Sermons

"The Christmas Rush"

Delivered from the Pulpit of First Congregational Church

of Anchorage by The Reverend Mark E. Long

on November 29, 2009

Lections:  Is. 30.19-26

                  Js. 5.7-11

                 Mt. 24.45-51

Turkey dinner has barely settled in our stomachs when it's ho, ho, ho and off to the store we go.  The hour to "line up" in the middle of the night to get a prime spot to rush the door sometime later gets earlier and earlier and has less and less to do with the Christmas spirit.  As I heard over Thanksgiving dinner, this is the time to get 50% off everything from washers and dryers to DVD recorders.  I don't think all of it is for others.

Nothing wrong with this really - who can blame someone in these tough economic times for taking advantage of the bargains this time of the year?  But all the same, it is a testament to just how secular this time of year has become.  The sacred takes a "hit" in favor of "cheap" washers and dryers for the home, whether as an early tribute to Jesus, God breaking into human consciousness, or even gift-giving as a "symbol" for love.

I have a solution for reclaiming the Christmas Season but my brother told me when I ran it by him - "don't count on it catching on."  I imagine that he is right; even thought it may make sense to hold off on the gift-giving until after the first of the year; it ain't going to happen!  Keeping Christmas holy is probably a stretch too far.

This "leap" to keep Christmas sacred is doomed, but maybe I am looking in the wrong direction anyway.  Moving our "gift-giving" impulses till the end of the Christmas Season really doesn't get at the source of the problem?  Isn't it all those washers and dryer "sales" after Thanksgiving?

Maybe the space that the Church really needs to reclaim is not Christmas Season but what Christians, more seriously at a time, claim as Advent.  It has not always been that Christmas begins the day after Thanksgiving, or (on the radio at least) even before.  It has not always been that ministers or church musicians that put together liturgies cringe this time of year in anticipation of the criticism to come their way for trying to put the brakes on the Christmas rush.  It is now thought too widely the responsibility of the minister (and I talk with many of them) to put on the "liturgical" platter the popular choice whether it helps spiritually nurture the people in our care or not.  We of the clerical name are losing ground to Christmas lite; our influence diminishes as the purveyors of washers and dryers claim more and more of our terrain.

Where did Advent go?  Why did it go?  There are even those, happily misinformed, who spread that Advent is a "Catholic" thing - whatever that means - and so an "undesirable accretion" to Protestant worship.

I can guess why it went; it is not as much fun praying, fasting, and taking time each day to read the Bible as it is to shop for the latest gadgets to put into one's life.  But this is not how it has always been.

Listen to Dennis Bratcher, respected author and ordained minister of the Church of the Nazarene - hardly a "hotbed" to produce defenders of Advent.

"Many Protestant churches (no longer) celebrate in any deliberate or sustained way the various seasons of the church year except Christmas and Easter."[1]  "However," Bratcher goes on, "observances of the seasons of the church year have a long history in the life of the Christian faith.  "Church festivals and cycles of the church year provide a vehicle to teach the story of God and [God's] actions in human history." [2]

From one minister to another, I say, "Amen, brother Bratcher."  Maybe if we recapture the spirit of what has been lost over time we will be less inclined to join the "Christmas rush."  Maybe we will find in our "liturgical waiting" more than a boring foreword to the captivating story of Christmas.

Christian tradition tells us that Isaiah has much to say to us this time of the year, but it is questionable how much of it Isaiah actually intended to say.  The emphasis on twisting Isaiah round through the centuries has the unfortunate effect of causing us to overlook things Isaiah actually does say which may be helpful to us this time of the year.

One passage, I believe, is the Old Testament lesson this morning.  Times are tough.  Israel has been dealt with harshly and deservedly for their rebellious spirits.  But the poet brings a promise of comfort so beautifully, "At the sound of your cry; when [the Lord] hears it, [the Lord] will answer you."

How much "crying" is going on at this time of the year in our day that doesn't have to do with not getting the washer and dryer of one's eye?  God may bring the "rain" but what sort of seeds are we sowing?  What can we expect the rain to nurture with the kinds of seeds we too often seem intent to plant?  Instead of patiently waiting for the story of God to unfold, we either ignore the story entirely and "line up" at the stores or insist on speeding up the story to suit the "fast break," instant gratification nature of our daily lives.

Perhaps more than anything else we need to learn about the story of God in this season of the year is that things are not on our timetable but God's.  Advent teaches us to "slow down," take time so that when the time comes we can see what otherwise our over-caffeinated lives might miss.

There are promises, from Isaiah, of a "rich and plenteous" growth of our seeds that will sprout under the mix of nurturing rain and a brilliant light to brighten the days ahead.  The light of these "new possibilities" is just over the horizon.  It hasn't yet arrived; it is on the way.

Does it make a difference how we wait for its arrival?  Matthew seems to think so.  For he who is about the Lord's business there awaits something different than for she who falls in with the "Christmas rush."[3] Be careful what you are doing when the Lord's story comes upon you.  Will we wait patiently that in God's time the world will be "liturgically" awakened or will we rush to tell God's story according to our timetable or, worse yet, spend our time waiting in lines far from God?

"Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord," begins James.  "The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains.  You also must be patient.  Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near."  When rain clouds form; they must have time to form before it will rain.  It should be a lesson to us.

"Live into" the season of Advent; be patient, sow the right seeds and expect God will bring the rains and the light, as promised, in the time that is best to ensure a "rich and plenteous" harvest.

This is how I see it the First Week of Advent - a call to patience, a neglected aspect of "liturgical waiting."  Amen.