<html><body><div>Here's the first part of the first draft for Sunday.</div><div><br></div><div>Bob</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>
<p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>THE
EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>1 ADVENT b</span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>ISAIAH
64:1-9<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>3<sup>rd </sup>DECEMBER, 2017</span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>1
CORTINTHIANS 1:3-9<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>PSALM 80:1-7, 16-18</span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>MARK
13:234-37</span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“</span><span style='margin: 0px; letter-spacing: -0.75pt; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>Despair should serve as wake-up call.” <sup>1</sup></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>What’s this all about?</span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span lang="EN" style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>“‘From the very first note, music penetrates the soul and we no longer
belong to this world.’</span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span lang="EN" style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>“These words from the 110-year-old pianist Alice Herz-Sommer (introduce
a) sensitively made documentary about musical life in Terezin, a garrison town
in the Czech Republic which was turned into a transit concentration camp by the
Nazis. Herz-Sommer describes most movingly how intense music-making … managed
to thrive in this environment, bringing succour, consolation and even hope to
those who realised that there was precious little prospect of their survival.” <sup>2</sup></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I quote this not to depress you, but
as what I think is a pretty fair illustration of what the first and Gospel
readings describe.</span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Life is incredibly difficult – both
at the time the passages were written and now. It’s incredibly difficult
because of all the challenges. The people in the biblical times described were
so discouraged. Everywhere they turrned, something dangerous and twisted would
seem to grasp them. They were <b><u>SO</u></b> tired of life. It was an incredible
burden, and love, compassion, even a friendly voice seemed to be far away.</span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I wonder how many sleepless nights
they had, worrying about the unknown, contemplating the distance to which love
seemed to have retreated. Their hearts must have ached, their minds must have
been a curious combination of being numb, yet also racing incessantly so that
they couldn’t sleep much, even when they lay down and closed their eyes. They
must have wished for an end to the pain, the loneliness, the uncertainty, the
darkness and seeming pointlessness of life.</span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But the imagery which came to their
minds, the imagery of relief, seemed so dark, so strange. What sort of
consolation could that be, when they wanted the darkness to go away, yet they
conjured other images of darkness? <b><u>CAN</u></b> darkness <b><u>REALLY</u></b>
banish darkness? Surely not. Surely it is light that banishes darkness, even
the tiniest spark of light, like the single lit candle on the Advent wreath
this morning.</span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Alice Herz-Sommer wrote and spoke of
that of which she knew first-hand, just like Isaiah, just like Jesus. They all
saw how life-sucking darkness of mind and spirit could be. They saw how easy it
could be for people to give up.</span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>So for us. There are times over and
over again when we too live with the threatening unknown confusion. Voices seem
so strident, people can’t find the words or thoughts to express what they feel
they need to do in order to be able to live without worry, never mind pain and
hardship. So, often, people turn to music and, fortunately, the right music can
resonate with us to lift our spirits up out of the pit of dejection and fear.
We’re reminded that we no longer belong to the world.</span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Oh, yes, we’re still <b><u>IN</u></b>
it. That remains so until the day that we die in our earthly bodies. But we
don’t <b><u>BELONG</u></b> to it and, the more often we hear whatever music
most inspires us, the more often we focus our gaze on the flame of the candle,
rather than the furnaces and ovens; the more we can do this, the more help we
can find to build up our faith in our God who will <b><u>NEVER</u></b> let us
belong to anything but love.</span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And the really curious things about
what Alice Herz-Sommer witnessed and experienced is that this needn’t apply
only to music which we’ve heard in the past. This happens, perhaps more
strikingly, out of the music which is written down for the first time, out of
the very pain and fear which seek to hold us bogged down by the falsity of the
world’s evil.</span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Yet we still wrestle. I have to
admit that there are times when I find music, especially some particular music,
drives me to distraction. It simply doesn’t help. I have to shut my ears to it,
If I can, I turn it off, even preferring silence to what makes me so
uncomfortable, and lonely, and forgotten.</span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span lang="EN" style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>What, then, did the listeners to Isaiah and Jesus do? What helped them?
What helps us? For Alice Herz-Sommer, what seemed to help and lift people out
of their despair was a curious mixture of recognising the darkness of the Nazi
regime and all who scared and threatened the residents of Terezin.</span></p>
<h1 style="background: white; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span lang="EN" style='margin: 0px; color: windowtext; line-height: 115%; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal;'>I’ve
heard some of the music that was written in Terezin. It doesn’t pull any
punches. Perhaps that’s the first thing that helps, when we allow. We’re
brought to look at and address the fear, no matter how disgusting or terrifying
it may seem. The harmonic clashes in the music, the irregular rhythms, the
unexpected leaps in the melodies; they describe </span><u><span lang="EN" style='margin: 0px; color: windowtext; line-height: 115%; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>SO</span></u><span lang="EN" style='margin: 0px; color: windowtext; line-height: 115%; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal;'> well what we feel, and help us to
acknowledge, rather than avoid, the pain.</span><span lang="EN" style='margin: 0px; color: windowtext; line-height: 115%; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal;'> Of course,
there is much that is lyrical, wistful, comforting too. Perhaps that’s what
makes the music so powerful and uplifting. Perhaps this is why we’re shown that
we no longer belong to this world</span><span lang="EN" style='margin: 0px; line-height: 115%; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal;'><font color="#365f91">.</font></span></h1>
<p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span lang="EN" style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>Naming something can take some of the sting out of whatever it is. It <b><u>DOES</u></b>
take a lot of courage to look at that, to listen to that. Imagine if your
memory’s most recent experience was of huge tongues of fire being used to
destroy, to dehumanise, to take away life.</span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span lang="EN" style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>Imagine if some music talked of the home and the growing-up experiences
you’ve had, and understanding that that part of your life has gone.</span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span lang="EN" style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>Imagine the fear with which Alice and the tens and hundreds of thousands
of prison camp inhabitants must have lived, often before they were even
arrested brutally and dragged away.</span></p>
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