Patience, Grasshopper (Padawan)

Luke 1: 5-25
For Cheryl:

Advent 1

Imagine, if you will, a sanctuary like the one you worship in now, or where you may have worshipped at one time, or one you may remember seeing at a friends’ wedding. But instead of maybe their being a rail in front of the place where the preacher normally stands, or at the place where there is a step up, you see a blank wall. Inside that wall, there is still furniture and such related to worship, but you don’t know that. What you know is that there is a priest that goes behind that wall with incense at one point of the worship of God, and comes back out a few minutes later. You’re out front praying, or chanting psalms, or singing something.
Now imagine your minister (or whomever you’ve put into that role) going in, just like every other week, to do the duty of the incense, but he’s delayed in coming back out. It’s confusing, and maybe the psalms or the prayers trail off…until it’s silent.

Then the minister comes out, and its obvious something’s wrong, because now, he is unable to talk. He motions to his throat, to his mouth, his eyes are all wide, and he can’t say anything.

How weirded out would be? How would you feel? Would you be scared as you sat in that pew? Would you be irritated? Would you wonder what went on behind that wall?
When this happened to Zechariah in our story today, it was obvious to the congregation then that something supernatural had happened, but they couldn’t know what, because old Zechariah couldn’t tell them. But while they would have said something supernatural happened, we would want to send our minister to the psychiatrist. If your minister couldn’t speak, what would be the point in his or her staying in the job?

Now Zechariah’s situation is different-he wasn’t required to preach, like we are. He could perform his duties without his voice. His worship was different, in that the Temple was the only place where this worship could be performed. The only place where sacrifices could be made.

So if Zechariah comes out unable to talk, his congregation is pretty savvy, and it’s clear to them that something happened in there. It’s just not obvious to anyone what that is yet.

It’s not anyone’s radar that this is the opening step in the story that will culminate in the Messiah’s birth. That a couple, “getting on in years”, suddenly find themselves pregnant, and that this child will be the sign of who is to come after? That is TRULY not on anyone’s radar. In facts folks won’t figure that out until after Jesus is almost gone, and they start looking back at the prophecies.
There are lots of wierdnesses in the present, lots of things people don’t understand. The unknown is happening. Why are they happening? No one knows. For some people, that’s scary, and they want answers to settle their minds. Sometimes we buy into the interpretations, and the interpretations are usually wrong. Sometimes they are true, but usually not.

We’re in a time of preparation. Advent is time where we are to remember the need to sit and wait and watch. Some of my colleagues flip out a little bit when their churches want to sing Christmas carols in this time, and we know we’ve been hearing Christmas music in retail stores for weeks now.

We’re not good at waiting. We’re not good at ambiguity. We’re not good at trusting that things will happen in their time. We’re not good with delayed gratification. We can now eat Mac and Cheese in 90 seconds. Popcorn in about 2 minutes. We can download a full album of music in about 5 minutes, with a decent internet connection.

When Van Halen’s album 1984 came out, I was in high school. I had been looking forward to it for weeks, and the day it was released, I rode my bike up to the record store (Wonderland, in Newark, DE), in the rain, with a plastic bag inside my backpack, so I could buy that album on it’s release date. It was something I’d looked forward to for months, and would have gone through a wall to get it that day! I was so excited! Today, I might still be excited, I might still wait anxiously, but now I can just buy it through iTunes and never even have to get a drop of rain on me. ( Further illustration: as I was preaching this sermon at Throop UMC, I couldn’t remember the name of the album. While I continued with the sermon, one member pulled out her smart phone and Googled it for me, and was able to tell me the title of the album before the end of the sermon!)

We don’t have times of waiting and sacrifice and effort like that as much anymore. So Advent gets to be harder, and harder for us. It becomes almost a spiritual discipline to task ourselves with waiting, and watching, and praying. To actually have to wait for something; to wait for a roast in a slow cooker? To smoke a good brisket for 24? Fugeddaboutit.

But the story of advent asks us to wait. It tells us that things will become clear in time. Not now. What’s weirder is that we are waiting for something that has already come. We are commemorating events that have already passed. We know all the answers to the questions that the people in the story don’t. We are not really waiting for the baby Jesus to be born.

Advent is a time of waiting. But for us in this time, it is also a time of learning how to wait. And it is good to wait. It’s hard to l know this, hard to prove this, but it is good to wait. It is good to notice that Zechariah can’t talk. But while we will know eventually why he lost his ability to speak, it is good to not know immediately.

It’s good to let things simmer. To let things ferment. It’s good to wait.
May this Advent season teach you a lesson or two about patience.

For Folks Who Don’t Get Kings

John 18: 33-37

Christ the King Sunday

This is Christ the King Sunday, the last Sunday before Advent starts. It’s located that way to remind us that, as Jesus is being born, in the most humble way imaginable; as a child of an unwed mother in a backwater town of the Roman Empire, not even a citizen of that Empire, but rather a native of an occupied country and people, he is still the King of the Universe. No matter how small, how pitiful, how out on the ragged edge this child gets, we know where he ends up.

We talk about mangers, we talk about shepherds, and censuses (censusi?), we talk about all the trappings of poverty and dislocation, but the story ends up with the baby being the savior of all humanity.

This is an easy enough concept if you live in medieval times, and I’m the only one in the room who can read, and the women are all on one side of the church, and all the men are on the other side, but we don’t live in medieval times. Families sit together, everyone can read, and the church is lit with electricity.

We live in a country that, 200 years ago, spent a lot of blood and treasure to NOT have a king. It’s instructive that, when I asked a child in the children’s sermon what a King does, he said he couldn’t remember. You’re never going to find a British kid who says that. You’re never going to find a Saudi kid who says that. We, as Americans, don’t really know what a king is for. For some of us, having a federal government and a President is bad enough. To have a king, who owns us and all of our talents, and gifts, and all of our output, down to the children we bear? That’s not going to happen. I don’t think any American would buy that, no matter what political persuasion.

So, what does it mean to have a King? So what does it mean for Jesus to be our king?

Can I suggest to you that perhaps the reason why we reject royalty, as Americans, is because we value our own decisions? We value the fact that we can rise and fall on our own talents? Our own choices? Yes, we make bad choices, yes, we make difficult decisions that affect the rest of our lives, but generally, it is our own choice. This makes us a little more noble; gives us a little more dignity. If we’re told what to do, or where to do it, or how fast to do it; if we’re told, like Pharaoh told the Israelites to makes the mud bricks without straw, knowing full well the bricks are inferior, we lose dignity. But if we don’t do it, we know we’ll be killed, so we do it, knowing full well it isn't our best work. This is why we don’t trust kings.

But when we say that Christ is our king, can I suggest that perhaps we can say this because Christ alone is trustworthy enough for us to give that assent to? He says “My Kingdom is not of this world”. The kingdom of Jesus Christ is the universe. It doesn't work like civil government does. It doesn't work like England, or Sweden, or the Sultan of Brunei. To act as if we are loyal subjects can be a spiritual discipline.

Imagine you are a medieval blacksmith. You sharpen plows, make horseshoes, and other maintenance. But in time of war, each of those projects are set aside, and you are compelled to make swords, build armor, and other weapons. In times of castle construction, you are required to make grates for windows, hallway torch racks, and such like. You are compelled because your kingdom requires it of you. You can sell some stuff, you can create some stuff, sure, but if the local royal needs something, your stuff is set aside. The trade off is already arranged-the local royal owns your house, your lands, and your materials. You eat food from fields the royal owns. You can’t hunt in the forest. Your work and all your output is not yours, but it is the royals’.

Now, because we were born in a country that has not had a system like this for 230 some-odd years, we’re all thinking in our heads, Nope, that’s not us!”
But can I suggest to you that this is exactly what we are called to do in the name of Christ? All that we have, and all that we are, are to be put into the service of the Kingdom of God?

That may not sound too palatable, given the picture that I just drew. It’s probably not a great tool for describing the positives of being a Christian. But if we are the people of God, that means we have pledged ourselves to serve God, and we have salvation.

In fact, here’s a difference; in an earthly kingdom, we receive the protection of the local royal in exchange for the service we provide, though with extreme coercion. In Christ, we offer our gifts and talents in service to God in gratitude for the salvation we have already received, and are assured of.

All that we have, and all that we are, will not be used to make war with anyone. Instead, it will all be used to share that message of grace with everyone.

Say you have a job as an accountant. There are two ways to do the job; one is to do the work shoddily, and never check your work, and to not care when mistakes are made. The other is to be conscientious, to check your work, and do everything you can to give the best, fairest, and most honest tax return you can. Which way gives glory to God? Which way is a testament? This is true about homework, about care giving, about fighting fires, about any output we generate, down to the cake we bake, or the turkey we smoke.

For us, the good way not only gives testament to the love of God, it also marks us as loyal subjects of a kingdom. The subjects of a king who is the ONLY one we will ever serve. It’s a good thing to know that this person we have pledged our loyalty to is the only perfect person. And when we serve this one being, the output is always love.

Isn't that a fair trade? Only love, only grace, only forgiveness, only peace. That’s a pretty good king. And we’re loyal subjects when that is what we spread in the name of the kingdom.