(part of the “Waiting on the World to Change” Advent Series)

Romans 1: 1-7 (Advent 4A)

Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, ²which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures, ³the gospel concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh ⁴and was declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, ⁵through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for the sake of his name, ⁶including yourselves who are called to belong to Jesus Christ, ⁷To all God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

First of all, and I realize that this is totally irrelevant, but does anyone else notice that this passage is just one sentence?  Perhaps Paul was not one for taking lots of breaths.  Or was he almost in a panic-state trying to get the words out?  It was as if his audience was somehow drifting away, heading down a road that he did not think was good, leaving Paul behind in a sense.  So, Paul, seemingly breathless and with more words than a sentence should hold, went chasing after them.  Whatever it is, Paul is reminding his hearers to whom they belong.  Maybe it was his way of trying to call them away from the lure of the world, from what Paul saw as an almost competing society, a competing way of living and being.  See, these people probably had no problem seeing themselves as belonging to Christ, as part of Christ’s kingdom.  I mean, they were new believers.  They were excited.  They were still pumped up from that first evangelical moment that they had experienced.  And yet, there was the Roman Empire looming large around them.  It was hard to refuse.  Who are we kidding?  It was dangerous to refuse.  One could quickly lose everything.

Now I don’t think Paul really wanted them to leave it all behind.  After all, his own identity as a Jew in the Roman Empire was important to him.  He just wanted them to see something different.  He wanted them to see something bigger, something beyond where they were.  He wanted them to realize that it was not that the Roman Empire was where they belonged now and the Kingdom of God was where they were going; but rather, the two existed together.  He wanted people to understand that the Kingdom of God was not the “other way”, not the veritable opposite of the way they were living but rather the “Thing” that encompassed the “thing”.  And maybe they belonged to both things.  (I mean, in our own context, patriotism is not anti-God; it just has the possibility of developing into sort of a misplaced devotion that competes with our spiritual selves.)  All that we are and all that we have and all to which we belong belongs to God.  It is the way God lays claim on us, bursting into our lives as we know them, pouring the very Godself into each and every crevice of our lives until all (yes, ALL) is recreated in the Name of Christ.  We are called not to choose between Christ and the world but to bring Christ to the world.

I once baptized a young child that was eating a Ritz cracker through the whole thing. Now, we don’t usually pass out hor’dourves with the Sacraments, but, really, did that change God’s Presence in that moment?  For that matter, who’s to say that it didn’t make that Presence more real?  (OK, so maybe I’m not as much of a sacramental purist as you thought!)  God’s presence and God’s promise comes wherever one is.  Our calling is to respond to that presence in the midst of the lives we lead.  But that entails learning to see and listen in a way that many of us do not.  We need to appreciate how God calls others into being so that we might be able to better discern our own unique way that God is entering our lives.  And the Ritz?  Well, who hasn’t eaten a Ritz? (And, for me, a little peanut butter) It is not part of the “other” way of living.  All that we have and all that we are belongs to God.  And, you know, that little bit of water that I sprinkled onto that child’s head does not exist in a vacuum.  The choice is not to choose the water or the Ritz.  The choice is not to choose God or empire.  The choice is to follow God through all that is and all that we encounter, to open oneself to becoming new not instead of the old but as even it is made new.

So, here we are one week from Christmas Eve.  I don’t know about you but this whole waiting on the world to change thing is, well, it’s exhausting!  Our world is exhausting.  Sometimes it seems like the “empire”–the power-hungry, money-hungry, allegiance-hungry, affirmation-begging ones that have put themselves in charge—just doesn’t leave a lot of room for the change we so desperately need.  And so, we stay mired in global wars and national gun violence, in acceptance of prejudice and homophobia and racism, in our refusal to allow others into our society.  Journalist and writer Tina Brown (in her Substack Letter “Fresh Hell”) says that we’ve been “liberated to be our worst selves”.  Don’t you think that’s the way Paul felt sometimes?  Don’t you think there were those in that group of first hearers of his Letter to the Roman that felt the same way we do?  I think so.  I want to feel differently than I do.  I want to see and feel that “peace that passeth understanding”.  But, for now, we’re here.  And so is God.  God calls us to be who God calls us to be even in the midst of the empire, even in the midst of our worst selves.

I think that’s the point of Advent—not to lift us out of where we are but to remind us that there is another way to be where we are, that we are not destined to be mired in this, that we are destined to lift it up with us as we journey beyond the muck and the mire.  Maybe God’s Presence is not some big, flashy extravaganza like we’ve been expecting.  Maybe it’s been there all along, sort of like a little bit of water and a Ritz cracker, or maybe more like a baby born into a world that was not ready, that was never ready, a world that couldn’t move over and make room.  Advent is not only about welcoming a King; Advent is about making room for a God who comes into our ordinary lives as an ordinary person into an ordinary (and, yes, very flawed) place and makes it all extraordinary.  Advent is a lot like eating a Ritz cracker through a Holy Sacrament or a run-on sentence that only makes sense when you figure out the context.

There must be always remaining in every one’s life some place for the singing of angels, some place for that which in itself is breathlessly beautiful and, by an inherent prerogative, throws all the rest of life into a new and creative relatedness, something that gathers up in itself all the freshets of experience from drab to commonplace areas of living and glows in on bright white light of penetrating beauty and meaning —then passes.”(Howard Thurman)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli