Announcements

There is a depth to the season of Advent that makes it my favorite season of the church year besides Easter (what can top a 50 day party?).  Themes are layered within this season like a rich and surprising dessert. There’s hope, preparation, expectation, longing; there’s the movement into the darkest part of the year while defying that darkness with light.  Advent is also a season to reflect on Last Things. As I preached about last week, “Advent…is a time of preparation for the coming of Jesus—preparation for the celebration of his first coming, as a child in a manger in Bethlehem, and preparation for the day when he comes again in great power and glory to judge the world and rule over the nations.”  This dual focus means that Advent has been the traditional time the church reflects on four interrelated themes: Death, Judgement, Hell, and Heaven. Doesn’t that just give you the warm and fuzzies? Nothing makes me want to cozy up near the stocking lined hearth, to watch snowflakes fall, and drink hot cocoa with the vocal stylings of Bing Crosby gently playing in the background like a good discussion about the end of all things.  Ok, maybe I’m exaggerating a bit, but I don’t think these themes are out of place in the weeks leading up to Christmas, especially because the holidays can be a difficult time. For many of us ,they are a time when we poignantly remember those we love who have died. The holidays can be a time when feelings of loneliness and loss can creep up on us very easily and unexpectedly.  

So, there is some wisdom and, yes, even healing to found in taking a little bit of time to acknowledge the facts of life in the weeks leading up to Christmas.  Death is real and happens to us all, but Christian reflection never ends there. As surely as death is inevitable, God’s love for us is invincible. God and God’s love are not defeated by death.  

God’s judgement is also real.  Scripture is full of reminders that we must give an account of this life to God.  We affirm every Sunday that Christ will return to judge both the living and the dead, and that’s no joke.  Perhaps the only things clearer in Scripture than God’s righteousness and justice, however, is God’s indestructible mercy.  Our patience and ability to forgive is so disproportionately small compared to God’s capacity for patience and forgiveness, they counted on different orders of magnitude.  All the sins, all the evil, of all the world in all times is like a handful of sand compared to ocean of God’s mercy. The Advent themes of judgement and hope, then, are completely compatible when we are talking about our God.  Scripture puts it this way: Nothing we do and nothing that is done to us can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:35-39). God will never abandon the living, and neither will God abandon the dead.      

Death, Judgement, Heaven, Hell: what all this will actually be like, I cannot say. What I can say is that the same love that reaches down to us at Christmas, the love that caused God to come down to earth as a human, is the love that is going to sort out all things at the end of our days, and at the End of Days.  And that is good news of glad tidings, indeed.

In Christ,

James+

A few weeks ago, I sent an appeal letter to every member of our parish.  I wrote about the theme of our stewardship season, “Wonder, love and praise,” which comes from Charles Wesley’s immortal hymn.  And I wrote of our calling as a parish church: We are called to foster wonder, to learn to love our neighbors, and to praise God.  This is one calling, and not three separate callings, because each of those items is really an aspect of the same thing. Wonder is about an encounter with the living God.  We believe that God is present to us in real ways in our real lives. A concentrated moment of God’s presence is our weekly gathering of Eucharist when we encounter Jesus in the bread and the wine.  Our first response to the encounter with the living God is gratitude. This is why we call it Eucharist, Greek for Thanksgiving, in the first place. Along with gratitude comes praise, which is simply the expression of gratitude.  We praise God through things like music. But, praising God is also a mindset that can and should inform the everyday actions of our lives. That is where learning to love our neighbors comes in. Scripture is clear: our love for God is expressed in our love for our neighbor.  1 John tells us that if we don’t love other people, we don’t actually love God, which inspired Dorothy Day to write these words: “I love God only as much as the person I love the least.”  

Cultivating wonder and gratitude, extending real care to our neighbors, and learning to praise God in every detail of our lives—this is the hard work of being a Christian and a member of Holy Apostles.  Charles Wesley’s song predicts that on the last day, along with all the saints, we will cast our golden crowns before the Jesus, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and that we will be lost in wonder, love, and praise.  In the eternal moment of heaven, everything else will cease to matter, and we’ll be lost: gratitude and worship will come naturally, it will be the only thing we can possibly do.  But in this world, oftentimes it is the opposite. We are lost in our daily preoccupations, our jobs and families, the cares, and trials of this life. That’s why EVERY Sunday is so great.  Our weekly Sunday Eucharist is an opportunity to experience the splendor of heaven. For a few minutes at least, (and sometimes this takes practice) we can be lost in wonder, love and praise.  In Sunday worship, praising and God and loving our neighbors should come easily to us. We should rush to honor each other and exchange the sign of God’s peace with each other. We should revel in our time of fellowship afterward and revel—just as much—In our time of prayer.  

All of this is amplified this Sunday because it is the Sunday that we gather together our pledges of financial support for the parish.  We have had several weeks of discernment and prayer. We have been asked to consider with gratitude the various gifts God has given us. And now we are provided with the opportunity to express our gratitude to God and express our mutual responsibility and care for each other and for this place of worship, prayer, and peace.  After service we will revel together in the possibilities for mutual flourishing that our financial support can bring us. It’s all pretty exciting, and I am truly grateful to each of you for making this church community a place of wonder, love, praise; for making this church community a place to belong.  

In Christ,

James+