Sermon (St. Philip’s –
Holy Eucharist, Rites I & II
Isaiah 7:10-17 The
Lord will give you a sign.
Psalm
80:-1-7; 16-18 Show the light of your
countenance, and we shall be saved.
Romans 1:1-7 Paul
greets the Christians at
Matthew 1:18-25
The birth of Jesus. An angel appears to Joseph in a dream.
For minds to think, and
hearts to love, and hands to serve, we thank you, God. Amen.
A time of waking and
dreaming. What a beautiful season this
is!
Can you believe that here we
are at the end of Advent? This is a
season of “patient waiting” for the miraculous revelation of God in Jesus at
Christmas, as we like to say in our church circles.
These are days when we look
with anticipation to our celebrations surrounding Christmas: that graced time
that recalls that God has indeed been born in our midst. It all sounds very peaceful, quite wonderful,
and altogether inspiring. If only Advent
were this simple!
It strikes me as I look back
on Advent this year that “waiting” doesn’t quite describe my experience. While this has been a time of preparation, it
has amounted to more than simply waiting. This season has been more about waking activity
than waiting and wondering.
Have you been able to keep up
with it all? It’s been a challenge for
me!
Our culture doesn’t make this
time a season of patient waiting very easy!
In the secular world around us, there really is no season of Advent, and
not much sense of “waiting.” Instead, we
are surrounded by media-driven images of a mad dash, rolling out the Christmas
wares in August, if they could get away with it. This is a race that rushes faster and faster
to the goal of a successful commercial Christmas. This wildly waking state is hard to ignore!
Even with our best intentions
for a prayerful season of “waiting,” our “To Do” lists seem to multiply before
our eyes. We make a list of gifts we
want to give. We look forward to parties
we will attend (or host!). We plan for
concerts we can’t wait to enjoy… and share the special treats that bring back
vivid memories.
All this action engages our
hearts and minds in a time that becomes a hardworking, wakeful Advent
season. Rather than a time of waiting,
this is a season of waking.
It seems that we cannot help
but bring this season of wakeful preparation to our efforts here at
church. Even today, even as we gather
together in worship, we are also preparing for the celebrations that will begin
tomorrow evening.
At this very minute, the
Murphey Gallery is abuzz with the activity required to transform our worship
space with the “Greening of the Church,” that will unfold this afternoon, once
the final Sunday service has concluded.
We are very much awake, carrying out the tasks before us as we prepare for
the celebrations of Christmas. Christmas
will be with us before we know it.
Our wakeful preparations have
almost been completed. We’re almost
there!
It is remarkable that on this
morning, one day before Christmas Eve, we hear a gospel that speaks not of
waking, but of dreaming.
Today, we hear the story of
Joseph, who like us, was very much awake in a time of preparation for a new season
of his life. He and Mary were in the
midst or making plans for their future life together. They were engaged, but not yet living together.
Those of you who have planned
a wedding recently know that such a time is not a season of quiet
reflection. The period before a wedding
is a time to get organized, make lists, attend to details, and most of all to
get things done! Something tells me that
Joseph was learning these wedding lessons very well. The celebration would begin very soon. This must have been the time for action, for
“the show must go on!”
Beginning a new life together
is an active time of transition and change.
A new home must be found. Two
lives are joined together; both outwardly as a new household is established and
relationally, as the work of communication, negotiation and compromise emerge
as important themes of two people choosing to live their life together and no
longer as single people.
In the midst of Joseph’s
wakeful time of preparation, something remarkable happened. It seems a wrench was thrown into Joseph’s
best laid plans. According to the text,
this was not a happily ever after, “dream come true” moment. Instead, he learned in his waking life that
Mary was pregnant and he knew that the baby was not his child! Can you imagine what went through his
mind? That revelation must have thrown
him for a loop! Suddenly, all his best
laid plans and careful preparation took on new meaning. What about the wedding? Everything was going to be perfect!
This did not fit his plans at
all!
The questions must have
multiplied in his mind and heart. What
would he do?! What would his family and
friends think? They must have had ideas
about the way things should be for Joseph and Mary… this was not it! He was a righteous man, and now… what was the
right thing to do?
Remarkably, God had an answer
for Joseph, and this message was revealed in a way he could not have
planned. In the tradition of so many
biblical figures before him, Joseph went to sleep and had a dream. He let go of a waking world that demanded his
time, energy and effort. Joseph dreamed.
And as Joseph dreamed,
In his dream, Joseph received
a message that brought him a new insight (revelation?). A new realization that God was being born
into his life in the last way he could have imagined. God was born in the new baby through the
power of the Holy Spirit. Joseph (and the
world) would never be the same.
And now, one day before
Christmas Eve, we are invited to stop, pause from our season of active
preparation and let go. Allow our hearts
and minds to open, to the reality that all our excitement is really about: a
life-giving reality – God is to be born in our midst and in our souls! Meister Eckhart expressed this beautifully,
that “God is continually begetting the only-begotten Son in our souls.
Dreams are remarkable,
because in dreams the activity of our waking world, the plans, preparation and
activities we are about give way to another dimension of awareness. A deeper, more inclusive aspect of our self,
that psychologists call the unconscious, has a chance to speak to our conscious
or waking self.
Carl Jung held an inspiring
motto that he drew from the writings of the theologian Erasmus, “Bidden or not
bidden, God is present.” In our waking
actions or our dreaming reflections, God is revealed. For Jung, dreams are the entry of our
collective imagination into our waking life.
Dreams balance out all the distractions of our waking lives, including
our tendency toward too much busyness two days before Christmas!
What a wonderful gift!
In dreams, our subconscious
takes the driver’s seat and we are taken on a remarkable inner journey. Dreams express our deepest yearnings, and our
most profound understandings of how the world works on a deeper level. In our dreams, we can sometimes meet God without
the distractions of our active and waking world. In his dream, Joseph heard the message of
God’s new arrival in the baby that Mary was carrying.
God was revealed in Joseph’s
dream. From this revelation, Joseph
found the new direction his life would take.
He and Mary began their new life together. And the baby she would bear would be named
Jesus, for indeed God was with them, and God is with us.
As we draw to the close of
Advent, God is with us. The symbols we
employ to evoke the season invite us into a kind of dreaming. The four lit candles of the Advent wreath
invite our gaze. The candles glow, the
scent of the greens, Mary’s virginal conception, and the Christ child can all
open us to the power of God to speak through our Christmas imagery.
In our gaze, we open our
dreams to discover God again. God’s
action is revealed in the symbols we share and the symbols invite us to open to
the depth of our dreaming.
Waking and dreaming. This day we pray that God will open us to the
possibility of a new revelation, as we allow our imaginations to dream,
allowing our unconscious to hear and witness God born again. AMEN.