Already... Not Yet

Do we celebrate Christmas just a little bit early to suit your taste? Shouldn't we wait until closer to Christmas to decorate? Well... maybe. If you choose to read this sermon, you might look at all those decorations with new eyes.

During the seasons of Advent and Lent, I try to preach a sermon series that relates to the season at hand. This year, I’m going to consider our Christmas traditions. We do many things at Christmas time that we don’t really think about – we just do them. It seems to me that some of them could use a deeper look. So, on this first Sunday in Advent, let’s think about our Christmas decorations. By the last week in November every year, those decorations are everywhere! Even the scroogiest Scrooge puts up a tree – even if it’s only a little tabletop tree with the decorations already attached to it. And the sky’s the limit! People decorate the outsides of their homes with colored lights, window wreaths, inflatable Santa Clauses, and reindeer that slowly swing their lighted heads from side to side. Some people even play music synchronized to play with those lights as they flash on and off!

Many churches decorate, too, just like we do every year. But decorations like ours give church history geeks migraine headaches! Why? Because we aren’t supposed to decorate during Advent! In church circles, Advent isn’t a time for decorations; it’s a time to lament the state of our world and to yearn for the Messiah’s arrival. A century ago, decorations wouldn’t have appeared until Christmas morning; and then, they would have only stayed in place until Epiphany, 12 days later. (Did you ever wonder what the song “The 12 Days of Christmas” is all about? It’s talking about the twelve days between Christmas and January 6.) Our decorations will be up until Epiphany, too; but we surely don’t wait until Christmas Eve to put them up!

Now, I suspect that this tradition of decorating long before Christmas has more to do with Madison Avenue than it does with Christianity. While our faith says, “Advent is for waiting and hoping,” the economy says, “No, don’t wait! Start Christmas shopping as soon as you can; the earlier the better!” These days, we see candy canes and tinsel in stores almost before Halloween is over! Some people barely get the Thanksgiving turkey leftovers put away in the refrigerator before they start hanging their Christmas lights. No one wants to wait until the end of December for Christmas! We’re all like little kids on a trip to Grandma’s house who ask “Are we there yet?” every mile or so. We just can’t wait to get there! And so… here are the Christmas decorations – here and everywhere else that we look.

But I’m not sure that’s not a bad thing. After all, even as we anticipate the arrival of Christmas, we already know the end of the story. On Christmas Eve, a child will be born to a peasant couple who have taken refuge in a stable. Heaven will break through to earth as angels sing about the birth to stunned shepherds; and three mysterious men from the east will arrive to offer the baby gifts fit for a king. That’s a story to celebrate! But we also know that the kingdom of that baby isn’t completely here yet. You heard Isaiah’s description of that baby’s kingdom in this morning’s scripture reading (Isaiah 11:1-9). The lion and the wolf and the leopard will live peacefully with the goat and the calf and the lamb. All the creatures of the earth will be at peace. I haven’t seen that happening yet; and I’ll bet that you haven’t, either. Woody Allen famously commented on this scripture when he said, “The lion might lie down with the lamb, but the lamb won’t get much sleep.” Even though we celebrate the birth of the Messiah, he still hasn’t brought in the fullness of his kingdom. That means that we live in a time that we can describe as “already… but not yet.” The Messiah has come “already,” but the fullness of his kingdom is “not yet.” The Christmas story began 2,000 years ago; but it hasn’t completely ended yet.

So, what does that have to do with Christmas decorations? Just this. Our decorations celebrate the “already” of the story, even as we look forward to the completion that is “not yet.” The lights that are everywhere in Christmas decorations remind us that the world is still dark; and that we need the Light of the world to make it bright for us. But they also symbolize the signs of God’s kingdom that are all around us if we have eyes to see them! The man who rings the bell at a Salvation Army kettle on his Saturday off; the woman who buys a generous gift card at the local food store for a young, single mother and leaves it anonymously in her mailbox; people who fill shoeboxes with gifts for Native American children that they will never meet; those are all signs of the kingdom that began when a baby was born in Bethlehem so long ago. But our world still has lots and lots of problems. That kingdom of love, justice, and mercy isn’t completely here yet. Even as we celebrate the “already,” we wait in hope for the “not yet.”

So… are we there yet? No. But we will be one day. Christmas – and the kingdom – is on the way, and nothing we do can stop it. That is the great and wonderful news of Advent! I think it’s worth some decorations – for a whole month!

Thanksgiving Dinner

In this sermon, preached on the Sunday that is both the Sunday before Thanksgiving and the Sunday that celebrates the Reign of Christ, I have woven together memories and hope. After all, isn't that what we Christians do?

Is it possible that Thanksgiving is this week already? Every year, it creeps up behind me while I’m looking the other way; and then, suddenly, I have to make plans to cook all the traditional dishes that my daughter loves. She wants every Thanksgiving to be just the same as it was when she was a child, especially where the food is concerned! Now, Madison Avenue may tell us that Christmas is the holiday that makes memories; but I’m pretty sure that quite a few of us have some pretty good Thanksgiving memories, as well. I know I do. I have wonderful memories of long-ago Thanksgivings; and every year when November rolls around, those memories all come back to me.

When I was a child, our family spent every Thanksgiving at the home of my aunt and uncle in north Dayton. My Aunt Ida and my Uncle Ray had no children; and since Ida was my grandfather’s only sister, we were their family on that day. Every Thanksgiving, my mom and dad would insist that my sister and I get dressed at the absurdly early hour of about 11 a.m. They would drag us away from the Thanksgiving Day parade on TV, and we would drive our old Dodge down the highway towards Trotwood. To this day, when I drive down I-75 under leaden skies as snow drifts through the air, I remember those Thanksgiving mornings.

When we would arrive at Ida and Ray’s home, we’d dash inside the house to get warm – and to see if any last bit of the parade might still be on TV before the football games started. And then, Thanksgiving would really begin; because then we’d go down to the basement! That basement was enormous, with a dining room table big enough to have seated the entire population of north Dayton!  When I would open the door to that basement on a Thanksgiving morning, I was surrounded by what I can only describe as the feel of home! The warmth from the oven in the basement would roll up the stairs and wrap me in comfort. The smell of roasting turkey and baking pies would entice me down the stairs and around the corner, where I would catch my first glimpse of that big table groaning with food: mashed potatoes and baked yams and green bean casserole and cranberry relish and hot rolls and always the biggest turkey I thought I had ever seen. And there was always pumpkin pie with fresh whipped cream waiting to be enjoyed after the meal was finished! When we all sat down in front of all that food, Uncle Ray always fussed with the turkey; and Aunt Ida always worried that there might not be enough! And there was always way more than just enough. We would eat until we couldn’t hold any more, surrounded by warmth and family and love! Now that was Thanksgiving! The memories of those days are some of my most cherished ones.

Maybe you have memories like that, too. Maybe you remember how all the family gathered and played a game of touch football in the backyard while the turkey roasted. Maybe you remember a special dish that was always on the table – chestnut stuffing, perhaps? – and how relaxing it was to take a nap after dinner in front of the football game. Maybe you remember how grown up you felt when you were finally big enough to move from the kiddie table and sit with the grownups! How precious those memories are!

But all that has changed. Aunt Ida and Uncle Ray went to their eternal reward many years ago; and both my parents and my sister are gone, too. Thanksgivings are a lot smaller and a lot quieter in my family now. Relatives pass on; children grow up and make lives of their own; friends move away. All we have of those bygone days are the memories. Sometimes we think back to those times in our lives, and we remember the folks who are gone. We wish that we could see them again just one more time, tell them how thankful we were for them; and share the memories that they gave us when they didn’t even know that they were doing it! One day, we’ll be able to do just that; and today is a day to remind ourselves of that hope. This morning is not only Thanksgiving Sunday; it is also the Sunday that celebrates the reign of Jesus Christ. Today is the end of the church year; the day when we look ahead to the time when God’s kingdom will come in fullness, and Jesus Christ will really be the ruler of this world and the next.

On that day, God’s going to throw the biggest dinner party that you can imagine! It will be so big that even Thanksgiving at my Aunt Ida’s will look puny in comparison! The table will be so full of food that when we pass the serving dishes around, our plates won’t have room for all of it! All of our favorite foods will be there, and plenty of it! You will be able to eat all you want, and as many servings as you can hold!  Do you remember that old Doritos commercial that encouraged us, “Eat all you want; we’ll make more!” Yeah, it’ll be like that! And on that day, we’ll be thankful for all of it – thankful that we’ll never again have to worry about having enough to eat or being warm and comfortable or having a roof over our heads. But even more important than that: we’ll be thankful that we’ve been reunited with all those people who helped fill our lives with memories. They’re all going to be there, all the people that we loved – and we’re all going to feast together at God’s big table. It’ll be like Aunt Ida’s basement on Thanksgiving morning, all over again! We’re going to clink our wine glasses and toast one another. We’re going to tell funny stories; and laugh until our stomachs hurt and the tears roll down our cheeks. We’re going to hug each other, and slap each other on the back, and give each other high-fives. And we’re going to reminisce – talk about old times, and about how much we love one other.

We all have a place at that table, you know. Every single one of us has a reservation for God’s feast at the end of time; and many of those we love are already there waiting for us. It’s not only our memories that can bring us joy on this Thanksgiving Day. The assurance that one day, Jesus will come again and will gather all of us together should bring us joy, too. The Thanksgiving meal that we savor this year is just a reminder of the banquet that awaits us in glory when this world ends and the next one begins.

So, cherish all your memories from days gone by; and give thanks for the blessings of today. But look forward, too, to the day when we will sit down with all our loved ones around God’s banquet table. On that day, we will thank God face to face.

Moving Ahead

The recent presidential election has exposed deep divisions in our country, as well as causing profound pain to many people. In this sermon, I comment on one of its side effects. Regardless of who you voted for (or against), I'm talking to YOU!

It’s finally over. The national presidential campaign that has dragged on for countless months has finally ended. But, with the exception that a new president will be sworn in next January, nothing much has changed. Our country is just as divided as it was last week this time. Half of our citizens are stunned in disbelief, while the other half is saying “Just get over it!” The divisions that were exposed by this election have not disappeared and are not going to disappear, no matter how many speeches are given that call for unity. As a pastor, I wonder what in the world I can say to you this morning. This is one of those times when I feel overwhelmed by forces that no one of us can control. What can I can say to all of you? After all, some of you voted for the winning candidate, and some of you voted for another. I am tempted to play it safe and ignore last week’s events. But I was born into a Presbyterian tradition that says preaching is a Spirit-led calling; and I cut my teeth on the 20^th century theologian Karl Barth who advised us to preach with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. So this morning, I’m going to do just that. I have some things to say to everyone, no matter who you supported in the past election, and no matter who you voted for – or against.

First, I want to remind you who we are and whose we are. We are children of God and members of the Body of Christ. No matter what our political affiliations may be, we are Christians first and Democrats, Republicans, or Independents second. When we were baptized, we promised (or our parents promised for us) that we would live under the lordship of Jesus Christ. We take our marching orders from him; and, despite what some people may tell you, he doesn’t care who we vote for or against. He cares how we behave during those times that we aren’t in the voting booth. He wants us to live a life of love, compassion, and mercy regardless of how other people may behave. That’s where we have to start before we can talk about moving ahead. We have to go all the way back to the foundation of our faith.

And then we have to remember what that life of love, mercy and compassion looks like. It isn’t hard to do. All we have to do is to look at the example that Jesus gave us. He rubbed elbows with all the folks that the people in power rejected. He ate dinner with prostitutes. He healed lepers. He hung out with people who wore rags. He even called a tax collector to be one of his disciples. In fact, Jesus accepted everybody. He didn’t make anyone earn his acceptance! The only people that Jesus condemned were the ones who thought that they were better than everybody else: the religious leaders, for instance, who thought that they had a God in their pocket. And Jesus’ life of love, mercy, and compassion was so threatening to the people in power that they killed him. And even then he prayed, “Father, forgive them. They don’t have a clue about what they’re doing.”

You know all those things. I haven’t told you anything new, or shared an electrifying insight that made you sit up and take notice. So why am I telling you these things? It’s because we all need a reminder of the foundations of our faith right now. The recent political campaign has had some ugly side effects, and we Christians are called to resist them. Notably, hate speech has been not only normalized but encouraged. Let me give you some examples of messages that appeared in the wake of the election. Signs were scrawled on the door of a Minnesota high school bathroom late last week saying, “Go back to Africa” and “Make America white again.” Graffiti was painted on a wall in Durham, North Carolina. It said, “Black lives don’t matter, and neither do your votes.” And a message appeared on a public wall in South Philadelphia that said, “Trump: Sieg Heil 2016.” In place of the “T” in “Trump” was a swastika.

I’ll bet that some of the people who were responsible for these displays are good church-goers. They might even claim to be Christians. But sentiments like these are as far from the Kingdom of God as the north pole is from the south pole! I hope that graffiti like this will disappear as we get farther and farther away from the sloganism and mud-slinging of the recent election. But I doubt if the hate that caused it that will go anywhere. It will continue to simmer under the surface of our society, only to bubble up and boil over on to women, people of color, immigrants, and non-Christians. What would Jesus say about that? I know; and so do you. He would say that tolerance towards intolerance is no virtue. Let me say that in a different way. We must not remain silent when the hate of some causes pain to others! We cannot stand by and do nothing when others are being victimized by hate, no matter whether that hate takes the form of racism or sexism or homophobia.

Now, some of you may object that Jesus was very tolerant. He was infinitely patient with people. But he also got angry. When he went to Jerusalem and saw that God’s Temple had been turned into a market-place, he took action. He overturned tables, let sacrificial animals free, and proclaimed that the situation was intolerable! Did he hate the people who were responsible? Of course not! But he took a stand. Maybe we should learn from his example and take a stand ourselves. Maybe we should stand with those who are the targets of hate. In the mid-1700s, Irish statesman Edmund Burke said, “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men (and women) to do nothing.” That’s as true today as it was 250 years ago.

This past Wednesday, the national leaders of the United Church of Christ sent “A Pastoral Letter to a United Church in a Divided Country.” This is a part of that letter.

“We are… a deeply divided people. Because this election sharply separated us over matters of race, gender, human sexuality, faith, economic inequality and political persuasions, we all bear a heavy burden moving forward. It is our call, our shared mission, to heed the call of God's Spirit and to work to repair damages in our deeply wounded and fiercely broken body. Mr. Trump was able to win this election in spite of clear evidence… of racism, homophobia, xenophobia, misogyny, and Islamaphobia. …He must now lead a country where people of color, women, Muslims, immigrants, the disabled, and an LGBT community all feel the sting and impact of his public speech. But as the United Church of Christ, we will live into our Vision: "United in Christ's love, a just world for all." Dear United Church of Christ, we were built to heal bodies broken and divided. This is our calling. Our core values of love, hospitality, and justice for all must be fully embraced in the days to come. It could well be that we were called into being for just such a time as this. We… call upon the church to seek a pathway that envisions a just world for all. Those who celebrate this election must show a humility that honors the pain of those whose dreams were dashed by the outcome. Those who grieve must find a courage and hope found in a faith not in earthly power, but in the redemptive love of our Risen Christ.”

I agree with them. We can only move ahead by standing fast where we’ve always been, where the church of Christ has stood for 2,000 years, and where we still stand – on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I, for one, intend to stand there. I invite you to join me.