Rev. Tom Sorenson, Pastor
November 29, 2009

Scripture:

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

I’m really glad that I’m not one of the people who puts together the Revised Common Lectionary. That’s the schedule of Bible readings for each Sunday that I use most of the time in designing worship here. I’m especially glad that I’m not the person assigned the responsibility for choosing the Bible texts for the Sundays in Advent. Advent, which begins today, is of course that season in the church calendar that leads up to Christmas. The RCL folks do the best they can to select texts that have something do to with anticipating the birth of Jesus, but in doing that they resort to two interpretive devices that I have a lot of trouble with. One is reading some of the Hebrew Scripture texts that talk about a coming king who would restore the kingdoms of Judah and Israel as being predictions of the coming of Jesus. Trust me, they aren’t. And taking them to be predictions of Jesus doesn’t let Jewish scripture be Jewish. It appropriates that great scripture for a use so far removed from the intention of the original authors as to be totally inappropriate. The other problematic device they use is taking texts from the New Testament that speak of a second coming of Jesus as being about the first coming of Jesus, the one we celebrate on Christmas. Doing that just doesn’t make any sense to me. So I’m glad I don’t have to select the lectionary texts for Advent, because when you reject those two devices there really is very little in the Bible that talk in any legitimate way about the coming birth of Jesus.

So I was pleasantly surprised when I found one text in the lectionary readings for today, the first Sunday in Advent, that really works well as an Advent text. It’s the reading from Psalm 25 that we just heard. Specifically it is verses 4 and 5 of that Psalm. They read: “Make me to know your ways, O LORD; teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth, and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all day long.” These lines are an appropriate Advent text in two ways. First, they speak of waiting for the God of our salvation. For us Christians Advent is the time of waiting for the coming of the God of our salvation in the person of Jesus. Second, they ask God to teach us God’s ways. Taken together these verses point to Advent as a time of us preparing to learn the ways of God.

That strikes me as really helpful way to look at Advent. We are preparing to celebrate the birth of Jesus, but why does the birth of Jesus matter to us? There are lots of reasons why it does, but one is our Christian confession that it is in Jesus that we see most fully revealed who God is. In him we see what God’s ways are that the Psalmist prayed God would teach him. We Christians learn from Jesus what God’s ways and wills are. So preparing to celebrate the birth of Jesus means at least that we are preparing ourselves to learn from him the ways of God.

Fair enough, but perhaps you’re wondering why we need to prepare to learn God’s ways from Jesus? Well, I’m not a schoolteacher; but I hear a lot of talk about how important it is that children be ready to learn when they come to school. There are conditions in a child’s life that can interfere with her learning in school, and there are conditions in a child’s life that can facilitate learning. Two of those conditions that seem particularly important are the child’s physical health and a supportive home environment. We hear about the importance of early childhood nutrition for a child’s readiness to learn in school. And we know that children with a supportive home environment that encourages and assists learning do better in school than children who lack that supportive environment. And it seems to me that these lessons about what contributes to children’s success in school have direct parallels when we consider the things that contribute to our ability to learn the ways of God.

First there’s the issue of health. When we’re talking about children learning in school we’re talking first of all about physical health, health nurtured by good nutrition and good care of the body. The parallel with our being ready to learn the ways of God is spiritual health. Physical illness saps energy and distracts from the task of learning. Spiritual illness does the same thing. If our spirits are troubled we will be preoccupied with our troubles and not open to learning the ways of God. If our spiritual life has atrophied through neglect, we will not have the tools we need to learn the ways of God. So the first thing we must do if we are to learn the ways of God from Jesus is tend to our spiritual health.

How do we do that? Primarily through prayer. Regular, consistent prayer is as important to spiritual health as regular, consistent nutrition is to physical health. A regular discipline of prayer conditions us to listen to God. It opens us to God’s callings. It keeps us connected with God; and without that connection, how can we learn from God? A regular practice of prayer is essential to the spiritual health that we need if we are truly to learn God’s ways from Jesus when he finally arrives.

Then there’s the issue of a supportive home environment. When we’re talking about schoolchildren we mean a supportive environment in the home where the student lives. When we’re talking about those of us who want to learn God’s ways from Jesus we mean a different kind of home environment. We mean our spiritual home; and for us Christians that’s our church. That’s our community of faith. That’s the family of choice within which we live out our spiritual life. Just as a supportive and nurturing home environment greatly facilitates a child’s learning in school, so a supportive and nurturing spiritual home in church facilitates our learning God’s ways from Jesus. Our church home supports us as we struggle to learn God’s ways. It corrects us when something we think is a way of God really isn’t. It is a place where we can ask questions and be nurtured as we struggle with what are often difficult questions and even more difficult answers. Grounding in a supportive faith community is an important part of our preparing to learn God’s ways.

So during this Advent season let us commit ourselves to preparing to welcome Jesus and to learn from him God’s ways. Let us do that by committing ourselves to a regular, consistent practice of prayer. Let our prayer be directed to our opening ourselves to Jesus’ teaching. Let our prayer seek to set aside the obstacles we throw up to learning, especially our commitment to the ways of the world that so often contradict the ways of God. And let us commit ourselves to faithful participation in our community of faith. Let that participation strengthen our faith and our resolve to learn God’s ways from the Christ whose birth we await. If we will do those two things this Advent season, we may yet truly be prepared to learn. Prepared to learn God’s ways, the ways we learn from Jesus. Amen.