Sermon for the First Sunday of Advent November 28, 2021 Delivered by the Rev. Dr. Margaret Bullitt-Jonas Church of Reconciliation, San Antonio, Texas Psalm 25:1-9 Jeremiah 33:14-16 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13 Luke 21:25-36

Standing up when things fall apart

Friends, I am blessed to be with you this morning. Thank you for inviting me to preach.  I was hoping to join you in person because I’d planned to come to San Antonio to speak at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion. But because of the pandemic, my presentation went virtual, so here I am at home, bringing greetings from the East Coast, where I serve the two Episcopal dioceses in Massachusetts as well as the United Church of Christ in southern New England.  In this ecumenical role, I speak to people of faith about our call to cherish and protect God’s creation.  If you’d like to know more about what I’m up to, please visit my Website, RevivingCreation.org.  I want to give a special shoutout to members of your Creation Care team – thank you for your leadership.  If there’s anything I can do to support you, please let me know.

I can’t think of a better day to be with you than today, as we launch the season of Advent and begin a new church year.  During these four weeks leading up to Christmas, we prepare to celebrate the first coming of Christ, when God became incarnate in Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem. And we prepare for his second coming, too. We look ahead to that last, great day sometime in the future when Christ will come again, when everything will be gathered up in love, when all that is broken will be healed, all that is estranged will be reconciled and forgiven, and the Lord of life will return at last to reign in glory.
Late November Sunrise, Ashfield
Photo credit: Robert A. Jonas
Christianity is full of hope about where we are ultimately heading – into the loving arms of God.  But it is also bracingly realistic about the suffering and turmoil that will take place in the meantime.  Today on the first Sunday of Advent, as we do every year, we must grapple with the Bible’s portrayal of the end-times, which include frightening predictions of social breakdown and cosmic turmoil.  As we heard two weeks ago in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus foretells “wars and rumors of wars” (Mark 13:7); he speaks of earthquakes, famines, and persecution. In today’s passage from the Gospel of Luke, Jesus says that when the Son of Man comes at the end of time, “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves.  People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken” (Luke 21:25-26). It’s scary stuff.  And it resonates with our own experience of a shaking world.  Snow in Houston.  Triple digit temperatures in the Pacific Northwest.  Withered crops and empty reservoirs in the American Southwest.  Shorelines dissolving in Florida.  Flash floods rising so quickly that people drown in their basement apartments. Wildfires so hot that they generate their own storms. Oceans emptying of life and filling with plastic.  Changes in the jet stream.  Changes in the Gulf stream. The signs of a changing climate are visible everywhere.  Around the world, throngs of people are already on the move, because drought or crop failure or fires or storms have dislodged them from their homes. Indeed, the once-stable web of life is unraveling before our eyes. Huge populations of creatures have vanished in less than 50 years. Human activity has wiped out 60% of the world’s mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds, and fish since 1970.1 With dismay, scientists are describing what they call a “biological annihilation.”2 And about one million plant and animal species are at risk of extinction, many within decades. The world is reeling, so I come to today’s Gospel passage with relief – it tells the truth.  It speaks to our condition. The Bible has wisdom to convey in apocalyptic times like these. What is “apocalypse”?  It comes from the Greek word “kalypto,” which means “to cover” or “to hide.”  “Apocalypse” refers to a great unveiling, a lifting of the veil of illusion.  In that sense, surely, we live in apocalyptic times: something like scales have fallen from our eyes and everything that was hidden is being laid bare. For instance, now we know that we can’t take the natural world for granted.  Now we see the miracle of what we once thought would be ours forever: predictable seasons, moderate weather, thriving coral reefs, ice sheets as big as a continent.  Now we know that the stable natural world into which you and I were born is coming apart, and – to quote a conservation wildlife photographer – that “even the lowliest ants or butterflies can no longer be taken for granted ever again.”3 Do apocalyptic, end-time passages like these mean that we should passively accept natural disasters that result from human-caused climate change as somehow preordained and part of God’s plan?  That’s what some Christians would have us believe, but I don’t see it that way.  I don’t for one minute believe that God wants human beings to burn the Earth to a crisp. I don’t for one minute believe that biblical end-time passages give human beings a license to rip apart the web of life and to destroy the world that our Creator proclaimed “very good” (Genesis 1:31).  On the contrary, I believe that God’s creative, holy presence fills our precious, living planet, and that all of it belongs to God – meadows, rivers, soils and seeds, animals and oceans. As the psalmist says, “The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it” (Psalm 24:1). And the very first task given to human beings is to care for the earth, to serve as custodians and stewards. As I see it, the Bible’s end-time passages and their frightening imagery of chaos and distress were not given to us so that we can indulge in wasteful and disheartening political rhetoric, in helplessness, resignation, or fatalism, but just the opposite: in order to sustain our courage, hope, and perseverance even in the midst of crisis.
Icy twigs, Ashfield
Photo credit: Robert A. Jonas
In this time of climate emergency, I hear three messages in today’s Gospel. The first is: Don’t be surprised by suffering. Jesus warned of social breakdown and conflict. He anticipated natural and even cosmic disruption. Don’t be surprised by suffering, our Gospel text reminds us.  Don’t take your suffering or the world’s suffering to mean that God is powerless or that God doesn’t care or that God has abandoned us. Everything we are experiencing is held within the gaze – indeed, within the embrace – of a loving God. So, don’t be surprised. A second message: Don’t be afraid.  Although many people “will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world,” followers of Jesus should take heart.  “Now when these things begin to take place,” says Jesus, “stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near” (Luke 21:28).  “Stand up!” he says. “And raise your heads!”  What bracing words these are when we may feel like curling up in a ball and ducking our head under a pillow!  It’s easy to feel hopeless about ecological collapse and climate change.  It’s easy to feel helpless and overwhelmed.  What can I possibly do? We may say to ourselves. What difference can I possibly make?  But here comes Jesus, telling us to stand up and not be afraid, for our redemption is drawing near.  He is very close (Luke 21:27). And here comes message number three:  Don’t fall asleep.  Stay awake, says Jesus. “Be alert at all times” (Luke 21:36). Look for the small but telling signs that God is in our midst, bringing forth something new. Just as the branch of a fig tree becomes tender and puts forth its first, soft leaves, assuring us that summer’s abundance is near, so Jesus urges us to notice that even in the midst of chaos, violence, and endings, God’s kingdom is drawing near. In the very midst of endings, something new is being born. As I hear it, Jesus is calling us to stand up and take part in that birth – the birth of a new community, the birth of a new society that lives more lightly on God’s good Earth and that treats human beings and other-than-human beings with reverence, compassion, and respect. In this perilous time, God calls us to stand up, raise our heads, and bear witness in word and deed to God’s never-failing love, which embraces the whole creation. And when it comes to healing, there is so much we can do!  Earlier this year the Episcopal bishops in Massachusetts declared a climate emergency.  Our two dioceses have begun to work together in a more coordinated way as we discuss how we can pray, learn, act, and advocate on behalf of God’s creation.  The Diocese of Western Massachusetts has web pages on Creation care loaded with ideas about ways to make a difference.  Some actions are simple, like eating less meat and moving to a plant-based diet, recycling more, driving less, protecting trees, and reducing our use of fossil fuels in every way we can.  Other actions are bigger and bolder and address systemic change.  That’s important, because the scope and speed of the climate crisis require more than changes in individual behavior – they require massive, collective action and a push for policies that help us move away quickly from fossil fuels and that encourage clean renewable energy like sun and wind. A just and equitable transition to a new economy means creating lots of good green jobs for folks now working in the fossil fuel industry, and it means ensuring that historically marginalized and low-income communities – the people hurt first and hardest by climate change – have a voice at the table where decisions are made. If humanity is going to keep living on a reasonably habitable planet, then this transition must happen now. It’s up to us to insist that political leaders lead the transition – especially in places where so much of the economy and so many jobs are dependent on fossil fuels. Here’s the last thing I’ll say.  After COP26, the U.N. climate summit that just finished in Glasgow, every member of the Episcopal delegation made it clear that “protecting the Earth and preventing human suffering are not merely political talking points but central tenets of the Episcopal faith.”4 I was especially touched by the words of the Rev. Rachel Taber-Hamilton, a delegate from the Diocese of Olympia and a member of the Shackan First Nation people. She said: “The faith of re-greening the world must become as central to our theology, and to our worship, as crucifixion and resurrection… We must give nothing less than all we have and all we are in order to assure new life if generations are to follow us at all. The world to come that we pray for in our Sunday worship is ours to entomb or to liberate.”5 I pray that our Church – the Church of Reconciliation and our Church as a whole – will become a beacon of light and a leader of bold climate action.  As we step into this Advent season and into a new year, may Jesus keep us steadfast in faith and abounding in love for one another and for all, until his coming in glory.  Amen.   ________________________________________________________________________________ NOTE: To subscribe to my monthly newsletter, Creation Care Network e-news, please click here.  A video of “Standing Up When Things Fall Apart” is posted at my YouTube channel. ________________________________________________________________________________ 1. “A Warning Sign from Our Planet: Nature Needs Life Support,” Living Planet Report 2018, World Wildlife Fund, Oct. 30, 2018 2. Gerardo Ceballos, Paul R. Ehrlich, and Rodolfo Dirzo, “Biological annihilation via the ongoing sixth mass extinction signaled by vertebrate population losses and declines,” PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America), July 25, 2017. 3. Cyril Christo, “Climate change is really Apocalypse Now,” The Hill, July 17, 2021. 4. Egan Millard, “Episcopal delegates to COP26 climate conference share lessons of hope and struggle with the church,” Episcopal News Service, November 19, 2021. 5. The Rev. Rachel Taber-Hamilton, quoted by Millard, “Episcopal delegates to COP26.”
Sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Advent                  December 20, 2020 Delivered by the Rev. Margaret Bullitt-Jonas for Grace Church, Newton, and Episcopal Diocese of Western Massachusetts Luke 1:26-38

                                   I put my trust in you

“Then Mary said, ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.’”   (Luke 1:38)  

Friends, I want to tell an Advent story1 that took place fifteen years ago.  In 2005, two massive hurricanes, strengthened by the unusually warm waters of the Gulf, slammed into Louisiana and Mississippi.  Millions of Americans were forced from their homes; within hours, most of one city lay in ruins. Soon after Katrina, some members of the wonderful church I served, Grace Church in Amherst, began organizing a service trip to Mississippi.  I was planning to go, but then I received an invitation to join a delegation of interfaith religious leaders at the upcoming United Nations’ climate change conference in Montreal.

The trips overlapped, and I couldn’t take both. I decided to head to Montreal, since I wanted to urge world leaders to address global warming before it was too late. So, for several days in Advent I met with representatives of the World Council of Churches; I listened to speeches, wrote editorials, and marched with seven thousand people through the city streets.  It was the most vigorous celebration of Advent I’d ever experienced, for the signs and banners sounded the urgent themes of the season: Now is the time to wake from sleep.  Now is the time to clean up our act, to sort out our lives, to cast away the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. That exuberant march was one of the gifts I received that Advent, a glimpse of the growing worldwide movement that draws upon humanity’s deepest reserves of hope.  The other gift came as a surprise, when I was alone in my hotel.  By then I was steeped in the stark reality of climate change.  I had studied the aerial photographs of Mount Kilimanjaro without snow; listened to climate reports from the Arctic to Argentina; heard survivors of Katrina describe the vulnerability of the poor.  As for my government, it seemed unable to take the issue seriously. After a restless night, I woke up gasping with sorrow and anger, needing badly to pray.  I pulled a chair to the window and let my anguish spill out before God – grief for what is irreparably lost, rage at the inertia that kills with such abandon.  I felt helpless.  Dear Lord, what can I do?  What can anyone do?  Then I heard something. I put my trust in you.
“ANGELICO, Fra Annunciation, 1437-46” by carulmare is licensed under CC BY 2.0
Startled, I opened my eyes and looked around.  Who said that?  I often say those words to God, but now the message seemed addressed to me.  Its meaning was: Fear not.  Keep going.  I am with you. How bizarre.  Was there some mistake?  I had a choice: to accept or reject that assurance, to believe it or blow it off.  What I heard came as a complete surprise, just as God’s message to Mary was surely a surprise: you will conceive by the Holy Spirit; your son will be the savior of the world. Absurd!  Yet God’s hope for the future hung on Mary’s willingness to consent.  Maybe it hangs on our willingness, too.  Who knows how many messages God delivers daily to the countless faithful of every religion, and of none?  Trust the good, wherever you find it.  Trust the truth.  Trust love.  Trust yourself.  Let my life be born in you.  Who knows what power will be released in us when we dare to believe those unseen encounters that offer a word of love? Here on the Fourth Sunday of Advent, we know that climate change is intensifying, causing wetter, stronger and more destructive storms.  We know that we endured a historic hurricane season in the Atlantic this year, with an unprecedented number of named storms and with Hurricane Eta and Hurricane Iota crashing one after another into Nicaragua and Honduras.  We know that record concentrations of greenhouse gasses are filling the atmosphere and that 2020 is on track to be the hottest year on record. We know that we also face a host of other challenges, including protecting our democracy, establishing racial and economic justice, and solving the pandemic. But we know this, too: There is a love that wants to be born within us and among us, a love that knows no bounds. Right here, in the midst of our lives exactly as they are, Christ longs to be born again, perhaps at a deeper level than ever before. Christ yearns to make a home in you, in me, and in us all.  The birth of that divine love is what will give us the strength and courage to meet whatever comes with creativity and clarity and kindness. Still, when love draws near, we may feel an urge to hold back. We may hesitate, wondering: “What will happen if I give myself fully to that love?  What will I do?  Who will I become?”  We may say to ourselves, “Really, I do want God to come into my life, but let’s not get carried away!  I’m kind of used to being who I am. There’s something to be said for staying in control.  It’s risky to let go.  I’m not sure.  Let me get back to you.” Can you feel the pull between attraction and fear, between trust and hesitation?  Like every love song, the love song between God and the soul is about longing and resistance, about desire and holding back.  If we could put words to it, the conversation might go something like this.  Here is a poem (“Covenant”) by Margaret Halaska, a Franciscan nun:                             The Father                 knocks at my door    seeking a home for his son:             Rent is cheap, I say.  I don’t want to rent, I want to buy, says God.             I’m not sure I want to sell, but you might come in to look around. I think I will, says God.             I might let you have a room or two.  I like it, says God.  I’ll take the two. You might decide to give me more some day.             I can wait, says God.             I’d like to give you more, but it’s a bit difficult.  I need some space for me. I know, says God, but I’ll wait.  I like what I see.             Hmm, maybe I can let you have another room.             I really don’t need that much.  Thanks, says God.  I’ll take it.  I like what I see.             I’d like to give you the whole house             but I’m not sure — Think on it, says God.  I wouldn’t put you out. Your house would be mine and my son would live in it. You’d have more space than you’d ever had before.              I don’t understand at all. I know, says God, but I can’t tell you about that.              You’ll have to discover it for yourself. That can only happen if you let him have the whole house.             A bit risky, I say. Yes, says God, but try me.              I’m not sure –              I’ll let you know. I can wait, says God.  I like what I see. You’ll notice that God does not force or compel, because that is not the language of love.  God simply waits and longs and asks to draw close.  When we dare to say Yes, Christ is born again. Two thousand years ago God entered human history and became one ­of us, one with us. God came then, and God comes now, because God longs to join us on our journey, in our daily life and relationships, in our pain and worry and hope. In these turbulent times, when so much hangs in the balance, will we consent to God’s birth within us?  Like Mary, will we say, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word”? I invite you to close your eyes and to join me in praying to the Holy Spirit: “Come.  Come into my life, just as it is, and help me find my way to You.  Help me step through my fear, my anxiety, my worry, my need to be in control.  Help me find You in my ordinary, everyday living.  I trust You more than I trust myself, and I thank you for your trust in me.” Amen. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________
  1. For a longer version of this story, see Margaret Bullitt-Jonas, Joy of Heaven, to Earth Come Down: Meditations for Advent and Christmas (Cincinnati, OH: Forward Movement, 2012, 2013), 54-60.