“Wake Up”     (Return to Sermon Page) 

December 2, 2007

Isaiah 2: 1-5                                    

Romans 13: 11-12

Matthew 34: 42-44

Wake up! says Isaiah; Pay attention, says Paul; Get ready! says Jesus.

New life is on the way!  But God is not only at work for our future; 

God’s at work right now, right here, in our present.

That perspective, that understanding gives a frame work to the way we respond to everything that is going on around us.

          Doesn’t it feel like almost everything in life is in flux?

The economy keeps sliding around and who knows where it will end up.

We’re in a war we don’t really want to be in and don’t see how to get out of. 

People don’t know how to talk about the serious issues of our time.

We feel good about our church so how could we be having financial problems?

          Are we having financial problems?

People tell me that this is sort of an annual event here: not making the budget.

          How do we get out of this cycle, this pattern?

And every day in the news there are mind-boggling reports:

          Scientists are very close to cloning human cells

          Endocrine interrupters in every day household products all over the house.

We are bombarded with new information that we don’t know what to do with.

It’s not that everything is negative; but a lot of things are confusing. 

This is the quintessential experience of Advent, that time of year,

that season of the spirit when we walk by faith through foggy or dark times.

If we understand that God is with us in the present and new life is coming,

if we understand ourselves as seekers on a spiritual journey,

then I think we have a different handle on keeping our balance.

We don’t know yet how to solve or even respond to the issues of our day,

but as people of faith we can remember that there are others who have lived in such times: times of change; times of uncertainty; times when the way forward was unclear.  And they have left road markers for us to follow.

It is not a map.  We create our own map as we go along.

There are sign-posts that keep us pointed in the right direction. 

Let us look for them, maybe even interpret them for a new day.

          The first sign-post is today’s word from scripture:  Wake up! 

God is already at work here, in our midst; maybe not the way you were expecting. 

Maybe not in the places you thought God would show up. 

God is at work here--even in the deepest times of distress or greatest confusion.

Salvation is coming.  Here’s the thing: you don’t want to miss it;

you don’t want to walk right on by and not recognize it. 

So wake up; get your heart ready, get your spirit ready.  God is already on the way.

During this month that is so busy, so over run with stuff to do, let us have a Sabbath from business in the church.  Let us spend our energy not on meetings but on spiritual practices, in sharing groups, in worship, in prayer and in silence. 

Let us provide a space where the Holy Spirit can get a word in edgewise. 

Allow space for God to set the agenda --- What do you need from me today, God?- –

not clogging up every prayer with our God to do list.

I know you have a lot to do. 

Trust me, it will go more gracefully if you first give time to God.

Waking up, paying attention, trusting in God’s promises, listening for God’s directions are the work of Advent and the preparation for the spiritual journey that God is calling us to engage in in this place. 

But there is more preparation for God’s new day, as we seek to discern where God is calling us in the future.

We need to engage in a spiritual practice called ‘shedding’. 

Let go of everything that is not essential; get down to the basics.

Who am I/who are we in God? 

Because that answer, that relationship is bedrock; it shapes who we become;

it cuts out some of the options in the ‘what shall we do?’ list. 

When we know who we are and whose we are,

when we ask for guidance and really listen for it,

something different than we might expect begins to happen.

It is as if a fog is lifted.  Slowly we can see our life anew;

some things that we thought were foundational turn out not to be sound at all. 

Some things that we have always cherished turn out to be no longer sustaining.

          In spiritual terms, this is called God’s judgment: we see our lives anew; 

the view may surprise you.  Through it all God will stand beside us,

hold our hand while showing us what we need to see.

God is asking us to look unflinchingly at our corporate life. 

We will never be perfect; God is not too interested in perfect. 

God is interested in faithful—even if it turns out we’re wrong.

          We just have to be willing to look at what God wants us to see.

This is the season where God lays the ground work in us for the future. 

It is a journey of stripping away the unimportant to discover the essential. 

It is a time of prayer and discernment. 

It is advent not just on the calendar but in the heart of the church.

God is doing a new thing here.  Can you sense it?

Wake up!  God is at work in this place.    Can you see it?