the movie it is a described as a “demonstration.” Although most of the villagers were unable to read, news of violent and increasing pogroms against other Jews in the country spread fast. Anti-Semitism was alive and well – then and now. Now the people have gotten word that they are to be evicted from the only home they have ever known. One man asks their beloved rabbi the question:

            “Rabbi, we’ve waited so long for the Messiah, wouldn’t now be a good time for him to come?”

            The Rabbi responds with great stoicism and resolve,

            “Now we’ll have to wait for him someplace else.”

            As the villagers try to wrap their heads around this new reality, they show the same stoic acceptance as the Rabbi. Anatevka. A little bit of this. A little bit of that. A pot. A pan. A broom. A hat. What do we leave? Nothing much. Only Anatevka.

            What is so beautiful and powerful about this song to me, is that while it is sung with resignation, implicit in the lyrics and in the performance is longing. They long for what they will no longer have. They long for the home they are leaving, even while they still stand within its boundaries. They long for something that seems will never be theirs: a home that lasts, a place all their own, a home that cannot be taken or moved. They can imagine this home. They can see it in their minds’ eye: home.

            The people of Anatevka were exiles in the middle of the only place they’d ever known. It would seem that this is one of many ways they stood on the shoulders of their ancestors; they who were also exiles. The people of Judah and Israel were exiled from their land, exiled from their homes, exiled it would seem even from their God. God who had brought them out of the land of Egypt must have seemed very far away, as they learned how to adapt to a different culture, a different way of being and doing. Lets not forget that the reason the people of Israel and Judah were in exile was because of their own transgressions. Defeat and exile by the Babylonians was seen as punishment for their sins. The prophets, Isaiah, Amos, Ezekiel, Malachi, Micah, Daniel, Hosea, and Jeremiah all warn the people over and over again to consider the consequences of what they do, how they live, how they treat others. To be a prophet was not necessarily to be gifted with the ability to predict the future. To be a prophet was to hear God speaking, yes, but it was also to interpret God’s word in the midst of circumstances. You treat the poor, the widow and the orphan, unjustly and cruelly, that will come back to you. You exploit the land and your neighbor; that will come back to you. You turn your backs on the one true God and worship false idols and bow to foreign gods; that will come back to you. And when it does come back to you, when your sins and transgressions finally catch up with you, you will find yourselves in a strange place, in a strange life, and you will long for home. You will long for God.

            Most of Jeremiah is about the punishment of the people’s transgressions. As one scholar put it, the punishment is so severe that even God laments. None of the warnings were heeded, and now the people suffer. They face their apparent extinction. But in the midst of this terrible suffering, there are verses of hope. There are words of comfort. Even though their entire world is crumbling down around them, they are called to imagine another way, another life. They are called to hope.

            “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is the name by which it will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’”

            The days are surely coming. We are now in the season of Advent; as Alice wrote in her newsletter article, we are in the sacred New Year. Advent does not respect the logical progression of time as we understand it. It looks to the future, even as it lifts up the past. We find our reasons to be faithful in memory, but we also look forward to the days that are surely coming. Advent encompasses what is called the prophetic imagination. Jeremiah, along with the other prophets in our scriptures, calls us to imagine what the world can look like and what it will look like. We are called in this passage from Jeremiah, not only to trust that the days are surely coming, but to imagine those days; to see them clearly and vividly and hopefully.

            The days are surely coming, can you imagine it? The days are surely coming, can you see it? The days are surely coming; can you feel your hope rising up out of the ashes of the world that seems to crumbling all around us? The days are surely coming, when a righteous Branch will spring forth from a burned out old stump. The days are surely coming, can you imagine?

            Just as the people of Anatevka longed for home, and just as the people of Judah and Israel longed for home, Advent is our time to long for what can be. Advent is our time to imagine what will be. Advent is our time to unleash our hope, to let it loose and wild in the world. Advent is our time to imagine a world with no need for refuge because all have a home, no need for food programs, because all have enough to eat, no need for defense budgets, because wars will be fought no more. Advent is a time to imagine and to hope and trust that the days are surely coming. Thanks be to God. Amen.