Sermon 11/29/09
First Sunday in Advent
Jeremiah 33:14-18
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Faith is our earth, that in which we take root. Hope is the water through which we are nourished. Love is the wind through which we grow. Knowledge then is the light through which we ripen. -Gospel of Philip 79:25-30 And so long as you have not known This: to die and so to grow, You are only a troubled guest On the dark earth. -Goethe It seems fitting that the first Sunday of our new liturgical year begins with hope. The hope that we are invited into today is more than our desires and expectations, more than wish fulfillment. I believe it is meant to include the hope of the nations, the hope of the earth, the hope of all that is both human and divine. Hope has been referred to as that which "opens our road to freedom" (Oscar Arias). It arouses "a passion for the possible" (William Sloane Coffin). Hope "is patient. It is wiling to stay with us in the here and now, and it assures us the future is open" (Frederick and Mary Ann Brussat). Hope allows us to live more graciously, joyfully, and responsibly in the present. Today we hear from the Prophet Jeremiah a word of hope that was originally spoken to a people who had lost all hope. Their land had been invaded by foreign powers many times, their rulers deposed, their temple destroyed, and many of them were sent into exile. Jeremiah himself was forced to flee into Egypt. In the midst of this devastating experience Jeremiah brings a symbol from their past, the golden age of the Davidic kingdom, assures them of a better future and calls them to live with hope in their present, despite the turmoil and trauma of their uprooted-ness. The image he uses is that of a tree sending forth a new shoot or branch. The community will not be uprooted forever, but shall return to their spiritual home, a place in which they will grow and bear fruit. This they could hope in; this they could trust in and rely upon. For Jeremiah was convinced that the devastation they were experiencing at the moment was not the last word and it was certainly not how they should define themselves as a people. Their identity as a faith community was going to be based in the inclusive justice and loving kindness of Yahweh. They could either believe their crisis and look for their identity in the tragic loss of exile, or they could believe the One who was with them in this crisis and find their identity in source of the wisdom and light that could lead them through it. Living with hope meant doing the latter. It is into the nurturing of this hope and this identity that Jeremiah invited his people.
So he spoke about growth, the long, slow, century-spanning growth of trees. He reminded them how God had nurtured their growth as a people in the past and promised that there was more growth still to come. I am reminded of one of the old, archaic definitions of hope: "a piece of arable land in the midst of a wasteland." (Webster's Dictionary). Growing new branches requires arable land for a tree's roots. Again we are invited to choose: will it be the wasteland or the arable land into which we sink our roots? Where will our best hope come from? Let us reflect upon another ancient and sacred symbol of growth and regeneration: the scarab or dung beetle. David Richo mines this image beautifully, so let's hear how he describes it: The scarab's evolution from egg to adult is a metaphor of our journey to spiritual maturity. The scarab lays and fertilizes its eggs in dung, the most abject form of matter, thus tying its metamorphosis to the earth with a gritty matter-of-factness. The scarab rolls the dung containing its eggs into a ball, pushes it along by day, and buries it in the sand at night. The twelve-hour cycle of moving from the light, the known, to the dark, the unconscious, represents the necessary roles of both consciousness and unconsciousness - clarity and void - in the generation and gestation of spiritual adulthood. Growth requires a journey embracing both light and dark. The beetle pushes its ball of dung over the earth, attending to it, staying with it, loyal to it, and trusting the alchemical process of transformation that is occurring. This is the combination of trust and humility. The egg of the beetle comes into form as a larva. That larva then feeds in the dung, the base earth itself, in order to develop. The larva of the scarab next becomes a gooey, undifferentiated cocoon. This dark night of the soul, the void, in which we are no one in particular, feeling unreal, is now signified as also necessary for our evolution into spiritual maturity. When the scarab emerges from the cocoon, it is fully grown and ready to continue the life cycle and generate its own offspring. The seasons of the scarab's life are the seasons of our spiritual life: birth, death, rebirth. The metaphor of the scarab shows the rational mind that cycles are not mechanical. They are daily and often risky opportunities for rebirth. In nature there is a light that arises from the dark. That is dawn. There is a birth that arises from death. That is vegetation. There is a renewal that emerges from endings. That is spring. We carry those same promises in our heart, and all it takes for them to keep occurring is a yes to life with all its compulsory foldings and all its certain unfoldings. We become spiritually mature when we go willingly into the dark and impart to the world the light that results, when we say yes to endings and notice new beginnings, when we say yes to losses and discover renewals. (David Richo, THE FIVE THINGS WE CANNOT CHANGE, p. 62f) This journey of darkness and light, birth and death, loss and renewal are a part of our evolution and growth, not a reason for despair. Our journey today begins with advent, a time in which we are invited to reflect upon and prepare for something that is much more than disconnected spirit, much more than mere matter, but an ongoing incarnation of love and justice, peace and wholeness for the world. We begin with a reminder of hope from the past, a call to hope in the future, but most importantly we are urged to awaken in the here and now of our life together. The prophetic word does not leave us in the past or in the future, but with the present and the call to live today with hope. To be in the now, even during a time of difficulty and crisis, to nurture our capacity for wholeness and healing, for love and justice, for peace and equality, and to dig deep into this earth. It is into this ground of hope, mindfulness and trust that our roots shall find the deep nourishment that leads to growth and fruition. Shakespeare expresses it so well in his play, AS YOU LIKE IT, where the Duke says, Are not these woods More free from peril than the envious court? Here feel we but the penalty of Adam, The season's difference, as the icy fang And churlish chiding of the winter's wind, Which, when it bites and blows upon my body, Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say "This is no flattery: these are counselors That feelingly persuade me what I am." Jeremiah 33:14-18 The days are surely coming, says God, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David, who shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is the name by which it will be called: "God is our righteousness." For thus says God: David shall never lack a person to sit on the throne of the house of Israel, and the levitical priests shall never lack one to offer burnt offerings in my presence, to make grain offerings, and to make sacrifices for all time. |
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