"Shaken, Not Stirred"

First Presbyterian Church
December 3, 2006
Peter S. Buehler
Luke 21:25-36

Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down
with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life,
and that day catch you unexpectedly, like a trap.

Do you remember learning to drive? I remember how exciting it was, how I couldn't wait to go out and practice on back roads with my Dad, who was very patient -- unlike my Mom, who, even sitting in the passenger seat, kept pushing her right foot to the floor as if hitting an imaginary brake pedal. I found that unnerving.

Later on I learned to drive a shift car, which took some doing.
Getting the clutch and the gear shift synchronized, getting my right hand and my left foot working together, was not easy; I wondered to myself if I'd ever learn to do it right. There was a lot of grinding of gears, as I recall -- and lurching and stalling, as I would release the clutch too fast in first gear and the car would buck like a bronco.
My passenger would either be laughing or screaming.

The beginning of Advent is something like this. There's a lot of grinding of spiritual gears, learning again how to shift into this season of anticipation, into this important time before Christmas.
We pull out our boxes of Christmas decorations, we go hunting for the right tree, we put shopping lists together, we fill in our December calendars with concerts and open houses and family visits -- but there is another kind of preparation we want to do. We want to prepare our hearts. We want time for our spirits.

The shopping and decorating help, they get us in a festive spirit, but there is still this silent grinding within us as December begins and we get our inner clutch synchronized with the shifting the season requires of us.

And it would seem that the reading from the gospel is out-of-synch. We'd love something easy and user-friendly, an automatic transmission for our December ride. Instead, the scripture for the 1st Sunday of Advent is this harsh warning about the end of time: There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, Jesus says, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.

How are we to hear this? What sense are we to make of the way Advent begins, these apocalyptic predictions that cause us to lurch forward like passengers in a car with a popped clutch? On the one hand, we've heard it all before -- the TV preachers who lecture us about repentance and the end of the world, and then ask for our donations. (We wonder what they'll spend it on if the world is ending, but that apparently doesn't concern them.) We're familiar as well with the books and novels like the Left Behind series that focus on end-times, and we wonder if any of those millions of books has brought people to faith, or to loving their neighbors as themselves.

Yet the fact is there are times in our lives when the future comes upon us suddenly, when for us it would seem there are signs in the sun, moon, and stars, and on the earth distress. There are times when things happen unexpectedly and our lives are completely changed, just as the scripture says. Then the world may look the same as before, with everyone going about their business just as before, but to us everything is different, and we are different.
Perhaps it is a sudden change in our life's work; or we have experienced a death -- of a friend, or a husband, or a wife, or a parent, or a child. Perhaps the change is in our health, or our physical ability; or it is a move to a new community, or home, or apartment.
Perhaps this will be the first Christmas one of our children won't be able to be home. Perhaps we have a child or a grandchild in the military, and we worry.

Or maybe it just feels to us as though something in our life is coming to an end -- a hope we've had, a dream perhaps -- and we don't quite know how to deal with this new reality, what our future will look like.
Christmas is always so filled with memories and family traditions, with powerful yearnings and emotions -- we wonder if we'll be as happy as we remember being.

It may seem odd, but it's true: Jesus' words about the climax of history, his long view of our human future, speak to us in our lives right now. They are jolting, but they invite us to open ourselves anew to him -- to his grace, to his power, to his future for us.

It's human nature, but we tend to come to church, especially around Christmas, wanting to be stirred -- gently -- by the music, the songs and hymns, the way the church is decorated, perhaps by an insight into the Christmas story. We'd like the message of Advent to be like snow falling in a forest; peaceful, quiet, beautiful. Instead, we get Luke 21 and Jesus' ungospel-like words: people fainting from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. We don't come to church to be shaken!

Or do we? I wonder if we don't come to worship on Sunday knowing deep down that God is in charge of the world, not we ourselves, and that sometimes our assumptions need to be shaken up? We want things to go our way, yet we know that what we need to understand is God's way, because it is so infinitely better. And that we are not finished products -- human beings who today are as good as we can possibly be -- but that we need to be ready for what God has in store for us, unseen as it is, unexpected as it may be.

We imagine our world to be predictable, that tomorrow will be only slightly different from today, but the witness of the Bible is of a world in God's hands, a world that is changing, a world that can be better.
The prophet Jeremiah is passionate about God's future. In his words: The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.

Are we passionate about God's future, this future in God's hands?
Do we trust it? Are we ready to be part of it? The message of Advent is that this Christ coming, still coming -- still springing up, still executing justice and righteousness in the land.

The recently-awarded Nobel Peace Prize has focused attention on its winner, Muhammad Yunus, and his Grameen Bank of Bangladesh, which extends small loans, or microcredit, to the poorest people in that land, particularly women, enabling them to start up small businesses. His work has made a huge difference there helping his people get out of poverty, stirring hope in the hearts of his countrymen. But as The Christian Century magazine (November 14, 2006, p. 17) points out, Opportunity International, a Christian ministry based in Illinois, has been doing the same thing since 1971, five years before Grameen Bank was started. They just announced a $1 billion, seven-year plan to help 100 million people around the world work their way out of poverty by 2015. Oikocredit, another church-based institution in the Netherlands, approved more than 100 million euro worth of credits in the first ten months of 2006.

Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank, Opportunity International, and Oikocredit are changing lives, and they are changing the way we think. There are indeed ways to help people out of the most severe poverty. In a world where the news we hear is so often discouraging, and we're tempted to be fearful about the future, Advent reminds us to read the news carefully, to look for signs of the Lord's justice and righteousness springing up in our world.

And amid all the other voices of this season, Advent calls us to look for opportunities where we can offer our neighbors hope and love.
It may be with our money, it may be with our time, it may be with our talents. Just offering our selves, our compassion, is a gift. Sometimes these opportunities to care for others come up suddenly, like the events Jesus talks about in the Gospels, and we simply need to be ready. Being ready is what Advent is about; not just getting ready, but being ready.

A family came to the church recently, refugees from the Gulf Coast; they were wanting some help. I confess that I was not ready for them.
I was busy; I had a lot to do; I had a lot on my mind. More important things. But as I met the husband and wife and talked with them, and heard their story about losing nearly everything they had in the wake of hurricane Katrina -- the flooding of that late summer storm of 2005-- that they were hardly able to recognize their neighborhood and their home after they were allowed back in -- what I became aware of was not only their need but my own hard-heartedness, my lack of readiness to listen, let alone to help. What was obvious was that they wished to be treated as persons with dignity; that was the very least I could give them. I realized that were I in their shoes, that would be the least I would expect.

I needed to be shaken in order to show compassion. I'm glad that is what happened. After all, Mary and Joseph were in a similar predicament 2,000 years ago. None of us would want to see them go by without our help.

How shall we celebrate Advent? How shall we prepare for the Lord's coming? Whom are we expecting, and are we ready for those who come into our lives suddenly? What do we believe about the future?
Do we trust God with our future?

Jesus' words in Luke 21 are words we want to have with us on our journey in Advent: Now when these things begin to take place, Jesus says, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.

So we stand up and we raise our heads, because our redemption is drawing near. We know who is coming. He is the One who redeems and saves. He is a Savior who comes not because we deserve him but because God gives him.

The God of the universe comes into our world as a newborn child, born of a mother who trusted in a promise, a father who believed in a dream.

So we pray: Almighty God, who came to us long ago in the birth of Jesus Christ, be born in us today by the power of your Holy Spirit.

Amen.