November 14, 2021: May God’s words be spoken, may God’s words be heard. Amen.
We are now in Advent, the second week of Advent actually. Now, you may wonder if maybe you missed something, because it didn’t look like Advent last week. Well, last Sunday we celebrated the Feast of All Saints, transferred from November 1st, and as a principal feast, it took precedence.
Now, for those who haven’t been here before, the original Advent was seven weeks long, changed as late as the 7th century, but some orthodox communities still practice the longer Advent, and the return to it is spreading rapidly across our church and other denominations. And the standard lectionary, the cycle of scripture we use from week to week, gives us Advent readings for seven weeks too, so while we may not have acknowledged it before, the church was always in a 7 week Advent. We at Christ Church have leveraged the good liturgical work of the scholars at The Advent Project and have returned to the 7 week Advent since 2016. It allows us to set our hearts and minds on the coming of Christ, prior to the insanity that happens between Thanksgiving and Christmas. In other words, we refuse to allow the secular to define the sacred. More information on this is in your bulletin today, if you want to read it later.
Now, as many of you likely know, Advent also marks the beginning of our church year, and while we often think of this season as a time of preparing for the Christ Child, it always starts with destruction, fear, and darkness, not news about a baby born in Bethlehem. Advent always begins with the return of Christ, not his birth. And, all these things – Advent, destruction, and new birth – seem so appropriate for us in this time and in this place. So do the readings for today, which reflect all those themes.
Today we hear Hannah’s story, a narrative often overlooked. Hannah is an amazing woman of deep and abiding faith, who despite the trials of her life, trusted in God to deliver her…or really, allow her to deliver. While the patriarchal tone of our sacred texts focus more on her barrenness as a sign of her worth (not to mention the whole “worthless woman” bit), Hannah’s story has a powerful message for us today in this time and in this place.
Her faith, pregnancy, and rejoicing are part of our Advent experience as we remember the story of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Hannah’s song and Mary’s parallel one another, even while their individual journeys had differences. And, her longing for deliverance, her sense of emptiness within, her faith that God will lead her through, and her joy in this new birth resonates with us now. For we too have been through this long time of feeling empty, of praying for deliverance, of faith that God will lead us through, and of joy at the birth of a new time in our parish.
Through this time of pandemic, we have held on to the hope of being physically present with one another here and with our loved ones near and far. We have prayed for our health, and those of others. We rejoiced at the smallest of opportunities to grasp a moment of what once was normal…perhaps what once was taken for granted. And I suspect that, were we to put word to what is in our heart now, it might sound like Hannah’s song…and like that of the Magnificat, the song of Mary, which we will hear in a few weeks.
We have felt barren – longing for what we did not have – even while knowing that God would deliver us – would see us through this difficult time. So, perhaps Hannah’s life resonates with us more this year. And, maybe we also have a renewed understanding of what the disciples are hearing today in the gospel too.
Jesus, after doing some smack downs of the elite inside the temple is now outside of it with his disciples. Now, you gotta understand that the temple in Jerusalem was no small building, but an enormous and beautiful structure – beyond anything these backwater disciples had ever seen. They were admiring the grandeur of it all – the stones and all the magnificence of the whole thing as they stood in its shadow.
Jesus tells them that all that they are admiring will be destroyed – “not one stone will be left here upon another.” Now, imagine how that must have sounded to them? Even though the first temple had indeed been destroyed, that was centuries earlier – as far from their experience as Martin Luther and The Reformation is to ours. Now they will later realize the truth of what Jesus was saying, that he was speaking about his crucifixion and resurrection. Yet imagine how that must have sounded to them, this idea about the stones of this glorious temple being thrown down.
Then, imagine too how that sounded to those living at the time this gospel was written – when that temple was indeed a pile of rocks, with only the Western Wall remaining. To the first disciples, it must have seemed impossible, but to those earliest listeners of this gospel, it was their reality. They had experienced it – both the temple, and the crucifixion. And the disciples with Jesus, and those standing in the rubble of the temple, would want to know something very important – where then would God be found?
Where is God if not in the temple?
Because in that time, for the Jewish people – and all of them – Jesus and his followers – all were Jewish – for them God was found in the temple – in God’s house. If that house was destroyed – what then? Was God destroyed too?
We can only imagine how this must have felt to the disciples, and to those who experienced it in around 68-70 CE, but we do have some sense of it, don’t we?
Like those amidst the temple ruins, we too had our sense of security shattered. We also had to be reminded about who we are and who our God is, as those long ago did when the temple was destroyed. While our church was not destroyed physically, we were unable to come within these walls. How many times did we hear people lament the “closing” of their church during the pandemic? Yet like those earliest disciples, we learned that our faith, our Jesus, could never be contained within these walls, any more than he could be contained within the tomb – thanks be to God! We realized that our church was open – always – even when we were not able to be here physically.
We never closed!
Yet, while the physical stones of this temple, our church, were left relatively unharmed, our parish has emerged from this time deeply wounded. We now stand amidst the destruction this pandemic has wreaked on our parish financially, and we will have much rebuilding to do.
Thankfully it is Advent, and as I noted earlier, Advent is the beginning of the church year – a time of renewal, of expectancy, of hope, of promise, and perhaps even resolution making as a people of God. It is a perfect time for us to begin the next part of our journey together, a journey that will be, as it has always been, made possible by God, by the presence of Christ with us, and by the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Life is returning to this nave, as it came to Hannah’s womb, and what is given birth here will be life changing for us, and for all that we serve in Christ’s name to be sure. Out of the rubble of this pandemic, we have discovered that our faith is not bound within a building, but within our hearts. So, we will move forward together – one step at a time, one stone at a time, one prayerful song at a time – until our work is done. For we have been here before, at a crossroads of death and new life, and we know that by God’s grace, new birth is just around the corner for us. Resurrection is always possible for followers of Jesus.
And so today, as I will close this sermon with these words that ended my very first sermon as your Rector back in January of 2014 on our Annual Meeting Sunday, because we were at a crossroads then too, and so they are so very true for us now:
“…Today we begin a new era – a new journey of priest and parish, and with it all the wonderful changes that we will experience together as we seek and follow Christ. After this worship service, we will gather to […for] our Annual Meeting – an opportunity to hear about the year past and our plans for the future.
So in the words of Jesus, “come and see.”
Come and see where we have been.
Come and see where we are.
Come and see where the Holy Spirit may be calling us next.
Come and see…and be changed.”
Amen.”
For the audio, click below, or subscribe to our iTunes Sermon Podcast by clicking here:
The Rev. Diana L. Wilcox
Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge
November 14, 2021
Advent 2
1st Reading – 1 Samuel 1:4-20
2nd Reading – Samuel 2:1-10
3rd Reading – Hebrews 10:11-14 (15-18) 19-25
Gospel – Mark 13:1-8
