Advent 1A -sermon.

I’ll have a blue Christmas without you
I’ll be so blue just thinking about you
Decorations of red on a green Christmas tree
Won’t be the same dear, if you're not here with me

And when those blue snowflakes start falling
That's when those blue memories start calling
You’ll be doin’ all right, with your Christmas of white
But I'll have a blue, blue blue blue Christmas.                 

(You’ll be doin’ all right, with your Christmas of white
But I'll have a blue, blue blue blue Christmas.)

                 

Most of you will recognize this Billy Hayes, Jay Johnson country song; popularized for the rock-in-roll world by Elvis Presley.  It is a tale of unrequited love during the holidays.

The season of Advent has a lot of similarities to country music.  It has been said that a good country song includes: a broken relationship, a well-loved old pickup truck, and a faithful dog –all sung to a lamenting sort of tune that in the end somehow has spoken to the soul and healed the heart.  Country music, now in its 6^th generation of artists is American grown beginning at the turn of the last century in the South, amidst rural living peoples who combined Western music with African folk music.  Each generation has recreated the old songs, wrote new ones, changing the style to address social ills and blue hearts and souls of their time.

The season of Advent is a season, that when observed well includes: recognizing and grieving broken relationships, well-loved passages of scripture especially from Isaiah, and a faithful God – all sung to lamenting tunes of Advent hymns that in the end somehow speak to the soul and heal the heart.  Christian liturgical tradition, now in its umpteenth generation, is an ancient practice preserved in communities around the world. Each generation recreates the old songs, writes new ones, changing the style, applying the Word, to address social ills and blue hearts and souls of their time; our time.

When you look around this worship place you will notice it is blue, and it will remain this way throughout Advent.  It is about the church, this community and other Lutheran brothers and sisters across this country, standing in the world and offering a place where people can come undecorated, with no expectations upon them, and with a tenure created giving permission to sit and breath; to decompress and if necessary to cry.

Every year, a little earlier, Christmas begins to creep into the stores.  People start earlier to parcel things up in pretty paper, to cover stuff with tinsel, and to wrap objects in lights.  Have you ever considered that there is a correlation between chaos, sadness, mental health, and ultimate lack of control in society, with an earlier start to attempt to cover the gloom with “happy?” 

Isn’t that what the world is so skilled at doing?  Covering up –whether its wrinkles, saying we’re fine, we’re doing alright, showing we’re put together at work when home is falling apart, looking happy when we are anything but happy.

Advent is a season not of happy per say, although it may contain happy:  it is a season of coming and hope.

People, you, are invited to come and be yourself.  The hustle and bustle to Christmas is full of lies, the truth is here.  You are invited to come and be yourself.  This is physically the darkest time of the year; the earth around us dies.  It is a time of year that emotions match the lack of light and the cooling of the weather.  It is a time when people face a looming “happy” celebration, and feel the need to be happy, when in reality they may be anything but.  This time of year many are grieving a loss of job, a loss of friend or family member; the feeling of loneliness or inadequacy rises; stress, addictions, and expectations of others are compounded; some feel a sickness of the pervasive consumer machine.  Christmas is not what we are told it will be and unfortunately we are asked to buy in to it.  But not here.

 Here we are invited to sit in the darkness, to lay bare our hearts, to lament with our souls, and to grieve the visions we have of a world that is not what it could be.  Here we acknowledge the chaos in which we live.

As we allow ourselves to wait in darkness, our hearts and souls slow down enough that they wade through the fake tinsel and the festive junk of the world, so we can hear and see and anticipate God’s coming –and that fills one with hope.  Blue is the colour of Advent.  Research has shown that blue is a colour that evokes psychological calm and relaxation to counter chaos and agitation.  It is a colour that opens the flow of communication and broadens perspective when learning new information.  It helps create a sense of peace and solitude.  The very colour paints the season with a vision of what the world is to be.

In this place as we open ourselves to be vulnerable, to be blue, the words and images of the season will flood our beings and produce hope. 

“...In the days to come...the Lord’s house shall be established...many people shall come and say, ‘come let us go up to the mountain of the Lord.’...they shall beat their swords into plowshares, their spears into pruning-hooks”....

Ingest these words of hope and these words of blessing: “...Peace be within your walls...Peace be within you.”

What is expected of us at this time of year? 

Take a look at the blue art produced last week.  You were invited to paint chaos and to paint “how you feel.” Through movement -blue blobs of paint, turned to chaos on canvas, and then for the artist a sense of release, of accomplishment, and a movement towards hope.  The idea is that movement and feeling continues to vibrate around us, each of us being awakened by the feelings of another; we are opened to a slightly different variation of the same tune.  This art is the country music of this season.  It is rural, grass roots, hits the heart of the matter, and allows us to sit in its midst and calls us to wait in the tension.

The works are busy and simple at the same time, calling us to  wake from sleep...to keep awake...and deeper calling us to an attitude that says “let us walk in the light of the Lord...Let us lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armour of light.”

We can do this only if we sit and wait for Christ’s coming, with open hearts, souls laid bare, vulnerable –quiet-so that light can fill us from the inside out.

As we share the lament of our hearts, we take a moment to pause and pray, to set aside Advent as a gift to ourselves so that we may be filled to be Christ’s in the world.  The prayer comes to us from Ted Loder, a United Methodist pastor, world-renown preacher, and writer.  This prayer is from his book, Guerillas of Grace: Prayers for the Battle:

O God of all seasons and senses,

 grant us the sense of your timing to submit gracefully and rejoice quietly in the turn of the seasons.

In this season of short days and long nights,
of grey and white and cold,
teach us the lessons of endings;
children growing, friends leaving, loved ones dying,
grieving over,
grudges over,
blaming over,
excuses over.

O God, grant us a sense of your timing.
In this season of short days and long nights,
of grey and white and cold,
teach us the lessons of beginnings;
that such waitings and endings may be the starting place,
a planting of seeds which bring to birth what is ready to be born—
something right and just and different,
a new song, a deeper relationship, a fuller love—
in the fullness of your time.

O God, grant us the sense of your timing.   Amen.