Advent 2011 - 3
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Intro to the Service At the front of church we have a microscope and a telescope. The telescope challenges us to look hard at the world around us for the coming of God’s Kingdom. Where is generosity at work? Where is love in action? Where do we see self-sacrifice and kindness and devotion to others? Where do we see people being valued equally and welcomed well? Where is God’s Kingdom coming? And the microscope challenges us to look deep and long into our own hearts, at our own lives, and to see what God is calling us to change and to achieve. And all of this so that when Christmas comes, and when the Kingdom comes, as it will, in glory and power, we are ready. Advent 3: 11.12.11: Year B As we’ve been exploring for the last two weeks, Advent is a time of waiting which finds an echo deep within us because we know what it is to wait. We spend much of our lives waiting for good things to come and for bad things to end- waiting to fall in love, waiting to have a child, waiting to hear what the Doctor will say, waiting for someone to notice that we are drowning, waiting to see if there’ll be enough money at the end of the month to cover everything. And waiting for things to make sense, waiting for our prayers to be answered, waiting for God to come and heal. We already know that life can bring both great joy and great sadness. We know that bad things happen for no good reason. We know that things can suddenly change, in a heartbeat, and all stability and safety be dashed. And we know that God is with us in everything that life brings, with us when things go well, with us when things go tragically awry. And we know as well, perhaps most of all when we face disaster, that there is more to life than what we see around us, that we are members not only of our nation but also of the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven. Advent reminds us of our dual-nationality, reminds us to look around with the eyes of God. And calls us to commit ourselves and our Church afresh to building this Kingdom with our lives, the Kingdom of Justice and Peace, of Wisdom and Light, of timeless, sacrificial, redeeming Love, made flesh in Bethlehem in a winter’s night. In Church and as Christians in the world, we do things differently than the world does. We do things differently because we are striving to build God’s kingdom, and the normal rules do not apply there. We do things differently because we belong to God and are inspired by the Holy Spirit to walk in the steps of Jesus. The Kingdom of God, the people of God, have different values because God has different values and our goal and our journey are found in God. If we want to know what we should be doing, what our values should be, how we should assess whether we’re on the right lines and making the right choices, then a good place to start is the Beatitudes where Jesus, near the start of his ministry, says to his new disciples and to everyone who’s come out to hear him: “If you’re going to be part of this then you need to put down what you think is important and forget how the world has taught you to think and start again. Start with this- blessed are you if people persecute you and lie about you because that’s a sign that you’re siding with God. Blessed are you when you grieve because then God will comfort you. Blessed are you whose lives are dry from waiting for justice because it will come with God.” These are not the values of the world, but the values of God’s Kingdom, of God’s Church, of our Advent waiting. And given the life and death and rising of Jesus, it could hardly be other. Jesus was born as Christmas, stepping down from heaven to live among us, which teaches that power is not something to be seized and grasped and held onto at all costs but something to be given up when the occasion requires it. Jesus spent time with the least and the last and the lost and the lonely, which teaches that God is not interested only in the attractive and the successful and the achievers but in all of his created humanity. And Jesus was arrested and tried and crucified, which poses massive questions about what we consider success to be- success lies not in getting to the top of the ladder at any cost but in remaining faithful and honest and living up to our promises. The values of the Kingdom of God are not the same as the values of the world around us. We are expected to seek success in different ways, to please God rather than the bank manager. We are called to be selfless rather than selfish, generous rather than guarded, daring and responsive and kind and involved and not to hunker down behind our front door and pretend that the world does not exist. Things look different in the Kingdom of Heaven, wonderfully so, and it’s the Kingdom we wait for and look for and hope for and dream of in Advent. “The Kingdom” by RS Thomas
It’s a long way off but inside it There are different things going on inside the Kingdom of God. At the feast of the Kingdom the place of honour is not given to the richest man there, or the bravest, or the most handsome, but to the man the world normally pretends not to see. In the Kingdom even those with incurable diseases find healing, and the full weight and power of industry is directed to healing those who have maimed or damaged by life. The blind see love smiling back at them. It is a special place driven and inspired and perfected by love. And best of all- becoming part of the Kingdom, Thomas writes, happens immediately and for free, if we can only lay aside ambition and desire and turn to God in faith and longing. And this is what Advent is for, what it offers, a chance to grasp once again, or for the first time, what is at stake at Christmas and what our response should be to God’s amazing Christmas gift, God himself in human flesh, turning the world and its values on its head. Throwing down a gauntlet which will lead to Gethsemane and Calvary and the Empty Tomb, which will lead to the victory of love and hope and life and light and the utter defeat of fear and death and jealousy and hatred. Advent is the time for us to make straight the paths for this amazing victory, for this turning upside-down of normal values, so the victory we confess Sunday by Sunday might bring healing and hope to those imprisoned by the world’s values. To those who have been told over and over that they are too old or too young, too slow or too clever, too short or too tall, not worth the risk and not worth the opportunity, not worth it full-stop, to them and to us comes the answer: “I am coming soon. Look for me. Be ready.” And to those who have heard of a Kingdom in which the poor man is valued and love is the cure, to them and to us comes the answer: “I am coming soon. Look for me. Be ready.” In God’s kingdom, of which we are members, industry is for mending bent bones and fractured minds, and the poor man is king, and love smiles back from the mirror, even if we are blind. There it is the meek and the grieving and the merciful and the peacemakers who are truly blessed. There, as Isaiah prophesied, the broken-hearted are nursed, the captives are freed, the oppressed are given hope. I say there. Of course I mean here, and now, and for us, and through us, and because of us in the world. I mean here, today. This is our job, our calling, our business. We are the body of Christ. We are loved and healed and called out into the world to make straight God’s path, to speak of a Baby born in Bethlehem, to say that by his life the world is changed and all things are possible. Poem? Amen. |
