December 17, 2006
(Third Sunday of Advent)
Joy
By The Very Rev. Terry White, Dean
Zephaniah 3:14-20 • Canticle 9
• Philippians 4:4-7 • Luke
3:7-18
(From
The Lectionary Page)
The smartly dress woman arrived on time for the job interview. If you have ever interviewed for a position or placement that you really wanted, you know you can drive yourself silly preparing for the interview. These times can produce anxiety, but they can also be enjoyable, because you have survived several previous steps to get to this interview stage.
The big day arrives, and she enters a room and meets her several interviewers. The first question clearly means this will not be the usual kind of interview. She is asked, "What brings you joy?"
"Joy" is the traditional theme of Advent's third Sunday, represented in the Advent wreath by the rose colored candle. And joy is very much the theme of the first lesson from Zephaniah.
Charles Cousar writes that in the scriptures “joy” has three elements or definitions:
"Joy is the realization that deeply held hopes have been, or shortly will be, fulfilled. Joy is also the dawning of an understanding that those events which have been most feared will not occur. But especially exultant is that joy which is completely unexpected, which breaks suddenly into the midst of our gloom." (New Proclamation, Year C, 2000-2001.)
This is the joy of which Zephaniah speaks.
This prophet lived in the 7th century before Christ, enduring the reign of an evil king, Manasseh, whose ways of cruelty and faithlessness led to the serious decay of the kingdom of Judah. The people, seeing the king's faithless ways, made them their own, and the darkness grew deeper. Zephaniah predicted that God's only option was to destroy all creation, and further, if God was at all wise, not even build a new one. A terrible day of judgment awaited them, a day of ruin and devastation, of darkness and gloom.
And then Zephaniah comes to the climax of his preaching. He had warned the people severally. Where else could this all lead than to utter annihilation and everlasting fire? And at this point, which the other sandal is ready to drop, Zephaniah proclaims, "Sing aloud, daughter Zion. Rejoice, exult, fear no more! The Lord will renew you in his love."
This is not the usual type of judgment and it is not what we have come to expect from prophets. More predictable is the rhetoric of John the Baptist: "Woe to you, you bunch of snakes." Here is a prophet to count on. I like my prophecy strong, no sugar, since my life is easy compared to most of the world. A little fire is good for me. A little fire is good for all of us. So long as we don't really get burned.
But Zephaniah's people are burdened with a lack of faith and hard times. And how often we connect the two, as if God loves us less when times are tough and we find it hard to pray or believe. For a prophet such as Zephaniah, condemnation is the easy answer, the obvious way to end his homily. But he pulls the people back from the precipice. On God’s behalf he promises them a source of unexpected joy. Just when God seemed to have no choice but destruction, God presents more obvious choices: grace, compassion, benevolence and the promise of being eternally present among them. The God who is Israel's judge is also Israel's loving companion and partner in covenant, "the king in their midst."
In our culture, the end of the calendar year is a season of judgment. Students are working on final papers and will receive grades on final exams and the ending semester, and some of us will be calculating those grades. It is the time of year for performance reviews and evaluations of all sorts, some coupled with the hope of an increase in salary.
In these last weeks I myself have been the subject of judgment, as the Roman Catholic Bishop of Kansas City-St. Joseph is upset with the recent vote of the Convention of Episcopal Diocese of West Missouri, and with me in particular, for agreeing with the teaching of our Church’s General Convention that stem cell research is consistent with the moral teachings and practices of the Episcopal Church.
As a result, the Roman Catholic Bishop is reconsidering the covenant between the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception and Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral. At the very least, I was told by one of his priests that I am not welcome to preach at Immaculate Conception or to teach in joint gathering. I hasten to add that I have had no direct word from the Bishop.
Being the one judged rarely feels good and life-giving.
In this season of Advent, we judge ourselves using the prophets’ warnings. We find that most of our preparations for the coming of the Messiah are wanting in some form. And on particularly bad days, and at particularly painful moments, we are sure all this holiday rigmarole has little spiritual depth. And so we plaster smiles on our faces while plunging into a spiritual funk, and we are sure that just in case there really is a Holy One out there drawing near, the Lord will probably be so disappointed that rather than dwell with us, God will keep on moving, looking for a new neighborhood in which to pitch a tent and dwell with us.
And then, joy breaks in. Unexpected, unanticipated, and certainly undeserved. God, as promised, comes to save us and gives us joy. The worst will not come to pass – and the worst is not the fire of hell. The worst is that God does not care about us.
The joy of Advent is that Jesus says, "Just try and drive me away. You will never succeed." Thus, our joy as the people of God is based on the reality that the worst, what we fear most, will never take place. And, just when we thought we knew what to expect, chastisement and judgment for God, we are lavished with the unexpected richness of life-giving grace which bursts forth and drenches us in love and light which no darkness will ever overcome.
Mercy and truth meet, righteousness and peace kiss each other. And what had moments before been chaos and fear, all comes together, and is transformed, and God pronounces it is very good.
As Emmanuel draws near, in this final week of Advent, consider the interviewers' question: What brings you joy? A saying from the Jerusalem Talmud says, "God's Holy Spirit infuses only hearts that are joyous." Search your heart, and throw off those ways that rob you of joy. Deny yourself such a joyful life no longer. Hear God’s judgment: You deserve joy. So do all of God’s people. So does the Church. So do the people of Kansas City’s two cathedrals.
Give Thanks, Whatever Happens
by the Rev. Dr. Michael Johnston
Back in the old days of an unreformed liturgy –- when Advent was observed like a little Lent--the third Sabbath of the Christian year was called “Rose Sunday”--Gaudete, if you know the Latin, which means Rejoice.
The rubrics for Rose Sunday allowed that you could relax somewhat the austerity of an otherwise dour, pre-Christmas season. So on that one day, the purple of penitence was exchanged for a less solemn color.
The parish I attended as an undergraduate actually had a full set of rose vestments –- chasubles, dalmatics, three copes, frontal and pulpit hangings, and countless stoles for both priests and deacons. They only used all this stuff once a year; there was a different set of outfits for the corresponding Mid-Lent Sunday. Which tells you that there are even some churches that have more money than sense. Our newer theologies attempt to clarify that Advent is not Lent. And the only liturgical remnant of the old observance is this single rose candle in the Advent Wreath lighted tonight.
You will also note that the lessons appointed for this day set a somewhat lighter tone than others of the Advent season. Consider, for example, the prophet Zephaniah. Most of his book is a real "downer." My friend Grant Gallup suspects he had ulcers. And Grant is not alone. Most scholars think that this third chapter, from which we read tonight, isn't really Zephaniah's work at all, but was added later by an editor who wanted to give some cheery balance to an otherwise burdensome message. It is so different from the rest of the book, with its singing and rejoicing and its fortunes restored! It proclaims the message that your sentence has been repealed. That God is in our midst and downright happy to be here. In fact, The translators of the Jerusalem Bible present this text as a divine song-and-dance routine: "He will exult with joy over you, he will renew you by his love; he will dance with shouts of joy for you as on a day of festival." Run your imagination over that idea for a minute: Judgment has gone on vacation and God is doing a little tap dance around Kansas City, a little soft-shoe number to entertain us. It's wonderful to think of God dancing, so glad is our God that oppression will be ended. Gaudete.
That noted, let me nonetheless set you a discipline: sit down and read through all of the lessons appointed for the Sundays in Advent. They’re on the cathedral’s website; just click on “Links” and then open the “Lectionary Page.” And when you do, you will find a set of texts that are overflowing with urgent advice –- more than you desire or deserve:
Now when these things begin to take place,
STAND UP AND RAISE YOUR
HEADS,
because your redemption is drawing near (Lk. 21ff).
Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his path straight (Lk
3:1ff).
And the crowds asked him. “What then should we do?”
In reply he said to them,
“Whoever has two coasts must share with anyone who has none;
and whoever has food must do likewise.”
Even tax collectors came...and asked,
”Teacher, what should we
do?”
He said to them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed,
...be satisfied with your
wages,
and don’t extort the masses” (Lk 3:7ff).
That’s John the Baptist running eschatology to ethics.
Stay awake. Be on guard that your hearts
and not weighed down with
dissipation and drunkenness
and the worries of this life,
[so] that [the day of the Lord]
does not catch you unexpectedly, like a trap.
Bear fruit worthy of repentance.
Among the New Testament writers, there is no one more prone to offering advice than Paul. It is everywhere in his letters to young churches. “Admonish the careless,” he counsels in First Thessalonians--aimed at curbing the energies of the busybodies and the rumor mongers of a church in the midst of conflict. “Bad company ruins good morals,” he says in First Corinthians. In Colossians and Ephesians –- both letters, I must admit, disputed by scholars as authentically Pauline material –- we get the politically incorrect, “Wives, be subject to your husbands” (Colossians) and the passage disdained by modern teenagers, “...e in e and the passage in Ephesians disdained by modern teenagers, “...children, obey your parents” (Ephesians). And in Romans, we are all told, “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.”
Paul is the “Dear Abby” of his age, the Advice Columnist of Antiquity, with counsel on almost every conceivable subject. But in today’s letter to the Church at Philippi, Paul offers only a single instruction: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I say, rejoice.” Gaudete, if you know the Latin.
Philippians is the most cordial and affectionate letter we have from Paul. The assembly at Philippi in Macedonia was the first congregation he founded on European soil. His relations with them in all the years afterwards seem to have been extraordinarily close and happy. Except that he writes to them from prison, either in Rome or in Caesarea--we can’t be sure. But in either location, he is probably nearing the end of his apostolic journey, awaiting trial and eventual execution. In the opening of the letter, he writes:
I know what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole praetorian guard, and to all the rest, that my imprisonment is for Christ; and most of the brethren have been made confident in the Lord because of my imprisonment, and are much more bold to speak the word of God without fear. So rejoice.
In other words, “Give thanks, whatever happens.”
It is not so much an instruction as it is a discipline, a discipline for the inner life, a centerpiece of spirituality. “Give thanks, whatever happens.” It is also an Advent spirituality abundantly evident in the texts of the season although seldom acknowledged.
We encounter it in this evening’s voice of John the Baptist: “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming. I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with wind and fire.” And almost immediately, John loses his turf and two of his disciples to the one Luke calls his cousin. He probably had every right to be jealous and territorial, but he puts his energy into joyful proclamation about what is happening in his life and ours.
We will hear it next week in the voice of Mary as she sings the Magnificat: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior...,” words uttered just when she learns that her childhood is being snatched-away by an unasked-for teenage pregnancy.
And we hear it in the fidelity of Joseph who -- by all legal rights -- could have called-off the nuptials...because a pregnant teenager was not a wife, but damaged goods received in what was essentially a property transaction.
In the newer theologies of Advent, we are told that this is the season for waiting and watching and hoping. In Central America, the season is marked by the prophecies of esperanza. In Spanish, esperamos mean to wait. Esperamos means to hope. We wait and we watch and we hope for things to come. Advent is the season when we as a people say to God, “Okay, God’ it’s your move. We are waiting and watching and hoping.” But it occurs to me that giving thanks, whatever happens, is a better Advent discipline than watching and waiting because watching and waiting and only hoping carries the danger of losing sight, for a season, of the abiding reality of the Christ in all the pieces of the now of our lives.
Most of us move through life shielding ourselves from the present -- or trying to get past it -- slouching towards Bethlehem and expecting to encounter the Incarnate Word only when we get there. The kingdom of God is always further down the road; out there ahead of us; just out of reach; postponed until a more opportune time.
Think of the phrases that riddle our daily conversations: “When the kids are grown...” “When school’s out...” “If I can just make it to the weekend...” “As soon as we close this deal...” “Once the holidays are over...”
We are called, of course, to be critical of circumstances, and in the spirit of the prophets, to live and work and hope for a better tomorrow.
But when our vision is fixed only on the manger, we can easily lose sight of the Lord who is standing alongside the road that leads even to the creche. Give thanks for whatever happens on the way.
I confess I’m not as quick to bless the present as I ought to be. But I can turn and return to Paul’s instruction as a touchstone of spirituality. It reminds me that I serve a God whose gifts are not always to my taste or even to my liking. It reminds me to give thanks for the good things I too quickly count as my own accomplishments but really belong to others. It reminds me to give thanks for the loose ends that don’t get tied up. It reminds me to give thanks for the things that don’t go the way I would have planned. It reminds me even to give thanks for the losses and the defeats that seem as harsh as death itself.
It is a discipline, to be sure. It doesn’t come naturally to me; probably not to you either. But it’s better than watching and waiting. Better by far. And if we practice the discipline enough, perhaps, in the end, in that apocalyptic moment of whatever happening, we might be just as thankful as we are surprised.
So in these next seven days, as you move along the road toward your own particular Bethlehem, don’t keep your eyes downcast. Look up and see the One standing at the edge of the road. He indeed points toward that Glorious Esperanza; but He also travels with you along the way. Give thanks for whatever happens on the trip.
