Occasional Sermons

I was at a holiday gathering last week with a group of women friends I made around the time our children were born. My eldest is now in her thirties, so we have been friends for a good long time. Now that our children are grown, we don’t see each other as much as we did when they were young. In those days we saw each other nearly every day. We needed each other’s company and support during the uniquely taxing business of raising young children. And besides, were interesting to no one except each other. Raising young children, the all important questions have to do with the likes of nursing, naps, teething; and, of course, those tiny little developmental milestones that at the time seem so significant. Who else would find all that interesting except another mother of young children? There’s been much water over the damn since then. Most of us, at least those of us who did not adopt a second round of children, are now empty-nesters. Some of us have remained at home. Others of us have retooled and rejoined the work force. One of my friends became a pediatrician. It’s no surprise. She is smart and driven, scientifically minded; and she loves children. When I saw her at the gathering I asked her about the ongoing drama in which she was involved wither receptionist. She hired as her receptionist a woman whose husband had died recently. Having been a wife and mother nearly forty years, she was lonely and aimless and hoped that a job would help her to reconnect to life, would bring her some structure and purpose. She was a very decent person, but did not belong I that position. She talked on and on to patients, and worse, did have a sense of appropriate sense of confidentiality. In this day and age, that can get you into trouble. She drove my friend increasingly up the wall, but big-hearted as he was, she couldn’t bring herself to let her go. “I finally let her go,” my friend said, “And those were, without question, the hardest words I’ve ever had to say in my life. “I have to let you go.” “Those words wouldn’t be hard for me at all,” said another friend, whom I would describe as self-assertive and driven to control all that is in her sphere of influence. Appropriately, she is a crossing guard. “Anyway, it was for her own good,” she said. “Why treat her like she is exempt from reality and responsibility?” That’s no favor to her overall. The hardest words for me to say,” she said, “are ‘I’m sorry.’ I had to apologize to someone last week, and I’ve vowed never again to be in the wrong so I’ll never have to apologize again.” “Good luck with that,” I said. The conversation then shifted to word that are hard to say. What we came up wit was about what you’d expect, - “I love you.” “You hurt my feelings.” And, above all, ‘No.’” As the conversation proceeded, I found myself biting my lip. My friends, have, on more than one occasion, on several occasions in fact, informed me that I have the annoying habit of not offering my own opinion, which would probably be annoying enough, but instead offering the biblical witness’ opinion on the subject. “The biblical witness would label that double minded,” I’d say. Or, I’d say, “The biblical witness would take issue with that sort of apathy.” Or, “The biblical witness forbids this kind of idle chatter.” I can’t think why they find it so annoying. I was itching to offer the biblical witness’ opinion on the hardest words to say, but, as I said, I had been warned that I was annoying. Of course, when people warn us that we are annoying, it doesn’t automatically remove the desire to continue to be annoying. I really wanted to have my say. Suddenly, I thought of a brilliant ploy. Instead of simply offering the biblical witness’ opinion on the subject, I asked a preliminary question. “Are you interested in the biblical witness’ opinion on the subject?" I asked. If they said no, that would certainly not reflect very well on them. They were churchgoers, after all. And if they said yes, I could have my say. I can boast my ploy was brilliant, of occurs, because I am really only in effect boasting on the Lord. I borrowed the ploy form m. If you recall his exchange with the chief priests and elders, they asked Jesus, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority.?” Jesus said to them, ‘I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin? And they argued with one another, ‘If we say from heaven, he will say to us, “Why then did you not believe him?’ But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ we are afraid do the crowd, for all regard John a prophet.” Thanks to the biblical witness, I had my friends between a rock and a hard place. I finally had my say. According to the biblical witness, the hardest words to say are, “Here I am.” Here I am – the words with which God’s prophets answered God’s call to witness to him. “After these things God tested Abraham. God said to him, “Abraham!” And Abraham said, “Here I am!” Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, can came to Horeb, the mountain of God. Then the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a us; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consume…God called to him out of the bush, ‘Moses, Moses!’ And Moses said, “Here I am!” “The Lord called, ‘Samuel, Samuel.’ And he said, ‘Here I am!’ “The Isaiah heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? And Isaiah said, “Here I am!” But why should these be the hardest words to say? If you think about it, the answer is not long in coming. It is because witnessing to God is terribly difficult work and generally not welcomed by the world. And the words, “Here I am,"represent a kind of reporting for service, represent a kind of front end commitment to witness to God, come what may. And indeed, it was not easy on the prophets. God called Abraham to leave everything he knew, to go from his country, his kindred, and his father’s house to an unknown land on which would some day exist the nation he would father. And when Abraham at the age of one hundred finally fathered a son, God demanded his sacrifice as a s test that Abraham’s faith was in the God who could do the impossible, and not in Abraham’s own flesh and blood. Abraham passed the test, and God spared his son, but only imagine Abraham’s anguish as he raised that knife to his son’s neck.. Or Moses, a humble man, slow of speech, slow of tongue. God called him to enter the court of the most powerful man in the world and demand the release of his enslaved countrymen; and then to lead them, they who gave no evidence of being God’s people at all, for forty years through the wilderness to the threshold of their Promised Land. Or Samuel, whom God called to preside over the newly found institution of the kingship, an institution that Samuel had renounced and resisted for all he was worth, and then stand by and watch as the king that God had called him to anoint generated into a madman – jealous, paranoid, murderous. Or Isaiah, who was called too to prophesy to kings, kings from whose line God had be this time declared the Messiah would come, but who only encountered faithless kings who refuse to listen to the word of God and led the nation to the brink of destruction. Yes, “Here I am” must have been the hardest words to say. All of this renders nothing less than amazing, nothing less than mind boggling, what we heard in this morning’s gospel lesson. A young woman, little more than a girl really, of no imaginable note – obscure and undistinguished; and probably too, like most of her people, rather poor – was visited by the angel Gabriel who said to her, “’Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end. May said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?’ The angel said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy, he will be called the Son of Man….’ Then Mary said, ‘Here I am.’” And with those words that young woman, with nothing but her faith, added herself to the company of the great prophets of Israel – absent, of course, any pride or arrogance, absent any self-assertion whatever, and absent too any self-abnegation, any evasion or irresponsibility because of her low and unlikely station, and knowing it had not been easy on those who had responded this – with nothing but her faith, she added herself to the company of the great prophets of Israel. And it was not easy on her either. In fact, it may have been harder on her than it was on any of them: to be made pregnant our of wedlock, to give birth in a stable in a distant land, to live in obscurity for nearly thirty years, waiting, wondering what was in store for her son, then as her son finally embarked upon his ministry to hear him say and do things that she didn’t anticipate and couldn’t comprehend, and things that caused him to make very dangerous enemies, then to witness her son, her beloved son, tortured to death on a cross. I’d say that young woman proved herself the equal of the great prophets of Israel. Here I am. Such hard words, and such a hard life that inevitably issued from them. One wonders whether any of them had any regrets about saying them. The biblical witness does not say if they did or not, but I, at least, am certain that they did not. I am certain because that same faith by which they said those hard words – by which they reported for service, by which they made front end commitment to witness to God come what may – makes regret impossible. For faith does not seek ease or comfort; not does it require outcomes. Faith simply holds fast to God’s promises and makes witness to him. It is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Faith need not receive the promises, because it sees them from a distance and greets them. Faith then banishes regret. Friends in Christ, God may not have called us to witness to him in such clear and commanding ways. He may not have spoken to us through a burning bushy, or through his angel Gabriel, but he has just as surely called us to witness to him. He was called us through the waters of baptism by which we have received the Holy Spirit. It is now ours to respond, “Here I am,” But the prophets who have gone before us, and we may consider Mary among them, prove that the hardest words we will ever say are too the greatest words we will ever say and live. Amen.

Listening to the oracles of the prophet Amos feels a bit like staring down the barrel of a shot gun. Amos’ message is that because the people of God fail to practice social justice, fail to uphold human dignity, and fail to promote impartial equality, God’s punishment will be their destruction. Actually, listening to the oracles of the prophet Amos feels a bit worse than staring down the barrel of a shot gun. It’s feels like staring down the barrel shot gun just before the trigger is pulled. And so, I, personally, would advise that we do what anyone would do who is staring down the barrel of a shot gun just before the trigger is pulled. I would advise that we run for our lives. Run as fast and as far away as we can – past Isaiah, past the Psalms, past Job; past Samuel, past Ruth, past Joshua, past Exodus until we finally arrive, heavily winded, at the book of Genesis – a safe distance; twenty nine books away. But no sooner than we begin to catch our breath do we discover that we are out of the frying pan and into the fire. It’s every bit as bad as Amos. “And the Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, “I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created – people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry I have made them.” The writer’s message is that because the people of God are hell bent upon rampant and escalating disunity and violence, God’s punishment will be their destruction. Again, the feeling of staring down the barrel shot gun once again just before the trigger is pulled, so I advise we once again run for our lives. The problem last time is that we ran in the wrong direction. We ran backward. We should have run forward. The only problem is that we have to get past Amos. And so we must pace ourselves so that we have the strength to sprint when we draw near him. Best, perhaps to rest up for a bit in Deuteronomy. But no. There’s no rest in Deuteronomy. “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that you will soon utterly perish from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to occupy; you will not live long on it, but will be utterly destroyed.” The writer’s message is that because the people of God refuse to love him, refuse to honor him, refuse to obey him; because they instead adore and glorify the profane culture that surrounds them, God’s punishment will be their destruction. We now find ourselves at a good news and bad news juncture. The bad news is that we have to get moving again. The good news is that the New Testament is only thirty four books away. I guess in point of fact, that’s bad news too. Thirty four books, and some of those books are really long. We find ourselves then at a bad news and bad news juncture. But it’s do or die. But arriving, near collapse, at the New Testament, who do we encounter at its gates but John the Baptist? He is clearly in league with Amos and Genesis and Deuteronomy. John’s message is that the because God’s people are sinners, they must repent, and they must acknowledge their repentance by a ritual cleansing of their sin in the waters of baptism. Because it’s judgment time. God’s messiah is coming. And their punishment will be their destruction. Let’s face it. We can run but we can’t hide. Where ever we go we will feel like we are staring down the barrel of a shotgun just before the trigger is pulled. This is because we are attempting to flee from the central problematic of the Bible. That central problematic is this. We are God’s people, and we fall short. Whether it is as Amos has it, that our pursuit of social justice is too comfortable or exists not at all; or as Genesis has it, that we coddle our propensity for division and fan the warfare that ultimately results from it, or as Deuteronomy has it, that we place a higher value upon our nature and our culture than upon God, or as John has it, that we are all in one way or another sinners, the Bible’s central problematic is that we are God’s people, and we fall short. Per the apostle Paul, “We have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” We are God’s people, and we fall short, and the just verdict upon us all is punishment. And this is precisely why John the Baptist was so utterly befuddled by Jesus. He had God’s people all prepped. God’s messiah is coming. His punishment will be their destruction. He was in line with the central problematic of the Bible. He was one of its greatest expositors. But then, enter Jesus. The blind received their sight, the lame walked, the lepers were cleansed, the deaf heard, the dead were raised up, and the poor had good news preached to them. This couldn’t be God’s messiah. A man of mercy? A man of forgiveness? A man of compassion? A man who knew we fall short, but who understood our frailty and who loved us anyway? This couldn’t be the messiah. No wonder John the Baptist was confused. As John passed the hours in prison reflecting, he just couldn’t make any sense of it. And so he sent Jesus a message. “Are you the one to come, or should we look for another?” “Don’t look for another,” Jesus replied. “I am he.” The central problematic of the Bible is that we are God’s people, and we fall short, and the just verdict upon us all is punishment. But the central problematic of the Bible is resolved through Jesus Christ, whose life, death, and resurrection proclaim to us that God’s mercy is greater than God’s justice, that God’s love is greater than God’s anger, that God’s victory is greater than our sin, that God is a God first and foremost a God of grace. And so, we need not run from God. We need not run from ourselves. We need only receive the grace God so freely offers and receive with along with it the peace that passes understanding, peace that we acknowledge this second Sunday in Advent. Grace and Peace to you all. Amen.

Snowflakes. If you aren’t connected to a college campus, you probably think that a snowflake is a tiny crystal of snow. If you are connected to a college campus, however, this word takes on new meaning. Snowflakes are students who are as fragile as their namesake. More particularly, Snowflakes are readily traumatized and offended. If a subject is raised, for instance, that involves exploitation, oppression, persecution, discrimination, suffering, violence, or any ism, Snowflakes meltdown. And that brings us to another word. Trigger. If you aren’t connected to a college campus, you probably think that a Trigger is the mechanism that fires a gun. If you are connected to a college campus, however, this word too takes on new meaning. The meaning relates to Snowflakes. If a professor must raise a subject involving exploitation, oppression, persecution, discrimination, suffering, violence, or any ism -- things that may trigger a Snowflake to meltdown -- they are urged to issue Trigger Warnings so the Snowflake may evacuate the classroom. In my own experience, Trigger Warnings are not feasible. I teach Bible, after all. Genesis to Revelation would issue in nothing but one unending Trigger Warning. After all, the Bible culminates in the crucifixion of the Son of God. But I would think that the same would hold true for most disciplines - certainly history, certainly literature, certainly biology, certainly psychology. At any rate, one of the leading public intellectuals of our times is a professor named Jordan B. Peterson. Peterson has become a well known spokesman against Snowflakes and Triggers. His point is that college is meant to prepare students for life, and you don’t prepare students for life by making them weak, cowardly, and avoidant. You don’t prepare them for life by giving them to believe that life is too much for them to handle. You don’t prepare them for life by over-protecting and sheltering them. You don’t prepare them for life by teaching them that the proper response to life is to run, hide, and cower. You prepare them for life by teaching them what life is, then by fortifying them with time tested convictions that are worth defending, by inspiring them with worthy examples, by encouraging them to assume responsibility for the burden of existence, and by warning them of the historical consequences of fear and ignorance. You prepare them for life by making them strong, courageous, and engaged. It all makes you wonder why students actually opt not to be rightly prepared in life. I guess the reasons that students opt not to be rightly prepared in life are the same as the reasons the rest of us opt not to be rightly prepared in life. It’s the course of least resistance. It is not easy to be rightly prepared in life. It’s downright hard to be rightly prepared in life, because it’s hard to do something as opposed to nothing. It’s hard to take action against an unrealized threat. It’s hard to forswear denial for realism. It’s hard to assume personal responsibility as opposed to relying upon others who have done so. We opt not to be rightly prepared in life, in short, because it is easy. But as Jesus teaches, “The way is easy that leads to destruction.” Because the bottom line is that bad things happen in life. Even privileged people like ourselves are not exempt. Bad things happen in life, and they happen in every way possible. They can happen to us as individuals; suddenly -- like a diagnosis, or an accident, or an attack. Or they can happen to us as individuals slowly -- like a toxic relationship, or a long and lonely end stage of life, or a debilitating condition. Bad things can happen to us as individuals both suddenly and slowly; and they can also happen to us as collective people, again suddenly, like 9/11 or slowly, like climate change. Bad things can happen every which way. And if this doesn’t ring true, just wait. Noah from our gospel lesson is proof of this. In fact, Noah is proof that it can be all of these things at once. The flood would happen to him and his family, and the flood would happen to all humankind. The flood would happen as spontaneously as storms do, but at the same time it would be a long time in coming. Humankind was riding for a fall. After all, “The LORD saw...that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil continually.” The Lord does not let this magnitude of evil stand. It may have its day, but its day ceases to be. The Lord issues his judgment upon it. He always has, and he always will. But Noah was prepared rightly for life. He was prepared for the flood. Yes, it was hard. It would have been easier not to build an ark. It would have been easier not to stock it. That’s what the rest of the world did, after all. But Noah was prepared rightly for life, and he sailed through the flood, and in the process saved humankind from extinction. But here is the punchline for the first Sunday in Advent. “So it will be with the coming of the Son of Man. So it will be with the coming of the Son of Man.” As the Son of Man came, the Son of Man will come. He will come to each of us, and he will come to all of us. He will come as he has portended, and he will come in the blink of an eye. Our gospel lesson orders us with great urgency to prepare for the coming of the Son of Man. And you think preparing rightly for life is hard? As hard as it is to prepare rightly for life, it is infinitely harder to prepare rightly for eternal life. Because this means that amidst the reality of life we must too demonstrate faith and righteousness, mercy and forgiveness; self-sacrifice, truthfulness, justice, peace, and for this first Sunday in Advent we too must demonstrate hope. We must be people he will recognize as his own. Amen.

Genesis 3:8-12 Matthew 6:5-13

When pastors get together for meetings or conferences, we always exchange jokes. They’re “pastor jokes”; in other words, jokes only fellow pastors would appreciate. I doubt you’ve ever heard one. This is precisely because they’re jokes only fellow pastors would appreciate. They’re insider jokes. No one wants to risk an insider joke on an outsider. Having said that, I am about to take the risk. I am about to tell you a joke a fellow pastor told me just last week. Feel free not to laugh. You’d merely be proving my point. One day two old country pastors held up signs at the edge of the road. One said: "The end is near!" The other said, "Turn yourself around before it's too late!" As a car sped past them, the driver leaned out his window and yelled, "Go back to your churches where you belong!" The sound of screeching tires was followed by a big splash. One pastor looked at the other and asked, "Do you think the signs should just say 'Bridge Out'?" The joke, as funny or as unfunny as it may be, contains a kernel of truth. Because let’s face it, no one likes to be called to repentance. No one likes to be told that they are going down the wrong road, and they need to turn around. There are countless reasons for this. For one thing, no one likes to be accused. Even if they’re guilty. Especially if they’re guilty. No one likes to be accused. It puts you on the defensive. It makes you want to strike back. I don’t know many people who handle it well. You want to see someone fly off the handle? Accuse them. Of anything. For another thing, no one likes to admit wrongdoing. Even if they’ve done something wrong. Especially if they’ve done something wrong. People will go to any length to deny wrongdoing. And by denying wrongdoing they dig their grave a bit deeper. They compound their problem. Now there’s both the wrongdoing and the denial. For another thing, some people really don’t want to change. Even if they need to change. Especially if they need to change. They’ve found a crutch by which to limp through life, and they don’t want to give it up. They could care less if it’s not good for them. Yes, no one likes to be called to repentance. And there are more reasons for that than just these. Enter John the Baptist. John the Baptist had but one thing to say to the people of his day. He called them to repentance. But here’s the weird thing. The people flocked to him. If word got out today of a pastor who week by week was calling the people to repentance, the people would hardly be flocking to him. They’d be flocking away from him. But the people flocked to John the Baptist. This is because, in an ironic way, he was magnetic. He was a member of a rigorous religious order called the Nazirites. The Nazarites separated themselves from society to devote themselves to holiness. But John the Baptist was a Nazarite on steroids. He didn’t just live on the fringes of society, in a modest hut, say, on the outskirts of a village. He lived in the desert. That’s a pretty harsh place to live. And while the dress code of the day was soft robes and tunics, he clothed himself in the hides of camels - doubtless scavenged from some desert carrion. And in terms of his diet, no fishes and loaves for him. He did get his protein and carbs, but he got them from locusts and wild honey. That’s roughing it. He chose for himself a life of complete seclusion and utter poverty. But this gave him authenticity in the eyes of the people. He had not been compromised and corrupted by society. He was nobody’s pawn, and he was not out for his own gain. He was his own man -- driven by his singular quest for holiness. And the people could see that in him. And so when he emerged from the desert and began to speak with the words of a prophet, when no prophetic word had been uttered for four centuries, the news spread like wildfire. Of course they flocked to him. They were burning with curiosity. Upon hearing him, though, they soon became enthralled. When they heard his call to repentance, it broke through their resistance to accusation. It broke through their denial of wrongdoing. It broke through their reluctance to change. “My anger is out of control.” One thought. “I have an addiction.” Thought another. “I am living a lie.” Thought another. “I have cheated someone.” Thought another.” I am a betrayer.” “I am dishonest.” “I carry a horrible secret.” One by one they repented, and John the Baptist baptized them in the waters of the Jordan - washed them free of their sin. Of course not everyone present was so moved. There were the Pharisees and the Sadducees, the religious elites of the day. I could tell you all about them, but it’s enough to say that they were the kind of people who thought it was more important to look good than to be good. John the Baptist couldn’t get through to them. Repentance didn’t look good. So he called them out. He told them they were a brood of vipers. How would you like to go down in history as being called a brood of vipers by John the Baptist? Obviously they are not the example for us to follow. And why? Why did John the Baptist call the people to repentance? It’s because the Messiah was coming to inaugurate the Kingdom of Heaven, and he wanted the people to enter that kingdom. Maybe this is why the Messiah called John the Baptist the greatest of all the prophets. He wanted the people to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, and he discerned the means for them to do so -- repentance. You know, my son Herry loves Christmas songs. Kids these days have access to technology, for better or for worse. Herry asks Alexa -- and if you don’t know what Alexa is ask someone under the age of 30 -- to play a Christmas song over and over again until he has it memorized and can sing it himself. He’s no Bing Crosby, but he’s becoming a decent crooner. The other day I heard him singing, “"He sees you when you’re sleeping. He knows when you’re awake. He knows if you’ve been bad or good so be good for goodness sake.” It struck me suddenly that this doesn’t just apply to Santa Claus. It applies to God as well. “He sees you when you’re sleeping. He knows when you’re awake. He knows if you’ve been bad or good so be good for goodness sake.” God already knows the fullness of our sin. As if we could hide it from it. This is why he sent his Messiah in the first place. So it’s a fool’s game not to repent, especially because through repentance God only seeks for us to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. I close with the Messiah’s very first words as he embarked upon his public ministry. “The time is fulfilled. The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. Repent! Believe in the gospel.” Amen.

Say it’s been your lifelong dream to retire on your sixty-fifth birthday. After thirty five years on the job, your dream is, at long last, about to come true. It’s the day before your sixty-fifth birthday, your very last day of work. You go the benefits department and say, " I’d like to open a retirement account." " A retirement account? The benefits department says. It’s a bit late in the day for that. It’s your last day of work. You would have needed to open a retirement account thirty five years ago." " Is that right?" You return. "Well then could someone around here give me the money that I need to retire?" The benefits department would call security. They’d be right to, because they’d have rightly concluded you are not firing on all cylinders. Or say among the items in your bucket list, one is to run a marathon. You search internet and find the perfect race - scenic course, not too many hills -- so you register. The night before the marathon arrives -- time to pick up your registration packet. " All ready to run twenty six miles?" the volunteer asks genially. " Yes, I will be, after I’ve trained. Do you know of any store nearby where I could buy a pair of running shoes?" " You haven’t trained yet? You have no running shoes?" The volunteer replies tersely, clearly not interested in further small talk with you -- because he’s rightly concluded you are a few bricks shy of a load. Or say you’re a graduate student. It’s the day before your thesis is due. You chose quite an exhaustive topic. You chose to research the the readiness of each of the world’s 195 countries for climate change. Your roommate sticks his head in the doorway and asks you if you’ve got time for for a cup of coffee. " Not today. You say regretfully. I need to get started on my thesis." " You haven’t gotten started your thesis yet?" He asks incredulously. "I thought you were watching an awful lot of Netflix." " Well no Netflix today! You say. I am heading to the United Nations to get a list of the world’s 195 countries." Instead of going out for a cup of coffee, your roommate stops by the dean’s office to request a room transfer, because he has rightly concluded that you are a few sandwiches short of a picnic. The moral here is fairly obvious. You can’t prepare at the last minute. If you think you can you are as clueless as the retiree, the marathon runner, and the graduate student. Preparation, substantive preparation at any rate, is a process -- a long and difficult process, because preparation involves the acquisition of new habits, and the acquisition of new habits involves commitment, discipline, determination, planning, motivation, and persistence. Preparation, if you think about it, actually transforms you. It conforms you to the image of your undertaking. In the case of preparing for retirement, you learn the value of making present sacrifices for future goals, you learn the world of investments, you learn to steward your income judiciously. In the case of preparing for a marathon, you learn to build endurance, you learn appropriate nutrition, you learn that there are no shortcuts to a finish line. In the case of preparing to write a thesis, you learn to research, you learn to become an expert, you learn to write, edit, and cite. Preparation then is a good thing. It’s a great thing. But to the point, preparation is a necessary thing, and preparation takes time. Lots of it. In this morning’s gospel lesson, Jesus tells The Parable of the Wise and Foolish Bridesmaids. It’s a parable about preparation, all right. It’s about preparing to meet him. The foolish bridesmaids are just like the clueless retiree, marathon runner, and graduate student. They are few electrons short of an isotope. They think they can prepare to meet him at the last minute. They can’t. So Jesus does not want us to follow their example. And needless to say there is a lot more at stake here. This is by far and away the most important preparation of our lives. It’s by far and away the most important preparation of our lives, and it’s by far and away the most strenuous preparation of our lives as well. Because we know how hard it is to conform ourselves to his image. We know how hard it is to master our pride. We know how hard it is to forgive. We know how hard it is to practice charity. We know how hard it is to subdue our anger. We know how hard it is to resist temptation. We know how hard it is to perceive our omissions. We know how hard it is to love impartially. Yes, it’s strenuous. It’s the ongoing effort of a whole lifetime. But at the same time, there’s an urgency about it, a dire urgency. This is because we don’t know how much time we have; we don’t know the measure of our days. And when Jesus returns, as he swore again and again that he will, he will call forth unto himself all creation, all history, and all time. Our lives will be part of that record. And we will be prepared to meet him, or we will not. It’s the first Sunday of Advent. So let’s be very clear what we’re about. Because sometimes the hustle and bustle of the holiday causes us to blur things, causes us to assume perhaps that we are preparing for the birth of Jesus. But we aren’t. That’s fixed history. Mary prepared for the birth of Jesus, as did her husband Joseph. But we can’t. We can remember the birth of Jesus. We can celebrate it. We can praise and thank God for it. But we can’t prepare for it. We can’t prepare to meet him in the past, only in the future. This is what the first Sunday of Advent reminds us. You know, every so often I read things that stick with me. I do not doubt that I will carry them to the grave. It’s because they’re the truth. The novelist Leon Bloy once wrote, "There is only one tragedy in the end, and that’s not to have been a saint." That’s the truth. As Advent dawns, let that not be our tragedy. Amen.

I am a sucker for feature articles about when Somebodies were Nobodies; in other words, about celebrities before they were discovered. They’re indicators in life of the twin elements of chance and destiny. I guess I am a fan of serendipity. At any rate, I was reading recently about one Stefani Germanotta. She was plumb as a child and with big buck teeth. This made unpopular at the parochial school she attended and made her too the target of bullies. No one would have bet on her chances of becoming a celebrity. She now goes by the name of Lady GaGa. In this morning’s gospel lesson, Jesus was somewhere between a Nobody and a Somebody. He was but three days into his ministry. Before that the whole of his life was lived in obscurity doing respectable but relatively menial work as a carpenter. It was John the Baptist who discovered him. As Jesus approached him, John declared, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Jesus there and then left his old life behind and embarked upon his public ministry. He began straightaway to assemble his disciples, calling Peter, Andrew, Nathanael, and Philip. Then came his first miracle at the wedding at Cana. Recall that this was three days into his ministry. Jesus attended the wedding at Cana with his mother, but his newly called disciples tagged along. The wedding was smooth sailing, until the wine ran out. Now we can well imagine the crisis this would have occasioned, because it would have occasioned a crisis in our own day. Your daughter has been planning her big day for over a year. And it has been a lot to plan: the ceremony venue, the reception venue, the guest list, the dresses for bride and bridesmaids, the menu, the registry, the photographer, the flowers, the invitations, the rings, etc., etc., etc. You were placed in charge of one thing: the wine. Her big day finally arrives. Midway through the reception, the last bottle of wine is uncorked. Sorry sweetheart I underestimated, wouldn’t quite cut it. The night still young, the guests sober as judges. You’ve wrecked your daughter’s big day. It’s the kind of thing you’d never live down. I’d call that a crisis. But Jesus, three days ago a nobody, now commanded the scene. Jesus requested that the servants fill the six stone water jars which were at hand for various cleanliness rites. Each held thirty gallons so we can do the math - that’s 180 gallons. That’s a lot of water. Then in the twinkling of an eye it was 180 gallons of wine, and wine so fine that the steward was flummoxed. Why was wine of such quality held back? So Jesus was somewhere between a nobody and a somebody -- a month ago, a total nobody: the guy next door, the guy in front of you at the grocery store line, the guy who fixes your furnace… a month from now, a total somebody: the greatest celebrity of his day. But in Jesus’s case there’s a wrinkle. Because his case involved performing miracles. One day he couldn’t or he wouldn’t perform them, and the next day he could and would. That seems odd. It seems implausible. Are we actually supposed to believe that pretty much out the blue Jesus started performing miracles? It’s not that we’re skeptics by nature. We believe in lots of things, things that are marvelous, things that are mind boggling, things that are stupendous. We believe in technology. We believe in science. We believe in modern medicine. We believe in space travel. It’s just that they are a lot more empirical. But yes, we’re actually supposed to believe it. We are actually not supposed to put the gospels to the test. We are actually supposed to believe that pretty much out of the blue Jesus started performing miracles. Put slightly differently, we are actually supposed to believe that through Jesus Christ divine mysteries began to be revealed. In fact, John’s entire esoteric, abstract, downright confusing gospel (And I challenge anyone to read his prologue with any understanding) can be summed up in that one sentence. We are actually supposed to believe that through Jesus Christ divine mysteries began to be revealed. Let John’s gospel speak for itself: But to all...who believe d in his name, he gave the power to become children of God, For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believe s in him should not perish but have eternal life. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. The first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory...and his disciples believe d in him. I would provide more examples, but in the twenty chapters of John’s gospel, there are over fifty of them. We’d be at it all day. Yes, we are actually supposed to believe that through Jesus Christ divine mysteries began to be revealed. And it really shouldn’t be that hard to believe. Don’t we all believe the supernatural transcends the natural? Don’t we all believe in the dignity and freedom of each and every human life? Don’t we all believe in the cause of justice? Don’t we all believe self-sacrifice to be the means to redemption? Don’t we all believe in the priority of peace over violence? Don’t we all believe that mercy and forgiveness lead to reconciliation? Don’t we all believe in the primacy of love? These are precisely the divine mysteries revealed through Jesus Christ. Holiday season is again upon us. Even in the days of Covid, the games have begun. Thanksgiving and Black Friday are behind us -- But these were just the warm up. The main event lies before us - Christmas -- the ordering and wrapping of gifts, the baking of cookies and candies, the decorating of homes inside and out, Christmas movies, Christmas trees, Christmas music... Did you ever wonder what we’re playing at? We may have lost sight of it in all the rush and clamor, but at the base of it, at the very base, we are playing at believing in the divine mysteries revealed through Jesus Christ. So if we want to mark Christmas with any integrity whatsoever, we would do well to believe it. And if we do, we will see miracles this season and always. Amen.

Matthew 3:1-12