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<td width="15"><img src="../../images/1X1.gif" width="15" height="1" alt="tr"></td> <td> <h1>December 7, 2008 sermon </h1> <span class="grey_title">ADVENT II: The Threshold of Peace</span> <br> <span class="grey_title"><em>(Isaiah 40:1-11; Mark 1:1-8)</em></span> <h2>Reverend Minister Sally Harris</h2> THRESHOLD = the place or point of beginning<br> = the level or point at which you start to experience something, or at which something starts to happen <br><br> <strong> Let us pray: We have imagined peace. We have prayed for peace. And still we long for peace. O Come, O come Emanuel with your Songs of Peace. Amen </strong> <br><br> I wonder if God comes to the edge of heaven each Advent and flings the Star into the December sky, laughing with joy as it lights the darkness of the earth; and the angels hearing the laughter of God, begin to congregate in some celestial chamber to practice their alleluias I wonder if there’s some ordering of rank among the angels as they move into procession, the seraphim bumping the cherubim from top spot, the new inhabitants of heaven standing in the back until they get the knack of it. (After all, treading air over a stable (or a negotiating table) and annunciating at the same time can’t be all that easy!) Or is everyone – that is, every “soul” – free to fly wherever the spirit moves? Or do they even think about it? Perhaps when God calls, perhaps they just come, this multitude of heavenly hosts. Perhaps they come, winging through the winds of time full of expectancy full of hope that this year perhaps this year (perhaps) the earth will fall to its knees in a whisper of “Peace” <br><br> Imagine that the passage from Isaiah is describing such a gathering, describing through a symphony of words, songs sung by a multitude of heavenly hosts. Like Handel’s Messiah, here in Isaiah 40, songs are built upon songs. Songs sung to a suffering and exiled people who have been invited to a table to negotiate a new way of being. It is a round table and the negotiators are messengers, angels, from God, who are asked to comfort a people. They are instructed to speak tenderly to them, to cry with them and to assure them that the warfare is over. Another chorus of angels breaks out into song: “In the wilderness prepare the way, create a space, level the ground, lift up the valleys, bring down the mountains, fashion a highway for God is coming. Make equitable the landscape so that peace can find its way to the center of our lives, to the center of our relationships, to the center of our community, to the center of our cities, to the center of our nations.” <br><br> Another angel sings out, affirming the message with a short terse note: “Cry out” as if to urge the process onward. Then there is a third voice, a reluctant angel who resists immediate acceptance and wonders about the fleeting gains of such an endeavor – What shall I cry? All flesh is grass and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades… Yes, yes sings another voice but the word of our God will stand forever. Certainly what us humans negotiate is fleeting, we are petty and precarious beings, vulnerable to the winds of greed, jealousy, power politics, prejudice and fear. But what is being negotiated here – this imagining of peace - is not based on the constancy of human endeavor. No this peace; this song is rooted in God’s own vision of peace on earth. Yes, the peace so often negotiated on earth is fragile and often withers in the face of humanities record of conflict unresolved but the vision, the peace we imagine; the peace we pray for, the peace we long for is not fleeting for it is grounded in the faithfulness of God not the fickleness of humanity. <br><br> And then the song of Mark, the song of the warbling wilderness wild man, continues the refrain: Prepare the Way. It is the song of Isaiah that introduces this strange bizarre character that always gets in our face at this time of year. Every Advent we hear the song of this one clothed in camel’s hair, the song of one who lives on the fringe of life. A character who lives and works in a threshold space. “What intrigues me about the threshold nature of John the baptizer is the way in which the past, present, and future come together within him. Grounded in the words of the prophet who spoke in centuries past about one who would prepare the way, John turns his face toward the future, yet he flings himself into the present and the work that is at hand. He holds past, present, and future in dramatic and creative tension, not becoming overly attached to any one of these realms. Open to the ways that the God of the ages is at work, John is able to recognize the Christ, revealed in the fullness of time. <br> <br> These Advent days can be disorientating in the ways that they call us not only to remember the past but also to anticipate the future and attend to the present. Yet this is the work of the threshold, and Advent is a threshold season, a liminal place in the calendar, an in-between time of preparation and expectation. Thresholds offer a heady mix of possibility and peril. They are wildly unpredictable, they stir up questions, they call us to live with uncertainty, they compel us to develop skills at attending to the present even as we discern the future. Ultimately, they are places of initiation, taking us deeper into God and into the person, into the community, God is creating us to be. To follow God does not always mean traveling with certainty about where God will lead us; rather, following God calls us to be present to the place where we are, for that is the very place where God shows up.”<br> <em>[adapted from Jan Richardson, ‘A Way in the Wilderness’]</em> <br><br> I wonder if God comes to the edge of heaven each Advent and flings the Star into the December sky, laughing with joy as it lights the darkness of the earth; and the angels hearing the laughter of God, begin to congregate in some celestial chamber to practice their alleluias… Perhaps they come, winging through the winds of time full of expectancy full of hope so that we might prepare the way even as we cross the threshold of peace. <br> <br> <a href="readingsdocs_2008/120708trinity.doc">Print/Download</a> this in Word.doc<br> <br> <br> <br> <br> </p></td> </tr> </table> </td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" bgcolor="#D1A347" valign="top" align="center"> </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="3" bgcolor="#D1A347"><img src="../../images/1X1.gif" width="3" height="1" alt="tr"></td> <td width="123" bgcolor="#D1A347" align="left"><br><br> </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="3" bgcolor="#D1A347" valign="top"> </td> <td bgcolor="#D1A347" class="allarewelcome" valign="top" width="123"> </td> <td height="24" valign="top"> <p class="bottom_navigation"> <img src="../../images/1X1_b.gif" width="65%" height="1" alt="bar"><br> Friday, September 10, 2010 <br> 1805 Larch St., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6K 3N9 604-732-3075 - Sunday Service: 11 a.m.<br> <a href="../../aboutus/contact.shtml">Contact us</a> | <a href="../../sitemap/sitemap.shtml">Site map</a> | <a href="../../privacy/privacy.shtml">Privacy</a> <br> Copyright © 2010 <b> <a href="http://www.mediamaster.ca" target="_blank">Mediamaster Studios</a></b></p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" bgcolor="#D1A347"> <div align="center"> <p class="allarewelcome">All are Welcome!</p> </div> </td> <td height="24" valign="top"> </td> </tr> </table> </td> </tr> </table> </body> </html>