The readings for the First Sunday of Advent tend to sound like doom and gloom. They don't sound very happy and they don't sound like the joyful preparation for Christmas that we are hearing in the shopping malls. The Human Rights Campaigns Weekly Commentary on the Sunday Scriptures for today's Gospel of Luke says: "Luke 21:25-36 can be a difficult text to understand, especially during what is supposed to be a joyous time. We prepare to celebrate the coming of Jesus at Christmas, but this passage addresses the end of the age. Jesus tells his disciples that the time will come when people “will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken” (Luke 21:26). The interesting twist is that although this would appear to be a text of doom and gloom, it is in truth the opposite. This period of chaotic change, when entire populations will be confused “by the roaring of the sea and the waves,” is just the birth pangs of a new age of justice (Luke 21:25)."
When Jesus is speaking about all the things that will be destroyed he is actually talking about the destruction of Jerusalem that will eventually follow when the Roman Empire will invoke massive destruction. It was a difficult time, because of the oppression with which Israel lived because of Rome. Jesus was telling them that there will be a time when destruction and distress will come, and they come to all of us. Imagine the distress that will come to the LGBT citizens of Uganda if their Parliament passes the anti-homosexuality bill. I bet many of them are feeling the fear that Jesus speaks about in today's Gospel. Nevertheless, even amidst all the destruction that can and does occur in this world, there is no situation too big for God through which God cannot impact our lives and the world. When old walls are ripped apart, it can take many years, but new ways of thinking do emerge and a new understanding becomes the tale of the land.
I think this could very much be applied to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered communities during this Advent Season. As we prepare to remember the thousands of people who have been affected and died of AIDS on World AIDS Day on Tuesday, December 1st, we have an opportunity to tear down the walls that ignore people with HIV/AIDS and build a new civilization that recognizes people who live with HIV/AIDS without shame and guilt. The Episcopal Church's Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori made a Statement on World AIDS Day. Presiding Bishop Schori said the following: "December 1 each year is World AIDS Day, an occasion both to remember the 25 million beloved children of God who have lost their lives to the pandemic over the past three decades, and to rededicate ourselves to building a future without AIDS. This year, new challenges both at home and abroad remind us again of the costly work that remains in the world's fight to eradicate AIDS.
In poorer countries around the world, stemming the spread of HIV/AIDS has proven the most difficult of the eight Millennium Development Goals and the one that threatens to undermine progress toward all the others. More than 33 million people continue to live with HIV/AIDS around the world, and nearly three million are newly infected each year. The global economic crisis has made matters worse, pushing as many as 100 million more people below the poverty line. Their futures are more at risk than ever, yet their interests have rarely been considered in wealthier nations' political conversations about the economic crisis."
As discussions about HIV/AIDS as well as the conversations about the ending of civil and religious oppression for LGBT continues it is important to be thinking about preparing for the coming of Christ on earth by calling people to a new attitude, way of thinking and talking. It is an opportunity to be active in changing the way our nation thinks about the issue of health care for people who do not have medical coverage when they really need it. Advent gives us an opportunity to speak back to people like Lawyer Harry C. Arthur"in downtown Houston whose office is near Christ Church Cathedral,and is suing in pursuit of shutting down The Beacon, the cathedral's well-used program for area homeless." As we prepare for the coming of Christ we can become people who do not turn the other way when things like this are happening, we can become a voice for those who have no voice and help build the Kingdom of God here on earth.
In order to understand how we can play our part in doing away with the darkness of our times, we need to understand that we cannot do it alone. Vicki Black in the Episcopal Cafe wrote: “Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light. . . .”
The year begins with a bleak, eerie prayer, uttered in the darkness. The darkness terrifies us. It is no ordinary darkness. The scientists speak of a darkness that has no form or movement or will because it has no existence; it is neither good nor bad because it is nothing at all, the mere absence of light. But this is not the darkness of the scientists. This is a different kind of darkness, an energetic, aggressive malevolence seeking to envelop and consume us. In this darkness the seeds of self-will sprout and grow; they strangle what is left of our health. Cut off from light, we grow accustomed to the darkness; damp, stale air fills our lungs. We have stopped resisting the darkness. Perhaps it is normal, inevitable. Perhaps it is simply the way things are.
But God, I know that it need not be so. The darkness has not yet claimed every corner, and I can still dream of a different place and time. We all dream of it. We dream of a garden where we walk with you in the light of day, of a time of contentment with you and all your creatures. The dream is distant but clear. We long for it, as for a blessing remembered from long ago, from before we had succumbed to the works of darkness.
We would cast away the works of darkness, O God, but we lack the strength. And so we pray to you: “Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light.” We are helpless; the power to cast away the works of darkness must come from outside ourselves. It must come from you, O God. We beg for your grace, the power that you give to cast away the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. That is what we pray for, O God—grace to begin again.
From A Gracious Rain: A Devotional Commentary on the Prayers of the Church Year by Richard H. Schmidt. Copyright © 2008. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com."
This First Sunday of Advent also marks the beginning of a new Liturgical Year in the Church. And to help celebrate this year Episcopal Bishop Thomas Shaw of Massachusetts, has opened the way for those Episcopal Priests in Massachusetts to the "Solemnization, in accordance with Massachusetts law, includes hearing the declaration of consent, pronouncing the marriage and signing the marriage certificate. This provision for generous pastoral response is an allowance,," in keeping with resolution C056from the General Convention of the Episcopal Church this past summer. Such a decision has been "tearing down the walls" of injustice in many places, and for many it has been a "tearing down" of walls that have become all too familiar to replacing them with walls that make room for LGBT people to receive the blessing of the Church and the State upon their relationship. Creating a new world of justice and inclusion is one way that we prepare for the coming of Christ.
In the Human Rights Campaigns Scriptural Commentary for the First Sunday of Advent we also read: "Jeremiah 33:14-16 makes this point (The point made in Luke 21: 25 to 36) most clearly. The prophet tells us that God has promised us that one day we will live in a land where justice and righteousness reign. Instead of being in despair because of the rapid and often confusing changes that are occurring around us, Jesus tells us, “Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near” (Luke 21:28). Changes, especially huge social ones, are often difficult for us to accept. At other times, those who press for such changes are met with fierce resistance. The gospel tells us, however, that such change is to be welcomed as preparation for the new age that will be ushered in by Jesus Christ."
How are we playing the role of preparing the world for the changes that Jesus Christ brings? How are we calling the world around us to a new way of justice and inclusion for people who are considered "different"? How are we communicating God's justice to people who are not accepting the call to change? In what ways do we need to tear down walls within our own relationships, homes, jobs, governments and communities? How are we preparing the world around us for the coming of Christ? Are we trusting in God to help us or are we trying to do it all ourselves? What places do we need God to heal this Advent Season, so that the Christ's coming can be a coming of peace and love and justice in our own lives? Who do we need to be the presence of God for in our home, town, society, family or community? What walls in our communities or lives need to torn down, so that God can use us to build new cities and ways of thinking?
Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in teh last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer, Collect for the First Sunday of Advent, Page 211).
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