Advent 1A
November 27, 2016
Isaiah 2:1-5; Psalm 122;
Romans 13:11-14; Luke 24:36-44
As we gear
up for another Advent season, I have a question for you: How many people here
love Jesus?
How many love him because he forgives
us? How many because he is our friend, and loves us? How many because he shows
us a good way of living?
How many love him because he was a
disrupter? How many because he challenged the government? How many because what
he had to offer was so entirely counter to the status quo, and so upsetting to
those dedicated to the government and others who would keep that status quo,
that he got himself killed?
The first few things were easy to
love, right? The Jesus who stands up to authority and rocks the boat… depending
on who you are, maybe not so easy to love.
And yet this is the Jesus with whom
we are confronted each year in Advent. Oh, we’d love to focus this month on the
wee babe on his way, as we speak, to the manger, surrounded by lowing and
cooing animals, as we hang beautiful things from evergreen branches. It’s all
so domesticated and easy to take. But each year in Advent, even though I know
to expect it, it takes me by surprise: instead of that warm-fuzzy stuff, we get
a lot of yelling – from Jesus, from Isaiah, from Paul, next week from John the
Baptist… This week the yelling can be summarized: “Wake up, people! Don’t you
see what is coming? Don’t you see what has been happening? God is doing
something new and different. So buck up, step into the light, and get busy
participating in God’s work in this the world!”
It is hard to see this Jesus as
loving, much less as peaceful and serene. But it would seem that peaceful,
serene face of Jesus we have come to know and love is not all there is to him.
When it comes down to it, Jesus is a disrupter – one who urges us to love one
another, yes, but not always in the ways that are easy or even socially
acceptable. Jesus is a disrupter, and these first texts we hear in the season
of Advent urge us to be disrupters, too.
But how can Jesus
be a disrupter, when we call him the “Prince of Peace”? Isn’t disruption of the
status quo the opposite of peace? It does seem paradoxical. Lucky for us,
Lutherans love a good paradox – our theology is full of them!
So let’s
start by just looking at this concept of peace. We all want it, right? Isaiah
talks about it
in our first reading, saying that the people of many nations –
lots of people who are different from one another – will “beat their swords
into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.” In other words, these
instruments of war will be recreated into tools of growth, tools of farming and
agriculture, that prepare the soil for seed, and harvest it so that all may be
fed. What a gorgeous image! And Isaiah seals the deal by adding, “Nation shall
not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.” Now
that is an image of peace if I ever heard one!
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| "Swords Into Plowshares" UN Garden in NYC |
The Psalmist wants peace, too; we are
even invited in this Psalm to pray for peace in Jerusalem, a city which today
plays host to Christians, Jews, and Muslims. If ever there was a place that
needs prayer for peace, it is Jerusalem.
So peace – we can all agree that this
is a goal. Do you want peace? Yeah, me too! Okay, so the next question is: what
is peace?
This is where the problem arises,
because we all have a different idea of what peace really looks like, and
sometimes, what looks like peace from our vantage point does not look like
peace from someone else’s. In fact, sometimes for others to have peace, our own
peace is compromised.
Allow me to explain what I mean.
Since Nov. 8, we have seen a very unpeaceful in America. Some 800 race, gender,
sexuality, or ethnicity related hate crimes were reported in the first week
alone: Muslim women having their hijabs pulled off; swastikas painted in
playgrounds and at churches; gay pride flags being burned; women being grabbed
and touched inappropriately because, quote, “it’s okay now!” and that’s only a
few of what have been reported – many more were experienced but not reported.
In addition, lots of anti-Trump protests
have broken out. Some have taken their protesting to social media. Some protests
have come in the form of various petitions and rallies to call representatives.
And some, of course, have come in the form of demonstrations and gatherings
(the sort protected by our first amendment, “the freedom of assembly”), and
while many have been peaceful, a few have, unfortunately, turned violent and
aggressive.
It is especially these more public,
physical demonstration protests that have upset a lot of people. Either they
want people to “get over it and move on,” or they think it is an over-reaction,
or
And yes, that would bring peace in
the moment. But on the other hand, the people who are protesting are also
seeking peace – and feel the only way to get it is to not be silent and compliant in this moment. To be silent, they
feel, is only to allow injustice to continue, which will, in the end, not bring
peace for some of the most vulnerable among us.
So protesting folks have a different
idea of what peace would look like – many ideas, in fact, based on their
particular experience. For people of color, peace would mean that they don’t
fear for their children’s lives when they walk down the street, or their own
when they get pulled over for a minor traffic violation. For immigrants, peace
would mean that they can live in the country they have come to love, where they
have built a life, without fear of being deported and separated from their
families. For refugees, peace would look like getting out of the place where
life was hell, where they were in constant danger, and to a place where they
are safe. For Muslims, peace would look like being able to practice without
persecution their faith – which is at its heart a faith of peace and love –
just like the first amendment allows them. For someone living with a
disability, peace might look like not being judged based on first impressions,
indeed being treated like a person who has something valuable to offer this
world, even if that looks different from what someone else offers. For someone
of the LGBTQ community, peace might look like the ability to live with and love
another person, and have the same legal rights as others in legal, monogamous relationships.
For a woman who is a survivor of domestic abuse, peace will look like safety
from her abusive partner, as well as safety from the threat or talk of such
abuse from others in the future.
I suspect some of those descriptions
made a few people uncomfortable, as they rubbed against your own sense of
peace. That’s sometimes how peace is, isn’t it?
Do these various and beautiful children
of God experience peace right now? Will they experience such peace in the
coming years? I suppose it depends on a lot of factors, and one of those
factors is how seriously we take Jesus’ call to us. I mentioned earlier that
both Isaiah and the Psalmist urge us toward peace today. The Gospel text,
however, isn’t quite so clear. Rather than obvious peace, Jesus calls us to
“keep awake!” to resist falling into the safe, peaceful slumber that would
allow us to be complacent in the face of injustice, in the face of an absence
of peace for our brothers and sisters. So what does that mean, to “keep awake”?
What do we do in our wakefulness? What peace do we seek? Peace for ourselves?
Peace for our neighbors? Which neighbors?
I think Jesus answers this question
in the next chapter of Matthew. Anyone remember what famous passage appears in
Matthew 25? It’s the one about how Christ identifies himself with the most
needy, with “the least of these”: “As you did it [or did not do it] to the
least of these members of my family,” he says, “you did it [or not] to me.” He
refers to feeding the hungry and thirsty,
welcoming the stranger, clothing the
naked, caring for the sick, and visiting the imprisoned.
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| "As you did it to one of the least of these..." |
Yes, it seems Jesus is quite clear
about where and for whom our peace-seeking efforts should lie: with the most
vulnerable, the most needy members of society. For all his hard-to-love
disruptive qualities, this is what the
love of Jesus looks like: like keeping awake and constantly vigilant to
serve “the least of these,” to do what is necessary to bring peace to them. Jesus showed us in his life that
this sometimes means being an agitator, being prepared to rattle the status
quo, to put on the armor of light that is Christ and fight the good fight for
those in need – even if that means our own comfort is compromised as a result. It
sometimes means standing up to government and authority, like Jesus did so many
times in his ministry, and not allowing them to trample the needy. It means not
escaping to our own peace until that work is done.
But as he showed us in his life how
to love one another and work for peace, Jesus also showed us in his death and
resurrection God’s immeasurable love for
us. It is this love that fuels our work for peace. It is this love that we
celebrate when a babe comes to a couple of poor travelers. It is this love that
carried those travelers-turned-refugees out of Bethlehem and into Egypt when
the government threatened their safety. It is this love that showed us
ultimately that nothing is more powerful than God, not even death.
As we look forward for the next four
weeks toward the coming of this love to earth, may we be emboldened by the
disruption such love causes, and by the ultimate peace that it brings.
Let us pray… Prince
of peace, only you can turn our swords into plowshares, turning our animosity
into opportunity for growth. Help us to put on the armor of light, and fight
for those who are most in need, to stand up to anything that would threaten the
peace of our most vulnerable brothers and sisters, and always to seek to bring
your disruptive love to all the world. In the name of the Father and the Son
and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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