Advent Sunday, 3^rd December 2017

Today is Advent Sunday. Technically it is the first day of the Church’s year; and Jesus charges us to watchful.

In the first passage of today’s reading, Jesus urges us to be watchful as we wait for the Second Coming of Christ, who will come in the clouds with great power and glory. This image reminds us of the Exodus from Egypt, when God travelled with his people in a pillar of cloud of light and glory. The cloud both hides and reveals God’s presence and glory.

Next, he tells us to learn from the fig tree. When its branches become tender and put forth leaves, then we know that summer is approaching. So, should we be aware and take notice of signs that Christ’s return might be near. Instead of the signs of summer, Jesus tells us to be aware for signs of tribulation or crisis.

What we have here in the gospel is apocalyptic writing or literature, written by the evangelist Mark, in response to the Jewish persecution of the early church, and the Roman destruction of the Jerusalem – especially the temple. In Judeo-Christian tradition the end times will be preceded by global tribulation and crisis, and we are told to watchful for these signs. For many in the early church, the destruction of the temple was quite possibly such a sign.

And in the third gospel passage Jesus uses the image of a household where the house owner is away, and the servants are charged to keep alert and prepared for the owner’s return…” lest he come unexpectedly and find you asleep.” So Jesus here says emphatically “What I say to you, I say to all: watch…” or watch out – meaning watch-out for the signs.

When I was in the Territorials we were once on exercise and were told to be ready for a possible attack from an enemy party during the night. It had been a long, hard, day digging firing-pits, in dry stony soil under the blistering sun. The fire-pits had to be to a depth about one’s depth, so they took ages to dig.

In order to be ready at a moment’s notice, we were even told to go to sleep with our rifles beside us in our sleeping bags, so that we could get straight up and into our firing positions. As expected in the early morning we were woken to the sound of an attack by an enemy party, and I along with everyone else in our platoon hurriedly got out of our sleeping bags and went to our fire-pits.

As I got up I realised that I had no rifle! Apparently, during the night the enemy party had snuck through our camp and taken several weapons from sleeping soldiers to be used in the attack. I was one of the unsuspecting victims. Not only was I embarrassed that I couldn’t do anything to repel the enemy, afterwards I reprimanded for losing my weapon. I had slept so deeply I was not aware of the enemy infiltrating our camp during the night. In a real situation I and others would have been killed in our sleep. Fortunately, I did get my rifle back.

In our gospel reading this morning, Jesus tells his hearers to keep of watching. The word used in the gospel is agr’up’neite , which means “field sleeping,” literally sleeping in the open, outside, or sleeping while hunting.

Of course, it is impossible to stay awake endlessly. But it is possible to be attuned to any movement or sounds that might indicate danger. It’s the way shepherds would have slept in the fields looking after their flocks –  and so easily awakened to something new and momentous – like the greeting of the Angels at the birth of Jesus.

The purpose of Jesus’ apocalyptic words is to call all Christians to the practice of wakefulness, of mindfulness, of being aware to what is happening around us and its possible significance to our faith – and what it means to our church.

To be a little less apocalyptic, perhaps we could rephrase Jesus’ call, as to asking us to become aware of what God’s Spirit is doing in the world. What is God wanting to do, where is God Spirit working at the moment… where is the movement of the Holy Spirit?

At our last archdeaconry meeting, Archdeacon Mark Barlow, said that Bishop Victoria had indicated to the archdeacons that she is wanting to have a conference on the Holy Spirit in our Diocese. Whereas perhaps 20 or 30 years ago there was a movement of renewal – the Charismatic renewal – many of us in the mainline churches have lost touch of the reality and potential of God’s Spirit being active, meaningful and alive in our lives and in our churches.

So perhaps next year, we will hear more from Bishop Victoria about what she would like us to do regarding the Holy Spirit.

The church recently commemorated 500 years since Martin Luther sparked off the Reformation by nailing his 95 theses to the doors at the Cathedral at Worms.

But the church is constantly in need of reformation. Reformation is a perpetual process of conversion that is needed by all individuals and institutions

Some Christians in North America and in Europe, believe we are witnessing another period of crisis in the Church. In all our national censuses in the West there has been a dramatic increase in people who don’t identify with any particular faith or religion.

You may remember earlier this year I wrote that due to changes in our society, we can’t expect ordinary people to want to come to church. It’s not what people tend to do on Sunday mornings. It’s a crisis of our culture… are children and grandchildren are becoming more and more secular. It is reflected in our families, its reflected at school, its even reflected in Parliament (where there is talk that we should do away with prayer or at least neutralise it from any reference to Christ or God).

Some people in the church today think we are going through another reformation. They are calling it the “Great Emergence or Emerging Christianity.”

With each reformation, we don’t need to start from scratch, but we are encouraged to go back to the foundations of our faith. With each reformation, each period of rebirth, Christianity becomes more as like God always meant us to be.

Phyllis Tickle describes it like this:

“Called the Great Emergence, this time of radical shift is, like its predecessors, one of total and all-encompassing change. It is effecting and being effected as much by shifting cultural, economic, political, and intellectual circumstances as by religious ones. Yet it is the religious shifts that ultimately will inform and interpret all the others… [It] is sufficient to say that this thing is a-borning, and it is we who must faithfully and prayerfully attend to its birthing. [2]”

Richard Rohr (a Catholic Franciscan priest) says, “The emerging church… is happening on all continents, in all denominations, at all levels—and at a rather quick pace. I want to name this movement so that you can first of all recognize how it has already happened in you on some level and so that you can offer this wonderful Gospel emergence your time, your prayer, your love, and your energy… There is no need to reject or deny any one [else]’s present or past experience. God will lead us!

These are some the historical developments that are propelling the emerging church at this time:

1. There is now a global sense of Christianity that challenges the denominational divisions that we have inherited. Many of the things we historically fought about are now resolved, or seen by Christians as boring, or non-essential.

2. There is a growing recognition of the unnecessary limits that church protocols and historical idiosyncrasies have put on reading and living the Gospels for each of our denominations. This is a new ability to distinguish the essentials from the incidentals in church practice and teaching. (I’m reminded of our seminar earlier in the year on Church unity with the Catholic church, and how many lay people just couldn’t get the ecclesiastical distinctions that our church hierarchy tends to make.)
3. The Pentecostal/Charismatic movement tells us that experiential Christianity is actually possible, desirable, and has the potential to lead us to a more vital and prayerful Christian lifestyle.

4. There is an emerging spirituality that actual seeks to follow Jesus’ teaching especially around nonviolence. This is helping people from all faiths and cultures to live and work together for all people.
5. There are new structures of community arising withing the church, these include including house groups, meditation groups, new forms of service and mission (i.e. Christians living and working together with people involved in recovery, the New Monasticism movement, and various forms of shared community). Many of these are led by lay people. The emphasis is on “mediating institutions” instead of just parish churches, yet they tend not to be anti or against the local church.
6. There is a new appreciation for “many gifts and ministries” (1 Corinthians 12), “together making a unity in the work of service” (Ephesians 4), instead of concentrating on a top tier of ordained leadership. God’s many gifts and ministries are shared throughout the church, and there is a growing willingness to serve and share aspects of leadership together – not just leave it all to the minister.

With this new kind of reformation that is happening now, and when we hear Jesus tell us to “Be aware! Be Awake! Learn from the fig tree!” I believe, he is challenging us to come on board with the new movement of God’s Spirit, today. The culture of the church is somewhat out of date. We are being called back to the basics of Jesus’ teachings. Each of us is being nudged awake and God is asking us to follow Him – into this new stage of live in the world, and in  the church.