Gospel or Good News is the Reason for Rejoice Sunday

3 Advent A December 11, 2022
Is.35:1-10 Ps. 146: 4-9
James 5:7-10 Matt. 11:2-11

It would not be implausible to regard the community of John the Baptist to be something of a proto-church, a precursor, a forerunning community of the Jesus communities which became the eventual churches, or local neighborhood gatherings of the followers of Jesus.

Why so?  From the Gospel record we know that former disciples of John the Baptist became followers and leaders in the Jesus Movement.  The Gospels record words of John the Baptist referring people to Jesus as the logical successor of the baptismal movement which he began around the Jordan River.

The references to John the Baptist in the Gospel are second only to Jesus and the presentation of such appreciative regard between John and Jesus was a message to facilitate the transition from being the community led by John the Baptist into being the community initiated by the Jesus of history, and which continued as the community of the Risen Christ.

For the significant number of people who had followed John the Baptist, there would be questions.  Such as, what would John the Baptist say about Jesus?  Would John the Baptist approve of Jesus and his message?  Can I be loyal to John the Baptist and follow Jesus too?

One of the persuasive goals of each of the Gospels is to help persons make a transition from John the Baptist to Jesus.

Today's Advent Gospel, is such a writing and preaching strategy of the early preachers channeling the voice of Jesus regarding this relationship between John the Baptist and Jesus.

In a community as significant as John the Baptist's, it is logical to think that John had teaching disciples who had leadership roles.  So when John was imprisoned, the question might be which of his disciples would succeed him in his prophetic mission of preaching the repentance of sins and proclaiming the arrival of God's profound next crucial messenger.

It could be that Jesus was one who had been mentored in the community of John the Baptist but whose charisma had become so evident that John sensed the importance of Jesus very early.

When John was imprisoned, he wanted to know what was going on outside the prison wall within the spiritual movements in Palestine.  And reports had arisen regarding Jesus.  John the Baptist sent to inquire.

Jesus was a "Come and see" kind of person.  He was a relational person; he was willing to have his disciples witness his style of living to experience the congruence between his words and his deeds.

When John was in prison, he was not able to see what Jesus was doing so he sent his disciples to scope out perhaps the next generation of his mission.  John's question, "Is Jesus not only my successor but even the great one which we have been speculating and dreaming about?"

How did Jesus respond?  Jesus, John the Baptist and his followers knew the writings of the prophet Isaiah.  How would the world know the great one?  They would know the great one by his bringing of the good news.  The good news or Gospel which we think is original to Jesus was actually from the prophet Isaiah.  

In Advent, the third Sunday is called Rejoice Sunday.  Another way of saying this would be "Good News" Sunday.  What is the Good News?  It is when the lack of want is provided as normal for those who have been poor, it is when the many good forms of health are established and celebrated as the normal good, like sight, ability to walk, living disease free, not being shunned by communities for health reasons, and knowing a more comprehending and inclusive life which makes death but one occasion within everlasting occasions.

The message of Jesus and his community to John the Baptist and his community is that the Risen Christ offers a new creative advance in the experience of salvation or wholistic health.  And yes, this message surpasses that which was offered by John the Baptist in his time and place.  There happened in Jesus a new paradigm, a surpassing paradigm to the one preached by John the Baptist.

The message of Jesus was greater in a surpassing way; it was not a message meant to diminish the importance of John and his message for the community of his time.

The Risen Christ offered some surpassing opportunities to people who lived in a different time than John the Baptist.  The Risen Christ continues to offer in every age a surpassing experience to what has gone before, because the Risen Christ is always Good News, and not just the old news which used to be good in in a former time and place.

Let us not try to hang on to how the good news was once known and practiced by tradition; let us look for the Risen Christ to be fresh Good News in a new moment in time for us and our world.  In this way we will renew the Spirit of Rejoice Sunday of Advent.  Amen.

Rose Sunday

3 Advent A     December 15, 2019

Is.35:1-10         Ps. 146: 4-9          

James 5:7-10      Matt. 11:2-11

Lectionary Link

      Why did we like a pink or rose candle today on the Advent wreath?  Today is the third Sunday of Advent and it is called Rose Sunday.  Christian calendar days have traditions which have histories.  Advent in times past began as a forty day fast before the celebration of the birth of Christ, kind of like a second Lent.  It was regarded to be penitential season and began in the 4th century, after the feast of St. Martin in early November.  In later tradition the season became shorten from 40 days to four weeks.  Advent retained like Lent, a refreshment Sunday, a day of temporary indulgence within a penitential season.  In liturgical color, rose replaced the seasonal purple to use color to express the change in penitential relief for the day.

     The Lenten Sunday of refreshment is called, Laetare and the Advent Rose Sunday is called Gaudete.  Both words in Latin mean, "Rejoice,"  and they come from the introits that were used on these days, in Advent from the Epistle of Paul in some years, "Rejoice in the Lord, always and again I say rejoice."

       Let us consider some lessons from the Scripture readings for this Rose Sunday in Advent.

First, we need to learn how to access joy in our lives.   Happiness is not the same thing as joy.  Happiness depends upon what happens.  And in the free conditions of our lives, we are not always happy about what is happening to us and to others in the world.  But happiness is a temporary surface release of something deeper and more profound.   In the season of Advent we are encouraged to "Rejoice in the Lord always."  How do we do this?  Joy is a fruit of the Spirit.  This means we have to tap this interior source of fulfillment in the midst of some very challenging situations in our world.  To live by joy is not to deny all of the unhappy conditions in the world; to live by joy is to believe that whatever is happening now has to be put in context with everything that happened in the past and everything that will happen in the future.  And joy is based upon the faith that God is winning even while the challenging conditions of freedom are being lived out.  If God's Spirit is the sign of immortal endurance, then to the know God's Spirit is to know joy.  What did C.S. Lewis call the biography of his conversion?  "Surprised by Joy."  One of things that never ceases to amaze me is to see young children in refugee camps and in hospitals and see them smile for no apparent reason at all.  They live closer to the original joy of their births.  That joy gets covered up in our adult worlds.  The conversion to Jesus, is to be able to access once again the original joy of life itself.  And having this access to joy, enables us to function better within the conditions of freedom in our lives.  So, let us learn to obey this command, "Rejoice in the Lord always."
      Another Advent lesson for us today is to let ideal worlds and utopia function for us a continuous call to a better world.  Let us not be too smug about what we've attained.  Let us be horrified by the worst of evil.  Let the ideal worlds inform the direction of our moral progress.  Let the poetry of the ideal inspire us: the desert will bloom, justice and recompense will happen,  people will recover from their blindness, people will learn how to walk on a direct way,  the exiled shall be able to return with gladness and joy.  The Psalmist proclaims God as the greatest of ideals?  Why?  God cares for the widow and orphan, God gives justice to the oppressed, God gives sight to the blind,  God cares for the stranger and those bowed down, God gives food to the hungry, God sets the prisoner free.   The ideals which we proclaim in the Advent readings remind us that anyone who is not for these ideals is not on the side of God.  During Advent we have to judge ourselves harshly in light of the great ideals in life.  Why?  We cannot drop perfection as our standard.
      What other Advent lesson is given to us today?  Be patient beloved.  The day of perfection, the day of Lord is not yet here.  There is still a big gap between what is ideal and what is actually happening in our world.  How do we survive being taunted by our ideals in the midst of some abject failures?  Be patient.  Joy is a fruit of the Spirit; so is patience.  Patience is the power to wait in the conditions of freedom and not give in to rage and wrath to think that we can force our notion of perfection in a sudden fit of rage.  Patience is the ability to honor the importance of freedom while not giving up our ideals.  To refuse patience is to give into rage or a Murphy's Law fatalism; if something bad can happen, it will happen.
     Another final lesson that I would cite from our readings today is this:  We need to be ready for paradigm switches or conversions to what is better.  We need to be ready to convert to that is which is a more adequate answer to our life situation.   The Gospel lesson is the story form of a paradigm switch.  Which Palestinian religious community had members who were most likely to become followers of Jesus of Nazareth?  The Pharisees? No.  The Sadducees?  No.  The Zealots?  No.  The Essenes.  No.  The followers of John the Baptist?  Yes.  They were the most obvious target audience to embrace the new religious paradigm of the Jesus Movement.  John the Baptist in prison is the example of all of his followers who wanted to maintain his memory and his community after he was killed.  When a movement loses a leader like John the Baptist how do they survive?   There was no successor like John to take his place.  Some important leaders in the Jesus Movement had been followers of John the Baptist.  They wanted all of the members of John's community to follow Jesus too.  They wanted the members of John the Baptist to understand why they had come to follow Jesus.  Jesus had a special ministry that fulfilled the ideals of the prophet Isaiah.  John the Baptist was a water man.  Jesus was a Spirit man.  John baptized with water; Jesus baptized with the Holy Spirit.   We are not certain whether the baptism of John was done just once; it might have been like a frequent purification ritual to symbolize the continuous need to be cleansed from sins.  The baptism of the Spirit was like an interior spring of water always bubbling within.  John the Baptist proclaimed an end of the world with immediate judgment; the Jesus Movement became the kingdom of heaven as the kingdom of God's Spirit who resided within the lives of those who came to know him as their Messiah.
     The message of Advent reminds us that we need to be ready for the paradigm changes in our lives.  We need to be ready to convert towards thinking and practice that are in the direction of fulfilling our ideals.
      Today, let us Rejoice, in the midst of both unhappy and happy conditions.  Let us not compromise the great ideals of life.  Let us be patience on the path of perfectability.   And finally, let us be willing to make conversions and paradigm switches towards the excellences of Jesus the Messiah as they become known to us.  Amen.

Sunday School, December 15, 2019 3 Advent, Year A

Sunday School, December 15, 2019   3 Advent, Year A

Theme: Perfect Worlds

Have the children invent or talk about how they would imagine a perfect world.  What would a perfect world look like?

Eat all the chocolate you want with getting sick or ruining your teeth.  Be smart without having to go to school.  Be able to fly like birds.  Never get sick.  A world without diseases.  A world without war.  A world with peace. 

After making a list of what their perfect world would look like, look at how some of the writers of the Bible imagined a perfect world, or a better world or a world that is becoming healed from its troubles.

For Isaiah: The wilderness and desert would be like a garden and forest.  The weak would be strong.  God would intervene with justice.  The blind could see.  The deaf could hear.  The handicapped could jump like a deer.  Those who could not speak would be able to.  There would be plenty of water in the desert.  Traveling would be easy and safe from robbers and wild animals.  People who were forced away from their favorite homeland could go back home safely.

Perfect world for the writer of the Psalm:

A God who keeps promises.  God who gives justice to the enslaved.  God setting the prisoners free.  God caring for the strangers.  God caring for the orphan and widow.  God confusing bad people so they cannot win.

 Perfect world for Mary as seen in the Song of Mary

God looking with favor on us.  Being blessed.   God being merciful.  A strong God who defeats the proud.  God who helps the lowly poor.  God filling the hungry with good things.  God helping his people.

For the writer of James

A perfect world would happen when the Lord comes in the future.

For the writer of Matthew’s Gospel in the words of Jesus

the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.

Ask the students:  Has the perfect world happened yet?  If not, why not?  And if the perfect world cannot happen, why do we have imaginations of perfect worlds?

Some answers:

We don’t have perfect worlds because freedom allows what is not perfect to happen.  If there was not freedom for bad things to happen, then we would be robots or machines of perfection.  A machine does not have a choice and so if the world was a “perfect machine” it would not be what we value about being human people.  True freedom is what makes us really valuable as God’s creatures.

We have imaginations of the perfect to inspire us toward how we want to heal our world from the bad things which do happen.  If we just had imaginations of a bad world or the actual world, we would not be taught the right direction to learn.

Let us be happy for the imaginations of a better world because they teach us the direction that we should aim for in our words and deeds.

Sermon:  

  What season are we in right now?   Advent.  And what is the color of Advent?    And what season comes after Advent?   Christmas?

   And what do we celebrate at Christmas?  The birth of Christ.

   The season of Advent is also a season of imagination.

   What is imagination?

    Imagination is when we think about a different world.  Make believe worlds.  Can you think of some make believe worlds?

  Never-never land of Peter Pan.  Harry Potter’s world is an imaginary world.  The worlds of Snow White, Cinderella & Belle and Ariel are all imaginary worlds.

  The world of Batman, Superman, Sponge Bob are imaginary world.

  We like imaginary worlds because they entertain us.

  They also help us to develop our imagination, because when we use our imagination, we learn to think.  We learn to create.  We learn to make new things and do new things.

The writers of the Bible built imaginary worlds too.  They wrote about a world with no sickness.  A world where all the sick people would be healed.  They wrote about a world with no fighting and war.  They wrote about a world where a lion and lamb could play together, and where a little baby could play with a snake.  They wrote about a world where flowers would grow in the desert where there was no water.

  We need to imagine a better world, if we are going work at making our world a better place.

  So let us remember to use our imagination to help us make our world a better place.

  John the Baptist imagined that Jesus was a super hero called the Messiah.  But since he was prison, he wanted to make sure.  And when he found out that Jesus was making sick people well and that he was telling good news to people, John then knew that Jesus was the Messiah, a superhero who was helping to make our world a better place.

  Remember God gave us Jesus as the Messiah to make our world a better place, and God gives us imagination so that we can work to make our world a better place.  Can you use your imagination to make the world a better place?

Child Friendly Holy Eucharist

December 15, 2019: The Third Sunday of Advent

Gathering Songs: We Light the Advent Candles, Butterfly Song, What Wondrous Love, Christ Beside Me

Liturgist: Blessed be God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

People: And blessed be God’s kingdom, now and forever.  Amen.

Liturgist:  Oh God, Our hearts are open to you.

And you know us and we can hide nothing from you.

Prepare our hearts and our minds to love you and worship you.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Song:  We Light the Advent Candles (While lighting the two purple candles & the pink candle)

1-We light the Advent cands against the winter night, to welcome our Lord Jesus who is the worlds’s True Light, to welcome our Lord Jesus who is the world’s True Light.

3-Three candles now are gleaming and show the true way, rejoice, the Baptist cries out, your Lord has come today, rejoice the Baptist cries out, your Lord has come today!

Liturgist:         The Lord be with you.

People:            And also with you.

Liturgist:  Let us pray

Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us; and, because we are sorely hindered by our sins, let your bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory, now and for ever. Amen.

Litany of Praise: Alleluia

O God, you are Great!  Alleluia

O God, you have made us! Alleluia

O God, you have made yourself known to us!  Alleluia

O God, you have provided us with us a Savior!  Alleluia

O God, you have given us a Christian family!  Alleluia

O God, you have forgiven our sins!  Alleluia

O God, you brought your Son Jesus back from the dead!  Alleluia

A reading from the Letter of James

Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains. You also must be patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near. Beloved, do not grumble against one another, so that you may not be judged. See, the Judge is standing at the doors! As an example of suffering and patience, beloved, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.

Liturgist: The Word of the Lord

People: Thanks be to God

Liturgist: Let us read together from Psalm 146

Happy are they who have the God of Jacob for their help!* whose hope is in the LORD their God;

Who made heaven and earth, the seas, and all that is in them; * who keeps his promise for ever;

Who gives justice to those who are oppressed, * and food to those who hunger.

Litany Phrase: Thanks be to God!

Litanist:

For the good earth, for our food and clothing. Thanks be to God!

For our families and friends. Thanks be to God!

For the talents and gifts that you have given to us. Thanks be to God!

For this day of worship. Thanks be to God!

For health and for a good night’s sleep. Thanks be to God!

For work and for play. Thanks be to God!

For teaching and for learning. Thanks be to God!

For the happy events of our lives. Thanks be to God!

For the celebration of the birthdays and anniversaries of our friends and parish family.

   Thanks be to God!

Liturgist:         The Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Matthew

People:            Glory to you, Lord Christ.

When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, "Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?" Jesus answered them, "Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me."  As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: "What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind? What then did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces. What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written, `See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.' Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he."

Liturgist:         The Gospel of the Lord.

People:            Praise to you, Lord Christ.

Sermon – Father Phil

Children’s Creed

We did not make ourselves, so we believe that God the Father is the maker of the world.

Since God is so great and we are so small,

We believe God came into our world and was born as Jesus, son of the Virgin Mary.

We need God’s help and we believe that God saved us by the life, death and

     resurrection of Jesus Christ.

We believe that God is present with us now as the Holy Spirit.

We believe that we are baptized into God’s family the Church where everyone is

     welcome.

We believe that Christ is kind and fair.

We believe that we have a future in knowing Jesus Christ.

And since we all must die, we believe that God will preserve us forever.  Amen.

Litany Phrase: Christ, have mercy.

For fighting and war to cease in our world. Christ, have mercy.

For peace on earth and good will towards all. Christ, have mercy.

For the safety of all who travel. Christ, have mercy.

For jobs for all who need them. Christ, have mercy.

For care of those who are growing old. Christ, have mercy.

For the safety, health and nutrition of all the children in our world. Christ, have mercy.

For the well-being of our families and friends. Christ, have mercy.

For the good health of those we know to be ill. Christ, have mercy.

For the remembrance of those who have died. Christ, have mercy.

For the forgiveness of all of our sins. Christ, have mercy.

Youth Liturgist:          The Peace of the Lord be always with you.

People:                        And also with you.

Song during the preparation of the Altar and the receiving of an offering

Song: If I Were a Butterfly (Christian Children’s Songbook, # 9)

If I were a butterfly, I’d thank you Lord for giving me wings.  If I were a robin in the tree, I’d thank you Lord that I could sing.  If I were a fish in the sea, I’d wiggle my tail and I’d giggle with glee, but I just thank you Father for making me, me. 

Refrain: For you gave me a heart and you gave me a smile.  You gave me Lord Jesus and you made me your child, and I just thank you Father for making me, me.

If I were an elephant, I’d thank you Lord by raising my trunk.  If I were a kangaroo, you know I’d hop right up to you.  If I were an octopus, I’d thank you Lord for my fine looks, but I just thank you Father for making me, me.  Refrain

If I were a wiggly worm, I’d thank you Lord that I could squirm.  If I were a billy goat, I’d thank you Lord for my strong throat.  If I were a fuzzy wuzzy bear, I’d thank you Lord for my fuzzy wuzzy hair, but I just thank you Father for making me, me.  Refrain

Doxology

Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him, all creatures here below.

Praise Him above, ye heavenly host. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Prologue to the Eucharist

Jesus said, “Let the children come to me, for to them belong the kingdom of God.”

All become members of a family by birth or adoption.

Baptism is a celebration of birth into the family of God.

A family meal gathers and sustains each human family.

The Holy Eucharist is the special meal that Jesus gave to his friends to keep us together as the family of Christ.

The Lord be with you

And also with you.

Lift up your hearts

We lift them to the Lord.

Let us give thanks to God.

It is right to give God thanks and praise.

It is very good and right to give thanks, because God made us, Jesus redeemed us and the Holy Spirit dwells in our hearts.  Therefore with Angels and Archangels and all of the world that we see and don’t see, we forever sing this hymn of praise:

Holy, Holy, Holy (Intoned)

Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, God of Power and Might.  Heav’n and earth are full of your glory.

Hosanna in the highest.  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. 

Hosanna in the highest. Hosanna in the Highest.

(All may gather around the altar)

Our grateful praise we offer to you God, our Creator;

You have made us in your image

And you gave us many men and women of faith to help us to live by faith:

Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachael.

And then you gave us your Son, Jesus, born of Mary, nurtured by Joseph

And he called us to be sons and daughters of God.

Your Son called us to live better lives and he gave us this Holy Meal so that when we eat the bread and drink the wine, we can know that the Presence of Christ is as near to us as this food and drink that becomes a part of us.

And so, Father, we bring you these gifts of bread and wine. Bless and sanctify them by your Holy Spirit to be for your people the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ our Lord.  Bless and sanctify us by your Holy Spirit so that we may love God and our neighbor.

On the night when Jesus was betrayed he took bread, said the blessing, broke the bread, and gave it to his friends, and said, "Take, eat: This is my Body, which is given for you. Do this for the remembrance of me."

After supper, Jesus took the cup of wine, gave thanks, and said, "Drink this, all of you. This is my Blood of the new Covenant, which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Whenever you drink it, do this for the remembrance of me."

Father, we now celebrate the memorial of your Son. When we eat this holy Meal of Bread and Wine, we are telling the entire world about the life, death and resurrection of Christ and that his presence will be with us in our future.

Let this holy meal keep us together as friends who share a special relationship because of your Son Jesus Christ.  May we forever live with praise to God to whom we belong as sons and daughters.

By Christ, and with Christ, and in Christ, in the unity of the Holy Spirit all honor and glory is yours, Almighty Father, now and for ever. AMEN.

And now as our Savior Christ has taught us, we now sing,

(Children rejoin their parents and take up their instruments) 

Our Father: (Renew # 180, West Indian Lord’s Prayer)

Our Father who art in heaven:  Hallowed be thy name.

Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done: Hallowed be thy name.

Done on earth as it is in heaven: Hallowed be thy name.

Give us this day our daily bread: Hallowed be thy name.

And forgive us all our debts: Hallowed be thy name.

As we forgive our debtors: Hallowed be thy name.

Lead us not into temptation: Hallowed be thy name.

But deliver us from evil: Hallowed be thy name.

Thine is the kingdom, power, and glory: Hallowed be thy name.

Forever and ever: Hallowed be thy name.

Amen, amen, amen: Hallowed be thy name.

Amen, amen, amen, amen: Hallowed be thy name.

Breaking of the Bread

Celebrant:       Alleluia, Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.

People:            Therefore let us keep the feast.  Alleluia.

Words of Administration

Communion Song:  What Wondrous Love (Renew! # 277)

What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul!  What wondrous love is this, O my soul.  What wondrous love is this that caused the Lord of bliss to bear the dreadful curse, for my soul, for my soul, to bear the dreadful curse for my soul?

When I was sinking down, sinking down, sinking down, when I was sinking down, sinking down;  when I was sinking down beneath God’s righteous frown, Christ laid aside his crown for my soul, for my soul.  Christ laid aside his crown for my soul.

Post-Communion Prayer

Everlasting God, we have gathered for the meal that Jesus asked us to keep;

We have remembered his words of blessing on the bread and the wine.

And His Presence has been known to us.

We have remembered that we are sons and daughters of God and brothers

    and sisters in Christ.

Send us forth now into our everyday lives remembering that the blessing in the

     bread and wine spreads into each time, place and person in our lives,

As we are ever blessed by you, O Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Closing Song: Christ Beside Me (Renew! # 164)

Christ beside me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, King of my heart.  Christ within me, Christ below me, Christ above me, never to part.

Dismissal:   

Liturgist: Let us go forth in the Name of Christ.

People: Thanks be to God! 

Poetry and Science Do Co-exist

3 Advent A     December 11, 2016

Is.35:1-10         Ps. 146: 4-9          

James 5:7-10      Matt. 11:2-11

Lectionary Link

  How many of you who wear eyeglasses have multifocal lenses?  Bi-focals, tri-focal or Quadra focal?  How many of you have photochromatic lenses?  These are lenses which adjust according to the amount of light.
  Why do we put so many transitional views into one set of lenses?  Well, we don't want to be switching eye glasses continuously and our eyes can be trained to focus through the various transitional areas to provide clear seeing.  I did have difficulty when I had very small lenses and it meant that transitional areas were smaller and so my eyes had to be trained to look through smaller areas or my vision clarity was affected.
  And if we think transitional lenses are amazing because they allow multi-seeing through the same pair of glasses, words and language are much more amazing than multi-focal eye-glasses.  Our word ability allows us many different ways to see the world.  And we are pretty good at switching back and forth in the different ways in which we use language.  A child can look and see Peter Pan and Tinkerbell flying around in a movie; but why is it that a child knows when he or she jumps off the bed that they will not fly but become earthbound really quickly?  They have switched their word glasses from magical realism and fantasy to commonsense, naïve realism that takes their previous experience with gravity into account.  But what happens when a child does not make the transition from magical realism to commonsense seeing?  A child might leap from a high place think he or she might fly like Peter Pan or Tinker Bell and coming crashing down to the floor.  My dear child, it is okay to see through the eyes of magical realism in one situation but to try to transfer that to a situation of actual encounter with gravity is to have one's confusion get one into serious trouble.
  We as people of language and word are blessed to have this language ability be so multi-focal and so diverse that it allows us to express the wide diversity of the human capacity from poetic imagination to detailed scientific brute facts.  We sometimes are seeing things through poetic imagination and sometimes just the nitty gritty details of the gravity of brute facts.  Lying, silliness and schizoidal behaviors occur when we begin to think that poetic imagination is brute fact or conversely when brute fact is poetic imagination.  When such mistakes in application of discursive seeing take place, it can be either comical, tragic or just plain nonsensical.
  The Bible is a book of words and language and it was written from various ways of seeing the world.  When we read the Bible, we need to enter with intuition into the kind of seeing that the writer is writing from.  When a writer is using poetic imagination, we cannot assume scientific discourse.
  The writings in the prophet Isaiah include lots of writings from the vision of the poetic imaginary.  The prophet creates another world which does not exist in any actual place; the prophet creates utopias.  The prophet personifies or anthromorphizes physical environments. A wilderness can be glad and a desert can rejoice.  This anthropomorphizing of the environment reveals something about the writer.  The writer is living under environmental stress.  His environment was not giving him and his people the kind of sustaining pleasure that he desired for himself or for his fellow citizens.  He desired a more perfect environment  where everyone could live and thrive in a poetically perfect place.  He wanted to travel on a highway and be safe; he did not want to be attacked by lions or robbers when he traveled.
  Isaiah spun a world of fantasy and magical realism and the vision provided comfort for him and his community to survive some very difficult days.  One of the mistakes fundamentalists have made is due to the success of modern science.  Modern science has been so successful, that religious people became intimidated and so they have made the poetic imaginations into the truth of some actual future event.  They have tried to read poetry like a science book in order to say that the Bible is true.  The Bible is true because it has poetry and many other ways of seeing the world.  We are people of science today, but we still seek relief in the artistic presentation of poetic imagination when we watch television and movies and sports.  We harm the Bible if we try to make it into the truths of a modern science textbook.  We miss the poetic truth of the Bible if we don't read it and seek the similar kinds of truth for our souls that we look for today in novels, poetry, cinema, music, dance and sports.
  The Bible includes an umbrella of language use some of which was meant to entertain and sooth people during some very hard times.  Some religious people have been wrongly tempted to believe that things are only true if they are empirically verified or could be or will be empirically verified.  They have come to read the Bible with only the lenses of empirical verification to try to defend the Bible as being true scientific truth or modern eye-witness journalistic reporting.  This is the wrong way to defend the Bible and it is an offense to the beautiful, inspired truths of the Bible.
  It is a wonderful truth to want an environment of plants, animals be friendly co-residents.  It is a wonderful truth to want geographical features of rivers, hills, deserts, mountains and oceans to be friendly and supportive  places for us.  We want to believe that we live and move and have our being in the grandest environment of all, namely, living and moving and having our being in the Lord God.  And what do we want to believe about the Lord God as our total environment?  Like the Psalmist we want the Lord God to keep good promises to us.  We want the Lord God to give justice to the oppressed, to feed the hungry, open the eyes of the blind, make the lame to walk, take care of the needy orphans and widows.  We want the Lord God to frustrate the forces of the wicked so they do not have success.
  The poetic imagination of what we want our environment to be and how we want the Lord God to be known, functions for us in ministering to our most basic nature of hope.  As babes we were made to be hopeful and this expression of the hopeful means that language must allow us to wax poetic about the imaginary ideal.  We need the imaginary ideal to inform the direction of our lives within the down to earth real scientific brute facts of the world of freedom.  In the brute world of freedom we know that things can be anything but ideal.  The ideal is challenged by the wound of freedom which is the probability that things can and will go wrong and bad things will happen.
  The ideal utopian world and God co-exist with the probability of things going bad within the conditions of real freedom.  We are people who have the privilege of language to receive hopeful comfort from the poetic imagination of the ideal while at the same continuously making pragmatic adjustments to hard conditions of freedom on the ground.  This very struggle defines our identity as people who are constructed of both dust and divinity.
  Another lens of our language is what the Greeks called "Kairos."  Kairos is the experience of eventful time, times of transitions, times of crisis, times of endings and new beginning.  All of the anticipation for the end of the world partakes of this discursive feature of "kairotic" or eventful time.  The sacraments themselves are the rites of celebration of eventful time in our lives.  The reason we often miss eventful or "kairotic"  time in the church today, is because we've moved most of our eventful time into the secular sacraments of the world and even into the scientific world.  Today, the scientific world tells us that life as we know it could end at any time through disaster or lack of conditions that can sustain humans being on this planet forever.
  We should not discount the kairotic or second coming time discourse of biblical people.  It was their poetry for embracing the future for which they did not like us, have more realistic modes of perceiving what the end would look like.
  Another way that we need to appreciate the truth of the Gospel writers is how they wrote in parables about Jesus and John the Baptist to represent the seachange that had occurred because of the success of the Christian message.   The Gospel writers wrote about Jesus as representing the entire Christian Movement.  They wrote about John the Baptist as one who represented the entire movement of John the Baptist.  Of all of the parties within Judaism, it seems as the most converts to the Gospel came from the substantial community of John the Baptist.  The community of John the Baptist lingered until after the end of the first century.  The Gospel writers, some of whom had once followed John the Baptist, believed that the purpose of John the Baptist was completely supportive of what happened in the Jesus Movement.  The Gospels are proof that the writers were trying to convince members of the community of John the Baptist that it was okay to follow Jesus without being disloyal or disrespectful of John the Baptist.  In the Jesus Movement so many wonderful things had happened; people saw, heard and spoke in a new way which overcame previous blindness, lack of hearing and speaking.  People found a way to walk on the Highway of God.  They found a community where the sick and the previously quarantined were healed by being welcomed into community.  They found a community called a fellowship in which people took care of each other.  They believed that having been dead in the condition of their sin, they had been brought to life by God's Holy Spirit.  John the Baptist died before seeing the completeness of the Gospel success and so each Christian had a distinct advantage over John the Baptist.  They lived longer and saw much more than he did.  The appeal of the Gospel writers to John's followers was this: "If you truly followed John the Baptist, you can freely and whole-heartedly follow Jesus without diminishing your respect for John the Baptist."
  The Gospel writers saw through lenses of peace and reconciliation.  They hoped to bring the followers of John the Baptist and the followers of Jesus together as one community under the Risen Christ.
  We are blessed and distinct as human beings because we have language.  But language and words can be used wrongly.  Let us learn to appreciate the language of poetic imagination as inspired truth.  Let us learn to the appreciate the language of "Kairos" or eventful time.  We have moved the language of Kairos into our politics but we need to know whether in the Bible or in politics, kairotic language represents a vital truth of our hopeful human nature.  Finally, we use language the best when we reconcile and make friends.  The Gospel church used the language of reconciliation to draw them together with the community of John the Baptist.  The Gospel writers used Jesus and John the Baptist as figureheads supporting the union and friendship of these two communities of people.  This was perhaps one of the earliest phases of the "ecumenical" movement.  The language of reconciliation of the Gospel was a language of appreciation for John the Baptist and his important role in setting up an enhanced appreciation of Jesus Christ.
  Today, let us be thankful for the many ways in which the biblical language teach us to see our lives.  Let us seek to have wisdom to read the Bible through the correct lenses of language so that we don't confuse poetic imagination with empirical commonsense reality.
  The Gospel message allows us to activate the truths of all of the ways in which we use language.  Let us during the season of Advent learn to use our language in the ways which can develop our natures to their maximum multifocal potential.  We are not poets only; we are not scientists only, we are both and much much more.  I believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ is wisdom that calls us to our full development as persons, as persons who need to know how to use our words in the right ways.
  Advent is and always has been about the comings of Jesus Christ.  And he has come to us now, he will come to us in this Eucharistic event, and he will come to each of us in ways tailored to each person's experience.  So, let us be ready for the comings of the Christ.  Amen.