The Rev. Neale L. Miller

Sermon for December 2, 2007

Texts: Isaiah 2: 1-5/Matthew 24:36-44

Title: “Why Wait?”

              In Bozeman, Montana on the morning of November 25, 1923, Fritz Peterson, proprietor of Peterson’s Dry Goods store hung a string of colored lights in the window of his store, and posted a small sign reading “Merry Christmas---Sale begins today, 25% off on mittens and boots.” 

              Later in the day the Davison sisters, Elsie and Frannie, spinsters in their seventies passed by the store, saw the colored lights and Fritz Peterson’s hand lettered sign. With a disapproving shake of her head, Elsie was heard to utter the first ever complaint [you’ll have to trust me on this] voiced in the land about the rush to Christmas, “Imagine, Frannie, Christmas a full month away and there’s Fritz Peterson stringing his lights and wishing us ‘Merry Christmas.’ What is the man thinking?”

              If you or I had even a penny for the number of times Elsie’s complaint about the rush to Christmas has been uttered, by you, and me, and our fellow citizens, we would be in financial clover. Your complaints and mine, however, have not stalled the rush to Christmas, not so long as merchants continue to strategize on how to milk us for all they can as long as they can. In recent years Christmas decorations and merchandise appear as soon as the Halloween decorations and merchandise are packed away. Imagine what our friend Elsie might have to say about that.

              Of course, if Elsie was still with us today she would be long accustomed, along with the rest of us, to experiencing the sights and sounds of Christmas in early November. There is nothing to stop the rush to Christmas from the merchandizing point of view.  As long as there is merchandise to move, Christmas trees and decorations to sell, and holiday parties to book, there will be merchants seeking ways to best their competitors.

              There is an arms race underway, Wal-Mart opening its stores on Thanksgiving Day, a move K-Mart was forced to match.  Dillard’s opens at 6am on Black Friday, curious label for the day after Thanksgiving, to which Penny’s and others are forced to respond. And so it goes.  Where it will all stop no one knows.

              I doubt that Fritz Peterson up in Bozeman in 1923 ever envisioned what his quite innocent attempt to sell a few extra mittens and boots with a Christmas promotion would become. Fact of the matter is his actions would result in a cultural phenomenon that impacts each one of us today. Christmas, its significance for Christians still relatively secure, has become for the broader culture an occasion for gift exchange, parties, and time off from work. In the rush to Christmas the significance of Christmas continues to fade away, despite all the bumper sticker admonitions to “keep Christ in Christmas.”

              Why should the businessman wait to capitalize on opportunity?  Why hold back? Why allow the competitor an advantage?

              We are impatient people.  We don’t like to wait.  We want what we want when we want it, and we insist that those who offer us merchandise or services deliver.

              That impatience has found its way into the church.  The worship service is to last one hour, period, though most won’t complain if it drifts ten, or twenty minutes over on special occasions. But where is it written that services must not exceed an hour?  The length of a worship service may be set by the individual church, but the decision is not made in a vacuum.  There is a cultural expectation in Churches like this one that worship will not exceed one hour.

              There is an expectation that the worship service will be affirming and positive, that the worshiper will be inspired.  You do not come to worship to hear Hosea’s rant against Israel, you don’t come to learn how the Assyrians overcame the Egyptians in the 8th century BC, or how long it took the Apostle Paul to travel from Corinth to Ephesus. Should I spend over a minute or two on topics that don’t hold your interest you will check out?  I suspect some of you have already checked out.

              You arrive here with certain expectations.  If those expectations are not met today you will not leave here very happy.  If those expectations are not met over the course of successive weeks we will not see you for long.

              Waiting is not something we do very well.  Why should we wait to have our expectations and needs met here, when we deem it unacceptable elsewhere? 

              Advent.  Welcome to a season of waiting.  Four weeks dedicated to waiting.  Why wait?  The culture is not inclined to wait.  It is going full bore to drum up holiday spirit, and sell its Ipods, flat screen TV’s and whatever.

              This morning we take a detour together out of the mainstream away from the mall, festive music, and the ring of the cash register. We return to an ancient story that we hope will shed new light on what is happening in us and around us today. The light to which I refer is not the light that shone from heaven at the nativity of our Lord, no, that will come later. The light to which I refer is the light that shone for the prophet Isaiah. That good man saw the light clearly as he rose up to declare to Israel, “In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of all mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it.”                         

                Notice how Isaiah started, “In days to come…”  Not to today.  “In days to come…”  But you have to understand the children of Israel were impatient.  Why must we wait?  They demanded.  You have to understand that Israel was feeling the squeeze by two nations stronger than she.  The Israelites were tired of cow-towing to other nations; God must act now, not later. 

              The impatience of the Israelites was essentially based on distrust.  They could not bring themselves to believe that God would be good to his word, that God was committed to the future of Israel.  “Wait, Israel, and in your waiting learn.  Your future is secure in me,” God declared.  Israel wasn’t having it.

              Understand, now, that waiting for God to act has never been about waiting for waiting sake.  Waiting is always and everywhere purposeful.  Israel was called to wait and watch that she might lay down a stronger foundation to support faith in God. Her willingness to wait signified that she was willing to live according to God’s time and not her own. God needed to know that.

              God needs to know that we are willing to live by God’s time, that we won’t get ourselves so swept up in what is happening in the hustle and bustle around us that we forget that we are living by God’s time. As you well know, friends, it takes discipline not to be absorbed in all the persistent distractions that engage us. 

              I was at the health club the other day and was getting caught up with a friend on how he had spent his Thanksgiving. In the course of the brief conversation he volunteered that he really enjoyed Thanksgiving, because as he put it, it gave him a chance to “hang out with my family and friends.”  Christmas, he said, is different.  He went on to say that he was already beginning to feel the pressure to do something about his Christmas shopping.  The pressure and stress of meeting that obligation was weighing on him.

              Why wait?  The culture says we can’t wait. We must get out there and get the shopping done.  There are family gatherings to arrange, the schedule to juggle to fit in the company party, the church functions, and the Christmas concerts.  We are on the clock, and its ticking is impossible to ignore.   

              At some point, however, each one of us must decide which clock we will obey.  Will we march to the culture, or will we wait on the Lord. There it is, the challenge Advent places before us these next four weeks.

              There is a discipline involved in waiting for the Lord, and it is not merely finding diversions to make the waiting palatable.  Me, I don’t wait very well.  If I am going somewhere where I might have to wait, I go prepared with a book.  I can easily bury myself in a book.  There are times, however, when it is important to put the book aside.  I know this with my heart, though my head, frankly, seldom agrees.

              God would have me use this Advent time to wait on him, and what that means is paying attention.  Paying attention means making an effort to understand what the passages of scripture we will read this Advent mean.  Paying attention means to concentrate more deeply on prayer. Paying attention means to direct more attention to those areas of my life that are undermining my life with God and neighbor.

              Brother Noah in our gospel lesson is credited for paying attention. While his neighbors were going about their business “eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage,” and minding all the important things on their calendars, Noah paid attention.  What was it that caught his attention? We do not know. We do know, however, that paying attention he chose the right time, God’s time, to act.  

             Let’s you and I work on the discipline of paying attention this Advent.  Let’s covenant together to set aside a period everyday during Advent to read one or more of the Advent lessons we have duplicated for you in the bulletin, or the entries in devotional guides we are providing. Make room for calm in your life.

              Why wait? The question has been raised this year and it is so often years with regard to the music selected to be sung in the weeks leading to Christmas.  There are about five, probably six at the most, Advent hymns that the congregation knows and feels comfortable singing, we have sung one already, we will sing one more in just a minute. The Advent hymns would probably appear on no one’s list of favorites.  So why not drop them entirely and sing the familiar and beloved Christmas carols we grew up with and cherish?

              The straight forward answer is that the Christmas carols celebrate a reality already accomplished, Jesus, the Savior, is born, while Advent prepares us for his coming to earth, and his second coming to redeem the earth. Now I know that distinction carries little weight with some of you who feel deprived of opportunities to sing the music you love.  

               Again, why Advent hymns?  The music we sing in worship during Advent, or the other seasons of the church year, is selected to reinforce the message of the biblical texts. In the case of Advent, the hymns encapsulate the unfulfilled hopes of people who watch and wait for God to act on his promises.  The birth will come later, a joyous reality to celebrate, but for now we wait, or for the most part we wait. You will notice we will be singing two selections of Christmas music in our service.

              Why wait?  We wait because the promises of God have yet to be fulfilled, and perhaps won’t be fulfilled this Christmas either.  We wait to prepare ourselves for that “unexpected hour” Matthew refers to, the hour when the final outcome of our waiting is revealed at last, the hour when we shall know even as we are known. AMEN

PRAYER

              O Lord, who is evermore ready to hear our prayers than we are to pray, have patience with us for we are slow in developing the disciplines that would make a truly enriching life in you possible.  Even as we deprive ourselves, subsisting on so much less than relationship with you might offer, you continually reach out to us.  O Lord, our rock and redeemer, have mercy upon us and grant us wisdom in the living of these days, wisdom in waiting and watching to see your will revealed.

              The world, O God, is moving at an incredible speed, shrinking the distance between nations, but not so the distance between our cultures. Lack of knowledge, misinformation, prejudice, and suspicion prevent a meaningful dialogue from occurring. Help us to find ways, O God, to overcome the barriers that are preventing us from living as neighbors. Support those who strive for peace between nations.

              O Christ, founder of the church, and author of salvation, we pray for your church as we enter a new season of the church year. The hymn of the church expresses the ancient longing of a people in chains, “O Come, O Come Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel.”  We pray that the church would also be ransomed, ransomed from its listlessness and unfaithfulness to which it is prone.  May the church’s ministers and lay leaders who have been ordained and called to lead the church do so with faith, energy, and commitment that the task requires. May all who worship in the church experience holy transformative, energy.

              O Christ, it is in our nature to avoid things we wish not to see, yet you call us to account for the way we choose to live and the decisions we make in life.  Forgive our foolish ways, the self-deceptions we create to excuse our behavior or deflect responsibility for our actions. Preparation is the theme during this Advent season. Help us, O Christ, to find new and effective ways to meet that challenge through renewed attention to prayer and the Scriptures.

              We pray your blessing upon those who have come to our city once again to assist in our city’s recovery.  Abide with our friends from New Jersey that they may be enriched by the experiences they have here as we have been enriched by their company.

              We ask your continuing blessing, O God, on those who are rebuilding their homes and lives two and a half years after the storm.  Grant courage and stamina to all who face the rigors of the rebuilding process, and the gift of patience to those suffering frustration and discouragement.

              Even as representatives of Middle Eastern nations gathered in Annapolis this last week to initiate new efforts at peacemaking, citizens of the nations they represent were skeptical, and often dismissive of those efforts.  May new possibilities for reconciliation emerge, O God, from this latest effort at peacemaking as men and women engaged in the efforts risk reputations, even their lives, in the cause of peace.   

              Living God, abide with each person worshiping here this day.  You know the sorrows, joys, regrets, the hopes and the temptations we bring to this place. Speak anew to us, O God, with a message we can understand.  May new light emerge where doubt and discouragement undermine efforts to experience you. May those with sturdy and secure faith take seriously the responsibility to share it.

              You invite our earnest prayer.  You invite us to open our hearts.  And so we do this day bringing prayers and petitions for Mary Ann, Pam, Rudy, Shane, Joyce Wayne and all those struggling in the battle with cancer.  Family of Jimmy Anderson, the Amackers...