Sermon for November 28, 2021 -The Fourth Sunday of Advent , Year B, The Ven. Pat Zifcak
Even though I have been retired from teaching for a long time now, I still remember this in- between time in the school year when we returned from Thanksgiving recess to face a few short weeks until our long holiday break. Day by day children became more and more excited and less and less attentive. As a coach, it was a time to end the Fall sport season and to begin the Winter one- to look back in the same moment we looked ahead. I think the season of Advent is a lot like that. Look back and know what God has done; look ahead and wait for what God will do. Is this a pattern that repeats unchanged again and again? Only if we believe that God’s relationship with us is static, unchanged by who we are, by what we do, by the world as it is today. Only if we enter the season of Advent in the same way we always have with a list of gifts to buy, with anxiety dreams of someone forgotten, with worry for family unable to travel or for a home not ready for company, or with Sunday morning spent doing last minute errands instead of here where you truly long to be.
The psalmist prays:
Lead me in your truth and teach me,
for you are the God of my salvation;
in you have I trusted all the day long.
The psalmist waits for God even when the waiting is long and pain and misery are deep. We hear his faith in God’s fidelity to God’s promise. “I will be your God and you will be my people.” God will be gracious, God will be righteous, God will forgive and guard us, God will turn us around and bring us out of darkness into light.
Remember and remember not. The psalmist prays as we do that God remember God’s mercy toward us and steadfast love for us and, at the same time, remember not our foolishness, wickedness, sinfulness. Look back and remember what we have done; look ahead in this season and begin again. Love more, do more, pray more, believe more in God’s faithful presence.
Our seven- week Advent, we know, is meant to bring space into a season that has none. It is meant to bring us more deeply in touch with what God is about to do. It is meant to bring us moments of watchful waiting, of prayerful intention, of calm and patience in a world that has forgotten or has never known the saving act of God that is about to come. Can you light an Advent candle and sit in quiet contemplation? Can you take a deep breath and offer your thanks for the gifts you have already received? Can you pray?
Our faith is fragile. We need one another to help us to see God in the world, to feel God’s love, to hear God’s voice. We may not be as isolated and we are not so persecuted or threatened as the church in Thessalonica and we may not have a letter from Paul in our archives but we are the same church! We have the same charge to love one another; we have the same hope that God in Christ will return to us and find us worthy to be saved; we hear the same Word. We, the Church, in love and faithfulness, tell the story that is about to begin again.
The Gospel this morning does not offer us our favorite story of the birth of Jesus. There is no starry night, no choir of angels, no shepherds, no star, no silent night. Advent is God’s doing. And the whole creation responds in the shaking of heaven and earth. Should we not tremble at such a moment? Should we not look back and remember? Should we not watch and pray? God is about to enter the world again in an infant’s hands, in a mother’s heart, in a father’s pride, in a silent world, in a holy night. This is the season of memory and miracle. And the whole creation will respond.
Is this the Advent when our hearts make room, when we respond to God’s love with promises of our own to love God, love Christ and serve the common good? Is this the Advent when our voices speak for justice, when are feet are turned toward peace, when our hearts reach out for equality? Is this the Advent when we resist the comfort of our favorite story and begin to write the one that God intended- the one that will change the world.