Advent 1 C November 29, 2015
Luther Memorial Church Seattle, WA
The Rev. Julie G. Hutson
Jeremiah 33: 14-16 + Psalm 25: 1-10 + 1 Thessalonians 3: 9-13
Luke 21: 25-36
Grace and peace to you from God who created us, the Holy Spirit who sustains and comforts us, and Jesus the Christ, who is coming into the world. Amen.
In 1987 the first of the “Where’s Waldo” books were published. Have any of you tried looking for that little dude in the red and white striped hat amongst ALL of the other things going on in the pages of those books? My oldest son, Greg, was three years old when those books came out and he thought he wanted one for Christmas, so he got one. Certain that it would take all of my superior adult skills to help him find Waldo in those pages, we snuggled in on Christmas afternoon to search for the elusive character. We would open the book and I’d scan the page…where was that red and white hat? How hard could it be to spot it? And Greg would point with delight….There! Waldo! Over and over again this happened. Every time we turned the page. I was so distracted by all of the other pieces and parts on the page that it took me a long, long time to spot where Waldo was hiding in plain sight.
In Luke’s Gospel today there’s a LOT going on. Jesus is talking about signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars…distress among nations who are confused by the roaring of the seas and the waves. The Son of Man coming in a cloud. Fig trees. I mean there’s so much going on it’s hard to know or to find exactly what we are looking for. Because let’s face it, in some form or fashion, we are all looking for Jesus and for the Kingdom of God. We long for it, perhaps every day, or at least in this season we are reminded that this Jesus whose arrival in a manger we both long for and remember, will come again.
Artists and authors have depicted the next coming of Jesus— it’s all very dramatic and there are clouds and trumpets and the earth and her people are trembling in fear. But the problem with that picture is that what if that cloud that carries Jesus drops down over, I don’t know….Toledo….or Beirut….or Paris….and we are here in Seattle? Or what if Jesus doesn’t come on a cloud at all but comes as a person from a village in India or out of the hills of Appalachia or riding a donkey out of the mountains of Nepal. I mean, it could happen. There is precedence for Jesus arriving in strange places and by unusual means, like feed troughs, and unmarried mothers, and and riding on a donkey.
Why then, is Jesus talking about fig trees today? Why speak of something as ordinary as sprouting leaves when what we want to find is the advent of the kingdom of God?
In the Hebrew Bible, what we call the Old Testament, the fig tree was often used as a metaphor for Israel. Jesus would have been familiar with this. But I’m not sure that’s where he was headed in this parable. Jesus is using an ordinary tree – something that would be familiar and common to his listeners and his followers. A tree that provided shade and fruit. A tree that was plentiful in the orchards.
Jesus moves from describing a terrified, confused people looking for signs and trembling when they think they see them, to the image of an ordinary tree, bringing the kingdom of God near.
One of the dangers of this time of year is the imagery that plays out before us in what we watch and what we read and what we hear – perfect families gather around perfect meals and open perfect gifts. There is no brokenness, no sadness….there are no unrealized expectations. There’s just all of this….perfection.
And what we know is that life is not like that. We live as broken people – our hearts are broken and our relationships are broken and our spirits are broken. In the midst of that brokenness we look for the Kingdom of God – for some sign that it is coming – and we are met with the ordinary things of life. The fig trees, if you will.
In today’s Gospel Jesus is coming toward the end of his ministry and the end of his life. There’s not a lot of time left to press home the meaning of his life and teachings. Yet, even so, his followers want to know: when this will all be complete – when it will all come to some conclusion? And Jesus tells them that the kingdom of God is near when they watch the fig trees bloom. The kingdom of God is near in the ordinary days, which may actually be, the most unexpected of places.
I was thinking about this congregation and the ways we have continued to be surprised by the presence of the kingdom of God as it breaks into our life together. Of course, there are the big moments like the trumpets at Easter and the fiery red of Pentecost. There are the memorable times: garden blessings and pancake breakfasts and prayers around the cross. There are the moments here that usher us across life’s thresholds….baptisms and weddings and funerals.
But I’m not sure I see God any more clearly than when the children run up the aisle to children’s time or to the table. Or when we lay food out for a potluck, like we will next Sunday, and when a stranger wanders into the building, we just hand them a plate too.
And how often have the bearers of the light of the Christ in this place been the ones the world calls the least? The lessons we learned from Robbie are too numerous to recount. Or what of the Sunday when we had two guests in worship whose names were Joy and Gloria…..and it was Advent? Or the time when the choir visited with Winnie and Bill after her stroke and we sang carols until we were fully in the spirit of the season and engulfed by the radiance of Winnie’s smile and Bill continued to request: let’s sing one more? Or the time that two lovely Moe sisters joined me at Archie’s bedside to sing Silent Night as he moved from this life to the next?
Signs of the living God are all around us. Every single day. They are in our lives….every single day. But we are often so busy looking for what we imagine the kingdom of God will look like that we miss the beauty of having it all around us. We are so busy looking for roaring seas or clouds and trumpets that we overlook the fig trees.
Or, in my case, I was so busy looking for Waldo in the pages of that book, that I risked missing the luminous experience of snuggling on the couch with my three year old child – children are, in my experience, some of the most likely to usher in the kingdom.
Two years ago Bruce and I were in Germany during Advent. Many of you have heard me speak of how astonished we were at the way the entire culture kept Advent. In mid December, they were lighting Advent wreaths in public places – restaurants and hotels and bookstores and the corner bakery. The music than rang out from the church bells and even from carolers was Advent music. Hymns of anticipation.
Advent is a season of hopeful expectation. It is a time of watching and waiting. In today’s Gospel, Jesus bids us pay attention, so that those signs of the kingdom don’t catch us unexpectedly. So that we aren’t so busy shopping or working or worrying or managing the things of this life that we miss the signs of life eternal that are right in front of us. There will still be matters that require our attention. There will still be work to tend to. Our hearts will still be broken. But in the midst of all of that, standing there like Waldo in a crowd, there is a manger awaiting a baby….and a young unwed mother pondering an angel’s message….and some shepherds wondering if this pastoral life is all there is.
Raise your heads, beloved people of God….our redemption is drawing near. The kingdom is at hand. Jesus is coming and Jesus is here.
Thanks be to God. Amen.