Sea of Changes
Sermon preached in St Salvator's Chapel, St Andrews on the 3rd December 06 (Advent Sunday), by Rosemary Lain-Priestly
Readings: 1 Thessalonians 3: 9-13 and Luke 21: 25-36
Sermon:
The words of St Paul to the Thessalonians "How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy that we feel?" 1 Thessalonians 3:9
And the words of St Luke's Jesus "when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near." Luke 21:29-31
One November a couple of years ago my daughter was asked to design the front page of an Advent Carol Service sheet. The service was to begin with a poem quite an abstract poem - and the front page illustration was supposed to respond to the poem's words. They were good words, and they were quirky words, and they were random, in a way, and in another way connected. And Hannah and I took some paint, and some sponges, and some brushes, and we had a dialogue - which sometimes connected and sometimes didn't.
And I didn't know whether I understood the poem, and Hannah wasn't in the least bit interested in anything but the paint - she was, after all, just short of her third birthday at the time but somehow God breathed through the words, and encouraged the artist, and probably wished the mother would butt out - and something was created, and made sense, and made no sense, and was ordered, and was chaos, and had darkness, energy and space, and was glorious and full of awe. It was a very Advent picture!
'There will be signs in the sun, the moon and the stars, and on the earth distress amongst nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. 'People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world' says Jesus. But then he tells us 'Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near'.
And both of these images resonate with us not just at Advent but pretty much any time. Because the world can feel like a constantly shifting sea of changes, distressed and tossed about, yet continually offering the greening of new life.
We go to bed at night, and when we awaken the radio tells us that the ground, somewhere, for someone, has given way. And somewhere else, people have unexpectedly found their feet again. Life brings fear and doubt, then hope and optimism, by turns.
So as I began to write this sermon King Abdullah of Jordan was warning the world that there's a danger of civil war in three Middle Eastern countries. And at the same time Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was saying that he hoped to revive long-stalled peace efforts with the Palestinians as a fragile ceasefire took hold in the Gaza Strip. Closer to home, the security services were continuing to investigate the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, testing people who had frequented the same places as the former spy for the radioactive polonium-210 which killed him. And Tony Blair was attempting to initiate some sort of redemption of history by expressing regret for Britain's part in the slave trade.
Changes that bring hurt, changes that may bring healing. Nothing staying the same for very long. Viewed through one lens, it can feel as though the world is in a permanent state of Advent. Rumours of wars, unexpected deaths, and a general sense of insecurity. Alongside signs of growth, attempts to reconcile, to mend, to look to the future. Most of it is beyond our control and much of it is beyond our understanding so how do we live with the unpredictable in a creative and positive way? How do we orientate ourselves? Or some days, how do we simply stay sane?
Well the detailed answers to how we all live with it will be different for each of us and at different times. But very generally speaking some of us cope sometimes by blotting out the bad stuff altogether pushing it away allowing geographical distance to protect us from the sandstorm of global affairs.
That works until something happens in our own life to remind us that pain and conflict, grief and loss, eventually catch up with most of us in some form or another. In any case it requires a determinedly myopic vision always to focus on the positive and blot out the rest.
So others find a way through by facing, rather than avoiding, the hard questions. And in doing that some ask 'who, if anybody, in this sea of changes, is in charge?' And what might they demand of us? In his book The Company of Strangers, Paul Seabright explores the emergence of our economic institutions and how they influence the affairs of the world. He recalls the query of a Russian official two years after the break-up of the Soviet Union. 'We need to understand the fundamental details of how a market system works. Tell me, for example: who is in charge of the supply of bread to the population of London?'
An Advent question: who is in charge, if anyone and how do they relate to me?
We enter this season with a proper fear. Fear that maybe everything is random, life is a loose cannon, and nobody is in charge of the supply of bread to the population of London, or Edinburgh or to sub-Saharan Africa. Fear that if there is someone they may have lost their power, or don't have our interests at heart. Fear that they may have simply walked away.
But we also enter it in the hope held by St Paul, who writing to the Thessalonians is overwhelmed with gratitude for the very existence of these people who have found faith in God. 'How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy that we feel because of you? Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you face to face'. His words resound with the conviction that God, their God and his, is at the very heart of human relating, offering abounding love that humanity might abound in love for one another.
So this is how we make it creatively through the dark days of Advent, both the Advent that is a season in our Christian calendar, and the ever-present Advent that is confusion and distress mixed with elation and wonder at the events of our world and our individual lives. We live creatively by holding onto the conviction that God is present in it all, that God is intimately concerned with each of us and the life of every human community, that in God we find some sort of coherence, and that God is ultimately in charge, even though we don¿t know what that means. We make it through because at least some of the time we believe that in the end the hope and the love will prevail.
Then Jesus told them a parable: 'Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near.'
The profound joy of Advent is that it moves inexorably towards Christmas not the Christmas that arrived in M&S six weeks ago, but the real Christmas, which offers us the most concrete expression of God's commitment to the world. God with us, God in us, God in a way the world has never before experienced. We don't need to be able to chart the sea of changes, to fully understand the words of the poetry, or to pin down the precise intentions of the artist in order to find God in the words and patterns, the spaces and shapes and sounds of our created existence. God has been and is an intimate and connecting presence in it all, however hard it is to believe that sometimes.
The perpetually-changing sea that is life in God's world demands of us that we rejoice in all that is good and face all that is destructive with faith in one another and faith in God. Because as Michael Perham puts it in his Advent book Glory in our midst: 'God is acting now! Do not close your eyes for a single moment, lest you miss some fresh outburst of his activity'.
This sort of faith does not allow for that myopic vision which focuses only on what is easy and joyful and is wilfully blind to the complexity and pain of the world. Rather it challenges us each in our own time and place to respond to the bad stuff as well as the good. We are all called to do what we can to alleviate human suffering, to be peacemakers in our own spheres of influence, to work across the boundaries of tradition, social background and spiritual understanding to make the bit of the world that we occupy a better place for everyone. Again in the words of Michael Perham we are called to be 'shafts of God's glory in human affairs'. In this way we nurture the fig tree and encourage the kingdom one season closer.
The imperative of Christian faith is to work alongside the intimately-present God to ensure that the promises of Christmas love, joy, shalom, well-being are welcomed into our Advent world and made available to all. And we are asked to do this insofar as it is within our power at home, in our workplace and our local communities, in relation to our national life and in the life of our global village.
It's a huge remit but we do it together, and in partnership with people of other faiths and of none. It's for each of us to work out which bit of the work is ours which we as individuals can take up and run with. The answer will be different for us all, and for each of us in the different phases of our life. None of us is asked to relate to all of it all of the time we would simply drown in the tide of need but each of us is asked to take up some of it some of the time, or the world will drown for want of enough people who care.
As I finished writing this sermon towards the end of the week, Mario Scaramella was named as a second possible victim of polonium 210. The jury was still out on whether Tony Blair's statement about the slave trade was redemptive or empty of any real meaning. But a timetable seemed to be emerging for the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq - please God let that be a sign of hope and World Aids Day reminded us of the strength of human solidarity in the heat of tragedy and pain.
So yes we live in shifting seas, and it's difficult, and painful, and sometimes incomprehensible. And it's colourful and joyous and awesome and life-giving. It's an Advent world of stillness and dancing, noise and silence, of space and crowds, love and fear, conflict and peace. And in and through it we seek patterns and are surprised by God's presence, we forge connections, and engage with the creation of which we are a part. We discover the reality of God, with us, in us, and through us. We seek and live God's glory.
And we do it together, celebrating our human connectedness: 'How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy that we feel?'
And we do it because we believe ourselves to be part of God's gracious plan: 'Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near.'
To God be the glory, in all things, now and always. Amen.