Homily of the Rev. Dr. David A. Killian
First Sunday of Advent
December 2, 2007
All Saints Parish
Brookline, Massachusetts
Matthew 24:37-44
I
Today we begin a new season in the Church's liturgical year. Advent is a time of new beginnings, a time of sensing new possibilities, a time of opening windows. In our home in year's past, it literally was a time of opening windows – as our children Brendan and Meeya each day took take turns opening a new window of the Advent calendar. Even as they got older, they continued this custom and seemed to enjoy the discovery of finding out what was concealed under each window flap.
This year, for the first time in twenty years, my wife Barbara and I have an "empty nest." I was recalling to Barbara how much I used to enjoy watching our children open the windows of the Advent calendar and that I would miss that this year. Well, she told me not to worry because she had purchased an Advent calendar and we will keep the custom alive again this year.
Opening windows on the Advent calendar might be seen as a sort of countdown to Christmas, the religious equivalent of that relentless message all around us: "just 23 more shopping days until Christmas."
But Advent is so much more than just counting the days to Christmas. Advent is an invitation to religious growth, a call to experience life at a deeper level. "Opening a window" is a wonderful metaphor for the Advent season. Advent is all about opening windows, being open to the surprise of finding something unexpected. Being open to new possibilities; being open, most importantly, to hope.
No matter what happened to us yesterday. No matter our setbacks, difficulties, and discouragements, Advent tells us that God can make and is making a new day.
In the reading we heard from Isaiah, the Israelites greatly longed for a new day. Their land had been overtaken several times by the competing superpowers of the region -- Egypt, Babylon, and Assyria. Their rulers had been exiled to foreign lands. Their food and livelihood were on the brink of collapse because of heavy taxation. Life was hard and it seemed that God had turned away from them. They knew that they had sinned and broken their covenant with the Lord.
In this moment of darkness and discouragement, Isaiah opens a window of possibility and hope: "God will judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore."
These words still stand as a challenge to the nations of the world to find ways to end their conflicts. This past week at the conference at Annapolis, Maryland, the prime ministers of Israel and the Palestinian authority agreed to begin formal negations that would lead to a peace settlement and an independent Palestinian state by the end of 2008.
We don't know if these negotiations will succeed, but they deserve our encouragement and our prayers. Let us, in the words of today's psalm, "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem" so that Jew and Arab alike may find "peace within your walls and quietness within your towers."
II
In today's Gospel, Jesus tells us to be awake to welcome God into our lives: "If the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into."
Jesus is calling us to be ready, to sense the possibility of the present, to sense God here and now. You see, God never is absent from us and there is never a moment when God is not keeping this marvelous universe in existence – the vast expanse of interstellar space, galaxies, suns, planets in their courses, and this fragile earth, our island home.
God is working in and through creation to bring about a new heaven and a new earth. God is inviting us in this Advent season to become partners to bring God's peace and justice to the earth, to make God's Kingdom come. What is God calling you to do differently? This Advent God is calling me to be more sympathetic and understanding of the needs of others, to put myself in their shoes, to see the world through their eyes – and, if possible, to make life better for them.
I have been feeling a newness in our parish this fall because of all of the babies that are being born to families in our parish. We're experiencing a mini baby boom. It has been a joy to welcome so many new babies to our community. The birth of these lovely children is a joy to their parents and also a sign of hope for our whole community. This feeling of newness is captured in a poem by Ann Weems, entitled "New Shoots":
Born in the light of the Bright and Morning Star,
we are new.
Not patched, not mended ... but new
like a newborn ...
like the morning ...
The guilt-blotched yesterdays are gone;
the soul stains are no more!
There is no looking back;
there are no regrets.
In our newness, we are free.
In the power of God's continuing creation,
we are:
new shoots from the root of Jesse,
new branches from the one true Vine,
new songs breaking through the world's deafness.
This then is a new day.
New shoots, new branches,
new songs, new day ...
Bathed in the promise of God's New Creation,
we begin!
And, so this Advent we rejoice in new birth, the birth of the babies in our parish, the birth of hope in the new peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine, and the call that Jesus gives to each of us to be partners in bringing about a new heaven and a new earth. This Advent, what windows is God opening in your life? What surprise will you find if you open the window and are awake and ready to meet the Lord? This Advent, how will Christ to be born anew in your heart?