Above you'll find a video of my homily for the Second Sunday of Advent and below you'll find the text. Here's a link to the scriptures I preached on, especially the first reading from Isaiah.
Are
we dreaming of a white Christmas?
Just like the
ones we used to know:
When the treetops
glisten and children listen,
to hear sleigh
bells in the snow.
Are we dreaming
of a white Christmas
with every
Christmas card we write?
Hoping everyone's
days will be merry and bright
and all our
Christmases be white?
It's a nice song.
But I think I have to say it's not much of a dream.
In fact, it's a scrawny, piddling,
trivial dream.
Snow? Shiny
treetops? Sleigh bells?
Things that melt,
shed needles and make noise!
Is that what
Christians dream in advent?
Is that what
Christians dream for Christmas?
How about a real
dream? Like the dream you heard this morning in the words of the prophet
Isaiah. A dream of a swashbuckling hero who comes to slay the wicked; who comes
brandishing justice for the poor and the afflicted; who comes with a champion's
belt around his waist, the belt of loyalty and fidelity. How about dreaming of
the peacemaker of all time? What kind of peace? Dream this peace. Dream a peace
that pervades all of nature, all of creation - such that a lamb will take a
wolf out to dinner; a leopard and a kid goat will go down for a nap together; a
calf and a lion will go for a walk and a little child will lead them; where cows
will pasture with bears; where a cobra's den becomes a baby's playpen - with no
fear of harm. Isaiah's peaceable kingdom…
Perhaps it's our
history, our pride, our stubbornness - perhaps it's our apparent preference for
war - that keeps us from dreaming such a peace. But this is precisely the kind
of peace the Lord desires to establish on the earth - not just in heaven. He
calls us to make this kind of peace now, to make this dream come true, the kind
of peace he commands us to make among ourselves -- if we have any understanding
of the peace Jesus was born, Jesus came to bring us.
Perhaps the
imagery of Isaiah among the animals there seems beyond our reach - because the
prophet dreams of a peace between natural enemies. But Isaiah's imagery
is just that: it's imagery. It's
intended to stand in for another reality. Isaiah calls for us to dream of
peace, not between natural enemies, but rather between brothers and sisters:
creatures of the same kind - all of us children, all of us, all of us, all
of us - made in the image of God.
Through Isaiah,
God invites us to dream of a world where all nations, faiths and peoples will
live together in peace, and not just to dream about that, but to give
ourselves over to negotiating a justice that makes such a peace, such a
world, a possibility - even a reality.
God invites us to
dream of a world where there's peace between all of those who are: separated,
alienated, marginalized, shut out, left behind, abused, forgotten, and
abandoned. And not only to dream of such a peace, but to do
everything in our power to make that very peace - and to let no one
and nothing stand in our way.
God calls us
to dream and to build a world where there's peace
between the right and the left,
between the east
and the west,
between blue,
red, and purple states,
between the rich
and the poor,
between natives
and immigrants,
between male and
female,
between Democrats
and Republicans
-- even between
Red Sox and Yankee fans.
See how real it
gets?
How much peace
God wants us to make?
Isaiah dreams a
peace that changes everything: that makes friends of enemies and
families of foes. A peace that ensures there will be no more harm on God's holy
mountain. And make no mistake about it: the world that you and I live in is
God's holy mountain.
So does it sound
like I'm talking about an impossible dream? If it does, then you and I have
missed altogether the message of the scriptures. If peace among people seems an
impossible dream, then we have missed entirely the message of Advent, the
message of Christmas and therefore, the message of Jesus.
I wonder how much
the mess in the world we live in is ours, because we've decided that peace is
impossible - an impossible dream.
Or perhaps the
dreams we do dream are too small. Do we limit ourselves to scrawny, piddling,
trivial dreams, dreams not even worth imagining? Not worth dozing off for?
Dreams not worth the dreaming? Advent calls us to dream, to believe in and to
work towards what may seem impossible, not doable, unachievable.
Advent calls us
to dream the impossible dream:
- dreaming of
making that peace we need to make with that relative in our family - and
all of us have one;
- dreaming of
making peace with that neighbor down the street - and we all know who
that is;
- dreaming of
making peace with ourselves, which usually means making peace with God.
If we've given up
on the dream of making peace in the house we live in, in the family that's
ours, in our own households and neighborhoods - if we've given up on that - how
will we ever dream of, how will we ever make peace in the world?
Perhaps the
saddest sin of believers is this: to give up on dreaming for peace. To tire
of looking for the peace Christ promises us. To lay down on the job of
working to make that peace of Christ a reality in our world.
How and where is
God calling you this morning, and me - how and where is God calling us this
morning to refresh our dreams of peace and to work for that peace in our own
situations, in our own circumstances, in our own stuff.
The problem with
dreaming of a white Christmas is that it's a dream that asks so little
of us - while God's dream asks so much of us -- because it
promises us everything.
We find ourselves
in the season of God's dream: Advent. The season of a dream in which God visits
his people; where God is born as a child in Bethlehem; a dream in which that
child grows up to become a carpenter - and a preacher of dreams: dreams of love
and mercy - for everyone; dreams of healing and peace - for everyone.
This dream asked
a lot of the preacher born in that stable. It asked everything of him.
And so he gave everything he had - for the peace he promised us.
Even this
morning, weeks before Christmas,
the God-man-preacher-
dreamer comes again,
and invites us to
gather around his table, to share a meal that's not a dream, a meal that
is very real.
The Eucharist is
the dreamed-of-presence of God at our table in the bread of life and the cup of
salvation.
The Eucharist is
the food of the peace we dream.
The Eucharist is
the banquet where the peoples of the whole world and of all time are invited to
come and take a seat - to take a seat where we, unfaithful wolves, are
invited to share in the supper of the Lamb.
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