St. Paul’s Church in
Bergen, Jersey City NJ
December 15, 2013
Year A: The Third
Sunday in Advent
Isaiah 35:1-10
Psalm 146:4-9
James 5:7-10
Matthew 11:2-11
Rejoice! God’s Around
and We Can Find Him
When
I first showed Vanessa Foster the rose-colored vestment that I’m wearing today
she said, matter-of-factly, “That’s not really your color.”
And,
she’s right, it’s not really my color.
So,
I’m glad that rose is a color that we only use in church on two Sundays. One is
a Sunday in Lent. And the other is, obviously, today, the Third Sunday of
Advent.
This
Sunday actually has a special name. It’s called “Gaudete Sunday” from a Latin
word that means “Rejoice.”
Rejoice.
In
the past, Advent was a much more somber, more penitential season than it is
now. We used to – and many churches still do – use purple for Advent, just as
we do for Lent, the most somber, the most penitential church season.
So,
for a long time, since the Middle Ages, it’s been the custom that the Third
Sunday of Advent is set aside as a break from all that purple penance – a
Sunday to rejoice – a Sunday to rejoice that Christmas is getting close – a
Sunday to rejoice that God is soon to enter the world as a helpless baby born
to a couple of nobodies in an out of the way place in the humblest of
circumstances – a Sunday to celebrate that God loves us enough to come among us
to live, teach, heal - and die and rise again.
Rejoice!
But,
although Advent has lost most of its penitential feel, maybe it’s good that we
still set aside a Sunday for the rose vestments – that we set aside a Sunday at
this time of year for rejoicing.
Because,
let’s be honest, a lot of us - for many real and good reasons - may not feel
much like rejoicing.
We
might not feel like rejoicing because we’re stressed out by the holiday.
A
lot of us are stressed out by all the running around – stressed out by the long
list of the things that we need to do – the stuff we need to buy to get ready
for Christmas. A lot of us are stressed out by the fact that we don’t have the
money to give our children and grandchildren all that they’d like – all that
we’d like to give - for Christmas.
We
might not feel like rejoicing because the holidays make us sad.
For
a lot of us, Christmas makes us painfully aware of all that we’ve lost. Some of
us have lost jobs and a sense of security and hope for the future. Some of us grieve
broken relationships. Some of us worry about family and friends who are sick.
Some of us mourn family and friends who have died. At this time of rejoicing we
remember and miss happier Christmases.
We
might not feel like rejoicing because of all the suffering in our community and
around the world.
There’s
the violence.
Yesterday
marked the one-year anniversary of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School
in Newtown, Connecticut. One deranged young man, armed to the teeth, slaughtered
twenty little children and six adults before killing himself. After the
massacre lots of politicians talked about finally doing something about gun violence.
But, a year later not much has changed. There was another school shooting in
Colorado just this Friday. Since Newtown, at least 194 more children in our
country have been killed by gunshots.
Then
there’s the poverty.
When
I dropped off our toy donations at Garden State Episcopal the other day, I
spoke with someone who works there who was visibly upset. He was upset because
so many people – more than ever, he said - were coming to the office desperate
to find shelter for themselves and for their families. They were looking for
shelter that just doesn’t exist here in Hudson County. He told me the story of
one man who works for UPS but doesn’t have enough money for rent. So, what does
he do? He catches sleep in a McDonald’s that’s open 24 hours.
This
past week The New York Times ran a
remarkable and heartbreaking story about an 11 year-old girl named Dasani. (Yes,
she’s named for the bottled water.) She and her family are caught up in the
mostly hidden and totally horrible world of homelessness, living for the past
couple of years in a squalid and dangerous shelter in Brooklyn. It’s an
extraordinary piece of journalism and I urge you to read it.
At
one point in the article, the smart, strong and sensitive Dasani says, “God’s
somewhere around, we just can’t find him.”
“God’s
somewhere around, we just can’t find him.”
Those
words have haunted me these past few days.
“God’s
somewhere around, we just can’t find him.”
I
bet that most, if not all of us, at least some of the time, and maybe
especially at this time of year, feel just like Dasani.
“God’s
somewhere around, we just can’t find him.”
Last
Sunday, we were reintroduced to that wild and powerful prophet, John the
Baptist. John was dressed in camel’s hair and eating wild honey and locusts,
preaching repentance, baptizing people in the River Jordan, and calling people
to prepare for the more powerful One who is coming.
And
remember how John the Baptist described that more powerful One?
"I
baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is
coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with
the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear
his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff
he will burn with unquenchable fire."
Well,
in today’s gospel passage we meet up with John the Baptist again, but this time
under very different circumstances. He’s in prison. And we know – and probably
he knows – his fate. John will be executed.
So
an imprisoned, maybe despondent, and certainly not rejoicing John the Baptist
sends a question to Jesus:
“Are
you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”
In
a way, like Dasani, John knows that God’s around, but he just can’t find him.
Maybe
part of the reason John can’t find God is because Jesus isn’t exactly what John
had expected. Jesus doesn’t seem to be winnowing or burning the chaff with
unquenchable fire.
Listen
again to Jesus’ reply: “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind
receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the
dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.”
Yes,
there is stress and suffering and violence and despair all around us. The world
is so broken that we may find it hard to rejoice. And, like John the Baptist, and
mayble like Dasani, we may have all sorts of preconceived notions that make it
hard to find God.
But,
Jesus tells us if we look and listen, we find God at work in and through Jesus
himself. And if we look and listen, we find God at work right now healing our
broken world – we even find God hard work in and through us.
If
we look and listen, if we help each other to look and listen, we find God - and
we find plenty of reasons to rejoice.
Some
examples.
Not
even a year ago the Roman Catholic Church chose a new pope – a South American
Jesuit who through his gentle and loving example has reminded the world that
the Christian life is a loving and joyful life. Pope Francis has declined to
judge others and has stood up boldly for the poor and the defenseless.
This
new pope has unexpectedly captured the imagination of much of the world – and
just this past week was named Time magazine’s “Person of the Year.”
Rejoice.
God’s around and we can find him!
And,
this week the world said goodbye to one of the giants of our time. Leaders came
from around the world to pay their respects to Nelson Mandela, this remarkable
man who took a free South Africa down the roads of goodness and forgiveness.
And his reconciling example and the joyful celebration of his life seems even
to have led President Obama to shake the hand of Raul Castro, the leader of our
old, old foe, Cuba.
Rejoice!
God’s around and we can find him!
And,
right here at St. Paul’s, so many of us have responded so generously to buying
Christmas gifts for needy children, donating small mountains of groceries for
the food pantry, and offering over 200 tubes of toothpaste, giving the poor and
the homeless the basic dignity of clean teeth.
Rejoice!
God’s around and we can find him!
So,
yes, it’s the Third Sunday of Advent. The rose candle is lit and I’m dressed to
match. It’s “Gaudete Sunday,” a day set aside to rejoice.
And,
yes, for many of us, for lots of real and good reasons, it’s hard to rejoice.
Yet,
if we look and listen – and if we help each other to look and listen – we
discover signs that God’s around and we can find him.
Rejoice!
Amen.
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