Advent 1
We are Refugees: When Our Lives are Shaken
or Getting High on Advent
Luke 21:25-36
Reverend Joe Cobb, MCC of the Blue Ridge
11.29.2015
This morning I want to invite you get high with me.
Now before you go where you’ve already gone,
and before you wonder where I’ve gone, let me
explain.
And let me do so through a variety of scenarios
from my recent trip to Colorado.
Scene 1 – High Winds
When I arrived at the Roanoke airport on Friday,
November 13, I made my way through security,
found my gate and awaited my flight.
I waited, and waited, and waited. The flight was
scheduled to arrive at 10:30 and leave at 11:15.
It never landed. Well, not in Roanoke, anyway.
Our plane was diverted to Greensboro due to
high winds here. And, according to the regular
updates delivered by the attendants, unless
the high winds diminished it may never arrive.
Now, if you’re like me, it’s easy to get high on
waiting. Waiting is what I live for.
Especially during Advent. That’s what this season
means, after all: Waiting for the birth of Christ. Waiting
for the return of Christ. Wait in between. Heck,
we even have Advent calendars, where every day,
we wait to open one window on what it all means.
On that particular Friday, the windows of the
airport didn’t reveal the high winds that were
hovering above us and deterring our airplane
from landing.
So we had to wait on what we could not control.
And, that is the hardest waiting of all.
Scene Two – High Alert
Our plane finally landed in Roanoke around 3:00,
and we did a quick turnaround and made it safely
to Atlanta, around 4:15.
As I got off the plane and entered the terminal,
I saw a lot of people paying close attention to the
TV screens. When I stopped to look, I was stunned
to see reports of three separate terrorist attacks
in Paris.
Throughout the airport, making my way to my
next gate, I watched as the body count grew,
as terror suspects were identified, as people
began to huddle closer to loved ones.
Paris was on high alert. The world was on
high alert.
Advent is a season of high alert. We hear this
clearly in our Gospel text for the day, as
Luke recalls Jesus describing the signs of the
times – what to watch for in anticipation of his
return.
I always dread these readings on the first
Sunday in Advent. They pull us away from 24/7
Christmas music, Black Friday and Cyber Monday
madness. They distract us from our rush to the
stable where we will find Jesus all nicely nestled
in his bed, asleep in the hay.
Isn’t that the Advent and Chrsitmas we want?
We don’t want
to hear about terrorists
plotting their evil against
unsuspecting innocents.
Yet, if we look more closely at the
story surrounding the Christmas we
celebrate, we don’t have to dig
too deeply to read the acts of terror
waged by mad King Herod, when
he sought to kill all the new born
male children in all the land just
to rid the world of a would be
savior child.
This season of high alert reminds
us that within the human condition
there is always brokenness; and this
brokenness leads to hatred, violence
and death.
And, some in our world get “high”
on this madness.
This is not what Advent or Christ wants us to
get high on.
Living on high alert is being attentive
to signs of hope in the face of terror,
like France, broken and made vulnerable
by acts of terror, continuing to keep open
its borders and cities to Syrian refugees.
Scene Three – High Altitude
Once I arrived in Colorado, I tried to
adjust to the time change and the high
altitude. I popped a chlorophyll pill
twice a day, and drank more water than
usual.
Sometimes the high altitude causes us
to do things we wouldn’t normally do,
to act in strange ways, which is the only
rationale I can find for the thirty-plus
governors and a couple of City Mayors
(one who made international news) who
in an attempt to keep terrorists who allegedly
“got in” by posing as Syrian tourists would
not welcome refugees into their states or
cities.
High altitudes can lead to fear and foreboding
and if we’re not careful, to fainting from the
thought of it all. If we’re not careful, and
lose sight of the hope in Advent, we’ll
succumb to the darkness of the world that
teaches us to be afraid of everyone,
to turn against one another, rather than
seeking out the best in each other.
Two Sundays ago, I was seated in the
sanctuary of Pikes Peak MCC awaiting my
time to preach, and listening to one of
their parishioners, Frank, read a scripture
from Isaiah about a manipulative king who
was trying to terrorize the Israelite king
and his people into surrendering.
When he was done with the reading,
he offered a standard liturgical response:
A Word of Hope…I think.
We burst out laughing, because we knew
exactly what he meant.
Then, on Wednesday of last week,
after making my way to Denver,
I spoke to a group of about 25
United Methodists in Anthony’s Pizza
about my family’s journey through
the difficulties of coming out and creating
a new way of being family.
When I was done, I stepped over to
sign some books and felt light-headed,
like I was going to faint.
Yet, I wasn’t fainting due to fear; I was
dehydrated. A glass of water and a
reminder that the best and most
important work any of us can do is
reconciling work, and I was feeling
better.
Advent calls us to a higher altitude of
living, rising above the attempts of fear
to make us faint and forget about hope.
Scene Four – Mile High
This past Sunday, I nestled into the
front pew of MCC of the Rockies,
listening as Rev. Jim Mitulski invited
us to join hands with someone close
to us for our time of prayer.
I turned around in my pew, and
joined hands with Gail and her
daughter, Debbie, whom I’d met
earlier that morning.
In preparation for World AIDS Day
on December 1, the church had
secured two large panels from the
AIDS quilt. And with some good
detective work by one of the church
members, James, they found the
panels containing names of previous
members of the church.
Twenty years ago, eight of the panels
were hand sewn and quilted by
Gail.
When she walked into the church
that morning, she saw the panels
for the first time in nearly twenty
years.
Tears streamed down her face
as she remembered the lives embodied
in each panel, and one man in particular,
who wanted his physical footprints
implanted on his panel.
She recalled how, with Debbie’s help,
they painted the man’s feet, and then
held him up as he walked, step by
step, on the quilt panel.
As I held Gail and Debbie’s hands
in prayer, my soul felt a mile high,
and even higher, in holding the hands
of two who had created such love
and memory, and who crafted,
twenty years ago, a message of
Advent hope and promise in the
face of disease and death.
This is the way I want to get
high this Advent season: high
on hope, not on fear; high on
living with grace, not shame;
high on hospitality, not exclusion;
high on waiting, with great excitement,
for the One who has come,
is coming again to the stable near
Bethelem,
and will return in glory
where we can all bask in
unconditional love.
So, now: you want to get high?
Amen.