The Church of St. Paul and Incarnation, Jersey City NJ
November 29, 2020
Year B: The First Sunday of Advent
Isaiah 64:1-9
1 Corinthians 1:3-9
Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18
Mark 13:24-37
God Is Faithful
Some of you know that I take Monday as my day off.
It’s kind of a weird day to be off because, of course, for most people it’s the start of the workweek.
In the early days of my ordained life, I found my day off kind of lonely and I still do, a little, but by now I’ve pretty much gotten used to it.
There’s something else about Mondays that maybe you haven’t noticed but I have: often the weather is not so good.
Do I resent that? Yes, a little.
Anyway, this past Monday began in a very Monday way, with gray clouds and showers.
I got an early start, checking off some errands from my list and then, to my surprise, the rain stopped and the clouds began to part.
I made my way downtown, where I met up with one of my oldest friends.
It was great to catch up a little, as together we walked along the waterfront, a place so familiar to us both but that is now kind of eerie, nearly deserted, since most of the people who still have jobs are working remotely.
After I said goodbye to my friend, I hopped the PATH train and went over to the city. I had no real destination in mind, just a chance to walk up and down the streets, an opportunity to see how things are going.
New York today reminds me a lot of how it was back in the 1980’s, before everything got cleaned up and really expensive.
The city doesn’t feel dangerous to me, exactly, but grittier, for sure – there’s a lot more graffiti – and there are many stores and restaurants boarded up, some temporarily, while others look like they’re gone forever.
Without really intending it, I ended up at Herald Square, which would have normally been teeming with people on the Monday before Thanksgiving.
There were a few people around, and some of the trailers and lights were already set up for the scaled-back parade.
But, what caught my eye were Macy’s famous Christmas windows, which are always spectacular.
Understandably, this year’s display looks a little simpler than years past, but still beautiful and impressive, and, this year, with the theme of gratitude to first responders and healthcare workers, really touching, too.
I know that the windows are meant to entice customers to come into the store and buy stuff, but on that kind of barren Monday before Thanksgiving in a battered but still standing city, somehow those windows looked to me like hope and, most of all, faith.
No matter how tired, anxious, and fearful we may be, God is faithful.
God is faithful.
Well, out in the world, over in Herald Square, there are still a few more weeks of this grim old year to go, but here in church we have finally turned the calendar page.
It’s the First Sunday of Advent.
We have arrived at the start of a new church year.
And, I think we can all agree, not a moment too soon!
The past year has been difficult in so many ways – hard for the world and so very challenging, scary, and even tragic for some of us here.
Disease and death have been – and, unfortunately, continue to be - on the loose.
Our economy sank under unprecedented pressure – and while the stock market may be rallying, the lines of hungry people at our food pantry down at Triangle Park, and at food banks all across the country, grow ever longer.
Thanks to the pandemic, and the slumping economy, and some leaders who have shattered norms that we mistakenly long took for granted, many of our institutions have undergone a severe stress test, and, while they’re mostly still standing, they are turning out to be not as solid and secure as we might have hoped.
To say the least, it is an unsettling time.
Today as we start a new church year, in addition to switching our liturgical color from green to Advent blue, we also switch the gospel that we will be hearing in church on Sundays.
We’ve set aside the Gospel of Matthew and have opened up the Gospel of Mark.
Mark is the earliest of the four gospels to be written. It’s a document that records memories and words of Jesus, and it also reflects the challenges faced by people a few decades after Jesus’ earthly lifetime.
The Gospel of Mark was completed around the year 70 – during a time when some Jews rebelled against Roman occupation, leading the ruthless Romans to destroy Jerusalem, even burning down the Temple, the place that Jews had long considered the holiest spot on earth, the place where, in a sense, God was believed to dwell.
This unspeakable tragedy made Jews (including the small group who believed Jesus was the messiah) wonder: was this the end of the world?
What I just read from the Gospel of Mark this morning comes from a section that’s often called the “Little Apocalypse."
When we hear that word “apocalypse” we think of it as meaning disaster, as catastrophe, as the end of everything, but, in fact, the word means “revelation.”
And what is being revealed in the little apocalypse that we heard this morning?
Jesus tells us that, yes, terrible things are happening, terrible things are going to happen, but those terrible things are not the end of the story.
The destruction of the Temple in the year 70 was not the end of the story for our Jewish brothers and sisters.
And, the pandemic, the fragile economy, the long lines at the food pantry, the semi-deserted streets, the scaled-back Macy’s windows and Thanksgiving parade, Thanksgiving spent alone or just with one or two others – none of what we are going through today is the end of the story, either.
None of that terrible stuff is the end of the story because, as St. Paul wrote to the often-troubled community in Corinth, “God is faithful.”
This is the revelation that we receive in and through Jesus, the Son of God whose birth we will celebrate in just a few weeks – but whose most important day is Easter, when we learn that even death is not the end of the story, no match for God’s love.
God is faithful.
That’s the revelation that we experience in our own lives, even when we sometimes fall short.
God is faithful.
People talk a lot about how we need to be faithful – how we should keep the faith – I mean, that’s what we called our stewardship campaign this year, right?
And keeping the faith is important, but we should probably talk even more about the faithfulness of God.
In our messed up and broken world, terrible things happen and are going to keep on happening – temples fall and disease spreads - but that’s never the end of the story, because through it all God is not going to let go of us – never, ever.
That is the revelation.
God is faithful.
So, we step into a new year knowing only too well the problems we face, and painfully aware that terrible things will sometimes happen.
But, let’s also step into this new year with confidence, remembering that God is faithful and will be with us no matter what.
No matter how tired, anxious, fearful, we may be, God is faithful.
And, especially during Advent, during this brief but beautiful season of preparation and waiting, let’s stay alert for signs of God’s faithful presence.
Because our faithful God is surely here this morning – look, Carol Harrison-Arnold has returned after a long absence!
Our faithful God is with us when we finish off the Thanksgiving leftovers, and when we pray together over the phone.
Our faithful God is with us when we see hope and faith in the homes and stores – in those Macy’s widows - that are decorated for Christmas.
And, our faithful God is with us even on a Monday, a weird day for a day off, when gray skies and rain surprise us by giving way to light, and we take a long walk with an old friend.
God is faithful.
Amen.
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