The Adventurous Lectionary – The First Sunday of Advent – November 30, 2014
Isaiah 64:1-9
Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19
I Corinthians 1:1-9
Mark 13:24-37
Advent is a season of awe and wonder. It is a time of waiting, not just for Jesus’ birth, but for the transformation of our lives and the world. Advent reflects the unfinished nature of creation. God brought forth an unfinished universe, requiring our participation in its ongoing history. Jesus the Christ came to earth, healed the sick, shared the vision of Shalom, died, and rose again, and yet his ministry is unfinished, and the world he came to save still reflects the ambiguity of beauty and brokenness, salvation and sickness. The Prince of Peace has come and yet, as I write these words, innocents are being killed in Iraq and Syria and other innocents are forgotten in the United States. We await a verdict in Ferguson, and regardless of the outcome, the reality of sin is apparent in polarization, alienation, racism, and violence, often perpetrated in the name of law and order.
We are waiting. We need God’s creative transformation. In Advent, we are tempted to give up hope for transformation, on the one hand, or claim premature transformation on the other. In our hope for deliverance, we can live in expectation of God tearing open the heavens and performing awesome deeds of transformation to liberate us from life’s ambiguities. When transformation is deferred, we can overemphasize our unworthiness and God’s angry withdrawal from our lives and communities, as Isaiah 64 asserts. Or, we can project that blame on others, vilifying them to support our own innocence. We need restoration, as Psalm 80 pleads, but has our sinfulness excluded us from God’s grace?
Jesus’ words have inspired many to search for the signs of the times. Many still look for a Second Coming, a deliverance from on high which will clearly separate the saved and unsaved, the favored and the lost, and assuredly we will be among the favored in God’s reckoning. When the hour comes part of our great joy will be to see the chaos and suffering of the world from our privileged place of deliverance! But, is such a deliverance “heaven” or “hell” if it means destroying this beautiful planet?
I believe that Jesus’ words take a different approach. In invoking the fig tree as our guide to discerning the signs of the times, Jesus is suggesting that the transformation we yearn for will come through the natural world, the world of orderly causation, of seedtime and harvest, and not by subverting what we count on to live our daily lives. Transformation may be abrupt at times, but like the fig tree’s growth, the signs of transformation are all around us and within us. It may seem as if the sky is falling, but the meteorological changes, represented by darkened sun and falling stars are part of a divine economy in which the largest environment remains dependable.
Jesus is cautioning us about claiming esoteric knowledge about the end times. No one knows when the divine call comes. Don’t be so heavenly minded that you are no earthly good. Don’t look so far ahead that you fail to see God moving in this very moment of time. Jesus counsels us to be alert and to stay awake. Yes, there may be a dramatic moment in our lives and communities. We may be called upon to take a leap of faith into what appears to be an abyss of uncertainty. We may experience seismic spiritual shifts. But, God is faithfully moving in this moment, giving us clues and hints of transformation. We can live in God’s new age right now if our spiritual and physical senses are open to God’s coming in every event.
To a conflict-ridden community at Corinth, Paul proclaims that you have everything you need to be faithful. Having just gone through the annual budget meeting at the church I pastor and witnessed another deficit budget, it is easy to live by scarcity and assume that our best years are gone by. It is easy to give up hope in the future. We, and other congregations, must be realistic financially and make adjustment in budget and in our stewardship. Still, we live in an open system in which new energies and possibilities are always emerging in our lives and communities. We are, as Paul proclaims, enriched in every way and graced by a love beyond our imagination. We have every spiritual gift we need, whether our community is flourishing or diminishing numerically. God is faithful and asks only that we faithfully respond to the grace we’ve received in our particular time and place and with our particular gifts and limits.
Advent is about active waiting that leads to agency. God is faithful and has planted signs of the times in our daily adventures. Stay alert! Don’t be confused by promises of a divine rescue operation or be befuddled by tinny Christmas carols. The birth of new life is coming, the signs are here. We have what we need to be faithful. (For more on our Advent adventures, see Bruce Epperly, Adventurous Advent: Days of Awe and Wonder and Mark’s Holy Adventure: Preaching Mark’s Gospel for Year B.)
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