Life in a Minor Key

Jeremiah 33:14-16; Luke 21:25-36; Psalm 25

Happy New Year!

I know. There isn’t any Guy Lombardo and the Royal Canadians playing “Auld Lang Syne.” There isn’t Dick Clark counting down to the ball drop at Times Square.

But it’s still the new year. Our new year. The Church’s new year. God gives the church the opportunity to be ahead of the curve. We don’t live in a dream world. We live in a reality that is, but is not yet. Rather than the world’s bombastic major key, we live our lives in a minor key because we know what life is about.

Our year begins with expectation and waiting in the midst of despair. It then moves to the incarnated presence of the one who was promised, who was born not in the pomp and grandeur of a Pollyannaish world, but in a real world where immigrants and aliens constantly cross borders and where racism, ethnicism, sexism, ageism, and all manner of other “isms,” ideologies, and idolatries are the order of the day, where oppression is the only game in town, where lies and half-truths are a way of life, where violence reigns, and where hope is bombed to smithereens.

The underdog survives in spite of the machinations of the powers that be. A calling is fulfilled, a ministry is begun and carried out. The vengeful response of those who cowered in his spiritual shadow results in his arrest and execution. Death does not triumph. Resurrection breaks out. A spirit empowers a people to persevere in readiness for the final consummation of God’s plan for creation.

That’s our year. It begins today.

We are caught in a time warp. The world is in a headlong rush for the manger: Black Friday, Small Business Saturday Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday. But the church recognizes that there has to be a time of preparation, a pregnancy so that speak. On Christmas Eve we will read the familiar words from Luke, “when Quirinius governed Syria,” and be back in the historical context of Jesus’ birth. But on this First Sunday of Advent, Jeremiah turns us forward to the future: “In those days and at that time.…”

In these days of Advent the future is not where our culture forcefully moves us. We resist a time that is nostalgic and immediate. Rather we hear the prophetic word, “In those days and at that time” God will decree justice and righteousness. Our culture encourages us to pass “Go” and to head for the finish line, sure that consumerism will deliver our fulfillment. But as a Facebook meme posted on Thanksgiving Day said, “If you are not  content today, there is nothing you can buy this weekend to change that.”

The church is called to hear the prophets in this season, not for some “once upon a time” background music, but for an overture playing in real time, sounding themes to be developed going forward. “In those days” there will be “justice and righteousness,” peace and security.(1) Next week Malachi will pick up the tune of righteousness with the messenger who will be like a refiner’s fire (Malachi 3:1-4). On the third Sunday of Advent Zephaniah will declare that “the Lord is in [our] midst” (Zephaniah 3:17). Advent will end with Mary singing of God’s justice (Luke 1:50-56). The church may light its Advent candles to prepare for hope, peace, joy, and love, but the prophets resoundingly cry justice and righteousness.

In Matthew’s Gospel, “righteousness” is Jesus’ first word, spoken to John the Baptist: “Allow me to be baptized now. This is necessary to fulfill all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15). Righteousness is not an attitude or an absolute standard. It refers to conduct in accord with God’s purposes. It is doing the good thing and the God thing: right-doing as opposed to wrong-doing, and doing as opposed to being. Self-righteousness is the inflated ego of self-approval; righteousness is the humble ethic of living toward others in just and loving relationships.(2)

It’s the absence of that humble ethic that Jeremiah decries. If we stop with the last word of the prophet in the reading, “The Lord is our righteousness,” we might think that the rush to Christmas is all right. But Jeremiah is not so blasé. He continues, “The Lord proclaims, ‘I would no sooner break my covenant with day and night or the laws of heaven and earth than I would reject the descendants of Jacob and my servant David and his descendants as rulers for the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I will restore the captives and have compassion on them’” (Jeremiah 33:26).

This is not a free pass to salvation. Jeremiah’s audience is a people either facing impending exile or already suffering in it. Jeremiah offers that people a vision of a radically new way that their political and religious institutions will work in the future. A new generation of Davidic kings will act in ways that promote justice and righteousness, rather than exploitation, self-promotion, and violence. Even the Levitical priesthood will live according to the Sinai covenant, rather than continue their insistence on their own orthodoxies at the expense of inclusion, justice, and righteousness in faith and religious observance. Both king and priest someday may embody and lead the way into God’s bright new reality.

The biblical stories of Advent are not childhood favorites. There is no star in the east guiding devout magi, no choir of angels urging shepherds to go and see the babe, no harried innkeeper, no Hallmark moment of Mary pondering these things in her heart. Advent stories are dug from the harsh soil of human struggle and the littered landscape of dashed dreams. They are told from the reality that sin still reigns supreme and hope has gone on vacation. Advent is life in a minor key.

Advent is not a steady, rhythmic kind of time, a persistent drumbeat of day after day, year after year. Advent is unpredictable time, unsteady time. In this time-tumbling season, we look for a baby to be born while we know that the baby has already been born, and still is being born in us – this Emmanuel who came and is coming and is among us right now.

Advent is not well behaved, neat, decent, and orderly; it contorts time. Given the nature of Advent, it is no surprise that Jeremiah is its herald. Jeremiah speaks to hostages being seduced to start a new life in balmy Babylon. He tells a tough audience that, despite every sign to the contrary, “the time is coming,” time when God’s promises will be fulfilled. Jeremiah tells his kin that God’s future will come not by giving up on God’s promises and making the best of a bad situation – after all, “when in Babylon...” – but by trusting in the creative and redemptive and sure purposes of God: “The time is coming!”(3)

Heidi Neumark, a Lutheran pastor in the Bronx, writes:

Probably the reason I love Advent so much is that it is a reflection of how I feel most of the time. I might not feel sorry during Lent, when the liturgical calendar begs repentance. I might not feel victorious, even though it is Easter morning. I might not feel full of the Spirit, even though it is Pentecost and the liturgy spins out fiery gusts of ecstasy. But during Advent, I am always in sync with the season.
Advent unfailingly embraces and comprehends my reality. And what is that? I think of the Spanish word anhelo, or longing. Advent is when the church can no longer contain its unfulfilled desire and the cry of anhelo bursts forth: Maranatha! Come Lord Jesus! O Come, O Come, Emmanuel!(4) 

The church longs for the days when there will be no immigrants, no refugees, no threat of walls or jingoistic exclusion, no internment because of fear based on perceptions of racial, ethnic, or national differences, no political rancor, no egotistical puffery, no despotism, no religious one-up-man-ship, no greed, no taught and learned hatred. The church longs for the final fulfillment of the created order that God began on those six epochal days so long ago.

“The time is coming, declares the LORD, when I will fulfill my gracious promise.... In those days and at that time, I will raise up a righteous branch from David's line, who will do what is just and right in the land.... And this is what he will be called: The Lord Is Our Righteousness.”

Until then, our life is in a minor key. Thanks be to God. Come, Lord Jesus. O come, O come, Emmanuel.

(1) Deborah A. Block, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), Year C, vol.1, 2.
(2) Ibid., 6.
(3) Gary W. Charles, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting, op. cit., 3-5.
(4) Heidi Neumark, Breathing Space (Boston: Beacon Press, 2004), 211.

Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com. 
Copyright © 2015 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.

Wait for It

Mark 13:1-8; Daniel 12:1-3; Hebrews 10:11-14, 19-25

There isn’t one of us who hasn’t been betrayed sometime. If not by an individual then by the circumstances of a situation. Betrayal brings loss. It shakes the underpinnings of a relationship or the security of long-held ideas. We fear loss more than anything else. When we lose surety and certainty we lose innocence. We no longer have the sense that everything will be all right.

That’s why change is so hard. We seem to be wired to react emotionally to a loss, however small, as if the whole world were caving in, even though the objective reality is that much remains unchanged and some of the change is improvement. What has been solid foundation turns into quicksand. Foundational beliefs twist and bend like limp linguini. It is as if God is no longer in the heavens and hence nothing is right with the world.

The Irish poet William Butler Yeats expressed that this way in his poem, “The Second Coming”:

“Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned.”(1)

That’s where the disciples were that afternoon as they were leaving Jerusalem. The vortex of dissonant despair was widening at an alarming rate. Jesus had kept telling them that this was to be his last visit to Jerusalem, that his immanent death would be necessary, ignominious, and ennobling. No matter how many times he told them, they couldn’t grasp the gravity, intensity, and divine purpose of it all.

And now he told them that the Temple itself would one day be destroyed. The Temple was the architectural wonder of the city. It was made with massive stones and sat on the highest promontory where it could seen from any direction. The Temple was the pride and joy of the people, the symbol of their identity, and the source of their cultural strength. It was their all in all.

First Jesus and his powerful message, then the Temple. What was going to become of their world? What was going to become of them?

We think that things are permanent. We look at ancient architectural wonders like Stonehenge, the pyramids, Peru’s Macchu Picchu, Cambodia’s Angkor Wat, and at abbeys and cathedrals which have stood for centuries. Things are supposed to last. And most of us have been well-trained to use things until they can’t be used any more.

Yet the notion of lasting is sometimes our downfall. Things used beyond their life expectancy or viability can be a liability not an asset. Things need to be replaced. For example, all along Route 23 in Circleville, a major power line is being replaced. Who knows how old the cables are and how long some of the old utility poles have been there. Some old poles are as bent with age as we are. Our power grid is technologically ancient.

We can’t keep up with replacing bridges that are tired and overused. Some of our cities are underlaid with water pipes that are more than a century old.

We don’t think about those things until something goes wrong: a transformer blows up, a gas line explodes, a bridge collapses, a dam breaks. And then we are shaken. Those things aren’t supposed to happen.

Every tragedy, whether it is an infrastructure failure through material fatigue or whether it is the result of human negligence or malevolence, brings forth a rise in indignation and a call for reform. Too often the hue and cry is hot and short. Anger and frustration are quickly vented and very little changes. All the mass shootings in schools and public places have changed few opinions about the right to be armed to the teeth. As a nation we spend billions of dollars on equipping military personnel and feel resentful when veterans demand quality medical services in their post-service life. Righteous anger calls for change now and then moves on to some other topic while little happens.

We are left wondering: Why bother? If no one cares, why should we? As we disconnect with the reality of the present, we enter a future fantasy land. Everything will be all right, by and by. Instead of working now to do something, we let everything slide, or as the current vernacular puts it, we kick the can down the road. If God is going to fix everything, that’s God’s problem and God’s schedule.

Yet we can’t help wanting it to happen soon. We become gullible about quick fixes. There must be a program that will work, some kit of ideas that we can put together that will end poverty, stop the warfare, fill the churches, lower taxes, improve the services, educate the youth, make medicine easier, save our physical, emotional, spiritual lives.

Circus man P. T. Barnum also ran a museum, something on the order of Ripley’s “Believe It or Not.” The story is told that because the crowds lingered at the displays, Barnum placed signs along the way saying, “This way to the Egress.” People thought that it was another fanciful display. They went through the door labeled “Egress” and found that they had exited the museum. No wonder a sucker was born every minute.

We are always looking for the next and better thing. There’s a science for that; it’s called marketing. Jesus knew about that. He warned the disciples that many people would come in his name and that they would deceive many people. It’s that quick fix syndrome. “Kiss it and make it better,” we asked our mothers. Only the problems of the world can’t be kiss-fixed. We saw that again on Friday in the horrendous attacks in Paris. The ills of the world cannot be fixed with bombs or mass shootings. The results of a mass bombing cannot be fixed with a bigger bomb or with denial.

There are no easy ways. As Jesus told the disciples on another occasion, “Go in through the narrow gate. The gate that leads to destruction is broad and the road wide, so many people enter through it. But the gate that leads to life is narrow and the road difficult, so few people find it” (Matthew 7:13-14).

Jesus prepared his disciples for the difficult years ahead. He warned them about false messiahs, natural disasters, and persecutions. But he also assured them that he would be with them to protect them and make his kingdom known through them. Jesus promised that, in the end, he would return in power and glory to save them. Jesus' warnings and promises to his disciples also apply to us as we look forward to his return: We must be ready; we must continue to proclaim the gospel; we must endure great trials; we must wait patiently.(2)

Jesus warned his followers about the future so that they could learn how to live in the present. Jesus did not make these predictions so that we would guess when they might be fulfilled, but to help us remain spiritually alert and prepared at all times as we wait for his return. We must live each day close to Christ, always mindful that God is in charge of the timetable.(3)

Our focus must not be on the signs. We must focus on the one who is to come—the one who enables us to look up after horrific devastation and claim the sure and certain hope that God is redeeming the world, even if we don’t know when. A saying that has been making the rounds for a while now is this: “Everything will be okay in the end. If everything is not okay, it is not yet the end.” That is our faith statement. The end is in God’s control.

Lamar Williamson in his commentary on Mark notes that each of the gospel writers leaves the church with a challenge. John calls the church to love one another. Matthew and Luke call the church to engage in mission to the Gentiles, to those who are “other.” As daunting as those challenges are, you and I, along with every other North American Christian steeped in the religion of instant gratification, are challenged by Mark: “Beware, . . . keep awake,” watch, resist, hold out for the coming of Son of Man.(4) God knows when the best time will be. We have to wait for it.

(1) The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats, revised second edition, ed. Richard J. Finneran (New York: Scribner Paperback Poetry, 1996), 200.
(2) Life Application Bible Commentary, "Mark" (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2001), 369.
(3) Ibid., 373.
(4) Lamar Williamson Jr., Mark, Interpretation Series (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1983), 238.

Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com. 
Copyright © 2015 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.

A Good Foundation for the Future

1 Timothy 6:17-19; John 11:32-44; Revelation 21:1-6a

How far can you see? Looking out our windows today, not too far. To the tree line along the road or to the homes on the other side. If we were in a great flat expanse, on a clear day we could see for about fifteen miles. That’s because of the curvature of the earth. If we could be raised high above the plain, we could see farther. From the top of a mountain the view seems to go on forever.

As followers of Jesus Christ, we can see forever – spiritually. That’s what the vision of John of Patmos is all about. He sees forever until that day when creation is made full, final, and complete. He “saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the former heaven and the former earth had passed away.” We can see that far, too, although the view is indistinct, like looking through frosted glass. Our faith tells us that that is what we are seeing, even if we can’t fully make it out.

How can we see that far? Because we stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before in the faith of Christ. Think about that. If a new generation comes along every twenty years, then in the two thousand years since the resurrection of Jesus, there have been about 100 generations. You are the 98th generation, your children the 99th, your grandchildren the 100th, and your great-grandchildren the 101st  generation after Christ. If we were literally standing on each other’s shoulders, then you would be standing abut 485 feet above the floor. That might be the 40th floor of a building. That’s taller than any building in Columbus.

To build a building that tall, it takes a strong foundation. The foundations of skyscrapers go a number of floors deep into the earth to reach bedrock. The foundation walls are very thick and reinforced. There are huge girders and beams to support the weight of all that rises above the foundation. Because of all the weight of the building, the upper floors are often smaller than the lower floors. Think of the Transamerica Tower in San Francisco which is a tall, slim pyramid. 

We have to build things with bigger bases than tops in order to support the weight. God doesn’t follow human construction rules. The church is an inverted pyramid. It rests on its point and gets bigger as it rises. 

Think about that theologically. What does the hymn say? “The church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord.” Peter in his first letter quotes Isaiah: “Thus it is written in scripture, ‘Look! I am laying a cornerstone in Zion, chosen, valuable. The person who believes in him will never be shamed’” (1 Peter 2:6). Every succeeding generation following Christ’s resurrection has been built on the previous generation and has expanded the number of believers. Thus the Church grows and gets bigger generation after generation, layer upon layer of believers standing on the shoulders of those who have gone before.

Shortly we will remember some of the believers on whose shoulders we stand. And on some future All Saints’ Day the generations which come after us will remember us and give thanks for the strength of our shoulders which enabled them to stand tall and firm in the faith. 

Timothy wrote his readers about saving a treasure which would be a good foundation for the future. There is an integral connection between treasure and foundation and future. Just as a building cannot come to be if there is no foundation, so the future requires a foundation. Our future is dependent on Jesus Christ, the strong foundation, the solid rock on which the whole church rises. 

Jesus is not only our foundation, he is our future. All things of creation were made through him and with him and for him. As the new heaven and new earth come into being, it is Jesus who is the core of the new creation. Everything comes from him and everything will return to him.

Jesus is not only our foundation and our future, he is our treasure. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus told his listeners, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:19). As people who have received much – the grace of life abundant and eternal through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ – much is expected. Believers, having the treasure of Christ, lay up treasures in heaven. They invest their riches – their faith in the one Lord – for eternity. This kind of investment includes tithing and giving offerings in church but is much broader. Any unselfish giving to meet the needs of others, especially the poor, creates a deposit in eternity. 

When Paul speaks of the treasure “that is a good foundation,” he’s playing with his words. In his theology your treasure is your foundation and vice-versa. Your treasure is the place where your life’s efforts and meaning are founded. Your life’s foundation consists not of the treasure you possess but the treasure you bestow in the form of blessing, generosity, good works. 

We could play with the idea still further and say that your one true foundation, the site of your most authentic, divinely envisioned life, lies in the masonry of blessings God gave into the world with your life. The mortar of the Gospel is what cements us firmly to the generation that preceded us and which handed the gospel of salvation in Christ to us. So blessed and so fixed in the saving grace of Christ means that not a one of us is poor, and all are treasured.

Today’s masonry buildings are built with blocks of uniform size and composition. Before concrete blocks were invented, stone cutters labored to create blocks of nearly equal size and masons chipped away to adjust the stones to fit together. But before stone cutting became an art, builders had to deal with stones as they were, doing the best they could to fit the stones together. The wonder of the stone walls of New England or Kentucky’s horse country is amazing. They are quite solid and strong.

We are a lot like those stones made into solid walls. We aren’t uniform. We are all different. We have different backgrounds and training, different experiences, different hardships or infirmities, different easy streets and free passes, different defeats and triumphs. Yet the Holy Spirit works to bind us together within our generation, adheres us to the generation before us, and prepares to be built upon by those who will come after us.

Paul wants us to take hold of the life that really is life. That life – the life that God implants in us and longs to see it become solid as the foundation for the next layer of the church building – is the future God has been coaxing us toward since our first breath of God-air, since the time when the stone was rolled away from the tomb, indeed since God spoke the first piece of creation into being.

What a treasure that is. It will come to be when, finally, enough blessings have been poured out to firm up all of the foundation stones – you and me and everyone who will receive the gospel through us generation upon generation. When every person has the capacity and each life is filled with the freedom and solid ground to be the blessing that God intended, foundation and future and treasure will indeed be one.

We all know that God desires abundant life for us. That abundant life is based on the foundation of Jesus Christ. As John the Baptist went ahead of him to announce his coming, so Lazarus also went ahead of him in coming out of the tomb. What a treasure was glimpsed in that moment and sealed in the death-conquering, sin-defeating resurrection which Jesus accomplished days later. That treasure was given to the first generation of believers – the disciples and other followers who knew Christ personally. The treasure has been faithfully and gloriously handed along the line of saints year after year, decade after decade, century after century, until we received it. Now it is our turn to hand it on to those who come after us, not just in these seats but in countless holy spaces, some built with bricks and mortar, some under tents and trees or in borrowed rooms. 

Maybe you’ve heard the quip “Jesus expects only one thing from you: everything.” The gospel invites us to give ourselves – give everything – to the life that we know really is life, the blessed kingdom and household of God.

As we have been blessed to be built spiritually on a good foundation of faith, so we become the spiritual foundation for tomorrow’s believers. Our treasure is the realm of God’s rule with Christ on the throne of eternity. Our treasure is the original foundation stone: Jesus Christ himself, the very best foundation for the future.

Thanks be to God.

Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com. 
Copyright © 2015 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.