Advent 3: The Kingdom: Near or Here?

Isaiah 35.1-10
Psalm 146.4-9
James 5.7-10
Matthew 11.2-11

Think for a moment about your dreams, your hopes, your ambitions. Those of us who are older, think back to how you imagined your life – your future – when you were young. How did you imagine your life turning out? How did you imagine things turning out by the time you were thirty or forty or fifty, or even sixty? And now today, how often do you return to those dreams? Today are they still a source of excitement and encouragement; or do they point the accusing finger of disappointment and missed opportunity? Are they today dreams fulfilled or mere childhood fantasies, brushed aside yet quietly lamented? All of us carry with us memories of how we wanted our lives to turn out. We all have past constructions of a future which should have informed or be informing our present. There is in all of us a little bit of Scarlett O’Hara who, after the physical and emotional ravages of the American Civil War, when Ashley Wilkes comments that she’d hardly changed since before the whole ordeal began, says to him sadly, “That girl doesn’t exist anymore. Nothing’s turned out as I expected, Ashley. Nothing.”

When John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea he came not so much preaching a new message, but rather something quite old. He came reminding the Jews of the dreams they had had when they were a young people. He came in the shape and voice of the prophet Isaiah and brought to the communal mind that vision the prophet offered the Chosen people when they were a much younger people dreaming of a future beyond their captivity in Babylon. Isaiah helped them to dream of a future when “the wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom” (Isaiah 35:1); when “the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; [when] the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy” (Isaiah 35:5-6); when the “ransomed of the Lord…shall obtain joy and gladness.” (Isaiah 35:10) In his person John brought all this to mind and called the people to task. In the midst of the Roman occupation, the oppression of absentee landlords and a collaboratist Temple hierarchy he reminded the people of their earlier years as a people, their dreams for the future and he pointed the accusing finger which asked the embarrassing question: ‘”What happened? What happened to the dream?” At the same time he proclaimed to the people that it was not all too late, that what had been envisioned by their ancestors was still possible, that it was still a future held out to them by God. He preached that the kingdom of God was near; yet while near it had not yet come; and he called people to conversion, metanioa, repentance, literally a turning around, a turning back to the vision that they had in their younger days. He was still very much in the cast of the prophet.

And then came Jesus who approached the whole thing in a completely new way. While John preached the imminent coming of the kingdom, the imminent realisation of the ancient dream, Jesus proclaimed that it was already here. In his words and actions, he encouraged the people to stop dreaming the dream and to begin to live it. He did not just talk about the ancient prophetic vision, but gave it hands and feet in his own body. So when John’s disciples come to ask Jesus if “he is the one who is to come” (interesting that they are still speaking in a future tense), Jesus responds by showing how he is living out the earlier vision right here, right now: “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.” (Matthew 11.4-5) For Jesus there was no tomorrow, only today and today and today; and he would have agreed (at least on this point) with the apostle Paul when he wrote to the Corinthians: “now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation!” (2 Corinthians 6:2)

Dreams for the future remain only ever dreams unless one day – today – someone – you – begins to live them. And Jesus did just that. Jesus consistently told parables about what living the dream was about and what it looked like – those parables about the Kingdom – but the fact was his whole life was a parable of the Kingdom. He didn’t talk about a future time of forgiveness, he forgave and he told others that they had to as well. He didn’t simply offer a vision of a future when the hungry would be filled, but he shared food as if there were enough and – lo and behold – there was; and he commanded his friends to do the same. He didn’t just preach about a future when all people would without division come to the mountain of God, but he lived that as a present reality, disregarding the social, religious, economic and political divisions which so characterised the world in which he lived, and he told others that if they wanted to be a part of the kingdom they had to live inclusively also. For Jesus, there was no future that was going to magically appear, but only one which must begin to be created and lived in the present.

John the Baptist preached a kingdom that, while coming very soon, was not here yet. Jesus lived a Kingdom that was already in existence, inherent in each of us and for which we must take responsibility: “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed;” he said, “nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among (or within) you.” (Luke 17.20-21) In a very real and practical sense, there is only now, there is only today. In fact, we can say that what is not being done today is never being done. Scarlett’s dream for her future self was someday to be like her mother: kind, compassionate, dutiful, a pillar of society. However, each time she encountered a crisis she dealt with it in a way which was hardly congruent with her dream, and each time she lamented it and brushed it aside: “I can’t think about that today. I’ll think about that tomorrow.” And at the end she has to admit that nothing’s turned out as she expected. Nothing. It is not enough to simply dream a dream or carry a hope of the future. Jesus’ life teaches us that the future begins now. Had there been no Jesus and only John, how far would the Kingdom movement have gotten? If all that had been done was a recalling of the ancient vision, would there be a Kingdom people today? Most probably, not. What are your dreams? What is your vision for a better life, for a better world? And what are you doing about it right now?

With the rest of his fellow Jews, Jesus shared a common vision for the future, the vision which the prophets had offered; but he didn’t just have some vague hope for tomorrow, he didn’t just believe a promise. He dared to live the vision, he dared to stop waiting for tomorrow, but instead to begin to live as if tomorrow, with its vision and promise had already arrived. For him the Kingdom was not simply near, but it was here. What you would you do, what would we do, if we actually believed that too?

Advent 2: The Gift of the Outsider

Isaiah 11.1-10
Psalm 72.1-7, 18-19
Romans 15.4-13
Matthew 3.1-12

The story of salvation is a history of outsiders, of people who live lives on the margins of their world. It is the story of people who do not quite fit in; and because they do not quite fit in, they offer their contemporaries a different perspective on the events of the world; they offer an insightful and even prophetic view of the world in which they live. From the old barren couple, Abram and Sarai, out of whom is established a great nation, to Joseph, despised by his brothers, who saves his family from starvation; from the two Hebrew slaves – Shiphrah and Puah – the two midwives that save Moses who in time leads to freedom all the Hebrew slaves, to Jepthah an outlaw and the son of a prostitute whose power and insight as judge over the Hebrew people helps to mould the band of escaped slaves into a nation; from the foreign widow Ruth, who is to be the ancestor of King David, to David himself, the youngest of the sons of Jesse — the least likely to amount to anything – who is chosen to be king over God’s chosen people. All of these – and many more figures of salvation history – come from the margins of the social order. They come from groups in society which are never in the centre, but instead have always been relegated to the edges – immigrants, foreigners, slaves, women, the illegitimate, the powerless.

And yet, they carry with them what I have come to call and know as the “gift of the outsider”. Because they are not invested in protecting or perpetuating a position in the centre of the social structures, they can see the world in which they live more critically. Because they stand on the edges of the social order, they can see both inside and outside its boundaries. Because they live on the very margins, they can see something new coming long before any at the centre can. Let me try and show you what I mean. Close your eyes and imagine a circle. At its centre is a great crowd of people. At its edge stands one person. Who has a wider field of vision, a person living in the very middle of the circle – in the very middle of the that great crowd – or the person on the edge? Who will see something new coming into the circle first? Who realises more readily that there is a reality beyond the circle as well as within it? The person in the centre cannot probably see the edge of the circle, much less beyond it. The person on the edge can see both into the circle and out of the circle. That is the gift of the outsider – the ability to see from a wider perspective because of where they stand, the freedom to question the structures at the centre because they know that there is more to reality than simply those structures at the centre. That is the ‘gift of the outsider’. That is the gift that those on the edges can bring to the centre, if those in the centre are willing to receive it.

John the Baptist is in that great tradition of those who live on the margins, and thereby have a clearer picture of the situation around them. He is introduced to us in the gospel of the Matthew with these words: “In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea.” (Matthew 3:1) Physically, he lived on the edges of the inhabited areas; socially he lived on the edges as well, clearly away from the centre of religious and political power in Jerusalem. His dress and habits — a camel’s hair coat and his diet of locusts and honey — further made him a person on the edge, one who would most definitely be ostracised from polite society. And his message to the centre was this proclamation: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”; “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matthew 3:3) What a message! We who are so used to hearing those words can fail to appreciate their impact the first time they were heard. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” (Matthew 3:3) That is the gift that he offers to the centre. That is the insight which he has gained from living at the edges of the circle, the knowledge that has come to him as an outsider. It is a dangerous message. It is not a message that those at the centre will hear, or even want to hear. Why? Because, if the kingdom of heaven is at hand, then surely their kingdom – their way of running things and the benefits which they gain from it is near its end. The voice of the one crying out in the wilderness – the voice of the one on the margins – is never the voice that those in the centre are willing to hear. Yet it is the voice of the outsider which in the Judaeo-Christian tradition certainly and consistently seems to convey to their contemporaries the purposes of God, whether their fellows want to the hear them or not. The figures from the Hebrew Scriptures I mentioned earlier each come from the margins of their world, and each brought threatening, but inestimable gifts to that world. Likewise John the Baptist brings to his world the promise that God’s kingdom is at hand, and while it is a threatening promise to those who are in control, it is a sign of great hope to others who find themselves on the margins of their world; and surely for this reason people from “Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan.” (Matthew 3:5) Those who flocked to hear John and his message were also those who found themselves living on the edges of their society.

Like the Hebrew Scriptures, so too the New Testament is full of figures from the edges; and they are most poignantly visible in the stories surrounding Advent, Christmas and the Epiphany. Not just John the Baptist, but Joseph the peasant carpenter pushed around by powerful government and regulations. There is Mary, the young unwed mother, surely at the bottom of the social pecking order; Elizabeth and Zechariah, the old barren parents of John the Baptist; the shepherds, the lowest of the low in the society of the ancient near-east; the two senior citizens, Simeon and Anna, who, regardless of their dim eyes, had the keenest vision of all at the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple. Even the wise men from the east who came to offer their extravagant gifts were foreigners, and therefore would have few rights in the kingdom of King Herod. Each of these, while – in fact because – they lived at the borders of their world, were able to see what God was doing more clearly than those at the centre. They offered the gift of their vision to the centre – the political and religious establishment – and were met with ridicule, persecution and even death. Yet it did not make their message and vision any less real, neither did it diminish the blessings the message brought when it was eventually heeded.

Those who on account of their race or gender, who on account of their sexual orientation or age, who on account of their legal or marital status, live on the margins of society, share in a great tradition and always offer a special gift to our world. Because they live on the edges they often have the ability to see things in liberatingly new ways. Because the structures at the centre rarely support them, they are not so keen in preserving them, and so their vision often has scope for radical and refreshing novelty. Because they already don’t belong, as it were, they can risk including everyone. As we journey through Advent and prepare ourselves to “greet with joy the [second] coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer”, it behoves us to remember how it was those at the centre of things who missed his first coming altogether, or even actively opposed it, and how it was those at the margins who recognised him. After all, isn’t it the woman (or man) at the very the edges of the town who sees the dawn first and most clearly?

Advent 1: Wake Up and Dream

Isaiah 2:1-5
Psalm 122
Romans 13:11-14
Matthew 24:36-44

A recent cartoon in the Sentinel shows a man and a woman in bed. They both look worse for wear, and she says to him, “Gravity seems stronger on cold mornings.” How difficult, how unpleasant it is to wake up; espcially as the days get shorter and the mornings colder; that’s when the snooze button on the alarm becomes your best friend – just five more minutes you think to yourself, you tell you partner, just five more minutes. You want to put off that moment of stark reality – of pulling back the covers and hitting with your feet that cold floor – for as long as you can. And there goes the alarm again. “You know what time it is”, it seems to say “it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep; the night is far gone, the day is near.” (Romans 13: 11, 12) It is no surprise that so many of the world’s religions and spiritual traditions, Christainity included, use the image of “waking up” to represent spiritual awakening or conversion. Waking up, whether physically or spiritually, shakes you up. It jolts us into reality, whether the reality of the morning or the reality of our lives. The expression, “wake up and smell the coffee”, exists for a reason, and also intimates at the human propensity to avoid waking up at almost any cost.

Anthony DeMello was a Jesuit and psychotherapist, as well as a prolific writer and speaker on spirituality. He wrote once: “Spirituality means waking up. Most people, even though they don't know it,
are asleep. They're born asleep, they live asleep, they marry in their
sleep, they breed children in their sleep, they die in their sleep without
ever waking up.” As we enter the season of Advent in which we prepare ourselves not only to celebrate Jesus’ coming “to visit us in great humility”, but also to greet him on “the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead” the message is clearly one that calls us to wake up; to wake up to who we really are, to wake up to the possibilities of what we are called to be, to wake up to the inevitable end of all things, to wake up and realise the extent to which we pass our lives asleep. And yet, we have to accept how unwilling most of us are to wake up, the extent to which we really do live our lives asleep; and while staying asleep may shield us from some of the more unpleasant consequences of waking up, it also keeps us closed to experiencing real beauty, as Anthony DeMello continues: “[those who will not wake up] never understand the loveliness and the beauty of
this thing that we call human existence.” Let face it, we miss a lot when we are asleep. Lying in bed under the covers keeps us from facing the harsh, cold morning, but it also keeps us from seeing and experiencing the real beauty of glistening frost on the grass, or the sun’s rays lighting up the skies, flooding the mountaintops around us with light. Only by waking up can we really engage with the world and with God. Only by waking up can we dare to envision what it truly good about us and about our world. If you will pardon me, I want to again quote DeMello because he puts it all so beautifully: “You know,” he says, “all mystics – …no matter what their theology, no matter what 
their religion – are unanimous on one thing: that all is well, all is
well. Though everything is a mess, all is well. Strange paradox, to be
sure. But, tragically, most people never get to see that all is well
because they are asleep. They are having a nightmare.” Ironically, he equates sleeping with nightmares, and conversely, I would suggest we can equate waking with dreams. It is only when we are really awake that we can dream; dream a new vision for ourselves, for the present, for the future, because when we are really awake we know that “salvation is nearer to us…than when we first became believers” and we can dare to wake up and dream.

Look at the vision which the prophet Isaiah dreams for the people of Israel in his prophecy when peoples “shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks’; when “nations shall not raise sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more”. (Isaiah 2:4) These are not the words of the someone who is asleep, but rather of one who is completely awake, awake to possibility, awake to God’s plan for a renewed heaven and earth, awake to hope. That kind of dream – the dream of vision, not the dream of fantasy – entails, more than anything, being awake to the reality of life in all its challenging facets. Living awake lives means living self-conscious lives, refletive lives. It means we do not simply go along with the status quo, or even with our own initial visceral reactions to people and situations. It means we never step back from asking the hard questions, or follow the path of least resistance. It means being ready to greet the fullness of God’s reign wherever we may discern it, and no matter how uncomfortable it may make us feel. It means living consciously, as opposed to accidentally. Only when we live in this way can we be ready to enter fully into the life of God’s kingdom and God’s purposes. Jesus tells his followers “Keep awake…for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming”. (Matthew 24:42) If we are to enter fully into God’s vision and God’s reign, then being awake to it starts right here and right now so that we can recognise it when we see it in part, and so that when it comes in its fullness we are not taken by surprise, neither are we left behind.

As the days grow shorter, the temptation is to sleep, to hide ourselves beneath the covers and protect ourselves from the increasing cold. And we can live our entire lives like that, asleep, protected and warm. Yet, Advent’s call is to attend always to the light in the midst of the dark, and allow that light to awaken us and draw us out of ourselves, to awaken us to the beauty and reality of life and of God’s vision; to awaken us to real life; to awaken us, so we can dream.