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November 28, 2004:
Maybe that's why Christians need this time of year-Advent-a time when we aim toward Christmas by first aiming for God's ending. At this time of year we pay attention to God's moving toward the promised peace, as we anticipate the Prince of Peace. We work ourselves into religious joy and eagerness as we hear reassurances of God's plan. But get this-if we pay attention to today's readings, because salvation is near, our behavior has got to change. We are living between times, and how we live between those times makes a difference. It's so easy to lose sight of this in the daily-ness of living. It is easy to think, in the crush of routine and pain and trying to make ends meet, let alone deadlines and expectations-it's easy to think that it's all about us. Unless there is something drawing our attention outside ourselves, we get too tangled in our own perspective to make real sense of things. "Real sense," as in "God's sense." As in, living as if we believed God's "why," the assurance that we are moving toward a goal. Our sermon series this Advent is "Living Between Times." It's a title which begs the question, "which" times. We're not talking clock time. The Bible uses two words for what we call "time." "Chronos" (clock time) is time with a past, present, and future. "Kairos" is the other kind of time, not related to clocks. Kairos is the time of the decisive thing, the essential point, something specified, favorable, already planned. Kairos is about the revelation of God-the time we're talking about. The end of the world we've been hearing about in sermons lately-apocalypse-is where kairos is headed. Kairos is the culmination of God's plan, the full revelation of God. And that ought to scare the liver out of you! That culmination, that thief in the night, that intrusive burglar, is one of the "times" we are living between. As if Jesus' warning about it isn't scary enough, the apostle Paul cheerfully notes that "we know what time it is," and "the time is closer than we think." As if we're going to be happy that this dire, dreadful, intrusive revelation of God is coming. Whew! I hope the other time we're between is less dreadful. Father Palladino once confided to me that he'd never gotten over that other time-the Incarnation. God has been promising peace and righteousness, and a baby becomes that promise. God is human, vulnerable to our whims and weaknesses, living with all the limitations of being human, and then God dies. Who's in charge? But wait! We're not waiting for the Baby's birth now. We're waiting for his coming again! We are in between-the Incarnation, the Apocalypse-two mighty events on a cosmic scale. Living between the awe and terror of these two gigantic events is where we get the "why" for all our human activity. There's a story of a wise elder teaching a young person how to live. The elder speaks of the inner struggle between good and evil as if there are two wolves inside fighting for supremacy. One wolf represents everything selfish, angry, bitter, hurtful. The other wolf represents all that is kind, compassionate, helpful, fair. The pupil asks which wolf wins, and the elder replies, "The one I feed." It's as if our personal struggle with those two wolves represents the struggle in all of creation during this Between Time. God's goal-the apocalypse-is the culmination of that struggle in God's victory. It's a victory which depends on which wolf gets fed. That's our "why"-the struggle between good and evil. The Incarnation-God in human flesh-is the "how" of the struggle. Because Christ was born, we have a model and example to follow as to "how" to feed those wolves. Jesus, in his own struggle with temptation and evil, knew something that most of us forget on a regular and frequent basis. The bad wolves within us may be battles with addictions, bad habits, pettiness, selfishness, self loathing. But Jesus knew to put down the incredible burden of "it all depends on me." Thank God Jesus showed us that we can depend on the promise of God's ultimate victory over evil. That we can absolutely count on God to be for us. That God doesn't depend on us to get it right before God acts. Jesus must have been divine! Otherwise, how could he have resisted the temptations we give in to? To believe "If I don't do it, no one else will. Nothing gets done unless I do it! If you want something done right, you've got to do it yourself." What a sweet temptations. We make such wide swings between "I've gotta do it all myself" and just taking whatever life hands us. Eugene Peterson, the person who gave us the paraphrase, The Message, says many of us think there are only two ways to pray-active and passive. Active praying tries to manipulate God into doing what we want. It's a kind of idolatry, controlling the outcome of prayer by the way we talk with God. "Eileen Parfrey, God's Consultant" (you may substitute your own name). Passive praying abandons our wills, as if whatever happens to us is out of our control, we just have to take what we get (maybe because the gods are arbitrary and capricious). Peterson points to a third way-willed passivity. In this kind of praying, we participate in the results of the action. Things are neither done by us nor to us. We get to ask but we participate in bringing about what God wills. This is a particularly Christ-like way of praying, to will involvement in action that we don't originate, but which God does. Participation. In the story of the two wolves struggling, which wolf wins depends on which wolf is fed. When we are stuck in active praying-manipulative, idolatrous-we either handle the situation ourselves or try to force God to do something about the wolves. Maybe we even tell God what to do about the wolves. If we are stuck in passive praying we take no responsibility for the results and believe that whichever wolf wins is beyond your control. In willed-passivity praying, we count on God's promise to know the good wolf wins. We feed the good wolf and starve out the angry, hurtful one (that list that Paul gives in Romans) by giving all our nurture, care, and practice, to the one who is compassionate. God enlists our help, but doesn't abandon us. We have
the model and example of Jesus Christ, the Incarnation of God, to
follow. We are surrounded by a community of friends in the same situation
we're in. We have the assurance that there is a goal toward which
we are moving. That goal is the decisive thing, the essential point,
the favorable and established day. We turn our wills toward God's
promises, we |