Still Waiting

I struggled with this morning’s sermon. I did all the things I normally do – read the readings, consulted a commentary, looked at a close reading of the gospel in Greek and read several other excellent sermons, and still nothing. Nothing to share with you.

I think it’s because rather than filling me with hope and joy, today’s readings left me grieving.  Grieving, because the reality of the world we are living in seems further than ever away from the world that Isaiah and Paul and John were seeing. It’s Advent again and we are still waiting. We are still waiting for the little shoot to grow tall and strong out of Jesse’s stump. We are still waiting for the end of racism that Paul proclaimed in Romans. We are still waiting for the wilderness of our culture to make clear the road for our God. Still waiting.

We avoid grief because it is uncomfortable. I would rather be rejoicing in the generosity of God. But grief is part of our life, and it is part of God’s life in Jesus. We grieve for what we had that is gone, we grieve for what we long for but do not have. There are mystics who say that our very longing for God is a kind of grief because in this life we never experience more than a momentary oneness with the divine. So our longing is always unfulfilled.

When we avoid grief, it can turn sour inside us. Looking around the church this morning, we are deeply grateful for one another and for God’s generosity in providing this building, this liturgy, this music, this faith community. And yet we grieve that there are no children here. We grieve for our children and grandchildren who are not finding God in the way we do, or not apparently even noticing that God is missing in their lives. And if we avoid our grief it can turn to anger and blame.

It must be someone’s fault that the church isn’t what it was in our youth. It must be someone’s fault that our economy has changed and there are fewer well-paying blue-collar jobs. It must be someone’s fault that social security costs the country so much and medical expenses keep rising. Someone must be cheating the system. Someone must be blamed.

We are living in a culture of blame and a culture of racism. A culture where some at the highest levels can describe people who have immigrated legally into this country as ‘garbage’. Can describe people who God has created and who are God’s beloved as garbage. My friends, you don’t need me to tell you that there is no part of Creation which we may see as garbage when God sees it as good.
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This prejudice and hatred grieve me deeply.

The religious folk who went out to the desert to hear John preach were confident that they were the descendants of Abraham, and they were ok. They were proud of their religious and racial heritage. But John said it was not enough – God could make good Jews out of stones. God can make good Christian Americans out of rocks too. If God wants to. But that is not what God wants.

God wants us to repent and to show the fruits of repentance. We often think of repentance as having a change of heart, yet it also has a connotation of return from exile. Like the Hebrews exiled in Babylon, we are away from our true home which is the presence of God. We have glimpses of it. We get postcards from home. But it is up to us to take the journey through the desert. The journey of repentance which is also a journey of grief.

Yet not just of grief. It is a journey of hope as we return to the God who loves and welcomes all beings, who is creating a new kin-dom where violence is unknown. Where anger and blame are replaced by love because in God’s generosity there is plenty for everyone, lion and lamb alike. This is Isaiah’s vision, the Great Shalom, where all are reconciled with one another and with God. It is this new Creation that God calls us to co-create with her. Not the old one based on hate but a new one based in love, compassion, justice and peace.

A few minutes ago, we sang, “O come O come Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel, That mourns in lonely exile here, until the Son of God appear.” We grieve because we are still living in exile when we long to be reconciled with God and not just as individuals but as a society, as the whole of humanity, indeed the whole of the cosmos. And we seem so far from that reconciliation.
 
Yet John the Baptizer tells us that the coming of the Christ changes everything.
 
“Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees”, he says, “every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” A fearful image, but Isaiah takes the picture of a tree stump – a tree that has been cut down - and turns it into a healing one. From that stump, that tree that seemed dead, a shoot is growing. A shoot which will become a branch and a branch in which the Spirit dwells.
 
And therein is our hope. That the tree which fails to fruit or whose fruit is bitter and sour will be cut down. Things will change. Yet even that diseased tree may grow again in newness of life. Even that tree may return from exile and be reconciled with God in the coming Great Shalom.
 
There is hope for us. And we are called to grow that hope. Listen to the words of John the Baptizer again, “Bear fruit worthy of repentance. Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
 
Being good Christians isn’t enough, even being good Episcopalians isn’t enough. We are to bear fruit worthy of repentance. In Galatians, Paul says “the fruit of the Spirit” is “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Gal. 5:22-23 NASB). This is the fruit worthy of repentance, “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”  This is what we are working towards, with God’s help. These are the qualities of the coming reign of Christ, the reign of righteousness, peace and justice. These are the qualities that we are to develop in ourselves and in one another and in our society.
 
This is hard and deeply counter-cultural work. And it is ours to do.
 
Instead of allowing our grief to turn us sour and critical, let us turn instead to Jesus, the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and allow him to work in us and with us the coming shalom, the day of peace, the great turning and return home from exile. Amen.

the Rev, Dr. Caroline Hall