December 11, 2005 - 3rd Sunday of Advent

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring

 good tidings to the afflicted;...to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to

 the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim

 the year of the Lord’s favor...They shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise

 up the former devastations...the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to

 spring forth before all the nations.”

There is more to life than meets the eye.  There is more in our past than history can tell.  There is more going on in the present moment than we know.  There is more to our relationships with one another than we are aware.  And the more we explore the mystery of our lives, & the more we learn about ourselves, the more mysterious we ourselves become. 

Advent’s purpose is to make us discontent to accept  what appears on the surface; Advent tells us  there is more.  Advent makes us feel unease in the present moment, sensing that no matter how full our present, beyond the here and now, there is more.

We tend, if left to our own devices, toward reducing things to simpleness.  In colleges and universities, where they ought to be exploring possibilities of what is not known, cultivating wonder at mystery, science reduces the known world to the Periodic Table of Elements.  We explain human history by reducing it to two or three factors, the six causes of the Civil War, the main reason for the Great Depression, thirty true-false statements explaining the eighteenth century.  But, in our better moments, when delivered from our own devices, when we allow for eternal poetry, we know there is always more to life. 

When life is reduced to technique, six easy steps toward sure success, we become numbed, anesthetized against either real pain or true pleasure.  The body adjusts to its cage.  But occasionally, someone manages to hit a nerve and we, twitching slightly in discomfort, suspect that there just may be more.

The audience for this Advent text from Isaiah are the afflicted, the brokenhearted, the captives, those in prison, and mourners.  In short, your average December congregation.  The people to whom these words are addressed are those who come to church out of a sometimes barely felt, sometimes fervently burning hope for something more.

Isaiah speaks of a world beyond present arrangements, a world where there is good news, liberty, comfort, garlands instead of ashes.  This is Bible talk about what is beyond.  It is daring, poetic, politically significant speech, speech pushed to the boundaries in description of what God is  breaking open among us, breaking open in dusty little out-of-the way places like Bethlehem.

Isaiah words refuse to abide within the confines of the dominant society, refuse to be limited by common sense, every day experience.  And Isaiah taught Mary to sing apocalyptically,

“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior...he has

 scattered the proud...he has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted

 those of low degree; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has

 sent empty away.” 

When we come to church and are exposed to such speech from Isaiah or Mary, we are beckoned out beyond the world of predictability, into another world of thought and risk, in which God  enables new life to break us out of our jails, to subvert our tamed expectations, and to evoke fresh faith.  Dangerous hope leads to daring resistance. 

Anything less is trap and delusion.  Sunday, at its best, is a summons toward more.  Our vague, frequently reoccurring, gnawing sense of need, our discontent, which we often attempt to satisfy by mere buying, accumulating, getting and giving, particularly this time of year, is reformed, and we recognize it as a groping after God and God’s will.  The “more” we desire is given a name, “The year of the Lord’s favor.”  The year in which God gets what God wants, when earth more closely resembles that which God first had in mind when God began forming chaos into something, less into more. 

 In that world where God comes, we are allowed room to roam, to re-decide.

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me...good tidings to the afflicted...the opening of the

 prison to those who are bound...to give them a garland instead of ashes...”                     

Here is Isaiah’s protest against any religion that is reduced to slogan, morals, bumper sticker proverbs, thoughts for the day, the boring rehash of the obvious and the already known.  Here is protest against Sunday as an adjustment to what is seen, rather than a probing of the more, that which is beyond us.  We came to church for certitude, to touch base with the known, but Isaiah and Mary’s speech do not give certitude.  In the poetic, Spirit-filled space, possibility overwhelms necessity in life, and we can breathe new, fresh air.

So we go forth after church.  There are the same quarrels in the car on the way home, same tensions over the dinner table, same blue Monday.     

Now, however, we are aware of a new world, new hope, new possibility, new dreams, new hunger for something else; in short, we are aware of more.  We see how greatly reduced, how tamed has been our truth.  We who have tasted new wine, now thirst for more.

As Walter Bruggemann has said, such singing moves the Prince of Darkness into action.  The Prince of Darkness whispers, “adjust, adjust to this world, adapt, accept what is.”  The Prince of Darkness wants to keep the world closed, for a closed world is easier to administer, and people without a future are more manageable than those with an imagination.

Sometimes, on Sunday when we gather, the Prince of Darkness rules the roost.  No new thing is uttered or heard.  The pulpit is full of platitudes and comfortable cliches, slogans and nothing more.

But sometimes, on a cold Sunday in December, we peek over the horizon, stand on tiptoes with Isaiah, and there is more than we dared to expect.  Somebody goes home from church newly discontent with present arrangements, hungry for something more and different.  Someone gets ready for more than just another Christmas.  Advent becomes an adventure.  And we dare to wish for ourselves more, more for our world, and Isaiah laughs and Mary smiles.  Poetry has carried the day, and the Prince of Darkness knows that he has lost a little of his territory to its true Lord.  And the Lord’s newly reclaimed territory is you.

“The Kingdom of the world has become the Kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever.”

Did you read in the paper about the man in a depressed region of Appalachia, a coal miner out of work for months, who caught his children on the back porch thumbing through a Sears catalog, wishing.  He flew into a rage, switched their legs, tore the catalog into pieces, and sat down in his yard and wept.  Having seen so many of his own hopes and dreams unfulfilled, he just could not stand to see his own children wishing for more.

Did you read in the Bible about the young woman in a depressed region of Judea, a poor, unmarried mother-to-be, who was caught wishing for more?  Singing, “My soul magnifies the Lord...for he has done great things for me...he has shown strength ...he has scattered the proud...he has put down the mighty...and exalted those of low degree; he has filled the hungry with good things.”