If These Are More Than Just Fancy Words, We Must Embody Them.

Sermon by Pastor Joel Crouse

Third Sunday of Advent

December 17, 2023

Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11

Psalm 126

1 Thessalonians 5:16-24

John 1:6-8, 19-28 

Wild man John was traveling around baptizing people.  This was a departure from traditional Jewish practice, and that—and the fact that he was drawing crowds of people—attracted lots of attention:  people were interested, and the authorities were interested.  In addition, the people were looking for someone—Jewish tradition promised the arrival of a messiah.  Life under Roman rule was difficult, unless you were a Roman citizen, so the people of Israel and Judea were hoping for a messiah to rescue them, to drive out the Romans.

With these high expectations, they questioned John:  Are you the messiah?  And John said, no.  There was another coming, he said, for whom he was only preparing the way.  We see here a picture of John early in his ministry.  We hear him speak of Jesus as the one to come.

The Old Testament lesson also makes this connection for us.  It is the lesson from Isaiah that Jesus reads in the synagogue at the start of his public ministry.  So, we have John and his ministry, Jesus and his ministry, and the description in Isaiah of the ministry to which we all are called.

John was baptizing people and calling them to repentance and forgiveness, to a new relationship with God.  Jesus also did this, calling his followers to a new life in the Spirit.  In using the words of Isaiah, Jesus harkens back to his own ancient tradition of caring for the marginalized and sets out the heart of the Christian calling:  to care for the poor, the sick, the vulnerable, the outcast, the marginalized; to bring release to the captives; to proclaim the Reign of God.

Just a few weeks ago, on the last Sunday of the church year, we heard the parable of the sheep and the goats from the Gospel of Matthew.  This parable speaks of those who feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and visit the sick and those in prison—and those who do not.  This is exactly in line with what we heard today from Isaiah—and again, with the words Jesus chose to introduce his public ministry.  And we hear this message repeated again and again in Jesus’s words and actions:  care for the poor and the sick, strive for justice, and bring hope to the outcast and release to the captives.

We are now, of course, in the season of Advent, part of the church year, the season of waiting.  In the northern hemisphere, people wait as the days become shorter.  As the darkness grows, we—like our ancient ancestors—await the turning of the seasons and the return of the sun, the return of the light and warmth.

As Christians, we also wait.  We await the birth of the Holy Child, the return of the Son, the Light of the World—just as John waited in his time for the coming of the Messiah. Our earthly waiting mirrors our spiritual waiting. 

So, we have this paradox set before us, between waiting and action, for we are called to both.  Even in this time of quiet, of waiting, of anticipation, the world is also waiting for us.  Just as John carried out his ministry while he waited for Jesus, we must remember that waiting does not preclude action.  Often we think that we must either be contemplative, as in this contemplative season, or active, busy, doing.  Yet as Parker Palmer points out in his book The Active Life, we need both.  We may naturally be drawn more to one aspect than the other, but there is room for both in each person’s life.  In fact, some of each is necessary for a rich and balanced life.

Most of us live pretty unbalanced lives in so many ways—we work too much; we eat poorly; we don’t exercise, or we are obsessed by it; we allow too little time for rest, play, or prayer.  We live in an unbalanced society that equates doing and busyness with self-worth.  And the irony is that this time of waiting comes at such a busy, stressful time for most of us.

But perhaps, therein lies the greatest lesson of Advent, and the greatest challenge.  In the northern hemisphere, this is the time of year that the natural world slows down.  The light wanes, the days grow shorter, lakes and streams slow and freeze, the mountains retreat into their snowy vastness, animals and plants hibernate and wait for spring.  We are invited to slow down as well.  Our bodies want to slow down, to sleep more.  And in the old days, this was the time to mend the fishing nets and farm tools, the time for sewing and telling stories around the fire, for going to bed early.  Life slowed down.  It was part of the natural cycle.  But with all our modern conveniences, we pay little heed to the rhythms of nature—and besides, it’s a holiday season and there’s too much to do!

So, one side of Advent is to learn how to slow down, how to enter into this more measured time of the year, to enter into the waiting and the quiet contemplation.  That’s one of the reasons behind the older tradition of not decorating the church—or our homes—and not singing carols until closer to Christmas.  It’s a way of honoring that quieter, less hectic time, a way of taking a time out, if you will—to stop and rest, and breathe, and prepare.

And yet, we know that even amid what is to be a more unhurried time, the world still cries out in need, still groans in travail.  The hungry still need food, the naked still need clothing, the sick and imprisoned need our attention, the poor and the downtrodden need justice.  That is the heart of our call, and the heart of this season.  After all, we speak of Jesus as “Emmanuel,” as “God with us,”  “wonderful counselor, Prince of Peace.”  If we believe that, if these are more than just fancy words, we must find a way to make them real, to embody them.

We may feel worn out by the needs of the world crying out from every corner of the globe:  poverty, war, famine, genocide, disaster, homelessness, greed, and injustice.  And this past year has been devastating, with fires and floods and increased polarization and violence.  The death toll in the Israeli-Hamas war and the war in Ukraine continues to grow for both military and civilian.  The death toll in the Sudan keeps growing.  All over the world, including in our own country, children go to bed hungry.  Violence and abject poverty walk the streets of our wealthiest cities, on reservations and in villages, and in the quiet homes of our own neighborhoods.

How do we begin to meet these overwhelming needs?  Since we are not God, we cannot fix everything.  We can do only what we are called to do by the Spirit.  And to understand that, we need Advent and other times of quiet contemplation where we can go deep inside and hear the whisperings of the Spirit as it calls us to our own individual and communal work in the world.  Advent serves as a reminder of this need to take time out from the usual clamor of our lives.

Just as babies are not born without a period of gestation in the darkness of the womb, and just as spring bulbs do not blossom without a waiting period in the dark soil, so we do not bloom and flourish without times of quiet and rest.  The season of Advent is one of those times, a time of dark and quiet and preparation.  Take advantage of this gift of time—don’t let all your time in the next couple of weeks be totally caught up in the frantic holiday craziness.  Find some time to reflect on John’s call to repentance—which is not just about sin and forgiveness, but about turning around, turning back to God.  In that process of turning around, if we are willing to listen, we may hear more clearly the promptings of the Spirit deep in the quietness of our heart, and receive a clearer vision of how we are called to live out the words of the prophet Isaiah to bring freedom to the captives, sight to the blind, and good news to the poor.  And may this Advent season help us find that essential balance between being and doing, between action and contemplation, so that one may inform and nourish the other.  Amen.

With God, A Day Becomes An Eternity

Sermon by Pastor Joel Crouse

Second Sunday of Advent

December 10, 2023

Isaiah 40:1-11; Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13;

2 Peter 3:8-15a; Mark 1:1-8 (Blue)

With God, one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day.

On Wednesday, this country remembered a tragedy, now 34 years old, a cold and terrible night in Montreal, when a gunman stormed into Ecole Polytechnique. Fourteen students died that night. They died not because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. They died because they were women, and it was that simple. On that night, we became a country in which things like that can happen.

This week was a time to take a measure, to run a line from that night in Montreal and see where we are today. For many women, that measure was not great, it was not so different, it was a mix of tepid optimism and heavy-weighted disappointment. We are still having many of the same old conversations – about consent; about how to handle violence against women, both in society and in the courts; about stereotypes we are trying to reset as parents for our sons and daughters. Some of those conversations are happening in new places. The internet is a place of thoughtful debate, idea-sharing, and support that did not exist in 1989. But you don’t have to travel very deep into cyberspace to find where the shadows hide the same virulent attitudes that led Marc Lepine into the school on December 6th.

It was a thousand years ago. It was a day ago.

I have spent a good part of my adult life in hospitals, caring for the sick and comforting the bereaved. I have watched and listened to families of loved ones get another dismal update about the conditions their loved ones are fighting, or trying to manage as if it were some intruders banging at the front door.  Time shifts and settles and sends people into yet another new reality.

They go from anger to grief to disbelief. And then to resolve and to focus. And the one being faced with their mortality is thrown from wall to wall emotionally, trying not to waste the time they have left.  And the people surrounding them are also in an emotional ball of confusion, trying to process what is happening without adding to their loved one’s suffering, and being equally careful not to waste time.  For those of you who have been in that space with a loved one, you know.

And it feels as if it happened a thousand years ago. And it feels as if it were a day ago.

In the gospel of Mark, God sends a messenger to prepare the way. John the Baptist is one of my favourite characters in the Bible, perhaps because he is so well drawn. He is the wild presence, the guy living on the edge, the one dumped at the front of the line and ordered to charge into a doubting world with unrelenting conviction.

He’s a bit eccentric, but who wouldn’t be? But for a wild man who ate locusts and honey, there is something so convincing and forceful about his belief – he drags you in beside him. He offers purpose and hope, while discomforting you. And people, as we hear in the gospel, were called to that. Because life is that way – when it’s most uncomfortable, most unreliable, and you need someone solid, someone with sure faith, to hold on to. Someone to offer hope.

And someone to offer comfort. That is the promise of the first lesson of Isaiah. It is easy to say hold on to your faith and everything will be fine. But it is true. For as long as we don’t lose ourselves – the core of who we are, and what we hold as our truths – no matter what happens, it will be fine. We will find a way to move past a massacre to a better society, no matter how many days and years that takes. We will find a way to accept a death and treasure life without becoming a paralyzed mess of what ifs, and if onlys, and never agains.

Faith, by its very nature, is aspirational, – it informs the world we hope to see someday, the people whom we strive to become, the relationship with God we continue to build.

In the second lesson, God reminds us that sometimes we run like wild deer, and time loses its meaning for us. God breaks through our uncertain moments and reminds us how to treasure the time we have been given.  God is patient with us. Out of the uncertainty of our lives, God comes to give direction and comfort. We are not the conduit for God.  We don’t have to go looking for God. We are the incarnation of God.

With God, a thousand years are like a day. Faith teaches us that as much as time has passed, as many anniversaries as we have seen, we do not give up. We keep working in all the little ways we can – teaching our children the stories that will shape their views later, making different choices ourselves. Our faith should invigorate us to keep going, to get up each morning, however many tries it takes.

For with God, a day is like a thousand years. We know that too well. When we live most closely to the tenets of the faith taught to us by Jesus – when we stop to speak to the metaphorical women at the well, or to aid the bereft on the side of the road, when we speak with love and kindness and are 1gift4good, when we talk to God, a day becomes an eternity -- a collection of hours sharp in details and sounds and alive with faces.

To not lose hope—a thousand years are still alive with the possibility of a single day. To give and receive comfort—a single day with all the life of a thousand years. That is the timeline our faith aspires to achieve. That is the responsibility it places upon us -- especially, when we are called to remember the names of those who no longer have the chance, here on earth, to make one day last for a thousand years. Amen.

It's Hard to Stay Awake. Light the Candle of Hope

Sermon by Pastor Joel Crouse

First Sunday of Advent

Sunday December 3, 2023

Gospel ~ Mark 13:24-37

We tend not to be the best sleepers, in this modern age. We live in a world where the lights never turn off. We go to sleep with our phones. We wake in the middle of the night to worries that seem large and overwhelming. We now have apps to teach us how to sleep – which really comes as natural as breathing – and podcasts to lull us to close our eyes. The use of sleeping medications is on the rise. This pattern hardly improves as the holidays approach, and the demands on our time grow, our anxiety about family rises, and the expectations we put on ourselves seem heavy. And so, in the gospel this morning, when Jesus urges us to “Stay awake,” we can be forgiven for thinking wearily: it is just one more thing to add to the list. Maybe we will stay awake next year.

And yet, we know what happens when we sleep through life. When we go through the motions. There are the big picture societal mistakes, when we fail to see evil as it is happening, or injustice when it occurs, and because of this, because we are all dozing at the wheel, evil creeps to power while our eyes are closed. These mistakes are real, especially now, in a world of distractions, polarization, and argument.

But today, I want to talk about what it means for us to stay awake as individuals guided by the gospel, especially as we take our first steps into Advent, and the daily countdown to Christmas, and all the potential joy and the real stress that it can bring.

We are all creatures of habit. Habits form from the time we are children, from interactions with our parents and siblings, the friends we have, the teachers we get. Those habits form who we are, and how we engage with one another. Over time, they become more entrenched.

Some of these habits – resilience in the face of hardship, for instance – are gifts. Others are clearly burdens we carry, both for ourselves and for those around us. And these are the ones we need to stay awake to. These are the ones that make it hard for the gospel to act through us.

It is not easy. Some days we feel it is, frankly, impossible. In fact, our behaviour and attitudes are extremely hard to change. Workplaces have been trying to do so by offering diversity training to CEOs and managers. By teaching them about unconscious bias – the ways they might exclude or fail to promote women or those from diverse backgrounds without even realizing they are doing so. In the same way, campuses are trying to teach bystander-training so that people will intervene when they see harassment or sexual assault.

And yet, what the research shows is that while these programs are effective as education, the changes they make in attitudes don’t often seem to last – and they have had even less success in changing actual behaviour. That is, people eventually go back to thinking the same way they always did. Our attitudes and behaviours are hard to change.

In other words, we constantly need to be hearing the lesson of the gospel. Jesus is a great teacher. It’s as if he understood cognitive science long before scientists could actually study the brain. He teaches us the same lessons – kindness, generosity, tolerance -- over and over again, with his parables and with accounts of his life in a way that tries to keep our brain interested. He is trying all sorts of ways to get through to us, so that we can try to truly incarnate the gospel.

In other words, he is trying to keep us awake.

So, what should we be especially awake to? This Advent, perhaps we could all think about the bad habits we have fallen into – thinking the worst of people, trying to control others, losing our temper. We need to stay awake to those moments – and have a plan to stop them when they happen. We also need to be careful of the expectations we have for what is to come, and of the narratives we write before they happen: the ones that say people will always behave a certain way, or this family gathering won’t go well. These are the kinds of moments we need to stay awake to.

Perhaps, we’ll want to say a prayer, or recall a parable that we have heard over the last few months. Maybe there is some other reminder we can put in place. I know someone who wears an elastic band that she snaps when she finds herself spiraling into negative thoughts.

When I was a young boy, my parents started an Advent practice where on first Advent we gathered as a family and chose a name out of a bowl. The name on the paper was known only to the recipient. That name became our Advent Secret Friend. And we spent the Season of Advent doing random acts of kindness for that person without their knowledge that we were doing them. At the end of the season, we would reveal who our secret friend was. The interesting thing about this exercise was that the true revelation was received in both directions. The giver of good deeds was awakened to the joy of giving as much as the receiver. The Season of Advent helped our family to wake up out of the sleepiness of our routines and habits.

Stay awake. For this, as our gospel says, is when and how we will see Jesus. Not only in those around us. But also, in ourselves. Amen.