The Gold Thread

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Akansas
December 3, 2006; First Sunday of Advent, Year C
Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

(Luke 21:25-36) -- Jesus, said ‘There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, 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. Then they will see “the Son of Man coming in a cloud” with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.’

Then he told them a parable: ‘Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

‘Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day does not catch you unexpectedly, like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.’
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There is a woman who intrigues me. She's U.S. representative for a network of African artisans. She helps support villages in the Third World by marketing their crafts in the United States. She is so excited about the possibility and likelihood of Jesus' imminent return that she becomes almost breathless when talking about it. She telephones to ask if we would like to carry some of her products in our bookstore, but her focus quickly turns to the nearness of the return of Christ. "It could be today, Father!" she says to me. "Any day! Soon, Father!" Her reaction to the news of the day -- to natural disasters like earthquakes and hurricanes -- her reaction is different from mine. She is saddened by the tragedy and suffering, but she is comforted and excited, because these are the signs of the end. She doesn't worry so deeply as I do about wars and rumors of wars. For her these are the encouraging precursors of the second coming. Her conversation is peppered with exclamations of hope. She is ready to meet our Savior. The sooner the better.

I find myself a little unnerved when I speak with her. I experience a degree of awe and respect at the depth of her hope and her faith. It seems that she believes so much more than I do. There is something about her hope that I find compelling, and there is something about her hope that I find repelling.

Throughout scripture there are passages that look at the present circumstances -- the news of the day -- and render judgment. Sometimes that judgment is positive and encouraging such as the words we hear today from Jeremiah: "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." Sometimes that judgment is negative, a warning: "Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place." How do we interpret the signs of the times? One thing is constant in scripture, whether the interpretation is pessimistic or optimistic the message is the same. "Do not be afraid!"

Most of us look at the future with a mixture of hope and dread. Our placement on that continuum is often dependent upon our circumstances. When my sister faced her husband's call to active duty in the first Iraq war, she had to face the dread of her own fears for the future. Her spiritual director invited her to imagine the worst possible scenario. What is the worst thing that could happen? When she thought about that, it wasn't her husband's death that she feared most. Worse than that would be that he might be so severely injured that he returned mentally and physically broken. Her spiritual director then invited her actively to imagine that possibility. What would she do? How would she cope? When she imagined the worst, she experienced something she didn't expect. She experienced a deep sense of peace. Somehow she knew she would be able to cope with that worst possible scenario. Somehow, she sensed, God would be with her and with her husband. They would be okay. With that realization, most of her anxiety evaporated, and she was able to face the future, and the present of living her life with her husband in Iraq. Deep in her being, there was something there for her to hold on to.

William Blake writes in his poem "Jerusalem":
I give you the end of a gold string.
Only wind it into a ball,
It will lead you in at Heaven's gate
built in Jerusalem's wall.

Each of us has been handed the end of gold string. That string stretches back through the death and resurrection of Christ beyond the Exodus into the light of first creation. The gold string is passed hand to hand person to person from one generation to another. We are told to hold on and to walk in the Way, winding our portion of that gold string until it leads us in at Heaven's gate.

Advent is a season when we adjust our grip on the gold string, looking backward in time to the stories and practices that have been handed on to us, and looking forward in the expectation of the fulfillment of the hopes of all the ages. In Advent the church is pregnant with the expectation of new life. We light our Advent candles, in anticipation of something new coming into the coldest, darkest time of our year. Children open doors in Advent calendars that trace the journey of an anxious couple toward childbirth. Rose Marie Berger says that Advent is a pilgrimage. "A time of sacred travel. It is a way that we answer what Goethe called 'the holy longing.' Conjuring Advent we will leave the place of our birth to journey to the birthplace of another. It is an invitation to be born again." We grab the gold string, and walk daily in the Way we have been given, as William Osler puts it -- "receiving our daily bread, doing good, offering hospitality, choosing compassion and forgiveness, serving the least of these, singing, praying, and when night comes, giving our bodies and souls over to sleep." (From Rose Marie Berger, "The Habit of Advent," Sojourners Magazine, December 2006) We wind the gold string until it leads us in at Heaven's gate.

Rose Marie Berger tells of meeting an eight-year-old boy out riding his bike. The bike was a clunker and the boy was wearing hand-me-downs. She asked him, "How's it going?" "Great!" he replied. "I'm in my ninth week of having fun!" She laughed and laughed some more, then took out her date book to mark down her own nine weeks of fun. (Ibid)

Mark down these next four weeks of fun. Of course having fun is not the same as having hope, but they are related. Today we begin four weeks of dipping into the deep ocean of hope that reaches out to us from the old stories of our past and beckons to us from a future filled with an ending expectation that we call Christ. Advent is our interim. The old year and years are over and past. Our culmination in Christ is not yet here. We live, as Greg Rickel said in yesterday's sermon, a liminal existence, between past and future, holding a gold string in the space between original creation and Heaven's gate.

It's not so bad being in an interim situation. I was an interim priest once, in Natchez, Mississippi. I had been out of seminary maybe nine months, a comfortable gestation period. The Rector left, and I was named Interim Rector. It was a no-lose situation. If I made a mistake, they forgave me. After all, I was so wet behind the ears. And if I did something that people didn't like, they put up with it. After all, I was temporary, and they wouldn't have to endure it for long. They gave me a lot of space, a lot of rope, a gold string, if you will. It is wonderful how free you can feel when you know you will be forgiven and accepted. That's the grace of being an interim.

We are all interims. We are so new to this business of living an eternal life; we are all wet behind the ears. And we are all so temporary. None of us will be here all that long. Can't we give one another a lot of space, a lot of rope on this gold string that we pass from hand to hand and wind into a ball to lead us all in at Heaven's gate built in Jerusalem's wall.

How do we interpret the signs of the times? Whether optimists or pessimists we are invited, "Do not be afraid!" You are forgiven, accepted and free. Even the worst that we can imagine may find its peace. And as we wind the gold string into a ball, day by day, lighting our candles, opening the doors in our Advent calendars, receiving our daily bread, doing good, offering hospitality, choosing compassion and forgiveness, serving the least of these, singing, praying, and when night comes giving our bodies and souls over to sleep, it may be that we will look up from this life in the interim and hear someone ask us, "How's it going?" and we also might reply with surprised joy, "Great! I'm in my ninth week of having fun!"

A blessed and holy Advent to all.
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