St. Charles Episcopal Church, Saint Charles, IL

The First Sunday of Advent - Advent 1 RCL Year B

Sunday, November 27, 2011
Isaiah 64:1-9 – Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18 – 1 Corinthians 1:3-9 – Mark 13:24-37

Rev. William R. Nesbit, Jr.

To listen to this sermon as it was preached at the 9:00 am service, click here.
To listen to this sermon as it was preached at the 10:45 am service (text below), click here.

In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

“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... Beware, keep alert... what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.”

This Thursday is World AIDS Day, and today is a day that we have been asked by the National church to set aside in prayer for the victims of HIV and AIDS throughout the world. I was struck this week by a small news article that said the Global Fund to Fight HIV, TB, and Malaria, had cancelled its next round of funding because of $2.2 billion in pledge defaults from countries around the world. It is a shame that all to often, generosity is the first casualty of tough economic times. How easy it is for our hearts to turn hard. I was heartened that the U.S. was not among those countries who were defaulting on their promises, but saddened to see that other economic giants China, Russia, and Brazil were on the list.

For most of us in America HIV/AIDS is a problem from the past. We don’t much think about it anymore. We dealt with it in the eighties. It’s only a matter of time before we have a vaccine, until then safe sex and good medical care will stem the tide, and they have. An incredible amount of time, money, and effort has gone into fighting this pandemic. In the first world, where we have more resources of time and money, we have been able to hold off disaster. The rest of the world is still not doing so well.

22.5 million people in sub-Saharan Africa are living with HIV/AIDS. Worldwide, 33 million people are living with HIV or AIDS. 2.5 million of them are children. 16.6 million children have lost one or both parents. Last year 1.8 million people died of the disease. In the countries of sub-Saharan Africa the average adult infection rate is 5 percent. That’s one in twenty.

As frightening as these numbers are, they are actually good news. The decade of 2000 to 2010 has seen a clear impact on fighting this disease. Though there is still no cure for HIV/AIDS, the number of new infections is now balanced by those that die of the disease and so number of HIV infected people in the world has now stabilized at around 33 million. In comparison, in the decade prior, 1990 to 2000, the total number of HIV infected people was rising at a steady rate of 2 million cases a year.

As fast as HIV killed, new infections were rising even faster, so that still the net number of HIV infected people increased by 2 million a year. Had that rate continued unchecked we might have been looking at close to 50 million affected worldwide today, so you can see why only 33 million is good news. Still, 33 million is a huge number.

This is the world we live in. This is just one of the inequities that waits on the other side of the walls we surround ourselves with so we won’t have to see. This is the darkness that settles over us as we enter into this Advent season and prepare for the return of the light. While the rest of America sleeps through this darkness, we in the church struggle to stay awake. Awake to the needs of a people crushed by their circumstances.

“You have fed them with the bread of tears; you have given them bowls of tears to drink. Restore us, O God of hosts; show the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved.”

            I ask you to pray in the week ahead for all the victims of HIV/AIDS worldwide, but especially for the people of Africa, for they have little else. Pray that help will come to them from above, and pray that we can find a way to open our hearts, and continue to help them here below.

As I said before, Advent is a time of preparation, a time when we prepare for the coming of Christ. Traditionally, this preparation is two fold. We prepare for the annual remembrance of the first coming of Christ in his birth at Bethlehem, and we prepare ourselves for the second coming of Christ in glory at the end of the age, a time, we are reminded this morning, that will come without warning.

This morning, as we enter our new year, I want broaden our Advent preparation a bit, and remind us that Christ comes to us many more than these two times. Indeed, Christ is coming to us all the time. And so Advent is appropriately also a time, to prepare for the coming of Christ into our lives always; not just in the past or in the future, but today and every day.

The story of Advent is that Christ is present and active in even the darkest places, indeed the light of Christ seems to shine brightest in the dark. In Africa today, amidst the most trying of circumstances the Church is thriving. Not maintaining; not merely growing, but thriving. The truth we have to share, the light we have to shine, is that God is with us now. We do not have to wait to be made worthy. Our very creation makes us worthy. As Isaiah said,

“O Lord, you are our Father;

we are the clay, and you are our potter;

we are all the work of your hand.”

So if we are not waiting for God, then what do we wait for? It is not a what that we wait for, but rather forwhom. We wait for the stranger, the mysterious unknown face of God, to come to us. Like the resurrected Christ walking down the road to Emmaus with his disciples, God comes among us unknown, as a stranger. And like those disciples we may suspect but we don’t yet know. As an Advent people, our response must be, like theirs, one of hospitality and invitation.

This Advent, share the story. Take a chance and invite someone to church. If you see someone here at church you don’t recognize, walk up and introduce yourself.

Wake up to the guests among us. We are entertaining angels. They may not know it, but God has been working hard at the potter’s wheel making new members for this particular body of Christ, as well as remaking us more nearly into the ideal image of God. It is our job to see those around us with the eyes of God,         to invite strangers into our midst, and welcome them when they come to our doors. To work diligently to find a place for them in their new home, our home.

This is a new year. Are you ready to be made new? This year we will be looking at ourselves with a critical eye. We will be opening ourselves up to the workings of God. We will be remembering that we are clay and God is the potter. We will be preparing ourselves for the day when the master will come. Preparing like today is the day.

“...you do not know when the master of the house will come,

in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn...

And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake!”

Amen.