November 28, 2004

First Sunday of Advent

Year A Isaiah 2:1-5; Psalm 122; Romans 13:8-14; t. Matthew 24:37-44

Near my father’s home in Chester, Pennsylvania, was a corner grocery store, the ONMA store. In a time when most grocers extended credit to their customers, the ONMA store was cash only. The name came from the first verse of today’s Epistle in the King James Version, "Owe no man anything but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law." St. Paul teaches the Christians at Rome, and us, an interim ethic. Until Jesus comes again we are to "owe no man anything but but to love one another."

When I talk to couples who come to be married I try to cover four things.

First I talk about the wedding, because that is what they want to talk about, and once they are able to hear we talk about their relationship, how they met, how they fell in love, what they enjoy doing together, and what they fight about, what their concerns are about one another. The old joke has a nervous bride advised by her minister to focus on one thing at a time - first the church aisle up which sh walked with her father, then the altar at the head of the aisle the sign of God’s love for her in Jesus, and finally her fiance’ standing there awaiting her. So she muttered to herself all the way, "Aisle, altar, him." . "Aisle, altar, him." . "Aisle, altar, him." . "Aisle, altar, him." . It doesn’t work, we vow, "for better for worse" and take each other as we are. Change comes from inside. At the end of our conversation I lay two pieces of scripture on the couple. The first is from I Corinthians 7:5 "5Defraud ye not one the other." Don’t use sex as a weapon. Sex is God’s gift to deepen and strengthen love. The second is Romans 13:8, "Owe no man anything but to love one another." Don’t use money as a weapon. Keep out of debt. I’ve seen more marriages in trouble over debt than in trouble over sex. Live on 80 percent of what comes in. Give away the first ten percent; save the second ten percent, live on the rest.

We have read recently in the newspapers about the predatory behavior of credit card companies, increasing the interest rate on larger balances, or when a payment is made late on some other account, and the like. This behavior is not just, not fair, but my friends, it is their money. We have the use of it on their terms. I think the vestry has prepared a good budget for the coming year. We’ll speak about it at announcement time. I encourage you to support it, and to order your financial life so you are able to do so.

This is an interim ethic, until Jesus comes again for the last time. He will come again, and Advent is a time to focus on his final coming.

Advent is about Jesus’ coming. We remember that God was incarnate, that the Son of God took human flesh for us and for our salvation. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved." We hear Christmas carols in all the stores, but we sing them at Christmas. Advent is about Jesus’ coming. He came in human flesh 2000 years ago in Bethlehem. He comes to our hearts by faith as we read and believe his holy word. He comes to us when we are baptized into his body. He comes to us in the sacrament of the altar when we receive his life under the forms of bread and wine. We go to him when we die, and we will share with him and with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven in the heavenly banquet of which this communion service is a first taste.

That Jesus will come again in the last day is part of our credal faith.

When we recite the Apostles Creed we say, "He will come again to judge the living and the dead." We will say in a few minutes, in the Nicene Creed, "He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end."

These statements are based, as are all such credal statements, on Scripture as interpreted by the church. In today’s gospel Jesus speaks of the coming of the Son of Man, referring to himself. "Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour."

Similar statements are recorded in St. Luke 12:40 and 17:26 and following and in St. Mark 13:26. They reflect the dream of Daniel 7:13 in which he saw the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven. At the Ascension (Acts 1:10-11) as the disciples "were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. 11They said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven." St. Paul’s epistles to the church at Thessalonika deal with the consequences of the early Christian faith in the imminent final coming of the Lord. And the Revelation to St. John, the final book of the New Testament, ends (22:20) "Amen. Come, Lord Jesus."

The church has expected the final return for a long time. The Lord has tarried long. But we believe he will not tarry for ever, and in Advent we are reminded that he commands us "you must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour." Over the centuries by putting together selected verses of Scripture, mostly from Daniel, Thessalonians, and the Revelation, Christians have sought to discern the time of the Lord’s coming. One major effort in the 1840’s resulted in the Adventist churches, both Christian Adventist and Seventh Day Adventist. Another, associated with the Scofield edition of the King James Version of the Bible, has been made popular in the Left Behind series of novels. Drawing on First Thessalonians 4:16-18 these draw out the implications of the Rapture of the saints. "6For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever. 18Therefore encourage one another with these words." The novels and some theologians speculate on the condition of the unbelievers, and on the relationship of this prophecy to the passages in the Revelation about a time of tribulation before the final coming.

Some churches have made doctrinal statements based on these passages. The Episcopal Church has not. We are content with the last section of the church catechism, page 861, which asks, "What is the Christian hope? The Christian hope is to live with confidence in newness and fullness of life, and to await the coming of Christ in glory, and the completion of God's purpose for the world.

"What do we mean by the coming of Christ in glory? By the coming of Christ in glory, we mean that Christ will come, not in weakness but in power, and will make all things new."

So as we begin the Advent season and prepare to celebrate the first coming of Christ to earth let us also open our hearts to him in faith as we read the Scriptures. Let us open our hearts to Jesus as we receive the sacraments this season. Let us live the interim ethic to owe no one anything but to love as God loves us in Jesus, and let us "be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour."