“The ‘Maybe’
of Advent”
by Bruce J. Johnson
Scripture: Mark
Black
Friday has passed and I guess the Christmas season is now in full swing. All
the reports that I have read indicate that our over commercialized/consumer
driven celebration of it is off to a great ‘jingle-jingle’ start. My favorite
accounts of the day were:
First, from a scene that took place at a jammed Comp-USA
store on
“Civilized!
Civilized!” Implored one employee, as he
dumped a cardboard box full of computer equipment into the outstretched hands
of two dozen shoppers, who nevertheless lunged at one another to secure some of
the limited supply of wireless adapters and internet cards.
The second was an account on the television
news: Security personnel had to use pepper spray on the onslaught of shoppers
at a mid-western, I think, WalMart or Target!
So begins our
season of Advent out there on the streets, and with
worship this morning—so begins it here at church.
Now,
sometimes the advent lessons turn us to talking about angels and startled and
surprised shepherds, an annoyed inn keeper in a night shirt and a manger stall,
a teenage mother and a child born in Bethlehem…. to whom a Star in the East led
three Kings who end up as Wise Men!
On other
years, however, it is the Gospel according to Mark. This Gospel, much to our
chagrin, will have none of all that. According to Mark, we can forget the
stable, the shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night and that Star.
Indeed, when Mark looks around he doesn’t see white lights and brightly colored
Christmas decorations or a festive atmosphere. What he sees are cosmic
fireworks, a darkened sun, a dim moon, stars falling from the sky and the Son
of God coming in clouds with great power and glory. Only two questions remain
unanswered: First, “When? What day? What
hour? What moment?”
And second,
“Are we awake and watchful ----‘lookin’ busy ---getting ready?”
In some
ways, you can forget the First Coming all together because what matters now, is
the Second Coming and what He finds when he returns. So advent is a time
of anticipation and preparation or as the lesson for today says:
watchfulness--- a second chance to have it right --- to be right…. To not get
caught unaware or irresponsible.
And he says
all this in his parable.
It is a
parable about the man who goes on a journey. He must have some bucks because he
has servants. The servants do not know where he has gone or when he will
return. He may have the day marked on his Blackberry but he has, for his own
reasons, decided not to share that information with them. Instead, he has
turned the whole household over to servants, leaving them in charge. He has
given them each their own work to do while he is away, including doorkeeper
whose job was to keep on watch, watching for his return.
One can’t
help but imagine what it must have been like for those servants, maybe
something like the time my parents left for a weekend in
The whole
house was theirs; they were in charge of their time and their duties. It could
be life as usual, doing the work that was appointed, showing responsibility or
it could go downhill fast, transforming the estate into ‘party central! The
choice was theirs to make.
Barbara
Brown Taylor says of this parable that there is a paradox in it. “It tells us
to watch, while at the same time, it tells us we have jobs to do. On the one
hand, perhaps it is not possible to do both at once, but on the other hand,
perhaps doing our jobs is a way of watching.
As we weed the garden the way the master showed us, as we treat one
another the way he treaded us, as we feed the animals in our care along with
the strangers who come to the door---- as we altogether do unto others as he
did unto us, are we not watching for him until he comes?”
(Pulpit Resource, November 28, 1999)
So, we’ve
got one servant—the doorkeeper keeping watch and the others doing their
appointed jobs.
Two key
aspects of the Advent!
Sojourner’s
Magazine this month had an article about the language and spirit of Advent. Its
title was neat: ‘Speaking of
Maybe.’(Andrew Hoeksema, p. 32). The
author’s point was that advent is the season in which we talk about hope, about
living in expectation, about being on watch and prepared for the ‘moment” when
things ‘might’ or just ‘may-be’ made right. And, having hope and living in
expectation and being busy preparing are bold activities in the face of some of
the realities of life that can sometimes be so grim.
It is a
season in which we say:
Maybe--- just maybe!
This year!
This
reminded me of how Robert Fulghum starts his highly popular book, Maybe
(Maybe Not).
“A rabbi and I once engaged in a friendly intellectual
hockey match trying to choose a single word to summarize human wisdom. He
submitted a Hebrew term ‘timshel.’ It is found is found in the oldest story in
our common literature---- in Genesis--- the book of beginnings.
After being expelled from the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve
had two sons. The elder was called Cain. He was the first man born outside of
paradise.
In time Cain grew up and cultivated the land and brought his
first fruits as an offering to God. The offering was rejected. Jehovah
explained to Cain that he was tangled up with evil--- it lurked around his
door. “But,” Jehovah said, “you may triumph over evil and have abundant life.”
That’s a crucial sentence--- the last thing Jehovah says to
Cain. “You may triumph over evil and have abundant life.”
The crucial word is the second one, the verb--- may. Timshel
is the Hebrew.
To interpret timshel to mean ‘you may’ is to use a word that
implies the possibility of choice…… in other words, what you do with your life
is within your control.
Fulghum says:
In modern English, timshel means “it
may be” or simply “‘maybe” depending upon the choices we make.
Maybe. There’s our word.
The wisest answer to ultimate
questions.
A word pointing to open doors and
wide horizons.
(Robert Fulghum, Maybe
(Maybe Not), p.1-5.
I had
some of this sermon done before leaving for a couple of days after our
Thanksgiving service at St. Mary’s. When I got home last night and after
watching UCONN beat
“Gate Opens, Hope Rises”--- Of course, the article was about
the opening of the Rafah border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt,
their first self-governed passage to the outside world.
Maybe! ---
Advent--- a time of ‘possibility’--- a time of hope!
At the same
time, perhaps it ‘may- be” because of what we are doing while we watch.
---- while we watch for peace in the face of some pretty entrenched realities
of hatred and violence, while we watch the suffering and the injustice.…..
while we watch and read about the war in
Iraq, and Afghanistan, or what’s happening in Darfur and in the AIDS
Crisis--- in which it was reported last week that there were 5 million new
cases last year.
Advent is a
season when we it “may be’ because of the jobs we do, because of the activity
of care and concern, of peace and justice and generosity.
Indeed, someone
once asked Pope John what he would say to the Church today if he knew that the
Second Coming of Christ was going to happen tomorrow.
With a wry
smile and a twinkle in his eyes, the pope answered,
“Look Busy!”
(Campolo, Following Jesus Without
Embarrassing God, p. 75.)
I remember
a quote from Christopher Reeve:
“So many dreams at first seem impossible. And then they seem
improbable. Then when we summon that ‘will,’ they soon become
inevitable.”
Advent is
a time when it may be so for the people of God because they summon that will to
make what once seemed impossible or improbable --- inevitable.
We’ve got
jobs to do--- let’s do them…
Pray and
work for peace.
Change the world for the poor.
House the homeless, feed the hungry,
protect the children, care for the sick, comfort the dying and bind up the
broken hearted with the gospel of the resurrection….
‘Maybe, just maybe --- it may be ---
this year!
Amen