Today’s the first Sunday in Advent, the first Sunday of the new Church year, and the beginning of the season leading up to Christmas. The season’s name which comes from the Latin word adventus meaning approach or arrival, invites us to anticipate the coming arrival of the new thing that God is doing in Jesus.
This Advent, our worship theme is “Close to Home” and I ask you to take a minute to think about how you define home.
Saying “Home is where the heart is” recognizes that “home” is not only
a building or even a city. “Coming home” means returning to what’s familiar and
comforting. Finding one’s “home away from home” is about belonging in a place.
And when things hit “close to home” they affect us not just at the surface or
in superficial ways, but deeply, in our hearts.
This Advent, we name the paradox that we both have a home in God and our home is not yet complete.
God calls each of us to make our home in God’s love and
God is still working and inviting us to participate in building
God’s kingdom and a home for all.
We begin by realizing how far we are from our divine home, from the place of belonging that we are invited to find in God’s love and where the comfort of God’s peace settles upon us.
I wonder whether you remember ever being homesick?
I remember when our oldest daughter went to boarding school for her freshman year of high school. For several months her emotions were running high, and her telephone calls home were drama-filled, and at the heart of it was homesickness. It wasn’t a simple wish for favorite foods or people, but an overwhelming feeling that all was not right with her world. That important parts were missing. That nothing could help.
Our gospel text is Luke’s “little apocalypse” and while he names the suffering and tumult that exists in the world, his words are hope-filled, reminding “all who live on the whole face of the earth” (v. 35) that God is present in the midst of the chaos.
Here Luke tells us that God enters into our homesick world and promises redemption. God promises to rescue us from our sin and restore us to the life that we have in God through Jesus Christ.
That is God’s promise for all of us who yearn for our home to be made
whole, made right and made well. For me, whole, right and well means
the reconciliation of broken relationships,
the resolution of conflict in places where there is no peace,
and the restoration of health to those who are ill.
Luke assures us that we will see the kingdom of God drawing near and know that God is close to us. He compares our knowing God’s presence to seeing that the trees are beginning to bud and knowing, without anyone telling us, that the season is about to change.
He urges us to be attentive and watchful, and to see how God is showing up in our lives and those around us. Where do we see God draw near today?
A rabbinical colleague told this story of how God showed up:
In Judaism, there is a ritual that happens on the one-year anniversary of a loved one’s death. The rabbi made phone calls and sent emails so their congregation would know the event was taking place on a particular evening, and then he found himself, waiting in darkness about ten minutes beforehand, when, piercing the darkness with their headlights, cars began streaming in and people got out, grasping their prayer books, and entering the building in silence. There they worshiped together, joining in a tradition that reaches back to the third or fourth century. Woven into their worship was centuries of communities coming together to grieve and to celebrate.
God shows up in our words for worship, our rituals and traditions and in our gathering together, and God also shows up in our everyday lives.
While Emma was home for Thanksgiving, we took a few minutes to go through her late grandmother’s jewelry box. Jamie’s dad Jim left it with us when he visited in October and asked for our girls to choose some pieces from it. We sat the dining room table and as we opened the drawers and looked more closely, we shared memories. There was a small devotional medallion dedicated to Mary, my mother-in-law’s class rings from high school and college and even a charm-sized football from a championship game Jim played in the 50s. It was just a few minutes of remembering and reminiscing, and it was a sacred time honoring the woman we knew as mother, mother-in-law and MomMom.
In the ordinariness of our days, in our grief and in our joy, God shows up and accompanies us in all things to make the world whole, right and well.
Let us pray.
Good and gracious God,
Thank you for your promised Son Jesus
and for the redemption you promise to us all.
Help us pay attention to the surprising
ways you show up to heal our homesick world and relieve suffering.
Give us courage to participate in
making your kingdom known here on earth and creating a home for all.
We pray in the name of Jesus Christ,
our Lord and Savior.
Amen.
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