Advent 1 - A dangerous Advent to you all!

ISAIAH 2: 1-5 MATTHEW 1: 1-17

And so Christmas draws near. The lights in town are on and shops proudly display a range of gifts for the season. All around, there is the excitement that comes from knowing that Christmas will soon be upon us.

But what is it that we look for in Christmas? Well often I hear people saying that they want a traditional Christmas, a Christmas that is familiar in our singing the same carols we always sang, eating the same meals we have always eaten in precisely the same way and all the other things that they have done since time immemorial.

And of course, the result is that whilst Christmas may be a time when our hearts are gentler towards others, ultimately we have domesticated Christmas, made it safe! It has become a lovely break amidst the darkness of Winter but ultimately we have denied the power of Christ entering into human experience, to change our lives and the world.

So it is that we need to emphasise the importance of Advent, that time when we do not just prepare for Christmas but for the coming of the Kingdom of God in all its fullness. And this preparation surely presents us with a real challenge as we begin to see that what happened 2 millennia ago in Bethlehem is not just a sweet little story but the sign of God demonstrating real involvement and commitment in our world through the coming of the baby who cannot be left gurgling in a cot. For to leave him there would be to deny his calling to travel with him that we might be his followers as his Kingdom which is earth’s ultimate destiny is revealed in great power. And here lies a warning. For that Kingdom is a harbinger of change in our lives and in the world. As Pope Benedict has put it;

“We could say that Advent is the time when Christians should awaken in their hearts the hope that they can change the world, with the help of God.”

Not so safe now is it? No longer is it the season merely to warm the cockles of our hearts. Instead it is the season to witness and to identify with God’s imperatives to challenge the wrongs and the shortcomings of the world in which we live. Advent has become a time for dangerous nonconformity. Be gone sterile, safe Advent! Instead I wish a dangerous Advent to you all!

And as we travel to a dangerous Advent, our Bible readings are found to be full of radical and subversive inspiration.

Let’s look first to our reading from Isaiah. It comes from a time of great peril. After all this was the time when the armies of mighty Assyria were on the prowl. Within a few years, the Northern Kingdom of Israel would fall to this super power and the Southern Kingdom of Judah in which Isaiah was based would be threatened with the same outcome. And yet amidst the terror of the age, there were those who dared to think that God desired a much better reality than that through which they lived. And amongst these people was Isaiah. For his dream was of a world in which God would put an end to war. Listen for a moment to those great words of hope;

“He will judge the nations
And will settle disputes for many peoples.
They will beat their swords into ploughshares
And their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
Nor will they train for war anymore.”

Utopian words? Words divorced from the painful realities of Isaiah’s time and ours? Maybe and yet this vision of what can be in a future when God’s Kingdom is brought to completion, should surely inspire us in the here and now. After all, how can we sing the words of Edmund Hamilton Sears without willing the reality when we sing those visionary word that reflect upon the song of the angels at that first Christmas?

“And man at war with man hears not
The love-songs which they bring.
O hush the noise, ye men of strife,
And hear the angels sing.”

For in Christ we see the path of non violence lived out. In him we see the breaking of the walls that divide and separate one from another. And so whilst at Advent as we hear this great prophetic vision, there should be rejoicing whenever arms manufacturers find their life denying companies going out of business ( not always a popular view in a world in which the arms industry exerts great influence and provides a destructive employment for far too many!) and replaced by life enhancing business as suggested in a conversion to agricultural implements by Isaiah, it goes further. For our calling is to be peacemakers, Shalomites, who bridge the chasms of our day and perhaps this Christmas we see that particularly in regards to our relationship with the Islamic world. For here is a situation that certainly does not need the incendiary flame throwing that is becoming all too popular but which needs instead the rebuilding of relationships between what are in essence along with the Jewish people, but blood brothers with a common ancestry from Abraham. Surely, this Christmas as the Holy Land groans with ever increasing pains, the time is right to heal ancient rifts just as Jesus built bridges with those who might have been expected to be his foes those two millennia ago.

This advent, may we hold firm to the Jesus who shows us that we follow not a tribal God but a God of all peoples who urges us to cease the continued shedding of blood and instead follow the path that leads to peace, reconciliation and a unity amidst our diversities.

But let’s not stop there. Look on to our Gospel reading, a strange choice you might think, a genealogy. But wait. Are we not living in an age in which family history is becoming increasingly cherished. Many of us have watched “Who do you think you are?” and been at times entertained and at times deeply moved. Within my only family, there has been much research done especially by one of my cousin. We have found ourselves to be related to Henry Martyn the Anglican missionary and a Bible Christian known as Foolish Dick Hampton who had quite an influence in Porthtowan despite being like many of us preachers, incapable of proper employment. We have also had dark discoveries such as finding that one of our ancestors has a Member of Parliament as a brother - I can’t help thinking a highwayman would have been better! Still every family has its black sheep!

But what of the genealogy of Jesus? Well the first thing to notice is that it is composed in a most unexpected way. You see the practice of Jewish genealogies was for them to only include men. Women quite simply do not belong in Jewish genealogies. But Matthew breaks with convention and includes four women. And what a choice of four women. For a start they are not exactly a line up of good Jewish stock. Most of them are gentiles by background even if they come to accept Israel’s God - in Ruth’s case even coming from the despised land of Moab. But the offence does not stop here. For these are women whose conduct in the main is tainted with the suggestion of scandal. Look for a moment at their stories.

We have Tamar. Twice widowed by the sons of Judah, she finds herself denied by Judah of the marriage to a third brother which would have then been the custom. So when Judah’s wife dies, to gain an heir, Tamar disguises herself as a prostitute and sells her body to the father in law who does not know her identity.

And then there is Rahab. We learn of her in the story of Joshua’s conquest of Jericho. Courageous in her help of Joshua’s spies, there is a strong suggestion that she was a prostitute.

And what of Bathsheba. Possibly a victim of an element of coercion from David, she is remembered primarily for being a party in the adultery that was to lead to the death of her husband Uriah.

And as for dear sweet Ruth, let’s just say that her approach to Boaz on the threshing floor is just a little bit forward. The film just night have to be broadcast after the watershed!

So what are we being told? Well on the one hand, Matthew is showing us through the genealogy that Jesus has impeccable credentials to be the one through whom God will bless Israel. After all, he is a descendant of Abraham and David. But more than that, the genealogy especially as it relates to the four women, demonstrates that this Jesus is not simply to be for the insiders. Gender, race and reputation are hardly to stand in the way of the blessing of Jesus. His family tree is a pointer to the unbelievably good news that he will bring hope to those who are the most marginalized. And in this we find the response to the sort of religion that is the most destructive of all - that which is sufficient to be virtuous but inadequate to be inclusive.

Here is the message that every person is of value to God. And everyone counts in the site of God. And if only those newspapers that are currently starting up the annual bilge about a so called war on Christmas, ever got around to taking Jesus seriously, perhaps we would be spared the increasing assault on asylum seekers, those of other faiths and those who are forever frozen by what are essentially dark forces into forever being branded in their worst moments.

In Advent, we dare to look ahead to what is yet to be. We look to that time when hearts are turned to the ways of Christ. But as we travel through Advent, we are not called to be passively looking above. No, instead we are called to be those who are available to be the signs of the Kingdom of God.

But don’t expect great ovations for it. Remember that Jesus himself ended up being abused whipped and publicly executed. For that which he embodied in his living and teaching, was a threat to the norms and the powers of his day. Dare we expect it to be any other today. So this Advent let us take Jesus seriously. Let us seek to explore what is the nature of his Kingdom and then let us, even us, resolve to be with his help the signs of that Kingdom. And if the road is lonely and counter cultural, hearken to the words of James Russell Lowell;

“THEY are slaves who fear to speak For the fallen and the weak;
They are slaves who will not choose Hatred, scoffing, and abuse,
Rather than in silence shrink From the truth they needs must think;
They are slaves who dare not be In the right with two or three.”

So as we enter into Advent, let us exercise our freedom to engage once more with the Christ who cam to us at Bethlehem and whose Kingdom will ultimately prevail. And as we do so may we turn away from the temptation to be mushy, instead holding on to the good news that leads us to a path of peace in which all people are seen as desirables to be cherished.

So let us embrace a dangerous Gospel based Advent.

A truly dangerous Advent to you all!


Gammaton Methodist Church - December 2nd 2007.