Advent

12 December 2004

First UU Church of Austin

4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756

www.austinuu.org

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button.

Prayer

Let us prepare a manger in our hearts for the birth of the sacred. When we are offered a choice between certain but sterile doubts and fragile but fertile faith, let us choose a faith that feeds our souls. For something sacred needs to be born: born from the mating of what is, and what might be.

Living in a tragic world, let us remind ourselves it is also a hopeful world, with a future yet to be constructed, a future wanting to enlist builders of a better tomorrow. Let us enlist in that army who will build a better future.

And let us be comforted by the fact that it is never foolish to believe in a better tomorrow. It is never faithless to believe that the tender mercies of love, truth and justice are on the side of the angels. Indeed, they are the only aspirations that are on the side of the angels.

Those angels are messengers from the gods, from that unconquerable realm of hope, faith and love. And this is the season when those angels tell us that something sacred wants to be born. It needs a manger. Let us prepare a manger in our hearts for the birth of the sacred.

Amen.

SERMON: Advent

Advent is about preparing ourselves for the birth of something sacred. Advent isn’t the holiday; it’s getting ready for the holiday. It’s the personal homework we have to do to enter into the spirit of holidays. This week, in trying to get myself into an Advent kind of mood, I Googled the word “Advent” on the Internet. Two of the first things I saw were ads. One said:

“Advent Blowout – incredible prices on electronics at Amazon.com. Free shipping.” The other told me that I could buy a LEGO Advent calendar at Target for only $14.99. This wasn’t helpful.

But while I was doing this, an e-mail arrived from a colleague, containing some quotations he was forwarding for general usage. One that struck me was from the medieval Christian mystic, Julian of Norwich: “This is the cause why we are not at rest in heart and soul: that here we seek our rest in things that are so little there is no rest in them.”

Her quote seems so much more appropriate for this season than frenzied ads for Advent Blowout sales or LEGO calendars. Especially since the ads are such good examples of just what any holy days are supposed to be lifting us beyond.

But for its whole history, Advent has been an attempt to lure Christians away from the low and trivial concerns that are too little in which to find rest for our souls. If we do it right, this whole season is about trying to find things big enough to rest in. Christmas is the season of that spirit.

This search for a spirit big enough to rest in is one of the deepest yearnings we have, and you don’t have to look far to find us pursuing it.

The special choral piece today is an example. Brent chooses these larger works, and the choir learns them, because they find something large there, something coming from a large spirit, and they want to share it with both themselves and with you, as a place worth resting in.

The new twist on the food collection we’ll be starting next week is also one of these. We’re aspiring to a bigger generosity, both because others need it, and because we are enlarged by acting out of a bigger generosity.

And the new members we welcomed today are part of this spirit. People join a church hoping to find that bigger spirit, hoping to become a part of it as it becomes a part of them.

There are a lot of things this season that celebrate this larger spirit. We are right in the middle of Hanukkah, which began Wednesday. It’s the Jewish festival of lights, but it is to remember a time in ancient Judaism when some brave people during the Maccabees’ revolt of twenty-two centuries ago were so filled with that bigger spirit that they transformed Jewish history.

But you can find the calls of this larger spirit everywhere. Friday (December 10th) was the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights from 1948. I read that story, which said it was “the first occasion on which the organized international community of nations has made a Declaration on Human Rights and fundamental freedoms…. It is to this document that millions of men and women in countries far distant from Paris or New York will turn for hope and guidance and inspiration.” (NY Times, December 10, 1948) Well, this is a good season for the anniversary of that hopeful declaration, because it celebrated the same large spirit that we’re trying to get ourselves attuned to during Advent.

And nearly five centuries ago, on December 10, 1520, at the start of the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther publicly burned the papal edict demanding that he recant or face excommunication. He did that because he was serving a bigger spirit than that being served by what was at the time a very corrupt Catholic Church. He rested in that bigger spirit for the rest of his life, as many millions of Protestants also have.

Tacky ads for Advent Blowout sales are parasites on the spirit of this season in the same way that orchestrated flag-waving as a conditioned reflex is a caricature of true patriotism, and Valentine’s Day cards are hobos riding the rails of real love. They are all too small to rest in. But behind all these little things that are too small to find rest in, there is that bigger spirit.

Still, it can be risky blowing the horn for these holidays. Because so often, voices urging us to serve a bigger spirit come soaked in guilt, and just represent more work to do, as though we weren’t already doing enough. As though the choir just hasn’t done enough big works demanding extra rehearsals, so they needed to squeeze one in before Christmas. Or we should feel guilty about having enough to eat, so bringing food to share is a kind of penance to make us feel bad. Or you haven’t done enough spiritually, so it’s about time you sinners joined a church! Or you better tell the Hanukah story to remind yourself that once there were people who really suffered, really knew how to make sacrifices! And while you’re at it, go buy more Christmas presents! Oh sure, the workers in China and other poor countries are paid slave wages to produce them, and suffer the kind of human rights violations we resolved to end back in 1948. But companies like Wal-Mart make 1/3 to 1/2 of their annual profits during this season and their stockholders would like your money, so go make their stock prices rise by running up that 20+% interest on your credit card debts, like a good American should!

You see how easily this could become an absolutely miserable Christmas season? Realism can slide into cynicism seamlessly. Lego Advent calendars, Advent Blowouts – and of course, guilt: the gift that keeps on giving? One bit of advice I have for us this year is that if you are offered that kind of a holiday, just say No! And remember those poetic words from Julian of Norwich:

“This is the cause why we are not at rest in heart and soul: that here we seek our rest in things that are so little there is no rest in them.”

You don’t have to be Christian, or Jewish, or Lutheran to enter into this season. Christmas has been a cultural holiday for over a century: virtually all the public decorations are paid for and put up by merchants, because some of them really do make 1/3 to 1/2 of their annual profits during this super-hyped season. Many bemoan this, but I like the fact that our winter solstice celebration has returned to being a cultural holiday, open to all. No religion owns it. You just have to be alive and awake to the fact that when we can find a bigger spirit to serve, we can find a kind of rest for our souls, and that rest is worth seeking.

A bigger identity is calling to us, every season but particularly this season. It sang to us through Benjamin Britten’s wonderful music, it glows for us in the Advent and Hanukkah candles. It welcomes us as the church welcomes new spiritual seekers and spiritual finders into our membership. And sharing our food with some of Austin’s hungrier people reminds us that even in simple ways we can make a big difference in the lives of our brothers and sisters here and elsewhere.

There is an old Jewish story about this, because there is an old Jewish story about everything.

A small synagogue was struggling to stay alive. There was no generous spirit there, nothing to rest in, and the people had taken to bickering. Finally, one of them set out to visit this great wise rabbi in the next town, to ask his advice. He told the rabbi their sad story.

“Well,” the old man said, “your problem is that you are suffering from the sin of ignorance. The Messiah is among you, and you are ignorant of this fact.” When the man returned to his small synagogue and related these words, nobody could believe them. “How could it be one of us?” they would ask. Then, to prove that it couldn’t be true, they would go down the list of each one of them, outlining all the reasons it certainly couldn’t be that person, or that person, or any of them.

Still, the old rabbi was known for a surprising kind of wisdom. So they thought “My God, what if it is that person? Or that person? And just in case it might be, they started treating one another much more generously. As you can imagine, this changed the spirit of the place completely. They had found a bigger spirit in which to reside, and as they resided in it and it in them, both they and their synagogue grew into a very great blessing in the world.

That’s a kind of Hanukkah story, a kind of Christmas story, a kind of holy music sung by a choir of angels. The music is set to the words of that wise old rabbi and the words of Julian of Norwich. It contains the secret of this season, and the secret of finding that bigger place in which to rest.

Our sin is a sin of ignorance. The Messiah is among us, and we are ignorant of this fact. What is the Messiah that can save us? It is the spirit of life carried in good music performed with love. It is the generous spirit that feeds the hungry, right here in Austin. It is the yearning to join a church, to join together in a community of spiritual seekers and finders. These are some of the Messiahs among us, some of the spirits big enough to rest in.

But there’s more, too. The Messiah, the light of the world and hope of the future, is also within us – within each of us – and we are often ignorant of that fact, too.

Now I’ve shared the great secret with you, for you to share with others. The Messiah is both among us and within us. Let us learn to become the midwives for the birth of the sacred. For something sacred wants to be born among and within us, and it needs our help.