Sermon: Advent - and the whole of the Hebrew Bible!

Sermon. 29 November 2015. St Michael and All Angels, Little Ilford

Advent Sunday (Year C)

The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will fulfil 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; and he 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: 'The LORD is our righteousness.

Jeremiah 33:14-16 (NRSV)

Happy New Year! Yes, it's a new Church Year. 'Year C', if we are being functional. 'The Year of Luke', the 'Year of the Gospel of Luke', if we are allowing ourselves a smidgen of poetry. (I think that's the fourth time in 2015 I've wished you a 'Happy New Year' , reflecting different calendars. I don't apologise for that.)

And of course a Happy Advent too! Advent – the season when we do two things:

(a) we look forward to our own retelling of the story of the birth of Jesus in history;

and (b) we look forward to the manifestation of Jesus at the end of time, that consummation of all things, when Gd's Reign becomes clear to all, and there is freedom and justice with forgiveness, fun and feasting (real feasting, not Christmas gorging).

We have much to look forward to indeed. But how do we look forward? Let us be frank. We already do know how we will look forward to our marking the birth of Jesus, Christmas. We will, as it were, work our way through the list of events on our sheet. (I don't mean we'll do so automatically; hopefully we'll engage with sincerity, opennness and joy.) The way to look forward to Christmas is already set out for us. My question is: what would it really mean to 'look forward to' the Second Coming, the end, the consummation, the Reign of God in its fulness?

I cannot tell you. But one well-known, if paradoxical way of reflecting on the future is to think about the past, to retrace the way we have already trod, so that we can see how the trajectory just might continue.

So... what I'd like to do now is something rather unusual. I'd like to tell the story of the book we call the Old Testament, which is also called the Hebrew Bible. We are not used to trying to tell its story in summary form. So perhaps it's no bad thing to try. Ready? Here goes.

Gd made the very good world out of sheer delight, and made paradise.

Things go wrong, but Gd helps out.

Things go wrong again and again, and Gd help out, again and again.

Then Gd calls Abraham and Sarah for a new journey - from Ur in the North to Canaan, which becomes the Promised Land (a journey with diversions).

His son and grandson live in and out of the Promised Land.

His great grandson goes down to Egypt because of his brothers' shameful betrayal, but it works out.

But his descendants become slaves.

Eventually, the Prophet Moses comes along, and Gd sends him to rescue the people.

They escape to the wilderness.

There, as a united People, they have encounter with Gd in clouds and fire on a Mountain.

They are taught how to live.

After a surprisingly long journey (because things have already gone wrong again), they are ready to enter (or re-enter) the Promised Land.

But Moses does not. He dies first.

That is the end of the first part.

The taking of the Land is messy in all kinds of ways. But it happens.

In the Land, things go wrong.

The People ask Gd-the-King for their own human king.

Whether they were right to do so or not, Gd lets them have their monarchy. Saul, then David, then Solomon.

After Solomon, things go wrong, seriously wrong. Soon there are two nations. Though naming them is a bit complicated we can say: the Northern Kingdom is Israel, the Southern Kingdom is Judah.

Things continue to go wrong, and eventually the Northern Kingdom is overrun by the Assyrians, and is as such finished.

Not so long afterwards, the Southern Kingdom is overrun by the Babylonians.

But a new thing happens...
the People of Judah who are taken in exile to Babylon hold on to - and in many ways strengthen - their sense of being the People of Judah, or Judans, or, as they are now known, 'Jews'.

When the Babylonians are themselves overrun by the Persians, the Persian King lets the Judans/Jews return to Judah.

They are not free, but they have a degree of control, and have their own leaders. Crucially, they can rebuild their Temple, which they do.

So the religion of the Judans/Jews, which we might call anachronistically 'Judaism', is reborn and renewed.

That's as far as the Old Testament takes us (more with 'the beginning of "Judaism"' than its ending). But I will add that in time the Persians were overrun by the Greeks, and the Greeks by the Romans. That's the point where the New Testament begins: the Romans are in charge of the Jews in Judah, or, as it's now called, Judaea.

Throughout the time of this 'Old Testament' history, People are asking themselves about themselves and Gd, and writing things down.

They look back to that momentous meeting with Gd on the Mountain, and try to work out what the Guidance on how to live, given there, means in practice.

There are also Prophets who speak into the concrete situation of the People, actually without much reference back to that Mountain.

And there are also people who look for - and find - wisdom on its own terms, without much reference to either, truth be told.

These are the three strands which will eventually make up the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament.

So what? Well, I hope that might be helpful in itself (it helped me, writing it, to be honest). But also I hope it will help, if we ask, as I am now asking: where does today's First Reading fit in? Where does Jeremiah fit in to that huge, long, overarching story? Because it might just make a difference.

Jeremiah says the 'days are coming...' and that 'in those days and at that time...' many good things will happen. My question now is: what days did he have in mind? When are the days that are 'coming'?

Well, since we are here on Advent Sunday, there are for us Christians two answers which are blindingly obvious. The first is that the coming days are the days of Jesus' earthly life. For Jeremiah, in the coming days there is restoration and righteousness, and we see Jesus as the Righteous One who in one way or another restores. Or, thinking of the other Advent theme, we might think that the coming days are the days at the end of time, when Jesus returns and fully restores all that is lost.

Now both of these answers have merit, and work, within a Christian frame. I am not saying they are wrong. But it is worth saying this: neither of these answers fits with the plain, surface meaning of the text of Jeremiah. (If you don't believe me, I do invite you to read through all of Jeremiah, or, failing that, chapters 30-33, to get a sense of what is going in, to check if I am right.)

I am suggesting that it is clear, in the context of Jeremiah, that the good days which are coming can be located within the story of the Old Testament. Remember that story? The people of Judah (or some of them) go into exile to Babylon, weep by the rivers, and, later, return. That is what Jeremiah is talking about: he prophesies that the People must go into exile. He prophesies that they will return, and return, in 'coming days', to good things.

So he is looking forward to return of a bunch of Judans from Babylon. But this happened in history, and happened some 538 years before Christ.

The thing about Jeremiah and all the other Prophets who prophesied a return from exile is this: they thought it would itself be miraculous, wonderful, triumphant, easy, majestic. But, in fact, it wasn't like that. It was - successful but - modest, humble, difficult, and to almost all eyes, unimportant.

So there is in our Old Testament, in the Hebrew Bible, a longing for the miraculous and majestic, for fulness of the transforming presence of Gd

which is 'still there',

which has not been fulfilled,

which overflows, as it were, out of its historical context 
and speaks, and pleads and sings out yet.

When will those days come, when Gd comes miraculously and majestically, and quite simply puts things right?

Brothers and sisters, that is where the Old Testament leaves things. But can we not also say: that is where we are left? Like the psalmist, if we are honest, we cry: 'how long, O Lord, how long?'

We can of course continue to speak of fulfilment of this and much more in Jesus. But I am suggesting that Advent is – precisely – this: it is our chance not to run away from that question, not to run away from our awareness of own unfulfilled longing for things put right. That unanswered cry is there for us, for Jews, and – at one level of consciousness or another – for all people who are in any way sensitive. I do not need to give you the 'shopping list' of the world's unmet needs, and its pains and wounds and horrors, least of all in these days. Too much Christmas partying can interfere with this lively sense of this unmet longing. Such is life. But there is still the option of becoming attuned to it here in worship, as we pray.

So let us pray:

Gd, we thank you

that you are with us in hidden and subversive ways;

and we also long for those coming days,

when you are miraculously and majestically with us, 
that peace comes

to our hearts

to our streets

and between the nations of the world.

Amen.