The service was over and a line of folks waited patiently to thank me. It still surprises me that folks take the time to thank me for preaching. Like any preacher, I get nervous and I go to my neutral sometimes (theater training and all–“fake it till you make it” does NOT work well in preaching!). But each time I get a little bit better.
So there I was shaking hands and smiling. I was content to just receive their words. Then a sweet woman gently whispered to me, “Your sermon sounded like it could be in a book. You should compile your sermons into a book.”
I was thrown off. Preparing a sermon, I consider every angle–historical, contextual, linguistic, and then I dive into wrestling out, with God’s help, a way to make it applicable and relevant to today.
I never once thought this sermon book-worthy. And then I heard the whisper again–that voice that stays with me, “See, you are a writer and you don’t even see it. So I’ll just keep reminding you.”
Anyway, I thought it through and resolved to post the sermon here. Maybe it is book-worthy, but I’ll start with the blog.
Enjoy,
Heather
How well do we wait? I mean, really, to just wait for whatever it is we’re waiting for.
- A phone call from the doctor about an ambiguous test result.
- A text from your teenager, 15 minutes after curfew.
- An email reply from the boss about a sticky issue with a co-worker.
- A conversation with your spouse after getting a note that says “we need to talk tonight.”
How well do we wait?
The answer surprises me because we might know better, given this is Advent. This is like the Piez de la resistance of “waiting”.
But if we get gut-level honest with ourselves—we don’t like waiting. We get anxious, nervous, wrestling with emotion, and probably just trying to keep busy.
For there seems much to be anxious about.
The world out there—news headlines of terrorism and shootings—and then there’s our inner being “in here” where struggles live—relationships, illness, pain, grief, jobs worries, and on and on…
Because there seems much to be anxious about, right?
Yet this is Advent. Calling us to Hope. Pursue peace.
Wait well?
Because when the faith-filled fires of hope and peace aren’t as easy to keep lit as they once were. When “out there” begins to invade “in here”, we want answers. Answers to help us heal—to re-fill us—to find perspective, to re-gain balance, to wait well.
And then we arrive at Advent 3—where even the PINK COLOR of the candle seems astonishing, perhaps ridiculous.
PINK, of all colors. Imagine PINK frontals, Fr. Rob all decked out in PINK. It is this ridiculous PINK that seems to want to sweet-talk us into living with joy.
Living with JOY? Waiting with JOY? What could it be like to wait with JOY?
The waiting ITSELF seems to produce anxiety! I just want someone to come and fix it for me, tell me, “What should I do?!”
Maybe that’s not the problem.
It is our struggle with sin. This thing in us that drives us to worry, to anxiety, to fretting, to desperately wanting a fix. Even judgment, or blaming, hiding my own flaws, because maybe, just maybe, I like my sin.
And the crowds came to old, weird, John out of self-interest.
John sees them, he knows them and he tells them so without judgment, without THIS *fingerpointing*. And so, the momentum of the moment transforms—the tone of the scene changes.
And the crowd asks—what should we do?
Be kind. Share with each other.
The tax collectors—the loan sharks of the day—ask, “what should WE do?”.
Be kind. Don’t steal from others.
The soldiers—the paid mercenaries—ask, “What should we do?”
Be kind. Don’t bully others.
What about us, today? What question would we have for John?
We might ask. “What do we do to live through this? (to survive this?)” Head down, eyes closed, lead us out of the darkness to a safe place.
And John’s begs us to consider, “how might we live in this?” Head up, eyes open, the tougher task of waiting in the darkness, in the pain, in the struggle, in the frustration.
To be kind is to be present to be with people—wherever they are, wherever we are.
I sat with a friend, whose marriage was in the throes of bitter division. And I was just listening, neither trying to fix nor make her feel happier; it was hard, but I simply was with her, in her pain. And somehow just my being there, to her, meant everything.
Or even when 12 year old, very talkative daughter wants to tell the same story about a friend at school—for the 200th time that day—and I know the ending by heart. Practicing kindness—being with her, in her story. Because, to her, that story means everything.
Kindness may seems naïve and simplistic, but it’s just hard. We are weary and overwhelmed and tired.
“Being KIND requires a lot of me! Can’t I just get the five step process to fix this? What DO I do?”
John sees us, knows us and tells us by pulling out, not a sword, but a brightly lit PINK candle. Be kind.
Kindness is not warm fuzzies, fake smiles and a friendly “hi there” at the church potluck.
Kindness is seeing a viper (fill in the name of the difficult person in your life) and loving them anyway.
Kindness is sharing our stuff with people.
Kindness is being careful how we speak to people.
Kindness is letting someone else go first.
Kindness is seeing people as people, with dreams, fears, hopes and hurts. Kindness is being with people in their stories.
John’s practice of kindness is a blinking neon sign that points to the answer. Jesus Christ.
Maya Angelou wrote, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”
SO this Advent, seek joy in hardship.
Wait–here and now—in the tension of our sin, in the struggle of anxiety and worry, in a broken, desperate world, then pick up that PINK CANDLE and light it.
Light it trusting that the journey of Advent is not over—that we are heading toward the biggest, brightest candle of all—the Christ candle.
For the answer has been, is now and always will be Christ. The source of hope, peace and, yes, joy.
Amen.
When Real Life and Real Faith Intersect 