Yeasty Words

In the Midst of Despair: A Journey to Joy

Luke 1:26-55

A Sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Advent

We begin with the bad news… A teenage girl, somewhere in the neighborhood of thirteen or fourteen years of age, becomes pregnant.  At first, she does not show, but after a few months, the neighbors begin to talk.  Her mother and father, hope that they are not seeing what they think they are seeing.  And, her fiancé tries to come to grips with the fact that his promised bride may not be as innocent as he has always believed. 

Unexpected pregnancies are almost never good news – especially when the mother is a teenage girl and the father is unknown.  Matters are even worse in traditional cultures where virginity in young women is less of an expectation than a strictly enforced law.  Our society has grown oddly complacent about such matters.  We may think about the rising rate of teenage pregnancies as an unfortunate social trend, and we may bemoan the impact such pregnancies have on the lives of promising young women, but we generally tend to leave it at that.  Traditional cultures, by contrast, generally resort to much more extreme measures.  Women shown to have had sex outside of marriage may be publicly ostracized, driven from the community, forced into prostitution, or even killed.  The risks are high – very high!

We do damage to the story of Mary when we make it pretty and nice.  There was nothing pleasant or happy about the predicament in which she found herself after her conversation with the angel.  Her life changed abruptly.  Mary was no longer the sweet and innocent girl next door.  She had become a woman with a reputation.  And, it could not have helped when she claimed that the child she bore was miraculously conceived by the Holy Spirit.  The people in ancient Galilee were no more ready to believe such stories than people in our own time.  No, her pregnancy would have been irrefutable proof to them that she had engaged in extra-marital sexual intercourse with a man – most likely a man other than her fiancé.  The gossip among her friends and neighbors would have been harsh and unforgiving.  Mary, the daughter of Anna and Theodore, was an adulteress.

Luke writes very little about Mary’s experiences as an unwed, pregnant teenager.  He tells us nothing about the stares, the pointing fingers and the whispers.  He does not describe what happens when she breaks the news to her parents.  There are no angry accusations – no loud voices – no tears.  He writes nothing at all about the reaction of her fiancé, Joseph – not a word about the man’s decision to divorce her quietly in order to avoid disgrace.  The only thing Luke tells us is that she packs her bags and journeys to the home of her cousin, Elizabeth.  The rest is left to our imagination.  But, how much imagination do we need?  People have not changed that much in two thousand years.  Once word gets out about her condition, Mary’s life will have quickly become hell.  That may explain why she rushes from her home in Nazareth of Galilee to her cousin’s home in the hill country of Judea.  She may simply be trying to escape the shame.  Luke does not give us the details because he does not have to.  He expects his readers to understand the cruelty and the danger to which Mary exposes herself when she responds to the angel: “I am the Lord’s servant.  May it be to me as you have said.”

We have spent far too much time and energy exploring whether Mary is or is not a virgin.  Luke simply assumes that she is.  In more recent times, traditionalists who claim that Luke writes an accurate account of an authentic miraculous event do battle with revisionists who assert that Luke’s assumption of Mary’s virginity is founded on a mistranslation of Isaiah’s Immanuel prophecy.  People of faith disagree – sometimes heatedly.  Whatever may or may not have actually happened, Luke tells the story because he is constrained by the sacred stories of the early Christian community to which he belongs.  Mary’s virginity is a beloved tradition that speaks to many about Jesus’ uniqueness.  It is a symbolic way of saying that God is planning something extraordinary for this life that is coming into existence in Mary’s womb.  When the angel Gabriel tells Mary: “The Holy Spirit is coming upon you, and the power of the Most High is overshadowing you,” he is informing Luke’s readers that the baby to be born is the Child of God who will bring God’s salvation to all God’s people. 

But, what is the nature of the salvation this child brings?  This, I suggest, is the most important question that needs to be answered. By comparison, the question of Mary’s virginity pales in significance.  Unfortunately, our obsession with arguing about whether she did or did not have sex keeps us from addressing this other more crucial issue.  Luke does not tell us that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit so that we might ooh and aah at the miracle.  He does not raise the issue of Mary’s virginity so that we might debate its scientific plausibility.  Luke tells us the story of Mary’s conversation with the angel Gabriel because he expects us to understand that however beautiful the concept of virgin birth might be in theory… in reality, virgin mothers are indistinguishable from adulteresses.  The last nail has been hammered into the coffin of her social respectability.  This event propels her beyond the outer margins of community life and turns her into a complete social outcast. 

Jesus will be born to a Jewish mother in the midst of an empire that paints Jews as backward savages.  He will be born to a Palestinian mother while Palestine is under military occupation by imperial troops.  He will be born to a Galilean mother in a world where Galileans are stereotyped as ignorant bumpkins.  He will be born to a poor mother in an era when poverty is interpreted as divine punishment.  He will be born to a teenage mother at a time when young people are expected to be seen rather than heard.  He will be born to an unmarried mother in a culture where women have no social standing apart from their husbands.  He will be born to a mother who looks very much like an adulteress in a world where adulteresses are ostracized and sometimes even killed.  How much closer to the bottom of the social heap can Jesus go?  We will only know the answer to that question on Good Friday when he dies the death of a violent criminal on a Roman cross. 

My friends, we have to move beyond our portrayals of the Christmas story as something sweet and nice.  The Christmas story is set into a context that is ugly, abusive and violent.  But, thank God that it is.  The salvation that Mary’s child brings is more than an interesting theological concept.  The birth of Mary’s child is an event that makes a difference because it offers hope to those who have no hope in the world.  When Mary says to the angel: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word,” she does so knowing the danger it will bring to her child and to herself.  Her words are words of courage.  Her decision is an act of faith carried out in the strong conviction that God is indeed at work in the world to save the poor, the oppressed and the outcast.  Even more, she understands that salvation never comes in the form of a benevolent acts performed by those who hold wealth and power.  Salvation never makes itself known in the palaces of emperors and kings, in the field tents of generals, in the justice halls of judges, in the markets of the wealthy, or in the temples of priests.  God’s salvation always grows out of the hopes and dreams of communities that know they need to be saved.   

How could it be otherwise?    Only at the edges – among the outcasts – is it even remotely possible to build an economy based on abundance and generosity rather than selfishness and greed.  Only at the edges – among the outcasts – is it even remotely possible to establish neighborhoods where people treat each other with genuine compassion and honest hope.  Only at the edges – among the outcasts – is it even remotely possible to create an authentic peace that does not need to be enforced by threat of violence.  Only at the edges – among the outcasts – is it even remotely possible to dance with joy in the face of overwhelming challenges and dangers.  Salvation does not operate as a trickle-down economy.  Quite the contrary!  When the work of salvation starts among the elite, it almost always excludes those judged most undesirable.  When, by contrast, it begins with the lowest of the low, it has potential to expand into virtually every level of society.  If the mother of the Savior is a poor, unmarried teenager from the remotest corner of the empire, then anyone at all can be saved.  Salvation trickles up, not down.  The good news comes from the bottom, not the top.

That is why Elizabeth, the aged wife of an obscure country priest, and Joseph, the landless craftsman from Bethlehem, and the shepherds from the fields recognize the good news when they see it.  All of these people know what Mary knows… that God looks with favor on the lowliness – not the greatness – of God’s servants.  Thus, it is the proud who are scattered in the thoughts of their hearts.  It is the powerful who are toppled from their thrones.  And, it is the rich who are sent empty away.  But, the lowly are lifted up and the hungry are filled with good things.  For the people on the margins of society – the poor, the homeless, the emigrant, the prisoner, the unwed mother – this is very good news indeed.  It is reason to leap for joy.  It is reason to dance with the abandon of utter happiness. 

Of course, it is also counterintuitive.  Two millennia after the birth of Mary’s child, the world looks very much like it did.  There have, of course, been obvious changes in technology, culture, religion, economics, and politics.  But there have been relatively few significant changes in the disparity between rich and poor, powerful and powerless, oppressor and oppressed.  People still starve; they still die violent deaths; they still rot away in prisons; they still struggle to provide for their families; and they still suffer the stigmas of social rejection and ridicule.  The promise of the gospel remains just that – a promise and not a fact. 

This, then, is where faith enters the picture.  To have faith is not merely to believe.  It is to imitate Mary in saying: “I am the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”  It is to act in spite of the appearance of reality, with all of its evil, pain, heartbreak, and frustration.  It is to act as though the promises of God really are coming true in our lives and in the life of the community in which we dwell.  Can we make a choice to live in spite of death, to be just in spite of injustice, to work for peace in spite of war, and to rejoice in spite of despair?  Can we join Mary in affirming that the good news is worth all that we are and all that we have?  If we do, then we will realize what the true power of Christmas is.  It is not the power to save American businesses from bankruptcy, but the power to lift up the lowly and fill the hungry with good things.  It is the power to heal the sick, to cast out demonic powers, to tear down the walls of prejudice, and to love our neighbor as we have never loved before.  Salvation comes as one person after another believes enough to live as though salvation were real.  It is in the living that it will become real. 

Friends, this morning as we join here in worship, the genocide continues in Darfur, the president of the United States seeks power to expand the war in Iraq, the separation wall between Israel and Palestine grows taller and longer, the homeless are shuffled from place to place, the prisons are full beyond capacity, and the AIDS pandemic exacts an ever higher toll on of families and communities around the world.  Our task, on the eve of Christmas 2006, is not to solve all the earth’s problems.  It is to do what we can with the resources we have been given.  It is to look at the world with new eyes so that we can see and affirm those instances where God’s kin-dom is coming into existence.  And it is to announce to the world that we will live in the “as-though-ness” of faith – that we will chart our lives and make our decisions as though God is real, as though the Messiah has been born, as though salvation has come, and as though there really is a reason for joy.  We will rejoice in justice so that we can work for justice.  We will rejoice in truth so that we might speak the truth.  We will rejoice in peace so that we might live peacefully.  And, we will rejoice in knowing that the salvation of God is real.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

The Rev. Frank D. Wulf

United University Church

Los Angeles,California

December 24, 2006

© United University Church

Knowing What to Do: The Journey of Faithfulness

Luke 3:7-18

A Sermon for the Third Sunday of Advent

It comes as some surprise that the gospel reading for the third week of Advent – the week of joy – begins with a verbal attack by John the Baptist against the crowds that have come to be baptized by him.  “You brood of vipers!” he screams.  “Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” 

It is not a very good way to begin a sermon.  Most preachers are trained to use the initial moments of the preaching event to win their congregations over.  That is why they typically begin with silly jokes, nice stories, or pithy aphorisms.  The last thing any preacher wants to do is to alienate the audience sitting in the pews.  They almost never resort to insults and name-calling.  They understand that portraying the congregation as a “brood of vipers” is bad form; it generally leads to dissatisfaction, resentment and hurt feelings.  John would have done better, therefore, to follow the theme laid out for the third week of Advent; a good sermon on joy would have had the crowds eating out of his hands.  But then, he probably did not have an Advent calendar to work from.  So, he went from his gut and chose wrath instead.

“You brood of vipers…” the words are harsh and unforgiving.  They evoke images of pits writhing with the undulating bodies of poisonous snakes.  Such images fill most people with innate dread.  We instinctively recoil with horror.  Though snakes serve an essential function in maintaining the balance of nature, they inspire revulsion and fear.  And what is true of snakes in general is especially true for venomous vipers.  That is why asps, cobras, rattlesnakes, water moccasins, adders, and the like enter our imaginations as terrifying representations of evil.  The viper is even one of the most popular forms used for mythological portrayals of the devil. 

We are shocked, therefore, when John calls his hearers a “brood of vipers.”  We intuitively make a metaphorical connection between vipers and evil.  And so, it sounds to us as if he is telling the ordinary people who come to him for baptism that they are the spawn of Satan – that they have passed so completely into the realm of the demonic that there is little hope of their ever being redeemed.  “Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”  On its surface, the question seems laden with spitefulness.  And that is how it has traditionally been read.  The vast majority of sermons preached on this passage of scripture assume that the people listening to John are hypocrites who use outward forms of piety to disguise the wickedness that festers at the core of their beings.  John seems to be telling them that flight from God’s wrath is futile.  They are so rotten at heart that there is nothing they can do escape the judgment that is relentlessly coming upon them. 

I suspect that a great many of us squirm in our seats when we listen to John’s words.  We should!  These words are not just aimed at first century Palestinian sinners.  Through the good auspices of the gospel writer who has recorded them for posterity, they are also aimed at us. Luke wants us to know that we are the vipers’ brood.  We are the ones seeking sanctuary from the wrath to come.  We are the ones at whom John’s finger accusingly points.  So, how do we feel knowing that our cover has been blown?  How do we react to the public accusation that we use religion and spirituality to mask the truly evil intent of our hearts?   What is it like to be called the spawn of Satan?  If you are like me, you probably react with shock and indignation.  The malevolence and wickedness we imaginatively attribute to broods of vipers does not fit with what we know of ourselves.  We have our faults, but those faults hardly rise to the level of being satanic.  We are, for the most part, good people trying as best we can to make our through a perilous world. So, how dare John – how dare anyone – refer to us as a brood of vipers? 

Our indignation may prove to be the clue that helps us unlock what John is actually saying, so I invite us to hold onto it for a little while longer.  Those who gathered by the river to receive John’s baptism were, for the most part, common folk from the farms and villages of rural Judea.  There may have been a few Pharisees, a few wealthy landowners, some Roman officials, and a priest or two who wanted to know what all the fuss was about, but most of the crowd consisted of impoverished peasants wanting reassurance that God had not forgotten them.  Had they interpreted John’s words as most people do in modern western Christianity, they would most likely have quickly returned to their farms filled with both outrage and disappointment.  Any prophet who began by denouncing the poor and the oppressed for being the cause of their own problems could hardly have been of much use to them.  The fact that they stayed to listen rather than stomping indignantly away – that they remained to ask questions rather than closing their ears in disgust suggests that they heard John’s words very differently than we do.  Their lack of indignation may indicate that the offensiveness we encounter in John’s words is actually something we read into them.   So, what else might John be saying when he calls the crowd a brood of vipers?

Those who live in urban areas have few opportunities to observe snakes in the wild.  What we know of snakes, we learn from watching movies and television shows, reading books, hearing stories, or visiting the zoo.  We occasionally hear about the giant python that escapes from its cage and kills a tiny baby in her crib.  Or, we read about the hiker who accidentally steps on a rattlesnake and receives a near-fatal bite.  Or we watch a movie like Snakes on a Plane in which poisonous reptiles escape from the cargo hold to terrorize passengers in the main cabin.  None of these sources gives us an accurate picture of how snakes behave in their natural habitats.  What the rural peasants of ancient Judea would have understood that we do not is that snakes are more afraid of people than people are of them.  Given half a chance, snakes flee.  They only attack humans when they are cornered or startled.  Country-dwellers know, therefore, to make noise as they pass through snake-infested areas.  They know to step loudly on top of a log rather than stepping blindly over it.  They know that, given ample warning, a nesting brood of vipers will slither quickly away in every direction rather than face the dangers posed by an encounter with humans. 

John, then, may not have been calling his hearers names.  He may not have been accusing them of being particularly evil.  He may simply have been telling them that they were like startled snakes slithering every which way through the grass.  That, after all, was exactly what these people were doing.  The Roman occupation had become so heinous that the peasants were desperate to find a way out.  They chased after every self-proclaimed messiah who preached a sermon, hoping that each one would be the one who would finally set them free.  Every new act of brutality, every new tax levied on land or goods, every new affront against traditional values and customs enflamed their passions and sent them scurrying into the wilderness looking for the next potential savior.  Oh yes!  They believed in the wrath of God.  They hoped for the day when it would be poured out on their enemies.  But, they wanted to ensure their own safety when that day came.  So, they fled to the wilderness because the wilderness was the direction from which God’s avenging armies would come.  They preferred rallying to the side of God’s Messiah and taking part in the destruction of God’s enemies over remaining behind and taking the chance of becoming collateral damage when the day of wrath came.  Who warned them to flee from the wrath to come?  Who else but the occupying armies of Rome , whose atrocities sent them hurrying – like startled snakes – after each new prophet or Messiah who came along.

John’s response to these people is surprising – maybe even shocking.  He tells them to bear fruits worthy of repentance.  Their Jewish heritage will not help them.  It does not matter whether they can trace their genealogical line to Abraham and Sarah or not.  Presumably, it does not even matter whether they believe the right things and worship in the right ways.  What does matter is how they live.  Do they live in a way that demonstrates the validity of their commitment to God?    Is their repentance a matter of words alone, or are they willing to live their lives as though the kin-dom of God were real?  If they have two coats, will they share one with the child of God who has nothing?  If they have food to eat, will they share what they have with those who are hungry?  For John, the true test of faithfulness is not a person’s willingness to flee into the desert in search of a savior.  The true test of faithfulness is a person’s commitment to live generously, trusting God to provide abundantly. 

Though tax-collectors and soldiers were among the most hated individuals in Judea, though their jobs forced them to collaborate with the enemy and to engage in activities that made them ritually unclean, John did not advise them to change occupations.  What he asked them to do instead was to change the way they did their jobs.  He advised them not to use their power for purposes of extortion – not to make threats or false accusations – not to grow wealthy by taking more from people than what they owed.  They should, he told them, be content with their wages.  This meant making a conscious choice not to be wealthy.  It meant abandoning their dreams of upward mobility so that they could live faithfully in community with the neighbors whom God had given them. 

For John, faithfulness was never merely a matter of belief.  It was not about ancestry, culture, or even religion.  It was not about pious pilgrimages to the wilderness in search of a messiah.  It was not about words, rituals or holy books.  Faithfulness was about living in a way that created community rather than destroying it.  It was about making sure that everyone had enough.  It was about trusting God sufficiently to do the right thing, no matter how much it cost.  To be faithful was to do the opposite of what the startled brood of vipers did.  Rather than slithering away as fast as possible from the wrath to come, the faithful stood firm, lived generously, did what was right, and trusted God. 

We have seen such faith in martyrs like St. Stephen, St. Lucy, William Tyndale, Martin Luther King and Oscar Romero.  We have seen it reformers like Francis of Assisi, Martin Luther, John Wesley, Cady Stanton, Dorothy Day, and Desmond Tutu.  We have seen it in those who protest injustice and work for peace – in the Berrigan  brothers, Rachel Corrie, Cindy Sheehan, Ehren Watada, and Jimmy Carter.  We see it in the women and men of this congregation who work everyday to make differences both big and small in our society and in our world. 

Though John pointed beyond himself to the one whose sandal he was not worthy to untie, he had a profound understanding of the nature of the gospel.  The kin-dom of God proclaimed by John was the same kin-dom that would later be proclaimed by Jesus.  It was a kin-dom in which faithfulness to God was measured in generosity and justice, in compassion and love.  It is the same kin-dom we seek today.  So, let us no longer be a brood of vipers fleeing from the wrath to come. Let us do more than anticipate the arrival of a savior.  Let us live faithfully in the conviction that God is already in our midst, the Messiah is already here, and the Spirit is already leading us forward.  This Advent, let us not just wait in anticipation for the coming of Christmas, but let us go into the new year with joy, living our lives in the pursuit of justice, the making of peace, and the building of faithful community.  Amen.

The Rev. Frank D. Wulf

United University Church

Los Angeles, California

December 24, 2006

© United University Church

Apocalypse: The Journey to Hope!

Luke 21:25-36

A Sermon for the First Sunday of Advent

      Today, we light the first candle of the Advent wreath.  It is the candle of hope.  What more appropriate candle could there be for those of us living in the early twenty-first century?  We live during a tumultuous era when the earth seems to be perpetually rocked by both human catastrophes and natural disasters.  Hardly a day goes by we when do not hear about an act of terror, a devastating earthquake, a pandemic disease, a brutal war, a killer storm, an act of genocide, or a deadly famine.  Our world needs hope.  We need a reason to step back from the gloom that threatens to overwhelm us.  We need to know that there is more to life than the fear that gnaws at our guts when we ponder the uncertainties of our future.  We need to believe that the arc of the universe really does bend toward compassion and justice and that our efforts to help it along are worthwhile.  Without hope, we all too easily fall either into the inactivity of despair or the mindlessness of rage.  What other options present themselves when the future appears to be far bleaker than the present? Hope – however minimal – is the one essential quality that enables us to see possibilities for life even in the midst of tragedy.

      The state of hopelessness in which much of humanity lives is nothing new.  Throughout history, people have always had to confront circumstances and events that threatened their existence and well-being.  It should come as no surprise, therefore, that the world described by Jesus in his sermon of Luke 21 resonates with our experience of life in the twenty-first century:

Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven. (v. 10)

Each generation has to confront its own tragedies and travesties.  The particulars change, but the human experience of violence and vulnerability does not.  The terror inspired by war, famine, epidemic disease, natural disaster, and death transcends the times and seasons of human history.

      What do we do then with the efforts by some to interpret Jesus’ words as being “incontrovertibly” aimed at our precise moment in time?  What do we do with the glut of television shows, movies, web-sites, study guides, sermons, and novels claiming to demonstrate that this current generation will be the last – that we will be the ones to see the return of Christ and witness the horror of God’s judgment on a sinful world?  I believe that we should begin by recognizing that the Left Behind novels are only the most recent manifestation of a phenomenon that has troubled the Christian community since its beginnings.  From the time of the apostle Paul onward, there has been an endless stream of groups and individuals who believed and taught that their era uniquely fulfilled the biblical preconditions for the end of time.  As should be abundantly clear, they have all been wrong; and the current batch of doom-sayers may well prove to be wrong too. 

       But then, these frightening passages in the gospels and elsewhere were never intended to provide a blueprint for the end of the age.  Interpreters from the apostle Paul to Martin Luther, from St. Augustine to Tim LaHaye have misunderstood what these passages actually are.  They are not futuristic literature about a moment in history when angelic armies under the leadership of God’s messiah mass an all-out assault against the satanic forces of evil that control this world.   These passages belong to a literature of resistance composed for the purpose of bringing hope to people trapped in seemingly hopeless circumstances.  They are stories written for the poor – speeches delivered to the oppressed – images created for the persecuted so that they will not lose heart or succumb to fear but live their lives in faithfulness to God. 

      The technical word we use to describe this literature is ‘apocalypse.’  It is a word that evokes feelings of mystery and dread.  We associate it with images of surreal landscapes, mythical beasts, angelic armies, cosmic catastrophes, and devastating violence.  But, the Greek word ‘α̉ποκάλυψις’ from which the English word ‘apocalypse’ is derived, simply means revelation.  Something previously hidden from sight is now being brought to light.  What that something is is the question that must be answered – at least by those of us for whom the biblical testimony holds significance and value.  Are we really being given a coded message about the horrifying events that signal the world’s end?  Or, are we being given information about the present that can help us better understand the world in which we already live?  While I suspect that no answer we give will satisfy everyone, I believe there may be value in stepping back from the futuristic interpretations of apocalyptic passages that dominate our time in order to explore what these passages might be saying about the life we live in the day-to-day world of ordinary experience. 

      The story is told of a teacher who worked in a hospital helping sick children keep up with their studies.  One day, the teacher walked into the room of a little boy he had been assigned to help.  Since he had not asked anything about the boy’s condition, the teacher was not prepared for what he saw when he entered the room.  The child had survived a horrible fire that burned nearly eighty percent of his body.  He was wrapped from head to toe in gauze, IV tubes ran every which way, machines maintained perpetual vigilance over his vital signs, and he was clearly in a great deal of pain.  Startled and not knowing what to do, the teacher quickly introduced himself, told the boy that he had been assigned to help him with spelling and fractions, placed a pile of homework on the bedside table, and left.  The next day, when he returned to the boy’s room, the teacher was stopped by a couple of nurses.  “What did you do?” they asked.  “I didn’t do anything,” he stammered.  “I just brought him his homework.”  “Whatever you did,” came the reply, “it’s made all the difference in the world.  Yesterday, he’d given up.  Today, he’s decided to fight for his life.”  Several weeks later, the boy himself explained: “I didn’t think they’d give me homework if I was dying.  So I figured I had to be getting better.”  What made all the difference for the little boy was hope.  Once he believed that he had real chance for surviving, he found the inner strength he needed to participate in his own healing. 

      The homework in this story functioned for the little boy in much the same way that apocalyptic literature functioned for the people to whom Jesus preached.  It pulled him out of his despair and gave him a reason to do what needed to be done if he was going to survive.  The people of ancient Judea, living under the brutality of Roman imperial violence, needed to understand that something greater than Rome controlled their destiny.  They needed to believe that faithfulness to God was worthwhile, even while Roman troops were garrisoned in their villages, while Roman tax-collectors made it impossible for them to support their families, and while Roman arrogance flaunted their most deeply held customs and beliefs.  In short, they needed reassurance that God – not Caesar – really was in control of their destinies.  They needed hope to live faithfully in a world filled with the uncertainties of violence and poverty.

      Our circumstances as twenty-first century American Christians are somewhat different.  In spite of the fact that the war in Iraq has just surpassed World War II in length, war is not a part of everyday life for most American citizens.  Few of us are poor in any real sense of the term.  We have not undergone torture.  We have not suffered the indignity of unannounced security searches.  Our loved ones do not mysteriously disappear in the night. Armed soldiers do not patrol our streets.  Our social structure is not collapsing under the pressure of epidemic disease or famine. And, the crosses that adorn our church buildings are not tools for the public humiliation and execution of dissidents.  War, plague, famine, and persecution are not part of the everyday experience of most North American Christians.  Granted, a case can be made that those of us living in Southern California have some experience with earthquakes.  Yet, not even the Northridge Quake of 1994 caused as much death, damage and disruption as it certainly would have in other times and places with fewer resources and less technological sophistication. 

      My point is this: The perspective we bring to the reading of apocalyptic passages is very different from that of the people who first encountered them.  When they heard Jesus predict that the end of time would be marked by wars, earthquakes, famines, plagues, and portents in the heavens, they did not have to wonder about when these things were going to happen; they were already happening.  These horrifying occurrences were already part of their everyday lives.  If they were signs of the end, then the end was already in process, the Human One was already breaking into their reality, the kin-dom of God was already at hand.  This was anything but a fearful message for those living on the underside of history.  Jesus was bringing them words of hope rather than fear.  The terror was not beginning; it was coming to an end.  The evil system under which they and their ancestors had been suffering for centuries was not as permanent as it appeared.  It was crumbling in front of their very eyes.  Its armies could not save it.  Its wealth could not thwart its inevitable demise.  Its grandeur was already fading.  And, its emperor was already toppling from his throne.  That was the real meaning of the terrors afflicting their world.  The wars, famines, plagues, and portents were not signs of imperial power; they were evidence that the empire was in its death throes.  Their challenge was to maintain hope in the midst of uncertain times when the world seemed to be collapsing around them.

      The challenge for those who seek to follow God in our day is to maintain hope in the midst of our relative comfort and ease.  This cannot be hope in the passive sense of waiting for someone else to do something, but hope in the active sense of making preparations for an anticipated future.  Jesus calls us to hope in the same way that a child hopes when she sets out cookies and milk for Santa Claus on Christmas Eve.  Such hope gives birth to expectation, and expectation inspires preparation.  In the end, Santa Claus gets his snack because hope facilitates action.  With this kind of hope there is no time to waste time – no time for dissipation and drunkenness – no time for surrendering to the pre-Christmas “Days of Craze”– no time for wrestling with shoppers over the last X-Box in the store – no time for distracting ourselves with the mindlessness that too often passes for entertainment – no time for ignoring inconvenient truths about the impact of our lifestyles on the environment – no time for pretending that our own comfort and well-being is enough – no time for giving in to a status quo that is fractured by injustice and violence.   God is breaking into the world right now.  The kin-dom of God is at hand in this very moment.  And, we must decide whether we will open our eyes to see it – whether we will give ourselves to it, or whether we will remain blinded by the false truths and lies of an imperial system that is collapsing under its own weight. 

      In some ways, it is harder for us who live in twenty-first century America.  Unlike the world’s poor for whom the collapse of empire is cause for great rejoicing, we have too much invested not to be fearful.  The potential demise of social, economic and political systems that bring us prosperity, permit us to live in relative comfort, put food on our tables, educate us, and distract us with toys and entertainment fills us with dread because we cannot imagine what life will be like when they are gone.  It would be far easier and safer to postpone the inauguration of God’s kin-dom to a distant future.  But, the kin-dom comes when the kin-dom comes.  It is not a matter of our convenience or comfort.  The wars, plagues, famines, earthquakes, and heavenly portents may not be happening in the streets of our neighborhoods and cities, but they are happening.  We hear about them all the time.  The fig tree is sprouting its leaves.  Summer is here.  The Human One is at hand. 

      Friends, let us not look fearfully for Jesus to return at some future time with angelic armies.  Let us not wait for some apocalyptic moment when the powers of evil will be decisively overcome and God’s kin-dom established once and for all. Instead, let us look hopefully and work expectantly for the signs that Jesus is breaking into our world here and now.  Let us recognize that Jesus is already here – that the kin-dom of God is already becoming real in communities that are engaged in the imaginative work of justice and peace.  Jesus is here when the poor are fed, the homeless are housed, the outcasts are embraced, the aliens are welcomed, the sick are healed, the prisoners are released, and those trapped by demonic powers are set free.  Jesus is here when we tear down the walls of racism, sexism, heterosexism, classism, and all the other “-isms” that have controlled our lives under empire.  Jesus is here when we say no to the gods of war and refuse to sanction any form of violence.  Jesus is here when the meal is prepared, the table is set, the doors are thrown wide, and all God’s children are invited in.  Jesus is here when we choose to be neighbors rather than consumers, humans rather than pawns, and children of God rather than citizens of a collapsing world order. 

      We have sung the lyrics, “Jesus is coming, oh yes we know!”  But, in a far more real sense, Jesus is already here.  Can we see it?  Will we see it?  Will it make a difference in the way we celebrate Advent and Christmas?  Will it bring us hope?  Will we let it change our lives?  Amen.

The Rev. Frank D. Wulf

United University Church

Los Angeles, California

© United University Church, 2006