A sermon preached by
Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC December 6, 2015, Advent 2.
Texts: Malachi 3:1-4, Luke 3:1-6
Our guiding theme throughout Advent
this year is “Coming Soon.” When you see
store fronts in the city or in the mall with those words scrawled across the
window, you know something new is being built and will be offered there,
something different will appear. Here in
our own physical plant, we are seeing concrete signs of the new things that are
coming; windows and floors (and that funky circular lounge in the parlor) have
been removed, scaffolding is up, and dust has started to fly… We knew this was coming soon, this
disruption, this mess. What won’t come
as soon as we’d like is the final vision, the beautiful new thing, the finished
creation. Of course, we’d like the
project to be done quickly and to proceed smoothly without incident. But on the way to a new creation there is
always a messy middle that often lasts even longer than projected. And in the midst, we grumble and wonder why
things aren’t getting done and, perhaps, look for who to blame. I can’t help but think about the process of
decorating the house for this season. I
know I will enjoy it once everything is up, but oh, the frustration and mess
and grumbling that happens on the way—talk about a messy middle! Disruption, messiness, inconvenience,
anxiety, hard work, unexpected obstacles, and the need for patience and
flexibility should always be expected in the process of creating something new—whether
that new thing is building a new space or building new things in community or
relationship. But even as we know to
expect the challenges that come with being under construction, it would be so
nice to be able to take a bypass, a detour, and avoid having to deal.
Today we hear words from prophets
of our tradition speaking about repentance and refinement and forgiveness and
purification. These are things that
likely also make us long for a detour. When we hear words like “sin” and
“repentance” many of us may shut down and tune out because, frankly, we don't
want to deal with this stuff; it has been a hard week after all! For some of us, we just want to get to the
baby Jesus (can’t we just sing some Christmas carols?). For others of us, we're already feeling
miserable at this time of year and the last thing we want to hear about is how
we need to repent. And for still others,
we generally feel that there's too much judgment in the world, judgment of the
type that is oppressive and hateful, judgment that has so often been directed
at us or at those we love. And, if any
of you are like me, we do a fine job of judging ourselves without hearing about
it from the scriptures… Where is that
orange detour sign?
But as much as we’d like to avoid
it, the message of repentance is a necessary stop on our way to the manger,
just as disruption, discomfort, and messiness are necessary to create something
new. Every year about this time, our
tradition forces us to travel into the wilderness and to spend a couple of
Sundays with crazy cousin, John. And I'd
like to suggest that we do ourselves a disservice if we re-set the spiritual
GPS to avoid John or Malachi before him; because ultimately we need to receive
what these prophets offer. What they
offer is a wake-up call, a chance to acknowledge the reality of things and the
need for change. In order for us to get
to the place of “peace and goodwill for all” we simply have to travel the road
of painful, honest awareness of the s
