St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD
December 1, 2024
Year C: The First Sunday of Advent
Jeremiah 33:14-16
Psalm 25:1-9
1 Thessalonians 3:9-15
Luke 21:25-36
“A Time of Being Deeply Shaken”
So, by now you all know that in my sermons I often address, directly or indirectly, what’s going on in our community, our country, and in the world.
I firmly agree with the person who said that preachers should preach with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.
I mean, if what we say and do in here isn’t relevant to the rest of our lives, what’s the point?
But, at the same time, the church – our church or any church – loses its way when it becomes too much like the culture out there in the world.
So, if the message we receive here is pretty much what you’d see and hear on MSNBC or Fox News, well, we’ve lost our way – we’ve become too much like the culture – or, at least, one of the cultures – out there.
Now, please correct me if I’m wrong, but I think that this community, this place, is different than what we see and hear out there. I think that’s why you keep coming back week after week. I think that’s why new people are making a spiritual home here with us.
I mean, you’ve heard me say many times that this is one of the few places left where all different kinds of people, people who probably disagree about many different things, come together.
We pray and serve together – it was Republicans, Democrats and Independents who filled those 153 Thanksgiving meal bags that were delivered to hungry people at the Community Crisis Center last week – feeding people about whom we know nothing except that they’re hungry and, for us, that’s all that matters.
Counter cultural.
The Church is meant to be counter cultural.
And there is no season more counter cultural than Advent.
While the world has been celebrating Christmas – or at least selling and buying what it calls Christmas – since, oh I don’t know, around Labor Day, here we begin a new church year with these four Advent Sundays of preparation – preparation for the birth of Jesus that we’ll celebrate on the real Christmas – and also preparation for the Last Day, the Day of Judgment.
We’re even having a “Celebration of Life” planning session today.
I don’t think we can get any more counter cultural than that!
To help get ready for this holy season, I recently read Advent sermons and meditations written by Alfred Delp, a Jesuit priest who was among the few German Christian leaders who spoke out against Hitler and the Nazis, one of the few German Christian leaders who helped Jews escape to safety.
Fr. Delp’s courageous opposition led to his arrest and execution in 1945, near the end of World War II.
Fr. Delp wrote some of his Advent meditations while in prison, writing on scraps of paper smuggled into his cell, his hands shackled.
It was very powerful and moving to read his words written under such duress.
Alfred Delp wrote about Advent as a time of being deeply shaken.
Of course, he and the people hearing and reading his words were already deeply shaken by a culture that had turned to idolatry, hate, and genocide – deeply shaken by the war, by the bombs falling from the sky, deeply shaken by the loss of life – deeply shaken because they could not see their way to a peaceful future.
As I was reading Delp’s words, of course I thought about the less dire but still real traumas of our own days – the terror attacks and pandemic that I talked about a couple of weeks ago – a political system that seems not so stable – the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East that have caused so much suffering and death and still threaten to spread like a wildfire.
And then there are our own personal traumas – loss of work, illnesses and addictions and accidents, the death of someone we love so much.
Like Alfred Delp and the people of his time, we are also deeply shaken.
And Advent is indeed a time of being deeply shaken.
Did you hear Jesus’ description of the Last Day in today’s gospel lesson?
“There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of heaven will be shaken.”
We are shaken by the events of the world and our lives.
We are shaken by Advent and its preview of the Last Day.
Yes, we are shaken - but we do not fall because we know the love of God.
We are shaken but we do not fall because we know the love of God – the love that sent John the Baptist to call us to repent and change our ways.
We know the love of God – the love that chose Mary, a young peasant woman from the middle of nowhere. God chose the most unlikely person to carry the Son of God into the world – Mary who will sing that, through her son, God is turning the world downside up.
We know the love of God in the holy men and women down through the centuries, people like Alfred Delp, faithful even unto death, writing to his shaken people about God’s love and faithfulness even in prison, even as he prepared for his own last day.
We know the love of God in the people we pray and serve with here, week after week – the people who packed as much food and festive accessories as they could into those very heavy Thanksgiving bags – people who call or write when we’re in trouble or feeling low – people who make the choice to pray and serve with – people who make the choice to love – people with whom they probably disagree about all sorts of stuff – the most counter cultural move of all.
And, most of all, we do not fall because in just a few weeks we will celebrate the birth of the Holy Child in the humblest of circumstances, Jesus the Foot-Washing King whose life of love and sacrifice, whose teachings of love and sacrifice, will change everything, showing us the way to new life.
Yes, we are shaken but we do not fall.
As Jesus says, we don’t cower in fear but raise our heads with confidence.
We are shaken but we do not fall.
As Jesus says, we don’t numb ourselves to the shaking up that’s happening all around us but we pay attention, looking for signs that God is still at work, looking for signs that God is coming into the world – coming into the world through a priest writing on scraps in his prison cell – coming into the world through people feeding the hungry – coming into the world through the people lined up to be fed – coming into the world on a cold night in Bethlehem when, perhaps, it seemed all hope was lost.
Advent is a time of being deeply shaken.
We live in a time of being deeply shaken.
We are shaken.
But we do not fall.
Because we know – we know - the love of God.
Amen.
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