<html><body>This was put together in stages, so here's part 1. Part 2 will follow.<div><br></div><div>Bob</div><div><br></div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">THE ESPISCOPAL
CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY 1 ADVENT C<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">JEREMIAH
33:14-16 </span> <span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:
"Arial","sans-serif"">29<sup>th</sup> NOVEMBER, 2015<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">1
THESSALONIANS 3:9-13 PSALM 25:1-9<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">LUKE
21:25-36<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> A couple of weeks ago, I paused,
unexpectedly, during the Prayer of Humble Access, the first collect in the
Eucharistic Liturgy. I can’t tell how long the pause was, I didn’t time it. I
didn’t look at you. I don’t know what you were thinking, how you were reacting.
I <b><u>DID</u></b> get a couple of
comments later, asking if I were all right.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> It’s funny how silence does that,
especially if the silence hasn’t been telegraphed, if people are unprepared. If
it had been a split second, even a whole second, possibly no one would have
noticed. Our brains would have dealt with it and blotted it out from what we
think we heard. But if, without warning, the silence continues. If, without a
letter, a phone call, a text message or an e-mail; if, without warning, silence
spreads out over multiple seconds, we may begin to shift our positions.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> Back on the Monday after the attacks
in Paris, at noon, there was a minute of silence throughout the city during
which everything non-essential was asked to halt, to cease making sound for
sixty seconds, as a way of giving tribute to those killed. A reporter on the
radio described the scene in the hospital right across the street from the bar where
some of the killing occurred.<span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"> “Nurses and
doctors at this hospital were among those having drinks across the street on
Friday when one of the gunmen opened fire. Fifteen people died, with 10
more seriously injured.” </span>On the Monday, noon came, the people in the
E.R. halted non-urgent work, and the silence began. One minute. Then two. Then
three. Then six. “It was as is no one wanted this moment to end.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> “Eventually, after eight minutes,
people begin applauding.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> “And somewhere at the back, a man’s
voice begins to recite poetry. I find out later the words are by the Senegalese
poet Birago Diop. You can’t hear everything from our place at the front of the
crowd. But you can hear this:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><i><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> The dead are not under
the ground<br>
They are in the
fire that goes out<br>
They are in the
grass that cries<br>
They are in the
rock that moans<br>
They are in the
forest, they are in the residency.<br>
The dead are not
dead.</span></i><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">”
<sup>1</sup><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> Silence can be incredibly pregnant.
It can be incredibly enriching. It can help us to get in touch with what is
deep within us. It may be a fear, as many in Paris, and in every country in the
Middle East, and in Kenya, and far too many other countries. What we encounter
may be joy, as we remember some unbelievably exciting event. What we meet may
be hollow or empty, as we discover a great longing for something. Or it may be,
as those medical personnel found, it may be some word, some scent, some image,
perhaps something held in common, which reminds us that, as desperate as the
silence appears, “The dead are not dead.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> Out of the silence came life.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> Silence. We need it. But we can hate
it.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"> Our
entry through Advent’s door, however, asks us to confront this sense of
anticipation by dealing with the things which disturb, which frighten us.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"> Suzanne
Guthrie wrote a question which many of us may think, but few may be willing to
express out loud. “</span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">Why does
the new year begin with dread, darkness, portents in the sky: the sun darkened,
the moon obscured, stars falling, the heavens shaken? Why does the new year
begin with the ultimate ending: the end of life, the end of the world, the end
of time itself?”<sup> 2</sup><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-bidi-font-weight:bold"> One possible answer to this is that,
like silence, we tend not to like to think about the so-called “End Times” too
much. Yet this isn’t something that’s totally missing from some groups within
Christianity. It certainly wasn’t absent in the hundred-plus years after the
death and resurrection of Jesus. That’s how we were given many parts of our New
Covenant material. And for the same reason we read them this morning. For the
same reason that many groups dwell on them. It may seem easier to deal with
thought about chaotic and out-of-control events leading up to Jesus’ return to
earth than it is to try to find some sort of an answer to the terrible increase
in terrorism, to disease, to hunger, to loneliness.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-bidi-font-weight:bold"> In fact, within the last couple of
weeks, leaders prominent at the conservative end of the Christian Church
spectrum stated quite categorically after the Paris attacks, “We haven’t seen
anything yet.” The implication is that the more bold extremists become, the
more indiscriminate and wide-spread their attacks, the closer we move towards
the second coming of Jesus. And they seemed happy about this. I don’t know if
it’s died down any but ten or twenty years ago, some people were actually
promoting the idea of warfare in Israel and the Middle East because it signaled
that everything was wrapping up.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div></body></html>