Transcript

[Music] Welcome to the service of advent If you feel more like an audience than a congregation That's understandable A different room, different music, different songs, different voices Different style of worship has a distancing effect on many of us But those of us who lead are hopeful that the distance will collapse And everybody here will find the altar at the center of the service Because we're not offering this service as a demonstration of anything We're not offering it as a period piece This is a service of worship This faith, this music, this worship Comes from what could be called the third world of the South The two other worlds of the South have been much spoken of And written about and portrayed The world of the plantation, the world of the slave But there was a third world in the South A world of isolated immigrants from Ireland and Scotland and Wales Mostly rural, mostly poor Who tried to make a living and make a life in this country Some of you are not too far from that world Maybe one generation or two removed Not far from the simple meeting house Where faith clung to the altar by its fingernails Many of these people were extremely poor They had to watch when every apple fell Had to watch for every berry to ripen Had to watch for every walnut to hit the ground These people competed with the crows for corn With the bears for wild honey, with the rabbits for wild greens Some of them were very, very poor If you listen carefully to the music You will not only hear the bagpipe in the fiddle From the hills of home But you'll hear a plough point Like a flinty clang on the stony soil You'll hear the faith of people who define faith as tenacity When I was a preacher in the Southern Appalachians I preached in a little church That was when I arrived completing a contest For a picture to hang behind the pulpit To help with the worship They had just painted the little one rooms building And they had this boy preacher there And they were fixing everything up There was a contest for a picture to hang up there In the sanctuary And the winner was declared And while I was the preacher there The picture was hanging behind me It was a large colored print Of the face of a bulldog And underneath it, a simple expression If we're going to make it We have to hang on to our faith Like a bulldog I don't know how distant You will feel from all of this But familiar or strange This is the house of God This is the hour of worship Oh, God, here to death And now and forever there But wisdom shows God, there, oh, God And here and there, oh, God I don't know if all of you can hear that last line Here and there, traveler Whoever takes up the cross To walk the thorny path Has faced two disappointments One, how scarce the company Of those who go with us Here and there, a traveler But the other is facing The avalanche of hope going the other way We know who they are They're our relatives, our neighbors, our friends We all started out together We heard the same good news The Messiah is coming The Messiah is coming They left bread in the oven They left plows in the furrow They went rushing just as we did Because they understood With the coming of the Messiah No more injustice, inequity No more abuse, no more poverty No more violence The Messiah is coming But when they reached the city And saw the crosses Most of the folk turned back Because the truth of the faith hit them They went thinking That where the Messiah is There is no misery And then they discovered Where there is misery There the Messiah is And that's the truth of it It's always been that way When Jesus fed the five thousand The hills wouldn't hold the people But then the next day He preached a sermon on the bread of life And the crowd thinned out Here in the air a traveler And he turned to the twelve And said, are you going to leave too? And they said, where can we go? To whom should we go? Folks, that's who we are We are people who don't have anywhere else to go You All The Every One our days. How long shall we, my children, hold our hands and smile on thy face? Rejoice, O God, of all reason. Earth is our house of grace. How long shall we, my children, hold our hands and smile on thy face? Rejoice, O God, of all reason. Earth is our house of grace. How long shall we, my children, hold our hands and smile on thy face? Rejoice, O God, of all reason. Earth is our house of grace. How long shall we, my children, hold our hands and smile on thy face? We have sung our longing for God. As natural as a child leaning toward its mother is the longing for God. And this is true for all of us. It doesn't matter your circumstance. You can be standing on the center podium at the Olympics, the gold medal around your neck, crying through the National Anthem. Or you can be brought in an armed chair into the service of worship. It doesn't really matter. The need is the same. You can be at the peak of your earning power and putting it away and saving. Or you can lean in the post office window and ask, are the checks going to be late again this month? It's all the same. You can bow your neck at the university to receive the doctoral hood or you can enroll as a 56-year-old in a class on how to read. It's all the same. We long for God. Now we don't always feel it. We don't always feel that we're away from home. I know sometimes I feel very much at home. Here the howling wind outside and draw closer to a warm fire. And I say, this is my home. Here of the violence in the streets and go and check on the kids in their beds and they're all snug and warm and you say, this is my home. After a long drought, the clouds form on top of the mountain and come stampeding like buffalo, thundering down the valley and the first raindrops sizzle in the dust. And you say, this is home. But sometimes it's not that way. There's plenty to eat and you're still hungry. A lot of cool water, still thirsty, a lot of good company and still alone. I don't know why it is. I can't explain it. The theologians talk about all of us having a faint recollection of the Garden of Eden and it may be true. All I know is it's there, sometimes early in the morning, spending an hour in the monastery of my mind. It's there sometimes in late evening when hope sees a star and love hears the rustle of a wing. It's there. The disciple Philip said to Jesus one day, Lord show us God and we'll be satisfied and we'll be satisfied. He spoke for us all. And she'll hear the trumpet sound in that morning. And come flowing down gently and rusting down. And she'll hear the trumpet sound in that morning. And she'll hear the trumpet sound in that morning. And when I hear the trumpet sound in that morning. When shall I be delivered from this thing of sin? And shall hear the trumpet sound in that morning? And with my guest said, Jesus, drink and his pleasure's in. And shall hear the trumpet sound in that morning. Shout of glory for I shall mount above the skies when I hear the trumpet sound in that morning. When shall I be delivered from this thing of sin? When shall I be delivered from this thing of sin? And shall hear the trumpet sound in that morning. And when the trumpet sound in that morning. And when the trumpet sound in that morning. Shout of glory for I shall mount above the skies when I hear the trumpet sound in that morning. When shall I be delivered from this thing of sin? Through grace I feel determined to come before I die. And shall hear the trumpet sound in that morning. And then away to Jesus, on wings above I die. And shall hear the trumpet sound in that morning. Shalom, shalom, shalom. Shalom, shalom, shalom, shalom, shalom. When I hear When I hear When I hear When I hear When I hear Shalom, shalom, shalom, shalom, shalom, shalom. For I shalom above the skies When I hear When I hear When I hear Shalom, shalom, shalom, shalom, shalom, shalom, shalom. Shalom, shalom, shalom, shalom, shalom, shalom, shalom. Advent is a time for thinking about the coming of God, and properly so. But the plain fact of the matter is that some of us, before He comes, we will go. But it works out the same. We shouldn't fret ourselves because whether He comes or we go, it's the meeting that counts, and it's the preparation for that meeting that counts. I urge you then to get your minds off of the slip of the final sheet, the flap of the raven wing, the dark at the top of the stairs, get your mind off that, lose all your dread, just turn things loose, travel light, keep all your relationships healthy, get rid of bitterness or greed, live simply, love generously, speak truthfully, serve faithfully, pray daily, and leave everything else to God. He comes, he comes to judge the world, our love, your angel cries, miles underthrow from soul to bone, and light wings clear of skies. Doughrides and nations with a sound, hand up and lift their eyes, just the green dead ends of the browning, living, barred, dry. God is coming when we don't know, in what way, in what form we don't know, but God is coming, and some people are scared. They're already planning to call in sick. They're already wanting to take an incomplete, but you might as well forget it. You can take the wings of the morning, you can make your bed, and you can go to the depths of the sea, to the heights of the mountain. And God is already there. God's hand can snatch a swift and soon, from midnight shade, his blaze of noon. But there are other folk that anticipate the coming of God with great joy. Since the very first century, there have been Christian folk who prayed Maranatha, calm Lord Jesus, they look forward to it. What makes the difference, some being afraid and some anticipating with joy? The difference is not in God and the manner of God's coming. It's like it wasn't Eden. God would come in the cool of the day and say, Adam, and they would walk and talk, Adam and Eve and God. Adam, Eve, and they would walk and talk, and then one day God said, Adam, Eve, and they said, we're hiding over here. What made the difference, it was their behavior. When I was a child, when my mother called, sometimes it was, uh-oh, she knows. Sometimes it was, oh boy, supper's ready. What made the difference, my mother's voice? No, my life, my life. God is coming. It's Advent. Advent is a call of order. Advent is something that we forget. That it is the proper mood of Advent that we repent and prepare. But we don't. I think it's not because we forget. Advent is a season of repentance, but we forget about repentance because we forget about sin. We're all just trying to cope. That's not enough trying to cope. We need to repent. And when we come to the altar, we realize that need because the light at the altar of God's house is different from the light anywhere else in the world. In the dim lamps of this world, we compare ourselves with each other and we all come off looking pretty good. We grade on the curve and go home smiling. But here, but here, when one stands or kneels or sits before God, it's different. The truth is there. It is the moment of truth. Sometimes we try to avoid it with a kind of business. Busy, busy, busy, busy, like skipping a rock on the water. You've done that, haven't you? But when it slows down, it goes plunk. If we keep the noise level up, just keep the noise level up. The TV on, VCR on, the radio on. Keep the noise level up. But when the power goes off and it gets quiet, you can hear. You can hear the rat gnawing in the wall. And the dog growling in the cellar. And what are we going to do? Say to God, we'll make it up to you. We'll make it up to you. How are we going to make it up to God? A thousand rivers of oil, ten thousand sheep for the sin of our soul? No, no, no, no, no, no. We need to repent. And that which moves us to repentance foremost is the goodness of God. I remember Whittaker Chambers said, this man who had disavowed God in all things we love was sitting watching his little daughter eating her morning cereal, getting it on her face and head and everywhere. And he looked at her ear. He looked at her ear. And he spoke softly to her. And she turned her head. And he said, the marvel of it. God. Paul told us, the goodness of God should move you to repentance. O turns in a turn, may the Lord help you turn. O turns in a turn, why will you die? If not the goodness of God, then the certainty of judgment should move us to repentance. There will be judgment. I know some of you here like sermons on hellfire and damnation. You like to hear sermons on judgment, but you like them because you already have your target picked out. Sick of them, preacher. Get them. And we're always aiming the darts of God toward the rich and the arrogant and those with power. Don't you worry about them. They think they're living in palaces and sitting on patios, but we know that the roof leaks and the rent is due. God will take care of them. You think about yourselves. You covet the very things they have. You don't have to have money to covet. There are two kinds of folk that love money, those that have it and those that don't. Poor folks can be just as covetous as rich and sitting there wishing you had it. What for? The moment they get it to build higher fences, higher ferocious dogs, put in alarm systems to guard that, which is not theirs anyway. Why do you covet that? And some of you disavow all this worldliness, but I know in my heart that some of you would walk a mile just to get the autograph of some important person whose lifestyle is a denial of everything Jesus ever lived and taught. We've got problems with this, the hypocrisy of our loves. We go to the movies and cry through a sad story and step over the homeless as we make our way to the cause. We have a problem with our hypocrisy. God has read our bumper stickers and knows how concerned we are about the spotted owl and the ozone layer, but God wants to know if anybody this week is better off, warmer, fuller, happier, closer, more welcome, more dignity because of you, because of me. Appearances don't count for anything. You know as well as I do that God will not let this kind of thing continue. Injustice and abuse and neglect and turning the back, it can't continue. There has to be a judgment and that judgment will involve us, but you know that as well as I do. You've known it ever since you passed Mary's cabin and so are sitting on the porch rocking her baby and singing. He has pulled down the mighty from their thrones. He's lifted up those of low degree. God has filled the poor with good things and sent the rich away empty. In our heard a voice that said, it's not going to be very long now. Oh, turn, sinner turn, may the Lord help you turn. Oh, turn, sinner turn, why will you die? And the time is short. There isn't much time for making preparation for the coming of God. Come now, you that say, today or tomorrow we'll go into such and such a city and spend a year there and get gained. What is your life? You don't know. Your life is but a vapor that appears for a little while, quickly vanishes away. We know that without reading the Bible. Just read the face of the world around us. It was just yesterday. It was spring. The world was a poem of light and color and the butterflies fluttered up from every buttercup but then it got hot and the grasshopper dragged itself along. The thermostat was broken but then last long the school bell rang. You got out the warm pajamas. Football kicked in the air. In the autumn weather turned the leaves to flame but not long. The leaves fell. The bony fingers of naked trees begged heaven and soon the blanket will come down. The white blanket of snow and the flying cloud and the frosty light and the ears dying in the night and somebody will say, Happy New Year. We don't have a whole lot of time. You can look at our buildings. We dedicate a building and bring in a speaker from California who says when we build, we build for a thousand years. He pauses in his oratory and you can hear a couple of not very religious plumbers addressing a leaky faucet in the basement. The thing is already coming down. Nothing lasts for long. We see it in our bodies. When we're young we can jump up on a rail fence and walk a quarter of a mile without falling but in a few years the same person stumbles in their own front yard as though we're a foreign country. A child can hear a cricket in the brush. In a few years he'll walk in front of a honking car and swear I never heard a thing. A child can see a quail in the brush. See the quail? But in a few years look upon the face of his closest friend and say, I didn't catch the name. We don't have much time. We don't have much time. And you can avoid church and you can avoid scripture but you can read it everywhere you go and then and then what happens to all the stuff you've accumulated. I'll tell you what happens to it. It'll be piled out in the front yard and the auctioneer comes and strangers crawl over all your good stuff trying to find a bargain and the auctioneer gavels it off and your relatives divide up the money without speaking to each other because they never came to see you when you were sick and there it goes. When Aunt Matt died her wedding band she had a wedding band that was the thickest and broadest one I'd ever seen and she twirled it on her bony finger and talked to us children and I would admire it my sister would admire her wedding band. Would you take a million dollars for your wedding band? Oh, I wouldn't take a million dollars for this wedding band. It represented 53 years of married life. She said, not a million dollars but then the auctioneers gavel came down she left no will and it went for three dollars. When the life is gone everything is gone. We're called to repentance. We're called to repentance. All turns in a turn May the Lord help you turn All turns in a turn Why will you die? All turns in a turn All turns in a turn What I love will love both be the promise I gave and I will tell it has made my life Oh, God, close to my heart. It is not thy name that on earth stills To my heart and living, The crown ye hosts with pleasure on, Thy Savior's voice to hear. As the whole earth be thine own, I would disdain to hear. As the whole earth be thine own, I hear thy call to me. Oh, God, my own and still in heart With angels from the throne To excecute thy Savior's will And live thy glory known. Oh, God, my own and still in heart What a relief it is when the penitent heart turns in faith to God. What a relief it is the clouds lift, the burden is gone. And the first thought is, why did I put that off? Why did I dread that? So why did I fear to come to God? Maybe it was not so much fear. Maybe it was just being shamed, because it seems to be our common practice before going to God to go everywhere else, to every other market, looking where life can be bought. I went to the store and I took the money and I said to the man, I'd like to buy a home. He said, can't sell you a home, sell you a house. And I went to the store and I said, I'd like to buy a little time. He said, I can't sell you any time. Got a good clock here, I'll sell you. I went to the store and I said, I'd like to buy a friend. He said, I can't sell you a friend, but I can sell you a companion for the evening. It takes us a long time. But I've never known anybody who confessed having found God who spoke in terms other than love and forgiveness and acceptance. And God never putting anybody down or crushing anybody, but always affirming what has been true since creation. That you are God's masterpiece and now created anew in Christ Jesus. I was holding summer vacation Bible school in Roan County in East Tennessee and some kids, mean kids, came from Eagle Furnace. And I was trying to teach the juniors. They were primaries and juniors and whatever else. And the lessons that had been given to us were on nature, you know, leaves and trees and squirrels and things. Well, I used up all that material the first day and I had two weeks to go. And I thought, well, I'll just have them go out and find something in the woods around the church and bring it back and tell me, now what does this tell you about God? So go find anything and when I ring the bell, you go and I'll ring it again. You come back and bring something that tells you something about God. I rang the bell and they scattered. It was my plan not to ring it again. But I broke down and I rang the bell and here they came. I said, what do you have? He said, I have a rock. What does that tell you about God? God is stout. That's good. And what do you have? I have some huckleberries. Well, what does that tell you? God is good. Hey, that's good. And what do you have? I have a flower. And what does that? God is pretty. Hey, that's good. Then Jimmy, the meanest one, the one that you're glad when he's absent, you know what I mean. He was standing there and I said, Jimmy, what do you have? He had hold the hand of his little sister who was in the kindergarten part. And I said, what do you have? And he said, my sister. And I said, Jimmy, what does that tell you about God? And he said, no. I don't know. Why did he do that? Were there woods full of rocks and leaves and flowers and berries? He brings his sister. Why? You know why. You know why. When God made his sister the same day God made you, God said, this is the best I can do. Just like myself. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. There all there at his feet we shall all we shall all we shall all we shall sing we shall sing we shall sing sing we shall sing sing we shall sing we shall sing we shall sing sing better than he was what hah music When I was younger I never thought the day would ever come when I could look at anyone and say with any kind of sincerity or integrity that it is possible for death to be a friend and not an enemy. Because from earliest childhood I was afraid of death when Mr. Ferrell died, people died at home back then, and the policeman came and roped off the streets and put up a little sign in the middle of the street, silent, we were out playing ball, and the ball went past me and under the rope. And I said to the one who threw it to me, you get the ball. He said, you missed it, you get the ball. I said I'm not going to get the ball. He said we were afraid. It was a mystery. It didn't matter whether death went into the hospital and took away our parents or the rest home, our grandparents, or put on soft slippers and went into the cribbery and took away a sleeping child, or put on bloody boots and snatched the young people from glass and steel on the highway, enemy, enemy, everywhere. I never thought in my wildest dreams there could be a town or place or occasion in which death could be a friend, but I know it's true, because I met a woman for whom death was a past experience. She had a crab orchard out on the mountain, this side across the old Tennessee. She lived in a big house with a bunch of pictures of family gone and a parrot, and she, as they said in those days, kept the preacher, and I stayed in her home. The parrot always said two things, good morning to me, but she was a wonderful woman, just as clear -eyed about everything. You know what she did? She walked out toward death, felt a mist in her face and the fog in her throat, and smiled, and turned around and came back, and she was the freest woman I have ever met, no fear. And when I think about [inaudible] I kind of feel sorry for old death he likes to come in with bow and arrows and spears and stuff and scare everybody to death, but with her and with some of you, when he comes in, his stinger is already going to be pulled, and he'll be smiling because he has been made the servant of God. [Music]