Advent 3B sermon

Advent 3B
December 11, 2011
In his book about Paul, the British theologian and bishop NT Wright reminisces about his ordination over 30 years ago. In the many cards and notes of encouragement that he received, Wright remembers one card in particular. On the front was the Greek phrase: “The One who calls you is faithful.”i It is the heart of the good news; the crux of our hope. No matter what happens to you, no matter what choices you make:
The One who calls you is faithful.
Our readings for today bear witness to the dream of God. In the gospel of John, we see John the Baptist, whose call is to be a witness, to testify to the light that shines in the darkness and is not overcome. John the Baptist bears witness that the dream of God is coming into fulfillment and will be made incarnate in the person of Jesus.
The One who calls you is faithful.
In the reading from Isaiah, we fast forward from our reading last week which spoke words of promise and comfort to a people who had been in exile for decades. This week, we see the fulfillment of the promise: the restoration of God’s people back in Israel. The people who have been in exile have returned home and they are beginning to rebuild their lives and their land. Psalm 126 says that it is a like a dream-come-true. These people have dreamed for so long of returning home, and finally God has accomplished their home-coming. In the reading for Isaiah, we see the dream of God, the restoration of Zion, the Lord’s city, and what that will look like: the broken-hearted will be bound up, the captives and the prisoners will know release, the city will know the Jubilee year as well as seeing the Lord’s vengeance. The mourners will be comforted. And they will all be called oaks of righteousness.
For the one who calls you is faithful.
Isaiah is not just speaking about the work of individuals. He is talking about systemic change and transformation-- what happens when all people participate in the dream of God! What happens when all people of faith offer their lives, through hundreds of small acts of faithfulness, to the fulfillment of God’s dream, to the restoration of God’s city.
In one of the earliest Christian writings that we have, Paul is writing to the Thessalonians and offering them comfort and reassurance, explaining to them how to live in the meantime, as they wait for Jesus’s return. Again, in Paul’s writing we see a small slice of the dream of God for Christian community. How both individuals and the church are called to be: “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise the words of prophets, but test everything; hold fast to what is good; abstain from every form of evil. May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do this.”
Are we giving ourselves over to the dream of God or are we waiting on God to fulfill our own individual dreams? Are we willing to accept the transformation that comes with God’s dream or are we expecting God to yield to us, to fix everything the way we want it and us remain unchanged? How are you being called to let go of your own dream, so that you can give yourself over to the dream of God, the dream of the one who is calling us and who is truly faithful? What might that look like?
In her memoir called Mighty Be Our Powers (2011), the Nobel laureate Leymah Gbowee (Pronounced: Leemah Bowee) describes how one night she became a participant in God’s dream while sleeping on her office floor: "I didn't know where I was. Everything was dark. I couldn't see a face, but I heard a voice, and it was talking to me — commanding me: 'Gather the women to pray for peace!' At 5 A.M. she woke up shaking, feeling like she had heard the voice of God.
Peace was a distant dream for Liberians after fourteen years of savage civil war (1989–2003). By some estimates, ten percent of the population had been slaughtered. Twenty-five percent had fled the country. Starvation, systematic rape, torture, mutilation and Charles Taylor's cocaine-crazed child soldiers had traumatized the nation. Schools and hospitals closed. Rats and dogs ate the unburied dead who littered the streets. There was no water, electricity or phone service.
Later that morning Gbowee related her dream to the women at her Lutheran church. Sister Esther Musah, an evangelist, led them in prayer: "Dear God, thank you for sending us this vision. Give us your blessing, Lord, and offer us Your protection and guidance in helping us to understand what it means." What it meant was the start of the Liberian women's peace movement that ended the civil war.
About twenty Lutheran women began to gather every Tuesday at noon to pray. Sometimes they fasted. They invited other Christian churches. At one meeting, a woman named Asatu spoke up: "I'm the only Muslim here, and we want to join this peace movement." "Praise the Lord!" shouted the Christian women. And so Muslim and Christian women formed an alliance. They shared their horror stories. Training sessions and workshops followed. They passed out brochures and marched to city hall. Three days a week for six months they visited the mosques, the markets, and the churches of Monrovia: "Liberian women, awake for peace!"
In the end, the women forced Charles Taylor to peace talks in Ghana, and then in Ghana they barricaded the do-nothing men in their plenary hall until they signed peace accords. After the 2003 accords, they were instrumental in disarming the country, registering voters, and electing Ellen Johnson Sirleaf as the first woman head of state in Africa.
When people ask “who were these women?” Gbowee says, "I will say they are ordinary mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters." They sowed bitter tears. They went out weeping. And through hundreds of small acts of faithfulness, they courageously participated in God’s dream of peace, joy, and laughter for their beloved country.ii
The one who calls you is faithful.
How are you being called, how are we being called to bear witness with our very lives to the one who is calling us and who is truly faithful? You do not have to be a Nobel-prize winning peace activist to participate in the dream of God. But you do have to relinquish a part of yourself, your desire for control, your plan or dream for the way that things are going to turn out. And to participate in the dream of God. It starts right here, right now, in hundreds of small acts of faithfulness.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu writes “…In the early Church people were attracted to it not so much by the preaching, but by the fact that they saw Christians as a community, living a new life as if what God had done was important, and had made a difference. They saw a community of those who, whether poor or rich, male or female, free or slave, young or old—all quite unbelievable loved and cared for each other. It was the lifestyle of the Christians that was witnessing.”iii
The one who calls you is faithful! What small acts of faithfulness might you offer to participate in the dream of God in your life, in this time, and in this place?

i. Wright, NT. Paul For Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians. London: SPCK, 2002, p 133.
ii. This story is originally found on the website of Daniel Clendin: http://www.journeywithjesus.net/Essays/20111205JJ.shtml
iii. Tutu, Desmond. Crying in the Wilderness. Ed. John Webster. London: Mowbray, 1990, pp 6-7