November 27, 2011 "Awakening Hope"

I Corinthians 1:1-25
Mark 13: 24-37
Do we really need reminder at the beginning of Advent, to “Keep Awake!”?
Three months ago, Labor Day happened, and we began the rush of Back to School programs/activities, followed by Halloween, and this last week driving 6-10 hours, so we could defrost the butter to bake the pie crusts and chop the celery and onions for stuffing, to put in the defrosted bird, during the Macy's Parade, all perfectly timed so everything came out of the oven just as Green Bay beat the Lions, in order that we could begin shopping before Black Friday.
We are a hyper-vigilant people, always waiting for the shoe to drop.
Keep awake?
If anything, we want the Church as alternative to culture, to pass out Sleep-Ease, to pacify and calm.
We have over 17,000 Starbucks Coffeeshops in 55 different countries, 11,000 here in the United States.
Keep awake?

For a decade, we have lived with war, fearful of attack, fearful of what has happened to sons/ daughters far away, fearful of the economy. Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden, Muammar Gaddafi all dead, each of the nations of the Middle East and North Africa changed, the axis of evil shifted, yet the genie is not back in the bottle, the dead have not been returned, prestige and honor feel tarnished. War and economics have not brought us a clear and decisive WIN.
Keep awake, not out of fear of the number of shopping days until Christmas, not because it is our turn to host the family and we have home repair projects to finish, not because we feel obligated to have the latest Zelda X Box game of Elmo Rockstar...

Keep awake, because as Christians, we know God loves the world, we know Christ has come and suffered and died and rose, to come again. We live expectantly waiting in HOPE for the redemption of the world. Keep awake, because Christ has come and will come again. Keep awake, spiritually, because there is so much around us to pacify our desires, to fill us with tryptophan, to comfort us with momentary wins and so much anxiety about loss.

Throughout the Old Testament, the people of Israel lived in fear, first of Egypt, then of the Canaanites, then the Assyrians and Babylonians, the Persians and Medes and Greeks, by the writing of the Gospels the Romans, the Pelipenicians, the Anglo-Saxons, the Europeans, … One empire after another, one invading army, one economy each built upon the failure of another.
The apocalyptic vision of Mark is not a specific warning about a specific end of the world on 11-11-11 or 12-12-12, but rather that basing our values and ethics on invading armies, the dominance of cultures, the power of economies, ultimately will bring loss.

Jesus begins with a different starting point, a different goal in mind.
Rather than our being focused on winning and losing and control, open your eyes to the broader vision, You witness stars falling from the sky and the sun and moon going black, open your mind to God's Cosmos.
One of my favorite moments as a pastor comes on Ash Wednesday. In the presence of all gathered, we burn the past, the palms of a year ago, our words of praise, our vain attempts to conquer, and one by one the people of God come forward to be marked with the ash and soot in the sign of the cross, and to be called by name as we hear the words: YOU ARE FORGIVEN.
At Advent, we each are blessed and given Hope.
YOU ARE LOVED. You are God's Little lambs, you are BLESSED;
and everything, all the world, everything of time and space and imagination, has been created for you. What will it take to open our eyes to see, there is no need to fight with one another?
No need for dominance. There is need for only one thing, to be responsible for what we are given.
The whole point of the coming Christmas is that we each and every one of us have the power to BLESS others. God loved the world so much, God entered in, God gave to us God's only begotten child, as Children of God can we not also enter in, into our own lives and relationships to bless one another?

This is an amazing community! Not because of Dickens. Not because of our schools. Not because of our businesses. Not even because of the wonderful churches and people. Truth be told, this is a community with great scandal and avoidance and suffering, with alcoholism and abuse. BUT this is also a community in which as a man, I have witnessed what I can only describe as miracles.

In a culture which demands, “WHAT'S IN IT FOR ME” one person after another has stepped up to say I do not want to be presumptuous but could I do this to help?
A few weeks ago, as the adults passed around a clipboard asking people to lead as Liturgist and Manor server, Chris said to his father: “I could do that, I would like to, can you help me do that.”
I have seen the pain of chronic illness, that we try to manage, that we chemically control, disease that escalates and symptoms become more frequent, knowing that this is what we will live with the rest of life and you have lived from crisis to crisis with fear of what is next, when suddenly there is HOPE, hope beyond anything you have ever experienced or believed was reasonable to expect.

At the start of Stewardship, we heard description of an ancient curse turned into a blessing and reality: MAY YOU LIVE IN INTERESTING TIMES! For an oppressed people centuries ago, this named that we would go from one situation to another, from one conquerer to another. For a people who had experienced stability and consistency, INTERESTING TIMES is naming of Change all around us. The BLESSING that is here, is when we open our eyes and minds to possibilities.
I am hopeful that the housing market will pick up again soon. Not because of economic worry & fears.
I love the old historic homes of this community, but after living in a house for a generation we often begin to see the house only as it has been, with limited future possibilities. When the house turns over and someone new moves into the community, walls begin to move, windows and porches appear.

Corinth was city of transplants, educated, upper-middle class immigrants, brought to populate a place. Each began to identify their loyalties, their identities out of personal relationships and possessions. The Church was structured differently in those days. The Church described itself as a community of faith, a religious society, without a church building, without a Session or Pastor or Presbytery. When problems arose, they appealed to their founding pastor, the Apostle Paul. As a Pastor, he BLESSED them, simply for being the Church in this place and time. Then called them to live into being what the Church could be, as more than so many individuals.

This Church in Skaneateles, in our earliest days identified ourselves as a Religious Society, a Community of Faith. Two of the chief functions of the Church in those days were to act as the Courts before their were local judges and lawyers, and to acts as the Church. What I mean by this, is that rather than being focused on judgement, crime and punishment and fines and imprisonment, the focus of the Religious Society as Court was to bring about ATONEMENT, REDEMPTION and FORGIVENESS between people who had wounded one another. In an era when in other parts of our nation the Hatfields and McCoys began feuds, when our leaders were deciding whether our new nation would have its Capital in Philadelphia, Washington DC or New York City, Skaneateles sought to be a community of faith. But also, we have as a society, as a church neglected what it once meant to be the Church. The focus of the Church was upon the Sacraments, and the preparation of believers to receive. We did not simply consume communion because it was the first Sunday of a given month, but we each considered how we have lived our lives, what is beneath our pains and squabbles, and whether spiritually in the presence of God we were ready to be forgiven, blessed, in communion with God. KEEP AWAKE and AWAKE anew!