Well, it’s been quite a journey we’ve been on through this Advent season; quite a journey the congregations of St. James and St. George have been on these past few years. And I have been thinking that our congregational journeys share many things in common with the themes of Advent: themes of HOPE, PEACE, LOVE and JOY.
Scriptural themes around God’s end time on those last Sundays in Pentecost spilled over into our first Sunday of Advent. We heard more warnings about how God would bring to an end to life as we know it in this world. Chaos would rule our ordered world, and our ordered lives. Our hearts would be filled with despair and fear for our future for the coming of our end. Nevertheless, on that first Sunday of Advent, we lit the candle of HOPE. Because scriptures also assured us that God’s end time would mark the beginning of something new. Our scripture lessons invited us to believe that everything could be redeemed. They brought us to hope that the endings we experience in our own life might also be places where God is redeeming us; places where God is making all things new.
I believe our scriptures for Advent 1 were teaching our congregations of St. George and St. James how to live in hope in the experiences of our own end times. But they do not promise that it will be easy. Because while God gives us hope, God also gives us hearts to feel our loss for things that come to an end, he gives us tears that express our pain, and he gives us words to speak our thoughts and feelings about the life we leave behind. We grieve those things that will no longer give us meaning and purpose, comfort and joy. And we fear an uncertain future. But all our scriptures in Advent remind us that God would not have us dwell in our grief and loss. God has given us the gift of hope. And it is our hope, our patient hope in God’s promise that God is doing something new IN us, and WITH us, and THROUGH us—hope that brings new meaning, new purpose and new direction for our future.
So, even with the warnings of end time we heard on Advent 1, we lit the candle of HOPE. Because hope is the antidote for our grief. It is hope that can move us through our sadness and despair. It is hope which enables us to anticipate the new life that awaits us in the new life we receive at the manger. For both our congregations this new life is bound to take us on new roads as we journey toward God’s preferred future. And it will not be helpful to yearn for roads which take us back to the places we once lived and the life we once knew. The road we travel with God will not take us there. Because once we leave behind the houses we inhabit, “you can’t go home again.” Now, if that phrase sounds familiar, perhaps you are remembering a novel, by the same name, written by American author Thomas Wolfe. You can’t go home again, even if you try. Because things change, and things come to an end. Life goes on. And God’s future awaits those who dwell in HOPE.
But don’t be deceived; hope is not a passive experience. As we await the future God has in mind for us, we also begin to live in hope and act on hope. Our focus turns to discerning God’s plan and purpose for us. We begin exploring the ways we might move forward, even as we look back in sorrow and regret. At the same time it often feels as if we are standing still. Not doing anything, really. Perhaps even shuffling our feet for a time. That’s because we are in our own time of Advent, waiting and watching for that new thing to happen. Preparing a space for God to enter into the chaos of the moment, if only just to be present with us in it. That’s when hope begins to creep into our feelings of sadness and uncertainty, and we begin to experience the gift God gives us on the second Sunday of Advent—the gift of PEACE.
Now, my experience of this peace we hear about on the Sunday of Advent 2 feels a lot like the peace Paul speaks of, I think—a “peace which passes all understanding.” It’s the kind of peace which comes to us even as we are living in the midst of sadness and uncertainty; even as we suffer the anger and tears of disillusionment and despair; even as we are subjected to the desire of those to manipulate, or manage, and control our future—we can find our peace. Because our scriptures assure us that God is with us; he will not abandon us. And knowing that God is present with us helps us find the peace we need; the peace of Advent 2 as we dwell in the hope of Advent 1.
So, on the second Sunday of Advent we lit the candle of PEACE. The kind of peace which comes from accepting that we cannot know what God knows, and we cannot know how God will do his work in us, and with us, and through us. The peace which comes from letting go of our own plans and schemes and agendas for engineering our future, so that we might discern God’s preferred future for us. It’s the peace which comes from surrendering our limited wisdom and vision for our future to Gods greater wisdom and vision for that future. It’s that peace that awaits us at the manger, whenever we are ready to surrender the chaos of our life to God. Yes, God loves us that much. God will take our fear and anxiety from us and carry us through the chaos of our moments. God loves us that much.
So we are not surprised that on the Sunday of Advent 3 we light the candle of LOVE. And love is so necessary for our journey into God’s preferred future for us. Because only God’s love for us can remove the fear which keeps us from living into the fullness of our life. Only God’s love can relieve us of fears which keep us bound to our past, or imprisoned in the dead and dying places of our life. Only God’s love can enable us to surrender our fear of letting go and trusting God to be in charge of our personal life, and the communal life of our church.
Our scriptures for Advent 3 provide a road map for our journey out of fear—into love. As John the Baptizer sits in a jail cell fearing that his prophetic role has come to naught, Jesus assures John that he IS the One God sent to redeem the world. Isaiah shows us that nothing can be born in us when we fear. In fact, our life shrinks by fear. It becomes a desert that will not blossom. On the other hand, everything is born in love. We grow by love. God’s Spirit nurtures us in love. Love keeps us open and receptive to God’s possibilities for us in creation. It is only by knowing and living in God’s love that we are able to take the risk becoming the persons God created us to be, and the church God yearns for us to be.
I especially love Isaiah’s image of the highway which can take us to our God. He makes it clear that the rough and narrow and crooked roads we lay down for ourselves as we journey through this world will not lead us to God’s plan and purpose for our life. The maps we make for our own journey through this world will not get us where God wants us to go. Only love will take us where God will lead. God’s risky, demanding, forgiving, inclusive, nurturing and, most of all, God’s unconditional love. And so on the third Sunday of Advent we lit the candle of LOVE in anticipation of the love that will be born TO us, and IN us at Christmas. And anyone who has loved, or been loved knows this: Love brings us our greatest joy.
Which brings us to the candle we light on this fourth Sunday of Advent; the candle of JOY. And what an irony it seems to be to light the candle of JOY on this final Sunday of worship in this beautiful and historic building, a building which has housed the congregations of St. George’s for more than 150 years. Then, again, the people of St. James have been homeless for some time. So, I don’t even think God would be too hard on us for not feeling overly joyful in this moment. And yet we light the candle of JOY today to anticipate the joy of God’s coming to us in the vulnerable body of an infant boy; our God who will not only NOT be born in a home, he will not have a place to lay his head, a place to go home to, throughout his entire ministry on this earth. And it seems to me there is a message for the church in Jesus’ homeless ministry. And we already know what that message is, and we also know how difficult it is to accept.
We know that God does not dwell in the buildings we build. God dwells in us, and God is everywhere out there in our world. This is why, at the end of every Eucharist, we are sent out of this place of worship, into the world to love and serve the Lord. Because God is in the world, and God is in us. We also know that church buildings are not everlasting. Bricks and mortar are vulnerable to the forces of nature; walls crumble and fall away, fires burn them to the ground, storms and volcanoes rip them apart. But congregations who see themselves as the body of Christ in this world continue to live on, and they move on to the new place God is calling them to. We know all too well that church buildings are also vulnerable to social and economic forces which bring them to close their doors. Congregations dwindle, financial support falls away, buildings become too costly to maintain. And so, buildings come to an end. But churches can never come to an end, as long as faithful people continue to gather in the name of Christ in homes, in parks, on street corners, in restaurants and coffee shops, and yes, even in pubs. We know in our hearts that God does not depend on dwelling places to live in. God doesn’t depend on parish churches and cathedrals to do the work of his church. God depends on us to be the church. God depends on us to represent him to the world wherever we are and wherever we gather in his name.
In today’s epistle lesson Paul tells that people of God become a community of faith and a force for God’s good in our world by God’s “grace and apostleship.” We find our greatest joy by the ways we grow in God’s grace; we find our greatest joy in doing the work he gives us to do by our apostolic inheritance. And our greatest joy will come to us once again, this year, on the day we celebrate his incarnation. God with us.
I believe our journey through Advent has been particularly helpful this year. It has provided us with a pathway and a compass for moving through this period grief for buildings we no longer inhabit, for the vulnerability we experience at being, in a sense, homeless, and for the uncertainty we feel about our future. God has already brought our houses of worship to their end time. The back wall of St. James Church has fallen away making the building inhabitable, and today we will close the doors of St. George’s Church building for the last time. And now we find ourselves in a time of Advent. Waiting, watching. And doing something very important for the life of our congregations; coming together for common worship.
This Advent both congregations of St. George and St. James are waiting in hope, anticipating once again the peace, and love and joy which God promises to us by his incarnation. We wait in hope for God’s revelation of his preferred future for us, we wait in the peace which passes our understanding of what that future might be, we wait in that love which will take away our fear of risking a new vision for our churches, and we dwell in the joy of becoming the church God is calling us to be, a strong church and a vital presence for God in our Southern Berkshires, and in the ways we are called to mission and ministry throughout our world.
Yes, what an Advent journey our churches have been on over these past few years. And it is not over yet. In fact, we are likely to experience our Advent for some time to come. Until that day when the new thing God is doing in us becomes born in us, and borne into our world. In the meantime we wait and watch, and continue to be the people of God’s church in common worship, and in mission and ministry to our word. We wait with patience for the new church which will emerge from the church buildings we leave behind. We watch with eyes that envision God’s preferred future for us. We listen with hears to hear what God is saying to us each step along the journey. We speak careful and caring words to people in whatever place of mind, or body, or spirit they are in. We touch each other with hearts that do not fear the demanding promises of love. We grow in relationship with God and with each other in common worship. We garner the strength and courage to do the work God gives us to do. And we continue to take great joy in doing it.
Like Mary, we bear the new thing God is doing for us in the womb of our hearts and minds until it comes time to be born. And until a child is born we cannot know what he or she will look like; likewise, we cannot know right now what this new church will look like, we cannot know what this community of faith will grow up to be, but like Joseph, we will name it, and by naming it claim it as our own. And we will take great joy and delight in seeing her mature in wisdom and grow strong in the faith of our ancestors, those people throughout our history who took their own risks to build a community of faith in Lee and Great Barrington—and buildings to house them in.
My hope for the congregations of St. George and St. James is that as you suffer the pains and joys of new birth is that you will follow that star which will lead you to that place you have never been. That you will take the risk of journeying together to the place where God is calling you. That you will bring your gifts and offer them to that vision. And even though I will not be with you on this journey, I share that vision with you. Meanwhile, I must move on, as you will move on. But know that where I go, you will be also. After all, you made a home for me here. And I made a home for you in my heart. Know that I carry you my heart. Know that I hold you in my prayers. And know that God is with us.
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