The Day of His Coming -- Second Sunday of Advent

Malachi 3:1-4

December 6, 2015

            “It’s not like in the movies.” I heard that phrase repeatedly during childbirth classes. My teacher said over and over again that labor in real life is nothing like labor in the movies. In the movies, labor is depicted as something that happens fast. A pregnant woman feels the first twinge of a contraction, and in a matter of minutes she goes from early labor to full-blown the-baby-is-about-to-be-here-get-me-to-the-hospital-now labor. I know that there are women who have babies fast just like that. But more often than not labor is a process of waiting; especially when it is the first baby. At least that’s the way it was for me.

            Seventeen years ago I was in the last week of my first pregnancy, and I was doing a lot of waiting. At home and at church, I was as ready as I could be. At church I had organized all of Advent and Christmas Eve. When I went into labor or started my maternity leave, whichever came first, the people in charge of leading worship only had to show up. Every service was ready to go. I moderated one last session meeting with the entire group of elders watching me intently for signs that it was time to go to the hospital. I was having contractions throughout the meeting. But they were Braxton Hicks, those warm-up contractions before the real event, so no baby yet.

At home, I had been in full-blown nesting mode for at least a month. My mother suggested I used the wrapping paper from the gifts at my baby showers to line the drawers of the clothes chest in the baby’s room. So I alternated between sitting on the floor and lining a drawer, to standing up, to sitting back down again. All that up and down sent my back into spasms during the night and we thought labor was imminent, but no. My due date was the 11^th, and at this time 17 years ago, I had read the chapter describing the early signs and stages of labor in “What to Expect When You’re Expecting,” so many times I’d memorized it. With each potential sign that I might be going into labor, I psyched myself up for the real event; but not yet.

I heard that walking could help induce labor, so I walked the full route of our house. I walked on the treadmill at the workout center in town. I walked the length of both levels in the major mall in Albany, New York. Still no baby, but I was ready. I was prepared. Everything I could do was done. Come on, baby, come.

However, if I’ve learned one thing in in my years of living, it is that no matter how prepared, how ready and organized I think I may be, there are some things, some events for which you can never be fully prepared. No example of this that I can conceive of is truer than the coming of the day of the Lord.

I know that we are supposed to be prepared. That is the point of Advent, isn’t it? Prepare. Make ready. Live in expectation and anticipation. But how prepared are we? What are we preparing for?

The prophet Malachi told the people that a messenger would come who would prepare the way for the Lord’s arrival. The people were seeking the Lord? The Lord would suddenly come into this temple. The people wanted the messenger to show up? Well, that messenger was on his way. But! There is always a but. This messenger that is to come to them, well as Malachi said, “Who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?”

It wasn’t so much that the people were to prepare, as it was that they would be prepared. The messenger was coming to prepare the way for the Lord and that meant preparing God’s people. Perhaps the people thought they were prepared. Perhaps they really were eager for that day to arrive. But Malachi gave them a word of caution. Who can endure the day of his coming?

I don’t know about you, but when I hear the word endure, I’m thinking that whatever is about to arrive probably will not be a whole lot of fun. You don’t generally endure joy or endure celebration. Endurance suggests testing and judgment. According to Malachi, testing and judgment are exactly what the people should expect. The people would undergo testing and they would be judged. But was this judgment about punishment or was it about something else?

I can envision refining, but fuller’s soap is not something we hear about. And fuller is not a person’s name. This was not a brand of soap. Fulling was the act of cleaning and preparing wool for use.  A fuller was the person who did the fulling.  There was a place outside of Jerusalem called Fuller’s field. This was the place where the wool went to be fulled.  The fuller’s soap was the soap used by the fuller to clean the wool.  It had to have been some pretty powerful soap.  The wool sheared from a sheep would have been greasy and dirty.  It would have taken hard scrubbing, as well as soap, to remove the grease and grime that collected on the wool.  Fuller’s soap would make the wool snow white.  Fuller’s soap softened and relaxed the wool, so that it would be ready for whatever purpose it was put to.  Whether it would be made into clothing, bedding or rugs, the soap the fuller used prepared the wool.  It made it ready.

            So the messenger that Malachi refers to is someone who will act on the people like fuller’s soap acts on wool.  Because of this messenger the people will be made ready.  They will be prepared.  They will be washed clean. 

            Christian tradition ties this messenger that Malachi speaks of to John the Baptist.  John is the main character in our gospel lesson from Luke. I always feel that during Advent the lectionary takes us backwards from the end to the beginning.  Stories of the end times begin Advent. Next week the gospel lesson speaks of John’s birth.  But today it is the adult John the Baptist who appeared out of the wilderness, preached by the river Jordan, and proclaimed, “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”

            John was the messenger who prepared the way. While he offered baptism by water, he told the people that One would come who would baptize with fire and the Holy Spirit. Baptism by water is cleansing. Baptism by fire and the Holy Spirit is refining.

            Malachi spoke of both. The messenger preparing the way will cleanse us and refine us. That’s judgment, true, but it is judgment with a greater purpose. What happens to silver when it is refined? It shines. It reveals the reflection of the One who is doing the refining. We already know what happens when wool is fulled. The grease and dirt and grime is washed away leaving the wool clean and bright.

            We may think that we are preparing, but according to Malachi we are actually being prepared. That preparation requires judgment, but it is a judgment designed to refine and clean, to bring out our true selves; to reveal our true hearts.

            I know I should be careful what I wish for, but I find myself praying for this messenger to get here quickly. I know that I will be included in that judgment and I hope I can endure it. But the truth is, enduring the world as it is right now is becoming much more than I can endure. This is the Sunday of Advent that is centered on peace. Peace. Peace has never seemed further away than it does at this moment. How much more violence, how much killing, how much devastation and destruction and heartache can we bear? How much more grief can our hearts endure?

            After the mass shooting in San Bernadino this week, the outcry and rage at this ongoing violence has intensified. After every shooting, it seems that politicians and leaders of every stripe offer their “thoughts and prayers for the victims and families.” That sounds nice, but everywhere I turn I hear people saying, “I don’t care about your thoughts and prayers. Do something.”

            It seems that the expression “thoughts and prayers” has become a platitude. It is just something to be said. My fear is that the word peace has become a platitude as well. We wish each other peace. I sign off on all my pastoral letters and writings with “Peace and blessings.” And the idea of peace is used by advertisers this time of year to sell, sell, sell.

            But peace requires action. Peace is not just the absence of violence. Peace is something we do. Peace is something we live. We are called to be peacemakers. We are called to pray for peace, work for peace, bring peace, offer peace, embody peace. So if the day of his coming brings refinement and cleansing, then let’s pray for that day to come. Let’s pray that the day of his coming will remove that which keeps us from being people of peace and make us more the people we were created to be. May the day of his coming bring peace, finally, peace. Amen.

A Second Blessing

Luke 17:11-19

November 22, 2015

            English: Thank you. French: Merci. German: Danke. Spanish: Gracias. Arabic: Shukraan. Italian: Grazie. Swedish: Tack. Norwegian: Takk. Greek: Efcharisto. Swahili: Asante. Hindi: Dhanyavaad. Russian: Spasibo. Indonesian:  Terima kasih. Yiddish: A Dank.

            Downloading the translate app on my phone was a decision that has paid off time and time again. I used it to find these examples of the word “thank you.” There were far more languages than I could list here and far more ways to say, “thank you,” than I could pronounce. I decided that it might be easier to find out if there is a language that does not have its version of “thank you,” rather than seeking out a list of all those that do. The one example I found was Nepali. Nepali does not have a spoken word meaning “thank you,” instead thanksgiving is indicated through gestures and body language. Expressing gratitude seems to be universal. Whether we say it in words or through our hands our other physical cues, saying thank you, giving thanks seems to be innate to our natures.

            Yet just because we have the words to express our thanks does not mean that we always use them. That seems to be the case in this passage from Luke’s gospel. Jesus was walking in the borderlands between Samaria and Galilee. The accuracy of the physical geography listed in the gospels is questionable, but I often think that the gospel writers – and Luke is no exception – focus more on spiritual geography rather than the physical distance between one location and another. This would be an example. Jesus never hesitated to walk the knife’s edge between what was thought to be acceptable and unacceptable. He spent a significant amount of his time in the borderlands – or perhaps we should call them the no-man’s lands – between cultures and peoples. At the beginning of these verses Luke tells us that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. Once again, in terms of spiritual geography, Jesus was not just making a trip to the city. He was on the way to the cross. Along the way, he was approached by ten lepers. If ever there were people who lived in the no-man’s land of culture and social mores, it was lepers. They were unclean. They were unwelcome. They were marginalized, physically and emotionally. They understood being kept a distance, so it is no surprise that although they wanted Jesus’ attention, they knew better than to get too close. They kept their distance from him just as others kept their distance from them.

            Just as others who were on the outskirts seemed to recognize Jesus for who he was, so too did these lepers. They saw Jesus and called out to him, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”

            Jesus did not utter words of healing per se. Instead he told them to go and show themselves to the priests. If they were healed of their leprosy in any way, that would the step they must take in order to be named clean and welcomed back into the community and the synagogue. They were obedient to Jesus’ command. They did what they were told, and on their way to see the priests they were made clean.

            One of the ten noticed what happened. He saw that he was healed and he turned back, “praising God with a loud voice.” He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. It is only at this point in the story that we learn that this tenth leper was a Samaritan.

            I often hear death described as the great equalizer. It would seem that so too was leprosy. The enmity between Jews and Samaritans was pronounced. They would not have been seen hanging out with one another. But in a lepers’ colony, ethnic and racial heritage must not have mattered all that much. Yet at this moment in the story, Luke takes care to point out that this tenth leper, the one who loudly praised God and took the time to turn around and thank Jesus, was a Samaritan – a person who would have been doubly marginalized, for his ethnicity and his skin condition. It was the Samaritan – an outsider – who returned to give thanks.

            We need to be clear on something. The other nine lepers did nothing wrong. In fact, they did exactly what Jesus told them to do. Too often I think we take this story as a rebuke of their behavior. But their behavior was not out of line. They acted obediently. The text also clearly states that as they went on their way they were made clean. The healing was already accomplished. We don’t know that they weren’t grateful. They may have seen the priests, been welcomed back into the community of faith, and spent the rest of their lives rejoicing. We don’t know. What we do know is that at least in that moment, it was the outsider who voiced thanksgiving. It was the one most marginalized, the foreigner, who returned to speak words of thanksgiving. The Samaritan was already healed of his leprosy, but when he returned to thank Jesus, Jesus pronounced that his faith had made him well.

            I wonder if Jesus was speaking to more than just the healing of an external disease. Perhaps in saying that the Samaritan was well was Jesus’ way of saying that the Samaritan was whole – whole in body, mind and spirit. Maybe that is what being thankful, speaking thanksgiving does. It makes us whole.

            There is increasing scientific evidence to support gratitude being the foundation of wellness. I read an article from Forbes[1] that listed the ways gratitude contributes to health and wellness. The article listed seven ways that developing “an attitude of gratitude” benefits us. Saying “thank you” isn’t just about being polite, it also “opens the door to more relationships.”  Being gracious may help you make new friends or business contacts.

            Gratitude keeps us physically healthy. Grateful people take better care of themselves. If they have the habit of being thankful, they probably also have habits that keep them healthy like exercising, eating well, and making time for preventive check-ups.

            Gratitude ups our emotional and psychological health. Grateful people tend to be happier, less resentful or envious of others’ success. Frustration, regret and depression are reduced when gratitude is increased.

            If you want to be a more caring, compassionate and empathetic person, get grateful. Grateful people are less aggressive and vengeful and more empathetic and caring. People who model gratitude sleep better. They have higher self-esteem and mental strength. People who are grateful are more resilient in the face of life’s vicissitudes.

            I was taught that “please” and “thank you” were magic words. This list takes the magic out of it and puts the science in. But I think a word of caution is needed. I do think that being grateful needs to become habit. I do think that showing gratitude and thankfulness does increase our mental, emotional, spiritual and physical well-being. I’m grateful that science is making us more aware of this. It helps to remind me of how important gratitude is and how often I forget to show it. Yet here is my caution. It would be far too easy to see gratitude as another thing that benefits us and us alone. The more grateful I am, the happier and healthier and more whole I will be. I just need to count my blessings.

            Yet maybe being thankful is also a blessing. Maybe being thankful doesn’t just open us up to more blessings in our own lives; maybe it widens our vision so that we can be a blessing to someone else.

            Isn’t that the second blessing? When we voice our gratitude for the blessings in our lives, we also open the door to bring the bounty of those blessings to others. Thanksgiving is a response. Gratitude is a response. When the Samaritan turned back and thanked Jesus, he was responding to the blessing of healing given to him. Our gratitude doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It is a response to God. And as we read and hear and learn over and over again, responding to God walks hand-in-hand with responding to others. We are blessed. Thanks be to God. But our blessings are not privatized. They are not ours alone. We are blessed so that we can share our blessings, be a blessing to others. I mean isn’t that how we most often receive the blessings of God – at the hands of another person? We are blessed so that we can be instruments of blessing. That is the second blessing.

            Let all of God’s blessed and thankful children say, “Alleluia!” Amen.

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[1] Forbes, Amy Morin, November 23, 2014.

Appearances Deceive

Mark 13:1-8

November 15, 2015

            On a podcast I listen to called Selected Shorts, I recently heard a short story read about a cautious man. This is my paraphrase of the story.[1]

This cautious man had always been cautious. He was a husband, a father, a businessman. He took care of the people he loved. He did what he could to make sure they were safe and protected from harm. But he, his wife and his children also lived and worked and played. One day the man’s house burned to the ground. He rushed home to see his house destroyed, but his wife and his children were safe. The man was terrified. Yes, he still had his family, but what if? When he rebuilt his house, he built it of materials that could not burn thinking that would ensure his family’s safety. But even with an inflammable house, he realized that robbers and marauders could still find a way into his home and harm his family. So he built a moat and filled it with dangerous animals. He built a wall around the moat which went around his house to keep that which could harm away from his family. He feared that even these physical structures could still not keep danger out, so he hired guards to watch for danger on a regular basis. Fearing that the guards might turn on him, he hired more guards to watch the guards. But still this cautious man was not satisfied that his family and his home were protected from all danger. So he built protections around them specifically. But that wasn’t enough, so at last he had them enclosed in pods. They were able to breathe and be nourished inside the pods; they were on monitors to make sure that all of their vital signs stayed within the normal ranger, but no illness or danger or harm could reach inside and take them from him. For a while he would visit them in their pods, but whenever he did their vital signs, their heart rates and blood pressure, would swing wildly high and low. The cautious man realized that his presence affected his wife and his children too much, so he stopped visiting them. He hired other people to tend to them while they stayed safely in their pods.

But one day a servant came to him and said that his daughter was dying. She was wasting away in her pod designed to keep out all danger and harm. So he had her taken out of the pod. The cautious man had his wife and his other children taken out of their pods. He realized that being alive is not the same as living. The cautious man removed all the obstacles to harm that he put in place. He fired the guards who guarded the guards. He filled in the moat and tore down the wall. He opened the doors of his house. He was still cautious. He still wanted his family safe and protected from harm, but as long as they were alive they would live.  

My original intent for this sermon has changed in these last days. It changed because evil has been alive and well this past week. It reared its ugly head in the horrific attacks in Paris on Friday evening. It also made its presence known through devastating suicide bombings in Beirut and Baghdad on Thursday and early Friday. In a period of 24 hours, hundreds of people were killed, hundreds more injured, and people in three cities who were just living their lives had their lives altered irrevocably.

Since September 11, 2001, we have had one other terrorist attack with the bombing at the Boston Marathon. While it may seem that the violence of terrorism is low, the latest statistic that I read was that we have also not gone one day this year without gun violence claiming the lives of at least one or more people. Not one day. Evil and hatred and violence have many names, and take on a variety of appearances, but the result whether it is on a large scale or small is the same. Devastation. Loss. Destruction. Senseless waste of lives.

The world’s response to the terrorist attacks in Paris has been heartening, just as it was on September 12^th. It seems that in times like these we remember that we human beings are more connected to one another than we are otherwise. But along with the response of shared mourning, sympathy and support, there have been other expected responses. We want to know why. We want to know who. We want to know what can be done. Fingers are being pointed and blame is being assigned. Sometimes the blame falls on the people who deserve it, but too often it lands on those who do not. Brene Brown said that blame in sociological terms is “the discharge of pain and discomfort.”

Our pain and discomfort are great. They are so great that we not only blame, we try to find better ways of preventing these atrocities from happening again. I am all about safety and prevention. I’ll gladly wait in long security lines at the airport if it means I have a better chance of arriving at my destination safely. But even as I say that I realize that the appearance of security deceives. When the disciples pointed out the large stones and large buildings of the temple in Jerusalem, I suspect that they believed that nothing could bring those buildings down and turn those stones into rubble. But Jesus told them otherwise.

“Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”

That was probably not the response they expected. Later, when Jesus sat opposite of the temple on the Mount of Olives, Peter, James, John and Andrew went to him privately and asked him to tell them when this would happen. What will be the signs? How will this be accomplished?

It isn’t surprising, really, that the disciples wanted to know the end. That way they could be prepared for what was to come. Don’t we sometimes wish we knew this as well? I can’t even read a mystery without turning to the end first. I just want to be prepared for what’s going to happen to the characters I’ve become attached to. The disciples want to be prepared, and so do we. We want to be secure and safe. We want to be certain of what will happen. So just like the disciples we ask to be told about when this end time will come. Tell us when our temples will be torn down. Tell us what to look for, watch for, so we can be prepared.

But Jesus said, as he did at other times and in other places, that this was not the question they should be asking. That should not be their worry. Instead beware of those who will lead them – and us – astray. Beware those whose appearances deceive. Beware those who come in his name and claim to be doing his work, but their appearances deceive.

I tried for a long time to think of examples of people who fit this bill. We can look to history, to Hitler and Napoleon and other tyrants and dictators who unleashed evil on the world under the guise of good. We could point to current politicians and leaders and prophesy that their intent is the same – evil in the name of good. But what I kept coming back to is that it isn’t necessarily a person who presents a deceiving appearance. It seems to me that what is truly deceiving is the idea of Certainty and our belief in Security.

O how we long to be certain that what we believe is right and other beliefs are wrong. O how we long to believe that if we build enough walls and patrol enough borders and keep the wrong people out while we hunker down within that we will be secure and safe. We want to be like that cautious man and wrap the ones we love in pods of protection. But that is a falsehood. That is a falsehood that leads us astray time and time again.

The older I get the more reluctantly I realize that certainty and security are illusions. They are smoke and mirrors. They blow away with the slightest of breezes. So what is left? The only answer I can find is faith – faith that God is with us, faith that good will overcome evil, faith that we humans were created to and for love. That’s the key, isn’t it? Love. We were created out of love to love – to love God, love our neighbors, love ourselves. We were created and we are called to love without limits or boundaries. The amazing thing about love is that the more we love, the more love grows. Love expands us.

But the problem is that we say in great faith that love is stronger than hate and that good will triumph over evil. We proclaim that in the end Love wins. And then we go back inside our walls and wait for the cosmic arm of God to reach through the heavens and make it happen. Yet it seems to me that Love will only truly win when the people who say it actually live it.

Isn’t that what Jesus did? He lived and died as though Love would win. Love is not a passive emotion in response to the atrocities that are happening all around us. Love is not a nicety, a cliché or a bumper sticker that we say when we can think of nothing else. To Love is our most defiant act of rebellion in the face of evil. Love is defiance. Hatred just cannot stand up to it. That is why we love our enemies and we turn the other cheek and we give the shirts off our backs because it diminishes evil’s power. Love is our defiance against evil. Love is our rebellion against those who hate us. Love lessens our need for security and certainty. Love triumphs over hatred and good wins out over evil, because we who claim Love also live Love. I think that we are called not only to recognize those people and especially those ideas whose appearances deceive; we are also called to love them. Our lives, now more than ever, cannot be just about living. They must be about loving. We must love defiantly as if our world depends on it.

It does.

Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia!” Amen.

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[1] Selected Shorts, podcast – I searched the site to find the actual title and author of this story to no avail. If you know the origins of the story, please let me know.