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Sermon Index

WHERE FAITH MEETS HOPE

by the Reverend John Parker Manwell
at the First Unitarian Church of Baltimore
on the 10th of December 2000

It is the season of Advent. For children, a time for opening doors on an Advent calendar, a sort of countdown to Christmas. Its tempting to see it as the religious equivalent of that relentless message all around us: "just 15 shopping days until Christmas" C and counting.

But Advent is so much more than just waiting. Advent, with Christmas, is an invitation to religious growth, to experience life at a deeper level. The meaning of this invitation depends on the meaning of Christmas for us.

Christmas is so many things. It is, for most of us, a time of gathering with family and friends; a time of feasting; a time of gift giving, and of decorating; a time for concerts and parties and shopping for all these things. It is also, inevitably, a time of remembering. Like Scrooge, we remember our Christmases past, remembering those no longer with us, even as we celebrate new arrivals in our families. Each Christmas marks the passage of the years for all of us.

But Christmas, like Advent, is so much more. I want to suggest a metaphor, one that requires us to see them as linked. I want to suggest that the period of Advent, culminating in Christmas, can be a time of gestation and giving birth to that which is new in our lives, that which is of God. Not the only time, of course, for we could say the same of Lent and Easter. We could look at our whole lives as a succession of such periods. We could look at all the great religious holy days as invitations to such gestation and giving birth. But the metaphor is obviously suited especially well to Advent, which culminates in the birth of the Christ child.

Advent, in this view, is Christian language for the process of nurturing and birthing a change of heart, a personal commitment of our lives to God. In humanist language, we could say instead, a personal commitment to living by the highest values we know. Christmas, in either case, stands as a symbol for that to which we would commit.

But more than a symbol, Christmas also embodies the Advent invitation, even triggers it. For it is our lifetime of Christmas experience, from childhood to adult understanding, that somehow works within our hearts, softening them, opening them at this time of year to renewed trust in the human venture C a sort of unconscious inward transformation much like Scrooge's, without (most of the time) the vivid dreams.

It's at this level that all those outward trappings of Christmas become one with the inward call of the heart, as we remember the magic of childhood Christmases, the stories we remember. So much of Christmas is in the stories. If we will let ourselves dwell in them, and for a time suspend our critical thinking, they can guide us. Angels? We can be angels. Heavenly host? That's all of us guided by that star of love. Christ child? The longings of our hearts to be reborn. Christmas calls to us, and Advent becomes our season of response.

This morning, then, let us enter into the metaphor of birthing. Let us try to imagine what it might be like to be pregnant. Easier for you who have experienced it; harder for the rest of us, especially those of us who are male. But a fruitful spiritual image for all of us, if we can stay with it.

First, I want to talk about the attitude with which we approach our pregnancy. When its a child were carrying, we surely spend many a moment imagining what that child will be like. Boy or girl? What will it look like? What will it grow up to be? I wonder what Mary imagined. And how did the church come to tell the story in terms of conception by the Holy Spirit? The idea seems so fanciful to us as moderns. Yet if we will reflect, perhaps it has to do with the cultivation, in us, of an attitude. For in the world of theology C of myth C it can remind us of birthing the holy child within each of us. In the words of one thoughtful writer, Each believer ... is like Mary C chosen and embraced by God to be `pregnant with [the divine child] and called by God to offer our bodies and prayers that other people might live abundantly. If we will let ourselves think of it this way, then we can understand the prayer he adds for each of us engaged in this birthing business: At the end of Advent, may we be tired, exhilarated, and fuller than ever before with magnified mercy.

Advent invites in us an attitude of serious reflection on what it is we are birthing. Is it of God?

Then theres the matter of time. Pregnancy is more than a time of waiting, marking time, counting the days, though this must be part of it. Could we even begin to cope if birth came but a day or two after conception? We would not be ready, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, quite apart from the longer time needed for a fetus to become a child, and for our own bodies to adapt. We need time to imagine ourselves as parents, facing a new responsibility. This is not someone elses baby. It is ours. Moreover, those around us need time, too C time to make changes in our lives, our homes, our work. We need time to build support systems, to set aside financial and physical resources, time to look to the health of that which is growing within us.

So when were speaking of Advent pregnancy, pregnancy with the holy Spirit, if you will, the image of birthing demands that we allow ourselves time to nurture that new life growing within us. This is critical, for in our pressure cooker world, were so tempted to expect instant results.

We live, after all, in a world of instant everything. Leisurely church and Sabbath traditions yielded long ago to the pressure of our Sundays, now filled with 5-pound newspapers, childrens soccer, Dads football, talk shows and prime time, not to mention Sunday shopping, all demanding a piece of our time.

Instant foods have been part of our lives for as long as we can remember. Now even the Internet isnt fast enough for us C we demand faster access to it, faster download and processing times. We live our lives, so many of us, in the fast lane, so intent on getting there that theres little time to think about where it is were trying to get to.

Advent invites us to slow down, to think about where were going and why. Advent invites us to imagine ourselves pregnant for a time, and to give ourselves time for new life to grow within us.

Slow down, you say? My God, lets be real. The season already threatens to crush us. How could we even think about time for spiritual growth? Theres so much to do before we're ready for Christmas C so many cards to write, so many gifts to buy and wrap and mail, the house and the tree to decorate C not to mention house cleaning. How can we ever find time for the "spirit of Christmas?" Even to bake a few cookies?

I have no easy answer C my life feels as pressed as anyone elses. No tree yet, house still a mess, many gifts to buy, no cards written, no time for the Christmas concerts that I so long for at this time of year. So far, it seems, from the magic of Christmas in my childhood, when someone else was responsible for all these things.

The irony is that many of our Christmas pressures have grown from our efforts to demonstrate in our lives just these evidences of spiritual maturity that Im talking about in birthing. We want to show how much we love each other, as we exchange a flood of presents and cards, and open our houses to friends and family. We want to show our love for our children by recreating the magic of childhood memories in the decoration of our homes. Perhaps one reason we so love Christmas Eve, here at the church, is that its all done by then, as done as it is going to be. We can breathe a great sigh of relief, as at last we slow down.

I do not call on us to drop these things and spend Advent in quiet contemplation C although I confess to some longing, all my life, to do so. What I invite, for all of us, is a change of attitude. I invite us to make time C in all we do, even in the face of all the pressures C to ask ourselves, why are we doing all this? What is our hope for Christmas? When it has come and gone, what do we long for it to leave in our hearts? Perhaps theres nothing were ready to let go of to make time for this sort of reflection. Yet, still, we can let it shape our thoughts as we sit in church, bake the cookies, write the cards, sit for a moment on a bench in the mall: What do we long to give birth to in our lives? What is the real gift that we want to give, as we choose and wrap those gifts? What sort of persons do we long to become?

If we let ourselves ask these questions, the answers will come. At unexpected times and places, perhaps. But they will come, and our Advent task is to nurture them, and make room in our lives for change.

The call is always the same: to grow in self-awareness, to grow in our vision of a better world, to grow in the arts of love. But in each of us, the new life will take a form unique to who and where we are. Our challenge is to listen for the distant call of Christmas and to sound an answering Yes, as we open our hearts to the holy and let it grow within us.

I will leave you with this story, told in one of the perennial collections of stories of the season.

Brubaker was a gifted trumpeter. Known throughout his town for his music, he had an offer, in his youth, from one of the New York bands. Under his baton, as a music teacher, the high school band could sound like one of his eras famous bands. At holidays, he would fill the town with music. Christmas Eve was always the best. He and his friends would drive to the top of a hill overlooking the town, to a park where there was an old cannon, a World War relic. He would serenade the town, the music growing from a quiet hymn to a great climax C then, at midnight, they would fire the cannon. That is, until one Christmas Eve when it exploded, killing one of his buddies C as well as Brubakers wife and daughter. He never played again. Threw out all his music, smashed his collection of records, and nursed his anger at life and God. But somehow, he kept his piano, and his silver trumpet. Never played them, but kept them as bitter memories of a better past. Sometimes, at Christmas, he would fondle that silver trumpet, to remind him of his beloved wife.

Now, this Christmas Eve, his persistent cold led into a cough, and the cough medicine ran out. He called the pharmacist for a refill. It was just before closing time. The old man filled it, and gave directions to the lad who would deliver it to Brubakers house, four blocks away. Now this lad was a musician himself, played the trumpet C but now, in the Depression, in this small town, there were few gigs. He made a little extra money working for the pharmacist. And the pharmacist told him a little about old Brubaker.

Riding through the cold, the lad wondered to himself if there could there be some way to get through the walls of Brubakers anger. Some way to draw him out of his sorrow, at Christmas. He knocked on the door, which opened only a crack, long enough to take the medicine and slip the boy a generous tip, before it closed. But also long enough for the boy to glimpse what he was sure was a silver trumpet mouthpiece in Brubakers hand. He mounted his bike once more, and headed for home, wrapped in thought. An hour passed.

And then it began to happen. The sound of a trumpet, once again, calling from the nearby hilltop. Soft, at first, then growing louder. A beloved carol. And then ... after a pause ... the sound of an answering trumpet. Was it somewhere near that old house? It became a duet, ringing the changes on the carol. A serenade to the town, across the silent valley.

Where does faith meet hope? At Christmas, when our hearts respond once more to the distant angel trumpets. New trust begins to stir, and faith in lifes goodness begins to grow again, until at last it breaks through the clouds of fear and bonds of habit, and Christmas hope is born anew in each of us.

Listen. Can you hear?

Sources:

Rush Otey. Gospel fragments for Advent. Journal for Preachers 24:1, Advent 2000.

Joe Wheeler, ed., Christmas echo. Christmas in My Heart: A Third Treasury, 1998.