THE SUNDAY OF JOY

Preached by Alexandria Bois-Bonifacio
Third Sunday of Advent - December 12, 2010

So today is Joy Sunday; the third week of advent. It seems only fitting that I tell you something joyful then. However, while I was looking over the text this week I was struck by them. The Psalm seemed appropriate for this week. This psalm begins the section of praise psalms and is the final sections of the book of psalms. I like that idea, don’t you, that the book of psalm goes out singing and dancing praises to God.


But it wasn’t the psalms that stopped me in my tracks this week; it was the Matthew text about John the Baptist. John seems uncertain that Jesus is the messiah. Stuck in prison he now starts to question whether all of his preaching and teaching about the Messiah – the one who is to come – has boiled down to doubt. Can Jesus really be the messiah?

It may seem obvious to us today. But we know the end of the story. We know what Jesus does through his lifetime and what he teaches his disciples. We know eventually Jesus rises from death, giving us that great piece of evidence toward his divinity. But John is stuck in prison. John doesn’t get to see Jesus work or hear Jesus preach at this point. All John has is word of mouth, uncertainties.

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Action movies today have followed a formula for so long that they have created their own cinematic clique! It goes like this:

Ultimately the good guys find the secret hide out of the bad guys. The good guys gather together and someone says “so what the plan? Anyone got a plan?” to which the hero of the movie replies “you stay here. I’ll go around back and when I give the signal you come in the front.” Someone else then says “ok. So what’s the signal” and the hero replies “oh, you’ll know”. Then he runs off around the building out of the scene. The next thing you know is the hero is driving a cement truck through the side of the building or something big and dramatic like that. And all the other good guys in the front of the building go “there’s the signal – let’s GO!”

You just have to think of Bruce Willis in the ‘Die Hard’ movies or Eddie Murphy in ‘Beverly Hillbilly Cops’. In all these movies the action hero’s behaviour is always a big tada! which leaves no doubt in the other characters’ minds. Even the spectators could say ‘yup, that was obviously the signal!’

So maybe now John the Baptist makes a little more sense. He wants a really clear signal that leaves no room for doubt that Jesus is the ultimate action hero! Maybe the first century context equivalent would have been the Messiah coming in to save the day from all oppressors! Like driving a chariot through a Roman barricade! Or miraculously lifting every Roman solider into the air and throwing them out of the country! Who knows what John was looking for, but we can definitely say Jesus did not stand up to his expectations.

Instead of a big obvious signal or tada of some kind, John finds himself in jail hearing about a man who goes around preaching and healing folks. While this may look extraordinary to us, in the time of John, there were other prophets who could heal people and even raise the dead. Jesus wasn’t doing anything extraordinary at all, rather he was working quite subtly and john was left unsure.

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Subtlety has lost a bit of its finesse in our day and age. Most of the time we are multitasking so often that anything subtle would most likely pass us by and we may not even catch what has past. With our attention span learning to move so quickly it becomes more difficult to slow down and pay attention to one thing at a time. At least that is becoming more and more true with every new generation. This latest generation can learn to operate computers at such a young age that Microsoft started to use 4 and 5 year old children in their advertisements to adults to show how easy it was to use their new programs and technology. So subtlety is definitely losing its place in our society as time goes on.

Generally speaking when we are asked to slow down and take in one thing at a time or the more subtle side of things we can get a little impatient. Each year at this time of year, we clergy, ask you to slow down from the Christmas rush and focus on what it means for us today to wait for the coming Christ child. We make you go through four long weeks before we ramp it all up on Christmas eve! And Like I said – we know the story... we know what is coming. So just imagine how impatient John could have been. Someone who knew the Messiah was coming but did not know what he would look like. It makes sense for John to have wanted that big tada. He was only human and God can work so subtly!

Even today we want a big tada sometimes too. Yes, it is true that we know the story of Jesus, but now over two thousand years later, we want to know how God is working in the world! We even get a little anxious when we can’t always figure out where God is or what God might be doing in the world today.

Anxiety is a funny little thing, don’t you think? Today is joy Sunday and that seems so fitting while we get ready for the Christmas season. I don’t think anxiety Sunday would have gone over very well as an Advent theme! But it may actually be more applicable sometimes. Think about it, around this time of year we start to worry about what presents to buy, who gets what and we have to make sure that no child get something more special than another, we have to be fair. And well who’s going to sit where for Christmas dinner, who is going to host Christmas dinner?! There are so many things to think about and figure out each year that naturally we get a little stressed this time of year. Interestingly Christmas is the time of the most generosity – the Christmas Spirit, and it is also the a time of the highest risk for family conflict!

I don’t know about your family, but my family every year gets together to trim the tree. We never think twice about coming to mom and dads house to decorate and every year we all seem so excited! But, every year it all goes to pieces too! Usually my brother or sister will volunteer to untangle the lights and string them on the tree while the other sibling and my dad start to unwrap the million glass balls they have for decorations. But without fail my dad will argue that the lights aren’t right and someone else will pick at this or that. And without fail one of us kids will what to limit the balls this year and before you know it my dad is in full argument with any number of people and those who aren’t being targeted will have slipped off into the other room, desperate to get away! Wouldn’t it be nice if someone would just stand up and say “I’ll take charge of the tree this year. No need to worry.”

It’s not just Christmas time that we worry. That funny little thing – anxiety – seems to creep around us in little doses all year. We just have to say, global warming or climate change and we can see a little anxiety start to stir.

If only we had the ultimate action hero for climate change! Someone to tells us what to do and to give us a really clear signal for when to do it! But the world just doesn’t seem to play its part. Instead the change is more subtly and only overtime do we begin to notice the changes. Wouldn’t it be easier to manage our anxiety if we could have a big tada one way or the other! Either the world is warming and we face definite change or it is not. Couldn’t nature just be clear about it!

I think that’s what John was saying to Jesus – “look either you are the messiah or you’re not. Let’s just get clear and straight forward about it!” But even in his answer, Jesus was being subtle. “go back to John and tell him all that you hear and see” I just get the feeling that Jesus answer may not have been quite the anxiety squelching answer John was looking for.

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You know there was a part of the Psalm for today that keeps drawing me in. This is a praise psalm but there are a few lines that seem to draw a parallel to more than just praise. There is a warning within this text. So that got me wondering how a warning could be alongside praise. Basically the psalm warns us not to put our faith, hope and trust in humanity. Saying if a person were able to think up a idea, the end of war, or the answer to climate change, then all of hope for a solution rests on them, a mortal. And when they did, all hope dies with them. Instead of this, the psalmist warns us to put our trust in God who endures forever.

The psalmist tells us to trust that God has a plan – that god is the ultimate action hero with a subtle twist. Instead of God being a cinematic clique, God works subtly, over time; teaching, preaching, healing as he goes changing one person at a time.

It is true that there will probably be no big tada! no obvious signal that “we’ll just know when we see it”. But God has a plan nonetheless and we are all little pieces that play little subtle parts in that plan.

In many ways we are a lot like John the babptist – who played his small part in God’s plan through Jesus Christ. And like John we want to know that God’s plan will work out in the end. We want that big tada so that we know God’s plan has worked out, so that we can squelch our anxieties.

And I wish my sermon today was giving you a clear signal about God’s work in the world. But truthfully, I think God has a different sense of time than we do. I cannot tell you how things turn out, simply because I believe it is going to take more than my lifetime for God’s plan to be complete. So what Joy is there for me to proclaim on this joy Sunday in Advent?!

Well, when i really think about things, I long for God’s cinematic clique so that I can calm down about the state of the world. I want to know that the world and all that is in her will be ok.

And when I think about it even more, I remember the psalmist’s advice to put my trust in God who endures forever. When I really think about it God’s got this in the bag!

God has a plan, it may take longer than I want it to, and I know through the experience of Jesus Christ that God works subtly. So I probably am going to miss some things along the way, but in the end god does have a plan. God’s got it in the bag. Whether I see the outcome or not, I know God’s got this. So there is no need to worry. Praise God!