November 27, 2016

Helen Jacobi

First Sunday of Advent     Isaiah 2:1-5     Psalm 122     Romans 13:11-14     Matthew 24:36-44

Video available on YouTube, Facebook

Wake up deeper. We all know about sleeping deeply, how good it feels to have slept deeply – but what about waking up deeply. Waking up deeper. I heard the phrase “waking up deeper” in a podcast [1] I listened to last week when I was on retreat and I thought what a great description of Advent that is.

Advent is our church season, which calls us away from the Christmas hubbub in order to focus our hearts and minds on the coming of the Christ child. Many of the Advent readings and hymns have the theme of staying awake and alert.

What are we keeping awake for? And why do we need to be more deeply awake? The earliest Christians thought they needed to keep awake literally in case Jesus returned. We would interpret those passages today to mean we need to be watchful, alert, awake to the signs of Christ’s presence amongst us.

We simply need eyes to see. Mr Brian Tamaki sees earthquakes and sees sin. We see earthquakes and we see people rushing to rescue, to feed, to offer comfort. We see truck drivers working through the night to get supplies through. We see the Navy leaving their birthday party to ferry people to safety. We see volunteers picking paua up off the rocks and putting them back in the water.

Isaiah the prophet (writing 740-700 BC) is working at a time when Jerusalem is coming under siege from all sides (northern kingdom, Assyria, Damascus) and we are told “this is the word that Isaiah saw concerning Judah (southern kingdom) and Jerusalem. (2:1). Isaiah didn’t write, or say some words; he saw them – he cast a vision. He saw nations gathering in peace on the holy mountain of Jerusalem. And there swords will be made into ploughs which plough the fields; spears will prune the vines. Weapons of war will become tools of peace time. Isaiah saw that it could be possible. Isaiah was deeply awake. The people were less awake.

They could not see the possibilities for peace. And eventually Jerusalem would fall and Isaiah’s vision would become a far away longed for future – way out of reach.

Jesus in this chapter of Matthew is answering the disciples’ question: “what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” (24:3) When will everything finally be put to right?

When will the visions of the prophets come to pass? When will we see what Isaiah saw?

Jesus says “about that day and hour no one knows” – don’t try and predict it in the future.

Instead be ready now, be ready always. Wake up deeper.

The Advent themes of hope, peace, joy and love call us to be awake and notice.

What signs of hope do we see, right in front of us today. (Ian training a dog to be a mobility companion dog; our newborn baby Annabelle; 5 couples married here this weekend; members of our community facing health challenges with courage;)

Cate said this week – if we can’t recognise these signs of hope which are right in front of us how will we recognise Christ when he is born at Christmas? Advent gets us ready to see Christ, face to face.

We are going to be waking up deeper and sharing what we see on social media this year.

If you are on Facebook or twitter you can share a thought or a photo for our #ActofAdvent campaign. So this week we are looking #ActofHope. Join in with us so that we can wake up deeper together.

In the last couple of weeks I have also been looking back and reflecting on signs of hope in my life and work as I am going to be marking 25 years of ordination on Wednesday, St Andrew’s Day.

I was 28 years old and 6 months pregnant the day I was ordained deacon in Wellington Cathedral by the late Archbishop Brian Davis. The thing I remember most about the service was worrying whether I would faint when I knelt before the bishop, as I had discovered that being pregnant, if I knelt to pray, for some reason I would faint. I didn’t faint that day.

There was a bit of tut tutting in those days – ordaining someone who was pregnant! Would the baby be ordained too? Hannah enjoys telling people she is really a deacon.

25 years of ordained service means 1300 Sundays! (not that I have taken services every single Sunday of course). I have a book where I record all my weddings, baptisms and funerals – I brought it up to date this week and there are 115 baptisms, 56 weddings, and 97 funerals.

I feel grateful for the people who have offered me the privilege of sharing their lives in their happiest and saddest moments, and lots of moments in between.

28 was pretty young to be ordained – what was the good bishop thinking! And people straight away treated me differently, listened seriously to what I said. That was the scary part.

In the ordination service the bishop prays that the candidate will be empowered by the God of grace. I am grateful for that grace, which is “gentle as a dove” and “living, burning as fire” [2] all at the same time. Seven people in our diocese had that prayer prayed over them yesterday.

The way forward for the church and for God’s mission in the world is less clear than it was 25 years ago. It amazes me really that people still attend worship, still want to belong to a church community, when the church as an institution so often fails us. Yet I guess the reason you still attend and the reason I still show up on a Sunday is because we seek together something beyond ourselves, we are seeking something bigger. We seek the presence of the Spirit in our midst and to follow the paths of the one we call Christ. Joy and sorrow happen. Grace happens. Hope happens.

In commenting on today’s gospel, Nadia Bolz Weber says we should be welcoming “the thief who comes in the night” because the thief is the Christ who comes to take away all the baggage we don’t need, and all our certainties. I am sure people in Kaikoura and Wellington will tell us that to be suddenly without one’s possessions and security in a post earthquake world is a very horrible place to be. They will also tell us that they are discovering support and resilience they never knew they had. Nadia says “we should start making Advent lists – they’d be like Christmas lists, but instead of listing things we want Santa to bring us, we would write down things we want Christ to break in and take from us. In the hopes he could pickpocket the stupid junk in our houses, or abscond with our self-loathing or resentment …maybe break in in the middle of the night and take off with our compulsive eating or our love of money.” [3]

So we turn up at church to be challenged by the words of scripture, to be nurtured by the community, to be strengthened by the sacraments, to be inspired by the music, to practice again the pattern of life lived out in the eucharist – offering, thanksgiving, breaking of bread, and sharing. Practicing again the pattern of worship – gathering, hearing, sharing peace, being fed, being sent out. We practice here in church so we can live these things in our world where we are called to wake up deeply.

25 years ago I promised this would be my life’s work. As we begin again the season of Advent, as we begin again the cycle of worship for the next year, be awake, watch for signs of hope, be acts of hope. If we do this we do not have to wait vainly for a future time when Christ will return. We find the Christ is here, ready to meet us, face to face.

[1] http://library.fora.tv/2008/03/09/Alexander_Shaia_Beyond_the_Biography_of_Jesus

[2] ANZPB p 897 (ordination service)

[3] Nadia Bolz – Weber Accidental Saints p 59