Mind the gap

 On the London tube (subway system) a recorded voice reminds riders to be aware of the space between the platform and the subway's car door with the announcement, "Mind the gap."

Riders are reminded to pay attention to where they are standing and what their feet are doing.  Everyone is reminded that the solid platform on which they are standing will remain behind, and the floor onto which they will step will be moving away.  From where you are  to where you are going - there is a gap....and it is very easy to get tripped up in the gap.

As children of God, we stand in a gap as well, although probably not the one we would describe.  Our liturgical calendar places us in Advent, and we always open the season with a vision of the end of chronological time and the birth of the fullness of time in God's reign.  Outrageous things happen; St. Mark pictures the stars falling and the moon turned to blood.

Yet as the season of Advent moves along, we move closer and closer to the birth of the child Jesus.  First John the Baptist points to Christ's coming and finally by the end of December we have once again found the baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. 

I think that we often feel a gap between what we experience and the coming reign of Jesus, and that gap is very good at tripping us up as we go about our day to day lives.  A  small dose of 24 hour cycle news and you would be convinced that the sky is falling and so are the stars and everything else.  In fact, some days the end of all this mayhem seems preferable to another day of slogging our way through it all.

So we look with longing to December 25th which is the Church's celebration of the birth of the Christ.  We want to sing the familiar carols and see the sanctuary beautifully decorated.  We want soft candles and a (rarely achieved) time of peace where we can contemplate the coming child.  Lying in that manger are our hopes and prayers, our intercessions and tears. 

Our life is lived not in the gap between the reality of this world and the softness of Jesus, but rather between the birth 2000+ years ago and the fulfillment of God's promises in the end of time and the beginning of Christ's reign.  We live between the incarnation of God's desire for all of creation in the person of Jesus and 'the end of all we know' that is coming.  We live in the gap, and if we don't pay attention, the gap will trip us up.

We might think we are to simply wait patiently for Christ's coming.  We might think that God's future will pull into the station just like the next subway car and all we will have to do is step on board.  We might think that we are no more than passengers with no real work to do.  I think not.

In our baptism we were joined to the life and death and resurrection of Jesus, and in that joining we take up the ministry and mission of Jesus - to bring into reality the 'world that is to come'.  We are to bind up the brokenhearted, release the captives, and raise people up out of ashes.  There is work for us to do as Jesus' world and God's vision unfold in the here and now. 

Faith in a crucified and risen Jesus is not about leaping over the reality in which we live.  Faith in the crucified and risen Jesus is about living in the reality knowing that the victory belongs to God.  We are preparing others for the future as the future continues to come towards us.

Occasionally this looks like soft candles and beautiful decorations.  Occasionally it entails singing Silent Night and setting up a miniature creche. Most of the time, it looks like washing the feet of others.  Therein lies the gap.

As we count down to the child's birth once again, I want to remind you to 'mind the gap' for that is where our ministry lies. 

What have you done with my Jesus?

I have one question for John the Baptist:  What have you done with my Jesus?

Of course, he isn’t just MY Jesus.  But I have spent a lifetime getting to know this Jesus, learning the stories, singing Jesus Loves Me, talking with him, depending on him to get me through the tough times. 

I have held a lit candle high at Christmas Eve and rejoiced at the empty tomb.  I have a pretty personal relationship with this Jesus.

this Jesus of love who feeds the poor and heals the broken–   I have donated money to feed the poor and prayed thousands of prayers.

this Jesus who calls out the religious leaders who are so full of themselves and the power hungry wealthy people who make their money and maintain their position on the backs of the small guys in this world. I have waved my fist and written emails and signed petitions and posted stuff on Facebook.

this Jesus who eats with women and all the people of the wrong race or wrong color or wrong religion   I stand right there with Jesus, loving most of the people, most of the time - although I don’t know a whole lot of them, and I keep my distance when they are scary or smell funny.

What have you done with my Jesus?  The one who is supposed to comfort me and my people? To hold me in his arms and rock me to sleep? Can’t you hear the sweet melody? 

Comfort, comfort ye my people……Isaiah told the story and Handel made it a part of his Messiah:   although possibly all that beautiful music may have covered up the part about the people having paid double for their sin. 

Perhaps you missed the part where the landscape as we know it will be completely changed: the mountains laid low and the valleys filled up.

Society will be overturned: those who sit in the high

places are brought down and those who are powerless

are lifted up.  Power will belong only to God!

Perhaps you missed the part where God’s coming in Jesus is the beginning of God’s new world: A whole new operating system; a new set of rules with all the old ways wiped out.  The Good News of Jesus is that EVERYTHING is going to change!

But what does all of this have to do with my loving Jesus who is about

to be born in the glow of candles and to the tune of Silent Night?

Instead Mr. Baptist we get you:  a crazy guy out there in the wilderness, eating locusts! Why are you shouting at all of us?  Don’t you know that we are the good guys? 

You know, every time some Bible character gets ranting like this I get really uncomfortable.

I feel like I don’t really know this Jesus,

I have no idea what following this Jesus means,

I am not even sure I want to get on board with this kind of radical agenda where all those people who stand in the intersections begging, who exist on the edge of my vision  get invited to the banquet.

On top of which, you want us to Repent?

John the Baptist is demanding that we get ourselves out into the wilderness and then repent! The wilderness is the place where death and life meet each other and danger is at every turn.  And repentance is hard.

 Are YOU ready to repent?   Repenting means turning our lives around, dropping every thing, every habit, every desire, every demand  that pulls us away from God and starting again in a new direction.

I want to say “Settle down John.  Don’t get so worked up!” 

“Let’s wait patiently for the baby;

       we can give a little bit of ourselves or our money over to good deeds  

       while we wait for Jesus to come to whisk us away to a better time and       a better place and better circumstances?

Come on, come on.  It’s not so bad.  Let’s light a few candles and pray for peace.” 

Granted in this world some folks who call themselves Christian like Joel Osteen claim Jesus blesses the rich more than the poor which is proved by the fact that they are rich and the others are poor.

And supporters of candidate Roy Moore claim that Joseph married

Mary and fathered Jesus when Mary was just a teenager and so it is

just fine that Moore prefers young girls.

 And Franklin Graham claims Satan is behind any action that

seeks equal treatment for LBGTQ individuals.

I am not sure which Jesus they are following.

You cry out from your pews, “Enough already!  We come here to leave the ugliness of this world behind.” 

“What does a baby lying in a cow’s feeding trough –                

what does an incarnated God have to do with the ugliness of this

 world? “

And what does any of that have to do with me?

Ultimately that is the question, isn’t it? 

What does any of this have to do with me?

Which Jesus are you following?

       

Wait, watch, work

"The sky is falling, the sky is falling!"

I know you think I am quoting Chicken Little, but really, I am paraphrasing the 13th chapter of Mark where Jesus is pointing us to a time when it is all coming together.....or all coming apart depending on your perspective.  It is the point in time when God re-establishes a new heaven and a new earth, Jesus comes in glory, all is in all, and apparently the world is going to turned upside down.  Following the way of Jesus will no longer be an option, it will be the only way and those who have turned their backs on the call from heaven will find themselves somehow left out of the Lord's glory.

Now, your first question might be "What exactly is this going to look like?"  Your post-enlightenment brain will begin to list all the scientific objections to the implausibility of Mark's description.  Your human defense mechanisms will kick into gear and try to discern places or positions of safety.  Our legal brain will begin developing the case for our worthiness.  Then the great cynicism will overtake all the others and we will dismiss this picture as fanciful.

Well, call it fanciful if you like.....and in fact, it is intended as more of a poetic vision than a paint-by-number description.......but it is there in Mark, and Matthew and Luke.  It is at the core of the biblical witness:  there will be a moment in time when God brings all the dithering of this way of life to an end and a new earth will begin.  Some scholars and theologians believe this means a return to the Garden of Eden (which, BTW, is not a place but a concept of a time and locale where God's reign is total and life is at its fullest).  Jesus tells us he will come again in glory. The second resurrection or great resurrection will occur for the faithful. This isn't the first or last time people of faith have pointed to a revelation of God's rule in a time of wholeness and life.

Except none of us knows when this is going to happen; even Jesus said only the Father knows.  May be tomorrow.  May be next week.  May be 1000 years from now.  But it is going to happen.

If you have no interest in the kingdom of God, in the way of life that Jesus taught or in the kind of community that Jesus formed in his own body, then I expect you haven't even read this far.  However, if you are with me here, then go back to whatever you were doing.

However, if you have heard the voice of the Creator in Jesus, if you have encountered new life in the proclamation of forgiveness, if you have been transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit, and long for a time when these experiences are more than temporary and fleeting........then your question might be  What do I do now?  How do I prepare for this coming time?

Our preacher Sunday gave us a wonderfully easy answer to remember.  Wait. Watch. Work.  We wait with anticipation the coming of the Lord....like we would if we were waiting for dinner guests to arrive, we keep checking out the window, while continually preparing for their arrival.  We wait......with anticipation.

We watch for opportunities.  These are opportunities to make straight the path for the coming Lord.  We do the work of the coming kingdom:  feeding the hungry, protecting the weak, confessing our brokenness, reconciling with enemies, forgiving others.  We watch for opportunities to complete our own 'bucket list' of kingdom preparation.

We work.  We work at telling the story of this returning Lord, inviting others into a relationship and community that brings them and us life.  We work until the last moment bringing the message of God's desire for the wholeness of creation and Jesus' invitation to each of us.

Wait. Watch. Work.  That's what we do in the meantime, in the advent of our Lord.