[Propertalk] 3 Advent a

[robertpmorrison at charter.net]

I don't think this is a repeat posting, but here's what I tweaked 
slightly tonight, for this coming Sunday.

Bob

THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY  	       	              THE 
THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT
ISAIAH 35:1-10	                          		    	                   12th 
DECEMBER, 2010
JAMES 5:7-10				        				       PSALM146:4-9 OR CANTICLE 15
MATTHEW 11:2-11			  	

	Are you REALLY the one? You can imagine a young child, staring at 
someone in a red suit stretched tightly over a greatly-extended belly, 
someone with a somewhat long beard and moustache. The eyes grow big on 
discovering that this isn’t merely the figment of someone’s imagination 
or a fairy-tale-like character dreamed up by adults in order to make 
children toe-the-line and submit to authority.

	Are you REALLY the one? I’m sure you can think of all sorts of 
examples. About ten days ago I caught a glimpse of a TV shot of a young 
woman walking down a street in Britain – supposedly she’s a look-alike – 
perhaps even a stunt-double! – for Kate Middleton, Prince William’s 
fiancée. I wondered why on earth such a person might be necessary. How 
soon one forgets how intolerably obnoxious the sewage-seeking paparazzi 
can be in their attempts to whip up a frenzy to feed people’s baser 
needs.

	Are you REALLY the one? Who’d have the nerve or the desire to 
impersonate another? I mean, what could be the possible advantage? Don’t 
answer that – that’s precisely the basic premise of fairy tales; and of 
the bulk of today’s advertisements. Let me ask you – do you think I’d 
look good in a deep blue silk Armani Chasuble as I move around the 
altar? I guess we all have our moments of fantasy. Not that fantasy is 
all that bad. Dreaming and its interpretation didn’t start with Freud!

	But what IS reality? And how do we cope with it? Surely we all have our 
moments of tiredness, or apprehension, or frustration when we wish that 
everything that’s making our day so exhausting – sure we all have our 
moments when we want to see promises fulfilled – dinner ready when we 
come home; someone else to take the heat off us while we can simply 
think, or read, and relax. Better yet, we want the process of healing 
from our surgery to speed up while the bills diminish or disappear. 
Fantasy is fun, but when we can tie it to practicality, that’s 
incredibly satisfying.

	Imagine John the Baptist, then. He’s in jail. He pushed the envelope of 
telling it like it is one time too often. He made the wrong joke, on the 
wrong occasion, in front of the wrong people, and immediately he was 
hauled off by Herod. So he sits and stews, wondering if it was worth 
being so honest. He wonders if he HAS been following what he perceived 
as God’s vocation for him. All that it’s got him has been grief – from 
the authority figures, anyway. All that he’s wanting is some sort of 
reassurance that his life has been spent doing what is right – that 
there’ll be at least ONE thing worthwhile by which people may remember 
him and from which others can benefit.

	John is SO tired, and back comes a message that some might consider 
slightly veiled. But it’s PRECISELY what John needed to hear.

	I think one of the things that appeals to me so much about Christianity 
is that Jesus always seems to focus to exactly on what it is that I 
need. Jesus Himself – if we peek ahead to Christmas – Jesus Himself is 
seen as God’s specificity to the world. Jesus turned, every day, to 
address what was happening in individual’s lives. He took the time to 
listen to what was going on and then He responded – not always as the 
person might have expected, of course, but, in the long run, in exactly 
the way that the person needed.

	John, often called the last of the Prophets, was clearly steeped in 
their tradition and language. He’d have known right away what Jesus was 
saying.

	You might be forgiven for being excited about the opening of a new 
clinic somewhere in Albany where radical new treatments for eyes and 
limbs were proving so successful. Or for some incredibly generous 
philanthropist who’d given a massive sum to ensure that no one in 
Linn-Benton Counties would have to go hungry or sleep in the pouring 
rain and the biting wind again. Talking to Fisher’s or Aasum-Dufour 
about some of their clients getting up and walking through downtown – 
well, that might be a slightly bigger stretch.

	All of these ARE needs, very concrete needs. But Jesus was talking to 
John about the desire of all the nations – that God would respond to the 
needs of the people and bring a resolution to the crises of the world.

	Jesus left His business card with John and told the Baptist that 
everything was moving along to the fulfillment of God’s purposes – 
despite the threat of execution which lay out on the horizon. So John 
could die, his life fulfilled.

	Now I don’t know that most of us spend a lot of time each day wondering 
whether or not what we’re doing is worthwhile. We probably notice if one 
day seems pretty much like the one before, or go to sleep sort of 
apprehensive that tomorrow won’t be much different from today. But under 
normal conditions we simply take in stride the weather, or the list of 
chores around the house, or the responsibilities we have at Church, or 
any other part of our life.

	It’s when the unexpected happens that we start to wonder what’s going 
on. When you get a phone call from a family member and the tone of voice 
suggests that you might want to be sitting down before the conversation 
goes any further. Or someone asks you to come to see them – or shows up 
on your doorstep – and your mind immediately asks, “What’s wrong?”

	I remember a wonderful episode of the sit-com “Cheers” in which the 
character Norm, because of his abilities, is giving the task of calling 
people up, or taking them out to the bar, in order to tell them gently 
that they’d been laid off.

	Whenever stress is introduced into our lives, then we may begin to 
wonder whether we’ve done the best we could’ve. THAT’S when we need 
something comforting. When life seems so unrelievedly monotonous, or 
dangerous, or pointless; when the latest media blitz convinces us that 
society will never change; or, worse yet, when our next-door-neighbour 
repeats her or his most annoying routine for the sixteenth or 
seventeenth time – THAT’S when we feel like yelling out to God, “Tell me 
if You’re real. Make me understand and believe that You care. Show me 
that You’re not only aware of what’s going on, but that I’m not going to 
be squished by it.”

	I’ve had my share of these moments, and I’m sure you have also.

	Into this mental or physical moment of self-doubt, and frustration, and 
longing comes a reply from Jesus that’s tailored precisely for us. In 
language we understand, in actions we recognise, Jesus points out what’s 
going on around us and invites us to open our imaginations as well as 
our eyes, and to discover the wider meaning beyond the economic 
difficulties, or whatever else is troubling us. Jesus begs us to look 
beyond the vision of the world. Jesus asks us to be rational, yet to be 
unpanicked about everything that’s going on in our lives.

	Biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann, referring to the Epistle reading 
this morning, says “Advent is about readiness to acknowledge, receive 
and participate in the revolution that clusters around Jesus. The word 
from the epistle of James is to have patience. That is not passivity, 
but it is a resolve to stay with it, to watch for the possibility, and 
not to settle for fatigue, resignation or cynicism.” 1

	If we know, first, that the gifts with which God has blessed us will be 
brought to bear fruit through our openness to the Spirit, then we can 
find peace to help us deal with any turmoil. If we know, secondly, that 
ultimately nothing will be able to destroy or frustrate what God wishes 
to accomplish through our use of these gifts, then we may find 
reassurance to help us deal with uncertainty.

	God has made a promise to us that whatever in our individual lives and 
in our communal lives seems broken, whatever seems tarnished, whatever 
seems, blocked, God has promised that we and everything about us  WILL 
be transformed.

A friend takes great delight in correcting my understanding of what a 
desert it. “It’s simply a wonderful garden,” he says, “waiting to burst 
into flower at exactly the right second. All it takes is just the right 
catalyst – whether it be rain, or wind, or sun.” He encourages me to be 
patient, not to think of ANYthing as without hope. Look at each of the 
readings today, and you’ll find God dropping words of encouragement to 
different generations – for instance, “... he has remembered his promise 
of mercy ...”

	But then, in each of the same readings, we discover that with the 
promise comes a plea from God that we should be the agents of change, of 
hope, of encouragement to those who’re not sitting in a place where they 
can hear these words.

	Some time ago I quoted the heart-aching cry of my friend, “Can you take 
away my Cancer? Can you ask the Med. Facilities/Hosp. to accept Ins. 
only? Can you assure me of anything?” Somehow, every one of us who’s 
wrestled with such problems has to discover God’s promise, and to try to 
discover patience that heals and calms us so that we can live in love, 
as Christ loved John the Baptist, and loves us. Then perhaps we can take 
that love to the others that continue to wrestle to find meaning – 
whether they’re in prison, as John was, or in hospital, or confined to 
their homes, or stuck with the most difficult company they can imagine.

	Advent, from our perspective, is not the same as the season portrayed 
in commercials and advertisements. Yes, it can be hectic, but that’s 
where discipline, that’s where patience, that’s where learning to 
breathe deeply can help us.
	There’s a wonderful aria from Mendelssohn’s oratorio “Elijah” which 
says, “O rest in the Lord, wait patiently for Him, and He shall give 
thee thy heart's desires: Commit thy way unto Him, and trust in Him; and 
fret not they self
because of evil doers. O rest in the Lord, and wait, wait patiently for 
Him.” 2

	Is Jesus REALLY the one for whom we long? Yes – and Yes – and YES 
again.

	Jesus reassured John that his work would NOT be in vain. Now Jesus 
reassures US. Nothing can get in the way of our fulfilling God’s promise 
through us; nothing, except our timidity, or our impatience. And, thank 
God, Jesus knows that we’re working on those.

NOTES:
1	“From the pulpit: Consider the true Advent” by  Kathryn Timpany. Argus 
Leader 11-27-2010 http://go.sojo.net/site/R?i=9BuVssDqUDVS9_Stee65wA.. 
“Sojourners”, December 2010.
2	Psalm 37:7 “Be still before the Lord; wait patiently for him” – BCP. 
No. 31 in “Elijah” by Felix Mendelssohn.


Robert P Morrison
Interim Vicar
The Episcopal Church of St Alban
PO Box 1556
Albany OR  97321   541-921-1076 (cell)
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