Signs of the times

Signs of the times 120212

Advent 1c prophet/gospel readings

9-11’s terrorist attack pierces the country’s sense of invulnerability….                                                                                                      a mighty oil spill devastates ecological balance in the gulf…      an amazing storm sweeps up the east coast, flattening, flooding and killing as it goes

Signs of the times.

The apocalyptic language in our text from 2000 yrs ago isn't about some future event; it's metaphoric language to remind us that everyone, always, lives in a state of impending doom...things aren't suddenly going to get worse before the end of the world, which incidentally isn't going to happen this month...things are horrible now.

As one blog I read yesterday said:  “Tragedy happens....a layoff, a divorce, a spot on an xray, a car crash.... the vicissitudes of life play no favorites.  At one time or another everything that used to feel solid and sure will start to come apart.” (Kate Huey)

These are already uncertain and unsafe times. Just as they were in Jeremiah's day, and in Jesus' day.  Life is uncertain and we find ourselves wondering what's going on, and where is God.

As we pay attention to the signs of our times, it's easy to get fearful and unsure...and we battle or hide that fear with all manner of attempts at safety:

homeland security at airports and security systems in homes

 flood insurance

     addiction to alcohol or drugs      

                    aggression in our relationships and war at home and abroad  

                              amassing wealth while poverty grows        

                                               dramatic posturing in our politics….you can name your own…

all attempts to feel safe--all also signs of our times

Both texts today refer to signs of their times when people were experiencing that sense  of fear and insecurity; we're not the first people to fall prey to end of the world thinking.

In Jeremiah's day the nation had lost its pre-eminence, felled like a tree they said.   But Jeremiah stands up with a poetic imagination and a word of hope: even in desolation and destruction, a new tree will rise up: not of might, but of right, “of justice and righteousness” he says.

God's dream for the world is continually unfolding through it all.

This is not the shallow hope of platitude:  look on the bright side, or things'll get better soon.  No, this s the deep abiding trusting hope that God is still at work on the divine promise to make all things new, reconciled, restored, whole, in spite of humanity’s best efforts to the contrary..

And it's not going to happen via some cataclysmic cosmic event: it's going to happen through human activity, a new kind of  royal king, says Jeremiah.  Some one, as in individual human beings, or some ones as in human government, will bring this about.

Throughout the centuries they had glimpses of it, but 600 years later when Jesus came, this divine promise still wasn't fulfilled.   People under Roman rule knew might without right, justice came by punishment and revenge, by flogging and crucifixion.

No wonder Luke used this apocalyptic scary language of chaos and unsettledness and end of the world stuff – the Temple had been destroyed, Jesus hadn't come back yet, so he portrays a knight in shining armor “Son of Man” - again a human being -who'd bring about this new reign, this divine promise.

And he says, don't cower when bad stuff happens.  Stand up in its face.  Safety isn't in homeland security or weapons of mass destruction, security isn't in warfare or end times movies of doom.  It's in Christ.  It's in hope. 

We the church are called to stand up and look up in times like these....to act as agents, human agents of the divine promise...to be a house of hope, a sanctuary in an unsafe and unsettle world of fear.  In fact, this week this congregation will vote on that very issue.  What will we be?

What will we be for children who awaken each day to fear, to those who get up into a world of hunger, to those who have been excluded and ridiculed and diminished, not just by society but even by the church, to those who daily feel suffering and pain....while I have the nerve to get annoyed at long lines at the airport.  

What will we be in the face of these signs of the times?

Well, here we are.  Lighting the candle of hope on the Advent wreath.

For Jesus HAS come. Jesus didn't drift off into outer space to wait at a distance for stuff to get so bad he could come back like a knight in shining armor.   No, he's here, in the form of the very Spirit, or breath of the living God. 

 This world of wholeness, this dream of God IS unfolding.

 God is already making all things new.

Our call is to look at the signs of the times, yes, but also to look FOR signs of the reign or kin-dom of God.

Wake up! Says Luke, be prepared.  Advent is an opportunity to take stock of ourselves to deepen our spiritual life, trim our souls as well as our trees, so that when bad stuff happens we have what it takes to stand up to it in faith.

Pay attention says Luke.  But not just to skies and storms and buds and leaves but to yourself, to the things in you that prevent you being awake to what God is doing...that same blog I read says “here and there little branches are springing up from what looked like a dead stump, little communities of faith, rooted in justice and striving for righteousness, listening always for a word from the still-speaking God, little churches, vibrant and full of heart.”

These too are signs of the times.  Hope signs

We cling to the hope that God intends the world and all that's in it to be made whole again.  But not only do we cling, we act, for we are part of its fulfillment...starting with our own souls, then in our relationships, then becoming places and families and communities  of new life that are signs of the times for others  seeking hope.

WE, the people of God in THIS place, are called to see the signs of the times

To stand up, look up, step up, and BE the signs.

May it be so, today, this week, and always.

Amen.