This is the first Sunday of #Advent2019, the Christian season of waiting and preparation in advance of Christmas.

Advent means "coming" & typically emphasizes themes of Jesus' birth (the first coming) & anticipation of Jesus' return (the second coming) & renewal of all things.

Christians light candles during the darkest weeks of the year awaiting the Light of God being birthed in the world.

We remember the past, we await what will be.

But today I confess: I'm thinking about now.

The readings assigned - Isaiah, Romans & Matthew - for the day are full of longing, they are lovely and challenging.

And they are full of little phrases about time:

"In the days to come"
"You know what time it is"
"But about that day & hour no one knows"

I'm not sure I *know* what time it is.

And I'm not sure I can manage the sad longing of "in the days to come" or the ambiguity of "no one knows" when the day of justice will dawn.

Yes, yes, yes. The easy answer is that we live in anticipation and assurance that one day, the Age to Come will surely arrive. All will be set aright.

I've heard lots of sermons saying this.

But I've always wondered:

How is that any different from a sort of "pie-in-the-sky" faith often criticized by more liberal Christians?

It seems a slightly more sophisticated version of the things I learned years ago in an evangelical Bible church.

Wait. Wait. Wait.

(Waiting and patience and silence are beautiful.)

But I've always got this nagging question.

The past is, well, past.
The future is not yet here.

What about now?

I can't really anticipate the birth of Jesus. Because that happened. A long, long, long time ago.

We can celebrate it, re-enact it, live into its memory.

But we don't "wait" for something that has already occurred.

And when we wait for the dawning of the Age to Come, we can (and often do) push the full longing for peace and justice into the future, thus fueling that "pie-in-the-sky" problem.

There's a bit of a false promise about it. Gandhi said this in 1931:

"For tho we sang, 'All glory to God on High and on the earth be peace,' there seems to be today night glory to God nor peace on earth."

He called it a "hunger still unsatisfied."

And then he continued, "Christ is not yet born."

Only "when real peace is established" then "we shall say Christ is born."

What does it mean to establish "real peace" right now?

Not just to remember the promise of peace at the birth; not just to await the fullness of peace at some day no one knows.

But Advent NOW.

Gandhi urged his Christian friends and co-workers to consider the birth of Christ "as an ever-recurring event which can be enacted in every life."

An ever-recurring event.

Not past, not future. Now.

In every life.

Not just Jesus' life, not the life of the Christ to come. Every life. Mine, yours, every neighbor, every friend, everyone we consider an enemy.

Now. Every life.

For what are we waiting?
For what are we preparing?

For someone else to do this for us? For a miracle to drop from heaven? For rapture or death or apocalypse to destroy us?

The Epistle of Romans says, "You know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to awake."

Now is the moment.

I do know that. I know now. It is really all we have as human beings.

We hold memory; we long for the future. But what we really have is Advent now.

So, embrace peace. Enact it. Birth Christ in your heart, in the world.

When you sing peace, live it. When you sit in silence to experience peace, share it. When you hear tidings of peace, shout that good news. When candles light the way to peace, hold your candle high.

From today's Psalm 122:6-7:

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:
May they prosper who love you.
Peace be within your walls
and quietness within your towers.

And peace described in Isaiah 2:

He shall judge between the nations,
and shall arbitrate for many peoples;
they shall beat their swords into ploughshares,
and their spears into pruning-hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more.

It is NOW the moment.

Amen.

Blessings for an urgent Advent. Live peaceably now.

(and pls forgive any typos, etc. My little sermon threads are extemporaneous - and mistakes do happen!)