The Church of St.
Paul and Incarnation, Jersey City NJ
December 1, 2019
Year A: The First
Sunday of Advent
Isaiah 2:1-5
Psalm 122
Romans 13:11-14
Matthew 24:36-44
Making Room for the Journey
If
you have flown over the past few years you know there have been a lot of
changes in the airline industry.
There
are fewer airlines now, so there’s less choice and competition, especially when
flying to smaller locations.
The
size of the seats and the all-important legroom continues to shrink, squeezing
us in like sardines in a can.
But,
probably the biggest change is that things that used to be included in the
ticket price now cost extra – meals (if you can call them that) and, most
especially, checked luggage.
Most,
if not all, airlines now charge a hefty fee for checked luggage – and people
have responded to this extra cost in a couple of different ways.
Some
just pack the way they’ve always packed and pay the fee and be done with it.
Others
squeeze as much as possible into carry-on luggage, often pushing the size and
weight limits and then holding up boarding as they try to cram their giant bags
into the extremely limited overhead compartments.
But,
I think for most of us, the extra fee for checked luggage has forced us to
think carefully about what we really need to bring with us - and what can be
left behind.
The
airlines’ desire for profit forces us to make room for the journey.
And,
you know, that’s not a bad thing at all.
Lighter
planes use less fuel so that’s good for the planet.
And,
making room - really thinking about what we need bring with us and what can be
left behind – is a good exercise before planning a trip – and it’s a good
exercise in our spiritual life, too.
Making
room for the journey.
Today
is the day when we begin our Advent journey.
To
mix transportation metaphors, Advent is a journey with two tracks.
One
track is preparation for the birth of Jesus and the other probably less
exciting track is preparation for the end when Jesus returns in glory to judge
the living and the dead.
Jews
and Christians have long wondered and imagined what that day of judgment will
look like and how to prepare for it.
Today we heard St.
Paul call for us to change our ways, to live in the light and in honor.
And, in today’s gospel
lesson we heard Jesus call us to be alert, to be wakeful, to be ready, because
we don’t know when the last day will arrive.
And
then there is the beautiful vision of the Prophet Isaiah who imagines the
peoples of the world gathered on God’s holy mountain – gathered together on Mt.
Zion – where God will teach us God’s ways – where we will learn, finally learn,
that we are all brothers and sisters, where we will learn to make war no more,
where we will finally live the way God has always intended.
We’re
marching to Zion, beautiful, beautiful Zion.
But,
to make this journey – to get to our destination - we’re going to have to
lighten our load, we’re going to have to decide what’s most important and what
should be left behind, we’re going to have to make room.
Making
room for the journey.
Making
room for this journey is a lot more challenging than deciding how many pairs of
socks we really need to pack.
Making
room for this journey means prayerfully looking into our hearts and into our
lives and into our communities and discerning what’s really important – what
will help us get to Zion – and what’s holding us back and is better left
behind.
And
no one can do this for us.
Only
we can make room for the journey, with God’s help.
For
some, making room may mean giving up on bad habits, like putting ourselves
down, letting other people treat us like a doormat – or, because of our own
insecurities, putting other people down and treating others like doormats.
For
some of us, making room may mean giving up on distractions that prevent us from
focusing on what’s most important – distractions like our many screens – the
phone, the TV, the computer.
For
some of us, making room may mean giving up on toxic relationships - no longer
giving space to people who are negative or critical or, God forbid, even
abusive.
For
some of us, making room may mean letting the past be the past - asking
forgiveness, forgiving others, and, maybe hardest of all, forgiving ourselves
Only
we can make room for our journey, with God’s help.
I’m
going to let you in on how I’ve decided to make room for my journey.
I
am giving up worrying about the church.
Now,
don’t get me wrong: this doesn’t mean I’m going to be any less attentive or
start to phone it in, but it does mean accepting the great truth that
ultimately this is not my church, or even in a sense our church, but it is
God’s church, and God is perfectly capable of taking good care of it – although
God expects our help, of course.
I’ve
been thinking about this lately because of course, even if you’re not a worrier
like me, there has been a lot to worry about.
By
now, you’re probably sick about hearing about our boilers, but the truth is
that a month or so ago things were looking kind of bleak. At first, I took the
bad news calmly but it began to take a toll on me and also others who knew all
the details.
We certainly
hadn’t budgeted replacing both boilers and some of the bids were really
astronomical.
The
diocese offers loans for these kinds of capital emergencies and when I called
and asked about maybe getting one of those loans and I told them about some of
the estimates we were getting the person on the other end of the phone paused
and then said, “Well, that’s a pretty big number…”
Yes.
Yes it was!
But,
no thanks to all my worrying, a good and reliable contractor was recommended to
us. It seems the church boiler doesn’t have to be replaced after all. And,
there has been so much generosity!
Jacinta’s
boss donated $5,000!
A
number of our own parishioners gave very generously to the cause.
And,
some of my old friends at Grace Church in Madison came through for me – for us
– once again, sending about $16,000 to support a church that is not their own.
This
is God’s church, and God is perfectly capable of taking good care of it – although
God expects our help, of course.
All
of my worrying has been weighing me down, has been preventing me from getting
to where God wants me – wants us – to go.
Today is the start
of a new church year.
It’s
the First Sunday of Advent.
We’ve
entered the quick season of preparation: preparing for the birth of Jesus and
preparing for the end of the age: the alpha and the omega, the first and the
last.
Together
we’re marching to Zion, beautiful, beautiful Zion – and to get there we need free
up some space.
With God’s help, we
need to lighten our load.
We need to make
room for the journey.
Amen.
Posts
