Delivered Sunday, November 30, 2013 at Westminster Presbyterian Church, Charlottesville, VA.
Texts: Isaiah 2:1-5 and Romans 13:8-14
I know that many of us put a lot of effort into planning and preparing the Thanksgiving meal, and with good cause, after all, unlike most other holidays, which may include a meal, for Thanksgiving, the meal is the centerpiece of the holiday. The meal is a time for bringing family, friends and community together to give thanks for the harvest, for each other, for the preceding year and the year to come.
Thanksgiving also frequently marks the beginning of another time of preparation. One known within the Church as Advent, and outside the Church as the Christmas Shopping Season.
I think most of us are all too familiar with the preparatory demands placed on us by the Christmas shopping season. There are gifts to buy, parties to plan and attend, and last minute things to finish up for work or school. I know that, for myself, the rush to finish everything before the end of my term has already begun, and that it will let up just in time for me to start trying to finalize travel plans in consultation with my family now that we are spread out between 3 cities and 2 states, and then to frantically try to get gifts for everyone I forgot…which, generally, is everybody.
The demands of Advent, however, are very different and often overlooked.
In the Church, Advent is a time not just of preparation, but also of waiting. We anticipate not only the annual celebration of the Birth of Christ, but also the return of the Risen Christ.
I know Presbyterians don’t always pay the most attention to vestments and liturgical colors, and I’m not ordained, so I am not wearing any, but Laura is wearing a purple stole, and the candles on the Advent wreath are purple (except for the one that isn’t, but I’ll leave discussion of that for another time.) In front of me are lovely purple pulpit and communion table hangings.
I bring this up because Advent is not the only time we use purple. We also use purple for Lent. Both seasons are about waiting and about preparation for great change. Lent is meant to prepare us for the Crucifixion and Resurrection. Advent is about preparing us for the return of the Risen Lord.
Our texts today point to that. Isaiah says: “…they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” This is one of the best known, and is one of my favorite, prophecies about the end times. It is such a critical passage that it actually appears twice in the Hebrew Scriptures, once here, in Isaiah, and again, almost word for word, in Micah. Scholars dispute the actual origin of the passage—whether Isaiah or Micah said it first, or whether it is something earlier which both quote, or something later which was tied into both prophets. The details of that debate aren’t important. What is important is that this image of the future is crucial enough to be repeated.
Swords and spears were expensive, specialized pieces of equipment. The idea of turning them into more common implements like plows and pruning hooks is radical—this is not recycling something unwanted or useless into something useful. This is a process of turning something incredibly expensive into something comparatively cheap.
It is also a process of turning a tool of destruction into a tool of production.
Isaiah offers us a vision of the future where all nations and many peoples will come together to learn from God. A future where the God of Israel is a judge and educator for all nations. A future where tools of destruction are obsolete.
This promise is not, however, without strings. Isaiah ends the passage with: “O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!”
Do not be fooled by the NRSV’s polite translation. Isaiah is not making a suggestion, but stating an imperative. If we want the future he has just described, then we have to work for it. We cannot just passively wait for God to bring this future about, but must actively work for its realization. We must walk in the light of the Lord.
Paul, in the section of his Epistle to the church in Rome which we read today, also speaks about walking in the light. Happily, Paul does us the kindness of offering a bit more clarity about what that means.
Paul begins by speaking about love, but Paul does not write about love in the way we are accustomed to think about it.
Paul speaks of love as an obligation. In the verse prior to today’s reading, Paul gives instruction regarding literal debts. Paul instructs the members of the Church to pay their taxes and other financial debts, as well as to pay debts of honor and respect where they are due. Paul then turns, at the beginning of our lectionary selection for today, to love, but continuous to speak in terms of debt and obligation. Unlike financial debts, which can be repaid, Paul declares that love is a continual debt. Paul tells us that love is a debt, owed to everybody, which we can never repay.
We live in a culture which primarily thinks about love as an emotion, as a feeling. In the Bible, however, love is primarily spoken of as an action. Love is something we do, regardless of how we might feel.
I think we should take this as a mercy. I am willing to bet that many of us here have, in just the past few days, had moments where we have felt more frustration than love towards at least some those we call ‘loved ones.’ As we expand our circles, I expect many of us can start to think about people we would have a hard time even beginning to like, let alone love.
Thankfully we don’t have to develop such strict control over our emotions. We just need to control our actions.
Paul tells us that love is the fulfillment of the Law—not because love replaces the Law, but because the Law consistently points toward love. When we practice love, we do no harm. When we practice love, we give aid. When we practice love, we offer comfort. When we practice love, we live as if the Kingdom of God was with us now.
Unlike Isaiah, who relates a specific vision of a distant future, Paul speaks more vaguely, but with more urgency. In verse 11, Paul writes, “you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep.” Paul is not speaking of ordinary time. Paul is, after all, writing a letter, which is meant to be read aloud to many people. This isn’t his way of indicating the letter should be read just before sunrise, that it should serve as a sort of ecclesial alarm clock. Paul uses the Greek word kairos, which is used to refer to a specific moment of great change, rather than the more ordinary chronos, which refers to clock time, and forms the root of English words like chronology.
For Paul, the time to start practicing love is not now, it’s not yesterday, it was years ago. We missed it; and we have some catching up to do.
Paul’s tendency toward urgency has been the topic of choice for many scholars—and the consensus is that Paul believed that Jesus would be returning within, if not his lifetime, certainly within a generation or two.
Now, we know that isn’t how it worked out, but none the less, Paul’s words still have meaning for us. Regardless of how far gone the night was for Paul, the night is further gone for us, and so we need to get busy living as if it were day, living as if the Kingdom of God was already with us.
We need to put aside the concerns of darkness. For Isaiah, these are practices of war and destruction. For Paul, these include revelry and drunkenness, debauchery and licentiousness—things ordinarily done in both actual and metaphorical darkness, as well as quarreling and jealousy, which are just as firmly rooted in metaphorical darkness, even if they may be more likely to happen during the actual hours of daylight.
Paul and Isaiah are both telling us that in order to prepare for the coming Kingdom of God, we need to be active. We need to live as if it were already here.
It is not enough to spend our Advent decorating the house, buying presents, and rushing from one festive party to the next. It is not enough to spend our Advent desperately finishing assignments for work and school (however much I and the other students amongst us might wish that were true, or even feel it is all that can fairly be expected of us).
There is nothing wrong with doing these things, in moderation
There is nothing wrong with nights snug in bed, while visions of sugar plums dance in our heads.
But we should also have visions, as Isaiah did, of a time when all peoples will come to the Mountain of the Lord. We should dream of a time when swords will be turned into plowshares, when drones will be turned into pumps for wells.
And when we wake up, we should let those dreams affect our lives. Don’t let the thought that these dreams are distant and unobtainable dissuade us from action, but trust that through our actions, God can begin to bring them into being.
We should serve as examples of light to the world, and the best way to do that is to live as if the Kingdom of God was already with us.
Amen.