Rev. Betsy Aldrich Garland
November 29, 2009
Jeremiah:14-16; Psalm 25:1-10

Waiting

Waiting is a normal part of life: we wait to the pot to boil; we wait for the light to change; we wait for the cat to come in so we can go to bed. We wait with anxiety for the doctor to call with test results; for the bank to make a decision; for the new job to be offered; for the other shoe to drop.

What are you waiting for?

Some things we wait for require our participation: We wait for . . . our waist lines to shrink; our lives to get better; the last of the pledges to come in; a new settled minister to be called. And some things will come surely, whether or not we are ready: The days will grow shorter. The ponds will ice over. The baby will be born. Christmas will come.

But not yet! We are not ready.

Advent is a time of waiting, a time of preparation, a season of longing, not a countdown to Christmas. Consumerism will not deliver our fulfillment. Carols in all the stores will not satisfy our longings. Black Friday will not deliver justice and mercy. Advent is a time of waiting with confident hope and expectation for the fulfillment of the messianic promise, for the coming of the Christ who will bring God’s redemption to God’s people, for wholeness to be restored in a world gone wrong, in lives off track, and in tasks undone.

Advent is not Christmas – although modern society has blurred the distinction. In Advent, there are no shepherds on the hillsides, no star in the east, no angel choirs, no baby in a stable. Not yet, we are not ready.

What are you waiting for?

There’s a story about a golden retriever named Luther who walked his owner every day in the park with lots of squirrels. Luther, of course is a hunting dog, and he never missed an opportunity, if he had enough slack in his leash, to lunge at a mole, chipmunk or squirrel with great joy. One fall day, something wonderful, rare, and totally unexpected happened: A squirrel fell out of a tree right in front of Luther. He was astounded – and overjoyed! From then on, Luther believed that squirrels fall out of trees. The next morning, and every morning after that, Luther stopped under the tree, quivering with anticipation. Long afterwards, he still stops and looks up, even though he has gone back to chasing squirrels.1

That’s what Advent is – a time to look up with hope, a time of longing for God’s presence, a time of active waiting in anticipation. In Psalm 25, we hear what King David is waiting for. In this song of lament, honesty and hope, David has the equivalent of a Christmas wish list: He starts, “God, I’m counting on you. You’re the one I’m trusting to do all of this.” Then he pulls out his list of what he wants:

1. Don ’t let anyone embarrass me;
2. Don’t let my foes make fun of me;
3. Don’t let down your faithful ones;
4. Embarrass the bad guys;
5. Help me know what to do;
6. Teach me how to do the right thing;
7. Show me the truth;
8. Teach me the truth;
9. Show me mercy;
10. Show me the love;
11. Don’t worry about the bad stuff I did when I was a kid;
12. Remember how much you love me!2

That’s David’s wish list: for God to teach him and lead him in making God’s ways of mercy and love his ways. David trusts in God’s love and faithfulness.

The prophet Jeremiah makes the case that what we are waiting for will come. He writes as Jerusalem is being sacked and the temple is being burned, as the royal court and upper classes are being marched into exile in Babylon. He writes during one of the darkest days of the Hebrew people, and he writes, “The days are surely coming....”

Even though he is generally a prophet of gloom and doom, Jeremiah writes to bring hope in the midst of the reality of human despair. In spite of Jerusalem’s present calamity, God will keep God’s promise. Martin Luther called the passage that we heard this morning, the “Little Book of Comfort” because Jeremiah proclaims that we can trust God, no matter what, even when our lives are falling apart, maybe especially when our lives are falling apart! To quote one commentator, “The stories of Advent are dug from the harsh soil of human struggle and the littered landscape of dashed dreams.” 3

God is not a hidden God who refuses to become involved with the likes of us. God hears the cry of God’s people, because God is righteous. The Messiah will come – to execute justice and righteousness in the land. O come, O come, Emmanuel.

“The days are surely coming,” Jeremiah would say to us, when the homeless will not sleep in tents on the State House lawn, retirees will not use up their savings for rising health care premiums, soldiers will not come home in body bags, our communities will no longer be torn asunder by racism and homophobia and violence.

Advent is a call for righteousness – that is, right-doing as opposed to wrong-doing, conduct in keeping with God’s purposes, doing the good thing and the God thing. We wait with trust in the promise that God made that we will be saved, that we will live in safety, that we will work to usher in a better world.

Theologian Barbara Brown Taylor writes movingly of living with such a promise:

“The promise may not be fully in hand. It may still be on the way, but to live reverently, deliberately and fully awake—that is what it means to live in the promise, where the wait itself is as rich as its end. All it takes are some regular reminders, because as long as the promise is renewed, the promise is alive, as vivid as a rainbow, as real as the million stars overhead.”

We are signs of God’s presence and promise to others when we fill Thanksgiving baskets for hungry people, when we give rides to people who need transportation to church, when we assist our neighbors with rent and fuel, when we work for health care for everyone, when we collect housewares for homeless people coming in off the street. Perhaps we need Advent more than ever this year.

The days are surely coming, God says, when I will fulfill the promise I made to Edgewood Congregational Church years ago.

O come, O come, Emmanuel.

Amen.

1. Mary Lou Redding, While We Wait: Living the Questions of Advent (Nashville: Upper Room Books, 2002), p. 24.
2. Homiletics, November December 2009, page 45.
3. Gary W. Charles, Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 1, p. 7
4. Barbara Brown Taylor, Gospel Medicine (Cambridge: Cowley Publications, 1995), p. 41, as quoted in Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 1, page 13.