What Are We Waiting For?

Text: Luke 21: 25-36

December 3, 2006

The first Sunday of Advent. The candle glows. The tree stands ready to be decorated. We’ve sung the first carol of the season, and opened the first flap of the Advent calendar. There’s even a hint of colder weather outside. The days are growing shorter in our part of the world, as if all creation itself were preparing for the traditional Christmas of hearth and home and comfort and joy.

It is a warm and pleasant image that we gather around this time of year, and into that greeting card image comes this seemingly discordant word, from Luke’s gospel:

²⁵“There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. ²⁶People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. ²⁷Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory. ²⁸Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

²⁹Then he told them a parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees; ³⁰as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. ³¹So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. ³²Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. ³³Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. ³⁴“Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly, ³⁵like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. ³⁶Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”

“There will be signs … distress among the nations … be on guard … be alert at all time.”

No sunny, warm, pastoral images in that Advent reading. I think I’d prefer something from Hallmark, instead.

But the coming of Christ is not a domesticated event easily reducible to muzac in the mall or Christmas specials on TV. God will not be mocked, and this reading from Luke’s gospel demands our attention.

Jesus asks, “can you not read the signs of your own times? What are you waiting for?”

So, then, for us – the church at Clarendon: a progressive, inclusive, diverse community of faith and doubt – what are the signs of our times? Where is Christ being born again in us? What are we waiting for?

When we sing, “O come, O come Emmanuel – Come, God-with-us,” what longing deep within ourselves do we name and give voice to?

It’s funny, as we enter this season of Advent, I feel as if I have lived in Advent time for a very long time now. Perhaps all of my life. A friend in Lexington told me, about 10 years ago, that I wait too long, that I suffer the paralysis of analysis, and that I need to “sin boldly” a bit more often. Given some of the changes we’ve lived through together here over the past three and a half years you may disagree with that assessment.

In any case, I do know that I have come to understand these years here as an Advent – a coming together of many unique, disparate but passionate voices of faith longing to live together into deeper community, longing to work together for a more just commonwealth, longing to sing together a more profound hallelujah.

Some of those voices are present in the room this morning. Some are in other pews in other houses of worship this morning. Some are sitting in coffee shops reading the Sunday papers, and still others are home in bed.

And all of that is blessed. All of that is blessed!

You see, the signs of the times do not indicate that what is being born in us is simply a new way of being an old institution; the signs point us to a new way of being. Period. The signs of the times do not point to mere congregational transformation; the signs point to a more fundamental transformation of our very lives and our society.

This way of being – this fundamental transformation – is the way heralded in the Christ event. It cannot be confined to a sanctuary at 10:00 on Sunday mornings. It is a way already being born in coffee-shop conversations with church folks and with people who want nothing to do with church as it is. It is a way being born in book groups of spiritual progressives who may never set foot in this sanctuary or join this congregation. It is a way being incarnated – made flesh – in the lives of emerging young leaders in movements for justice and equality in this community. And it is a way, I am utterly convinced, that thousands more want to follow but they have not yet perceived the signs, they have not yet heard that there is such a way.

The Advent story, as we will read together in the weeks ahead, begins with a voice crying out in the wilderness, “prepare the way!”

We are the ones to whom that voice cries!

We are the ones called to prepare the way!

We are the ones called to show the way to the multitudes who long to discover it!

The signs of our times are clear: we are the ones who we’ve been waiting for.

Now, as is always the case when discerning signs, the way may be clear but there is no road map. Therefore, in the days ahead, I want to engage you – in every way I know how (coffee talk, e-mail, phone calls, cookie bakes, newsletters, sermons, whatever) in every way we can conceive I want to engage you in a deepening conversation about an incredibly exciting idea and opportunity being born in our midst that will stretch us far beyond the confines of tradition and definition and institution. Please, consider this invitation.

This calling – which we have collectively discerned during our season of Advent preparation, to be a center of discernment and center of reformation – is deeply rooted in the gospel of Jesus Christ, the good news of love and justice that we proclaim and share with the world. We are called to risk all – even the church – for the sake of the gospel.

I know full well that this sermon is no more clear than the apocalyptic words of Luke’s gospel, or than Jesus’ words therein: “Look at a fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is near.”

This may be a metaphor out of season, but new life is blooming in our midst. We do not need to look to the sun, the moor, or the stars nor even the ample and evident distress of the nations to see the signs of our times. They are right before us.

The only question is whether or not we, as a community of faith, will stand up and raise our heads, for the time is at hand and the kingdom of God, the commonwealth of the beloved, is drawing near.

As Jeremiah promised, “The days are surely coming … for justice and righteousness throughout the land.”

Let us celebrate its Advent – its coming – by gathering at this table, where we break bread together and share a common cup in a foretaste of that beloved community. Amen.

David Ensign