Yet, O Lord, You are the Mower

Isaiah 64:1-9

O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence— as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil— to make your name known to your adversaries, so that the nations might tremble at your presence! When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence. From ages past no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who works for those who wait for him. You meet those who gladly do right, those who remember you in your ways. But you were angry, and we sinned; because you hid yourself we transgressed.

We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. There is no one who calls on your name, or attempts to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity. Yet, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. Do not be exceedingly angry, O Lord, and do not remember iniquity forever. Now consider, we are all your people.

Mark 13:24-37

“But in those days, after that suffering,

the sun will be darkened,

and the moon will not give its light,

and the stars will be falling from heaven,

and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.

Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in clouds’ with great power and glory. Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.

“From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

“But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. Therefore, keep awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.”

How are we to wait?  That’s the question of Advent.  How are we to wait?  The lessons for today focus on our wait for the world to be made right again.  These same lessons make it very clear that the way things are now, even though we are the makers the mess, are well outside our ability to put right again.  Our mess needs something beyond the capacity of both our imagination and our power.  That puts it all out of our control and THAT, humans find frustrating.   

Isaiah voiced Israel’s frustration this way:  Oh, that you would rip open the heavens and descend, make the mountains shudder at your presence— As when a forest catches fire, as when fire makes a pot to boil—To shock your enemies into facing you, make the nations shake in their boots!  This was the frustration of exile… an exile that did not seem, in any way, possible to escape except by Divine intervention.  Mark wrote to a people similarly trapped.  They too could not imagine any way to escape the oppression and persecution of the Roman Empire except by God breaking into their world, in person, and putting things right.  Our modern stuckness is different… but really the same. 

Israeli hostages in Gaza.  Thousands of Palestinians bombed into oblivion.  Only the heavens ripped open will do.  The climate changes and forests burn, farmland becomes unproductive and storms increase in destructive power as every last dime is squeezed out of the earth, never looking farther into the future than this quarter’s earnings.  Only a miracle will do.  Our Jewish neighbors are told they should be afraid to leave their homes.  Palestinian kids are killed in a neighboring state.  Only God’s mountain-shaking presence will do.  Christian Nationalists take Jesus’ words of love, acceptance, generosity and grace and torture them to come out meaning the the exact opposite of what Jesus was all about.  For this level of mess we need mountain shaking, in-person power like on Mount Sini to fix all this!  This needs Son of Man coming in the clouds, the sun and moon going dark and the heavenly host drawn from the four winds kind of power if all that is broken is to be made right again!  We feel like Isaiah felt, like a leaf that is fading the longer we wait.  We feel like Mark, like the sky is growing darker and the night just keeps getting colder the longer we wait.  And yet all we can do is WAIT!  But it would seem that HOW we wait, matters.

I think the new online friend I make this week gives us an example of waiting “unawake.”  I posted a welcome to the “community tree lighting” online.  He commented that there is no such thing as a “community tree” and we should put Christ back into the Christmas tree.  I replied that he could rest easy.  That no matter what the tree is called, no one has the power to undo the birth of Christ!  He called me a “Bleeding Heart” which, of course, refers to Christ’s heart of compassion and kindness which I thought was very nice of him.  Humor aside, this is what waiting “unawake” looks like.  Waiting in anxiety and fear… waiting by allowing that fear to turn to anger and aggression.  It’s not the way to wait.  

We are called instead to wait, “awake”.  Waiting awake begins with remembering the truth that Isaiah wrote… that the Lord is our Father; our Divine Parent who has endless love for us… God’s children… love for us in spite of the mess we’ve made in the house.  That we need to remember we have the power of clay.  That it is God who is the potter.  My favorite modern image of that same Divine/Human power dynamic is the toddler, “helping” their parent mow the lawn with a bubble mower.  

Staying awake to that truth… that we really are completely in the Potter’s hands… that clay doesn’t make itself into a pot and bubbles don’t actually cut the lawn… we are then free to remember again that it is GOD’S will that WILL be done, on earth as it is in heaven.  Staying awake to that truth then allows us to keep awake and see more clearly the places we CAN make a difference all around us… where we CAN do what Jesus calls us to do while we wait:  Feeding the hungry, giving something to drink to the thirsty, welcoming the stranger, visiting the sick and those in prison.  Awake, we might even be able to work in some seasonally appropriate scattering of the proud, bringing down of the powerful, lifting up the lowly, filling the hungry with good things and sending the rich away empty. 

The world is a full-on mess.  No doubt.  A mess of Biblical proportions even.  But Advent reminds us not to allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by that reality.  Instead, Advent calls us out of our worry, anxiety and fear and tells us to STAY AWAKE to the truth… God’s got this.  Really!  God’s got us and God will be faithful to us always, like a potter is faithful to their clay.  Amen.