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Sermon for November 28, 2021 Advent 1 C House of Prayer Lutheran Church

Luke 21:25-36; Jeremiah 33:14-16 Rev. Karl-John N. Stone

It’s Advent—a brand new church year! Normally when you start a new year you think of new beginnings, of having the slate wiped clean, a blank canvass in front of you to paint however you like. As we come to church in Advent, or even walk the aisles of our favorite stores, we think of the angels and shepherds, Mary and Joseph, the baby Jesus and the manger in Bethlehem, and the music of the season fills our ears.

Yet the collective wisdom that has been passed down through the church from generation to generation has us begin our gospel readings for the new church year somewhere else entirely. Not at the beginning of the story of Jesus, but closer to the end. We might want to start with Mary and Joseph getting ready to travel to Bethlehem and to welcome a baby into the world. Instead we get to start with the adult Jesus, nearing the time of his crucifixion and telling us about signs in the sun, moon, and stars; distress on the earth; confusion among nations; people fainting from fear, anxious about what might happen next. If any of that sounds kind of like the way many people feel about the world today, maybe that just goes to show that the more things change the more they stay the same. We in 2021 are not the first to live through challenging times, and we won’t be the last. It’s the rare moment in history when all is calm and right with the world.

But still, why should we begin the new year with Jesus’ challenging words? Maybe this is to remind us that when God wants to get your attention, he’ll find a way to interrupt your normal routines, and ask you to pay attention! And all of the “signs” that Jesus talks about in today’s gospel are things that have happened to people, throughout the course of history, that interrupt us from the ways we hope, and try, to shape into our normal routines. Maybe Jesus’ challenging words are a reminder that the “interruptions” are really what’s normal—and how we respond to the interruptions is really what shapes the direction of our lives.

Interruptions in themselves can be good, bad, or neutral. Probably the negative kinds of interruptions have been more on our minds lately. I mean, who wanted to deal with a deadly and disruptive pandemic, anyway? We’ve had more than enough of one kind of interruption after another for the past year and a half. Even during a time that’s not a pandemic, many people get interrupted by health issues—you’re just going about your life, and then, in a way that sometimes seems out of the blue, you don’t feel well. That is never a welcome interruption, even if it is an invitation to explore the root causes of the symptoms, so that you can be treated and hopefully feel better. Sometimes it works out that way, and sadly sometimes it doesn’t.

But interruptions can be positive, too. You get a call or a visit from an old friend whom you haven’t seen in ages. Your child bursts through the door, home from school with news of a new accomplishment. Your spouse is excited by a new opportunity at work. Or perhaps the biggest interruption of all—a baby is born, or adopted, and all of the sudden your family’s life will never be the same; yet that interruption is the biggest blessing of all.

Regardless of whether the particular interruption is good or bad, we ignore interruptions at our peril. Because a message that we hear in today’s gospel is that God is present in the interruptions. I wouldn’t say that God is necessarily causing all of them. But God is present within them, and if we are paying attention, God is calling to us through them.

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Sometimes the message from God might be “things aren’t going well, and you need to re evaluate and go in a different direction.” Other times the message might be “look at the blessings you have in your life—make sure you take the time to appreciate them.” Or the

message might be “someone needs help; what are you going to do about it?” Always the message is “pay attention to reality, because the presence of God is closer than you think.” The kingdom of God, which Christ promises we will be part of for eternity, is a kingdom that also exists right here and now, all around us. And we have the choice to ignore it, or to open our souls, and hearts, and minds to it and say, “OK, Lord Jesus, how can I serve you today? What are you up to God, and how can I be part of it? What can I contribute to the world so that things on earth better resemble things in heaven?”

There’s a poem I recently came across that gets at this mindset. It’s by Benjamin Mays, who has been called “the schoolmaster of the civil rights movement”, because he was the longtime president of Morehouse College, the renowned historically black university in Atlanta. He was also a mentor to Martin Luther King, Jr. while he was a student there. Here is the poem: “I have only just a minute,/ Only 60 seconds in it…./ Didn’t seek it, didn’t choose it./ But it’s up to me/ to use it…. Just a tiny little minute,/ but eternity is in it.”

Eternity is in each minute of our days. The interruptions of life are there to point us toward the presence of the eternal God in the here and now—a God who is so concerned with our lives and with the world in the here and now, that he stooped down from heaven to take on our nature and our lot and to become flesh; to dwell among us, full of grace and truth. Amen.