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December 3, 2006,  First Sunday in Advent, All Souls' Episcopal Church

What's the World Coming to?
Luke 21: 25 - 31

On this First Sunday in Advent, I would like to ask you this question: what's the world coming to? This question is often asked these days.. sometimes out loud and sometimes under our breath as we observe something or hear something that sounds incredulous in one way or another. I think few people can live in our times without asking this question…..especially those of us who have seen so much change. What is the World coming to ?

The events reported to us in the media strike us with severe intensity. There is much to worry us. The thing that upsets so many of us is what is happening to our family structure. We know that stable family structure is a basic necessity in society, and we know also that the signs of breakdown are visible everywhere. The teenage gangs that exist today exist primarily because of a poor home environment. Statistics hide the anguish, but they make plain the crisis. Today, according to the N.Y. Times, depending on age and circumstances, anywhere from 40 to 50% of marriages end in divorce. In the year 1900, it was 8%!
"What's the world coming to?"
Indiscriminate killing of innocent people is a world scene today.
We worry about the crime rates and students with guns at school. We open the daily paper and read that at St. Vincent de Paul Roman Catholic Church on West 23rd Street, in New York City, there is a special offering which is used to hire a security guards who will permit the church to keep its doors open. I remember a few years ago reading that there were more than l,000 crimes against churches in New York City in that year. Awhile back, do you remember the churches in Florida that had been "torched". We read about this and we ask: "What's the world coming to?"

Look at our wonderful country immersed in a world war against terrorism…in terrible debt led by some who think only of themselves with no pretence. Well, if Christian faith is to be a vital force in our lives, enabling us to live courageously despite these horrible facts, it must be able to face up to the kinds of things about which we've been talking. It will not do to pretend that such things do not go on. Faith does not deny the reality of guns in schools, of gangs, of drug abuse, of 1 ½ million predators on the internet, pornography, satanic cults, political and corporate corruption. faith looks them full in the face and denies them the power to overwhelm us. Faith was never meant to be an escape from reality; it is a way of seeing beneath the surface of things. It's quest is truth We don't retreat into a corner when the world is assaulting us. We don't weave ourselves into cocoons. In fact…..quite the opposite…………

Madeleine L'Engle, in her book, A Circle of Quiet, gives us some thoughts here. She writes: "I'm like most mothers; my immediate instinct is protective. I tend to be very much like a mother lion when it comes to her cubs. …….. But then I remember the eagles, who also love their fledglings. In their great, beautiful nests, protected from all danger by their tremendous height, where no marauder can menace the little ones, the mother and father eagle have carefully woven thorns into the nest. These thorns are sharply turned inwards so that the fledglings won't be too comfortable."

A faith-filled Christian maturity demands of us that we too don't get too comfortable. We must dare to leave the nest and "fly" with our faith into the world with eyes that are wide open.

The Bible prepares us for realism about our world. It gives us the truth. The picture given in the Bible's pages does not blink to harsh realities. Rather, we are summoned to look at events and persons with an intense realism.
Few Bible passages are more unsparing in their depiction of what is going on then this Gospel before us as we begin the Advent season. This account and other Gospel accounts on this apocalyptic theme are specific. For instance, Jesus tells us here and in these other Gospel accounts that the Temple, proud and glorious and which was thought beyond any power to destroy, will be left without one stone upon another. False Christs will come to deceive people. Wars and tumults will take place. Jerusalem will be surrounded by enemies, and people will fall by the sword. Not only on earth will there be such terrible signs but all this upheaval will have cosmic dimensions. The sun and the moon and stars will show signs of the devastation, and there will be roaring of the seas. Men will faint with fear and be filled with foreboding.

No modern prophet could paint the picture in more frightening terms. This is the healthy realism of faith and orthodox Bible belief, and it is this quality which makes Christian faith a strong resource for people like ourselves who live in such times.

There is a response that we might expect when we hear this listing of woes to come. The response might well be discouragement or even despair. But the astonishing words are in the statement with which Jesus ends this description. Jesus says: "Now when things begin to come to pass, look up and lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh." Amazing words, aren't they? They are words of tremendous assurance and hope because this world is God's creation. He brought it into being by His creative act and God sustains the world by His presence.

Within this world, of course, there are the realities we've already mentioned. We are surrounded by human sin and rebellion against God from evil happenings such as murder and physical abuse to simple acts of opposition to God like those telling State employees that they are subject to dismissal if they say "Merry Christmas" instead of "Happy Holidays". To believe in God does not mean that we must deny the reality of evil happenings and opposition to God.. The insight of Christian faith gives us hope by founding our confidence, not in human beings, but in God. Not in shallow worldly standards but in Godly truth! We do not get in faith any easy guarantee that everything is just fine and dandy. That kind of superficial outlook has no part of a vital Christian faith. But on the other hand, Christian faith does not hold out only a promise of gloom and destruction. Any easy optimism and despairing pessimism are both denials of faith.

There have been times in the past when human pride needed to be shattered. We know periods when some`````````` were very sure that human beings, alone and unaided by any divine presence, could solve all our problems, abolish evils, and usher in a perfect society. Any age that had such assurance needed to hear the word of our Lord, bluntly telling of disasters that were sure to be confronted.

I suspect, however, that this is a time here, in December, 2006, when our cocksure confidence has been shattered. People are increasingly uneasy. So, what is the answer to the question: "What is the world coming to?" The answer is that the world is coming to Advent. For, you see, in Jesus Christ, for whose coming we prepare, God has claimed the world; and in Christ, God is calling the world to Himself.

This is the Gospel and this is the Gospel Good News for which people are hungry. For the Gospel is the assurance that God has acted decisively for our redemption, and He will act again….decisively for our redemption and our Salvation. But this note of assurance is always sounded in the midst of the raucous shouts heard even today by some, "Crucify Him!" But, my friends, even though there was the stark reality of the cross, there is also the glorious reality of Resurrection. We have the confidence of Resurrection!

This confidence is what should enable each one of us despite the world around us, to live with inner peace. This confidence prompts us to leave our nests of security and complacency and "fly" as we face the world with our faith….and, of course, even though we do not know the precise hour of our Lord's coming again, what we do know is that we are called to face reality and to be always ready since the calling may be sudden, a midnight hour. Advent is the time we walk across the Judean countryside for the coming of the Christ-Child at Bethlehem and also for when He will come again, leading us to the glad day when we sing, "Joy to the World, The Lord is come."

Do not despair my friends. The world was created and is sustained by God. Face the world as it is…Keep the faith! Live the faith! Let your faith take wings and soar! The Good New is that God is coming !!

Amen.