WHAT'S OUR ARK?

 Sermon preached by the Rev. Michael Anderson Bullock

[Isaiah 2:1-5; Romans 13:11-14; Matthew  24:36-44]

“Be Prepared.”  I never was a Boy Scout, and truth to tell my Cub Scout career ended pretty much after I learned how to tie a necktie, which was a required skill in pursuit of earning an accomplishment badge of some sort.  Nonetheless, the Boy Scout motto, “Be Prepared” is a good reminder of how one might face life with all its “changes and chances” (as the Prayer Book puts it).  “Be Prepared.”  “Stay on your toes” as my first baseball coach repeatedly had to say to us because, as young, elementary-school-aged kids, we were very prone to distraction.  “Look alive!” was another warning that echoed the playing fields: another alert that something larger and more significant than our own thoughts and agendas was at hand.

In this first gospel of the season of Advent, Jesus warns his followers to stay “awake”, to be “ready”, to be “prepared” -- because something of God is about to happen.  Consequently, as followers of Jesus the central issue before us is this: If what is about to happen has to do with the reality of Emmanuel: God with us – and it surely does, how do we respond?

“Advent is a word that means “coming”.  What’s coming?  Rain or snow?  Black Friday and its frantic rush?  Santa?  Peace or more war?  Truth or more manipulation?  Many things are “coming”; but what about God in our lives?  Are we prepared or even interested in God’s Advent?

As a descriptive time in our life-experience, Advent can easily come across as a cluttered December with too much to do and so little chance to do it.  Yet, in terms of what Jesus conveys in this morning’s gospel lesson, his message has to do with the fact that God is on the move.  Like a pregnant woman, “Emmanuel: God with us” is about to birth new life among us.  So, by definition, it is appropriate and necessary for us to keep awake; to be prepared.; to stay ready.

The birthing that is God’s Advent must not – it cannot – be limited to a reference to the birth of Jesus as God’s Christ.  Viewing the season of Advent as just a “pre-Christmas” experience risks missing the entire point of Jesus’s birth and the God-story it tells.  At its heart, Advent is not a prelude to Christmas: a point we say in the Eucharistic liturgy, “We remember his death, We proclaim his resurrection, We await his coming in glory…”[1]  Yes, Advent is one way to approach Christmas with honesty and faith; and, yes, it is important to celebrate the Christ of God’s birth.  But the “Word made flesh [who] dwells among us”[2] is the beginning of something larger in the story of God and how we live in that story.

We have been taught that any good story has a beginning, a middle, and an end.  Again, our Communion liturgy says as much in the “Memorial Acclamation” with words like this: “Christ has died.  Christ is risen.  Christ will come again.”[3]  We followers of Jesus know the beginning of the story, and we also know the story’s ending, but the most immediate part of the story is the middle part, where you and I “live and move and have our being” -- every day.  Our lives as followers of Jesus form the bridge between the “Emmanuel” story’s beginning and its ending.  And this middle part of the God-story is what Advent’s is truly about: a story of forgiveness, redemption, strength, and hope – a story that is too large and too important to be hidden in the month of December.

As I say, Advent is about the middle of the redemption story.  It is about how followers of Jesus form the connecting bridge between the resurrection of Jesus and that time of completion when God’s life (demonstrated in the resurrection of Jesus) is fulfilled in everyone, in every place, in every time – this is to say, when God’s will is done “on earth, as it is in heaven”.

So it is that Advent is about transition.  It also marks our lives in the context of this transition.  We may think we have our lives in hand.  We may make plans that necessarily stabilize and assure us; but we live in transition.  And for the most part, we seek to limit the duration and the impact of transition so that we can “get back to normal”.  But with God what is “normal” is always about birthing and the ensuing changes that such life-giving experience entails.  As we enter this season of Advent, the question is: What is being born in and among us?

Next Wednesday, Bev will fly to Guatemala City, Guatemala, to be with our daughter-in-law, Graciela.  She and Noah are still political refugees, but they have finally made the transition from dangerous threats to new life.  They are, for the time being, safe.  More than this, Gracie is meant to give birth to their first child.  Her due date is sometime next week.  Bev, like any good and loving mother, will accompany Gracie – and Noah in making the challenging and wonderous transition into new life and parenthood.  Yet, as with all transitions, there are risks present, which are ( in and of themselves) hard to prepare for.  In Gracie’s case, her pregnancy has complications, and tomorrow she will have a caesarean section for her safety and the safety of the baby.  So, in the face of the uncontrollable and unexpected, we all do our best to be ready, to be prepared – but mostly just to be present.

This is Jesus’ Advent message to us.  It is a message to us that God-life is in our midst, and the Holy One’s life is being birthed to grow among us.  We don’t know what this will look like.  None of us knows what will happen to us in the process.  Only the Father knows, not even the Son.  And this state of tense affairs is where faith kicks in – not to run away but to dare to be present to whatever the new life brings.

Unavoidably, it is Advent for us, and we are in the midst of transition from what we have known to what God has promised.  At best, transitions are challenging.  They can also be frightening.  For instance, our nation is in transition, and so is the world.  So are we, a fact that is reflected in our “Prayers of the People: Betty is in transition at the death of her brother as well as the prospect of death for her husband; Nancy is in transition and so is the life of her friend, Bob; Chip is in transition, trying to regain his soul.

So, too, is our parish church in transition, marked by the conclusion of our partnership as priest and people – the one (we need to recall) at the start was unexpected, unknown, and untested; the one that has lasted almost ten years and produced new life both for me and for you.  And now, our life together is in transition; and, speaking for myself, this transition is hard because it contains death – in the form of a lot of letting go.  It also contains the opportunity for new life – both for me and for you.

And so, you and I are unavoidably in Advent.  Therefore, it’s not enough to pretend that we are waiting for Christ to be born.  Something much more current and personal is at hand, with the issue of how you and I move from that birth of “Emmanuel: God with us” to receiving the new life “Emmanuel: God with us” always gives.

So, what do we do with this – this Advent?  I take a clue from Jesus’ allusion to Noah and that ancient figure’s faithful response to the reality of Advent in his day and time.

In the story of Noah, if we treat it with respect and seriousness and not as a biblical cartoon, God calls this righteous man to an extraordinary job of redemption and new life.  In the midst of the people turning away from the Holy One and (in this sinful process breaking God’s heart), God calls Noah (and his family) to prepare for an unthinkable yet baptizing flood.  In this experience of Advent, Noah and his family are to build an ark – a large boat – that will be the vehicle by which this faithful remnant will make the transition from what was to the new life with God.

In Advent terms, what is telling about the Noah story is how detailed God’s boat-building instructions are.[4]  For instance, the craft is to be made of gopher wood, with rooms to accommodate Noah and his family.  Pitch is to be applied to waterproof the boat.  Its length is to be reckoned in cubits.  (What’s a cubit” Bill Cosby once comedically quipped.  FYI: a cubit is an ancient standard of measurement, taken from the elbow to the tip of the fingers: about 18 inches.)  The length of the ark is to be 300 cubits; its width 50 cubits; its height 30 cubits.  Detailed instruction included how tall the ark’s roof should be, where the ark’s door is to be located, and how many decks the ark is to have.  (Three, for those DIY’ers among us.).

Jesus says very clearly that the times of the Lord’s Advent will be experienced as in the time of Noah.  I take this to mean that in our transitions, in our times of being bridges between the beginning of our stories and linking that narrative to the stories of completion, we have work to do.  We cannot indulge ourselves in confusion or fretting or chaotic despair.  We have an ark to build at 128 Main Street, Easthampton, Massachusetts; and we better get to work because it’s going to “rain” – a lot! – and we have difficult Advent traveling to do on the high seas of our life.

So, what’s our ark?  What are the details of the vessel that will carry us as followers of God’s Christ across the oceans of serious change and into the reality of hope and new life?  Moreover and to Advent’s concrete requirement, who among us will participate in the building of our ark?  We can’t order it from Amazon!  And to the central question of our Advent ark: Who among us will go aboard this craft we will have built and sail – sail toward new life?

But the exact day and hour?  No one knows that, not even heaven’s angels, not even the Son.  Only the Father knows.  The Arrival of the Son of Man will take place in times like Noah’s.  Before the great flood everyone was carrying on as usual, having a good time right up to the day Noah boarded the ark.  They knew nothing – until the flood hit and swept them away…[5]

Be prepared.  Stay awake.  There is new life on the horizon.  “O Come, O come, Emmanuel”.  Amen.

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[1] Book of Common Prayer. Eucharistic Prayer B; Memorial Acclamation, p. 368.

[2] John 1:14.

[3] BCP. Memorial Acclamation. Prayer A, p. 363.

[4] Genesis 6:14-16.

[5] Matthew 24:36-38: The Message.