Cosmic Hope

A sermon preached with the people of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Oakland, California.

“There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars.”

Welcome to the first Sunday of the cosmic, time-refracting Season of Advent — a season when past, present and future join one another in a single flowing stream. A season when astrophysics, the arts and Christianity sit comfortably with one another, standing in awe of the wonder of the cosmos and the complexity of space-time in God’s created universe. A season when we can, for a moment, look beyond and through our smartwatches and our Google calendars and remember that, as the second letter of Peter tells us, “With the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day.”

In other words, time is not as tamed and contained as it may seem. 

We bend time back on itself as we spend these weeks of Advent waiting and waiting, with more and more anticipation, for the birth of this infant; this God with us. Waiting for the star and the shepherds and the wise men and the heavenly host and the manger. Waiting … for an event that happened 2,000 years ago. Waiting … for an event that happens every year. Waiting for an event that forms the nucleus of this burst of cosmic energy that is human history.

We twist time into coil as we anticipate another event Jesus preaches about in this morning’s gospel. The time that is, as Jesus puts it, “near” —word we associate more with space than with time. Jesus of Nazareth, perhaps teaching the concept of space-time 1900 years before Einstein was born.

Jesus teaches us that in this “time that is near,” the whole of creation – the stars and the moon, the seas and the land, all the nations of the world, will be stirred up (made of the same stuff as they are) and heaven and earth will “pass away.” It sounds like Jesus is describing the “Capital E” End. The end of everything. But, remember, we are not considering linear, week-at-a-glance-calendar time here. We are considering the cosmic space-time of God. And this end Jesus is preaching is also the beginning.

As the late theologian and Biblical scholar Walter Wink put it, “The advent we are waiting for is not an apocalypse, but the beginning of human beings again and again as they recommit themselves to bring the Realm of God here.” [1]

I imagine that every generation of human beings in every part of the world has had a moment when some felt it must surely be the “Capital E End.” Generations of Christians have had reason to wonder in times of war, governmental oppression, famine, natural disaster, destruction and plague if this is it – some kind of finish.

And so the temptation can be to try to interpret these experiences as signs — these scary things — and use them to put a date on our linear calendar, and circle it in red with the words “the end.” Which might give us permission to move through the rest of this life on autopilot, assuming there is nothing we can do.  

But disengagement is not what Jesus recommends this morning. To the contrary, Jesus tells us to “be on guard.” He tells us not to allow our hearts to be “weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life” so much that we shut down, but to keep aware, and ready to act.

Our job is not to interpret suffering in the world as simply unchangeable or write off destructive events as inevitable. Our job is not to look away during challenging times. Our job is to be alert, keep awake, and respond. To recommit ourselves to the Realm of God that we are waiting for, and is also here.

To feed, to clothe, to visit. To care particularly for those most marginalized by systems of sin that are dismantled in that realm.

Right now this community of St. John’s is providing food, and warm coats and shoes for our unhoused neighbors in Oakland. This community’s Action and Justice group, in partnership with Genesis community organizing,  is advocating for effective and affordable public transit, including paratransit, in the Bay Area. We’re providing gifts for children whose families would not otherwise be able to provide them this Christmas. Recommitting to the Realm of God. Again and again.

I believe this time-bending Advent anticipation and over-and-over recommitment goes by another name and it is the opposite of disengagement. It is “hope.” A hope that is hard work. A hope that is brave and unlikely. A hope that can feel as though it’s against all odds. A hope that dares to operate during the most challenging, chaotic, and unpredictable times. A hope that can be as difficult to understand as anticipating a future event that has already happened. A hope that some might say doesn’t make sense. Because it’s a hope grounded in more than three dimensions.

A hope we share as one cosmic Body of Christ, anticipating and standing in awe of swirling, untamed, uncontained events past, present and future, allowing ourselves to be carried along by the marvelous, time-bending, ever-flowing promise of the coming and already-here realm of God.  

[1] As referenced here and here. However, I must note I do not see this quotation in the work cited, The Human Being: Jesus and the Enigma of the Son of the Man. I do, however, believe the quotation summarizes the sentiment of Wink’s writing on pages 182-191 of my copy of the book. It may be a matter of publishing differences, or perhaps the quote came from a sermon he preached or talk he gave on the subject. Or, somewhere along the line, someone summarized these pages with this quote, and it took on a life of its own!