Sermon at St

1. Today my message is that God’s creative power brings hope out of Chaos.

2. Do you all remember how the Bible begins in the Book of Genesis? Chaos, absolute chaos. “The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters.” No animals. No people. No land. No light, even. Just utter darkness, void, and chaos.

3. That is where the Bible begins.

4. But the chaos of the universe is transformed at that first moment in creation. But many still feel chaos in this world. I know it in my own life, and perhaps you do in yours as well from time to time. Think of the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan.

5. Today is the beginning of a new church year. The first Sunday in Advent. The church is at a beginning point, a time of inward preparation for the renewed miracle of the coming of the Christ child.

6. Since this is a beginning time, it is worth reflecting back on that first moment of beginning when there was utter void and chaos, and reflect on what God accomplishes in that opening moment.

7. Advent can be a time for the heart to prepare for the coming of the Christ child creator, the slayer of chaos, the one who brings form and creation out of chaos. Reflect with me on what might be those aspects of chaos in your own life, and the message of hope that the Bible offers for bringing new creation out of that void.

8. During these past few weeks of trying to put together several new businesses over at the Ramshorn Inn, I have looked deeply into the kind of emotional and financial chaos that affects many in Dubois. I have been talking with people who were looking for a job, who had trouble finding a job, some who could not hold a job even if they could find one, I have talked with people who have a job, but cannot find a decent place to live, and so on. Some people struggle with disabilities with various degrees of severity.

a. Winter in Dubois is an especially rough time for workers and businesses in Dubois.

b. I have myself felt now and then a wave of panic rising up in me over whether the Ramshorn Inn redevelopment is going to work, or whether we might just end up with empty stores and a lot of money gone to waste, to chaos. Fortunately several really skilled and hard working people have jumped in to help, and so far chaos has been averted.

9. What might be termed the state of chaos reappears over and over again as the Bible progresses beyond the first seven days of Creation.

a. Remember the story of the flood that Noah and his ark survive. The flood can be seen as a kind of time when God brought chaos back into the world to cleanse it of sin and bad human behavior. The face of the waters over which The Lord moved at the very beginning come back, in some sense, in the flood that covers all the earth in the Noah story. And God uses that flood to cleanse the world of evil.

b. In the Exodus story, the Israelite people face the vast emptiness of the desert, the chaos, if you will, of the desert, a desert so empty that they fear they are going to die far away from any sort of home. They want to return home to Egypt, where at least they had enough to eat. The emptiness of the wilderness for them represents a kind of cleansing chaos which rids their minds of the habits of slavery, and teaches them new ways of being the chosen children of the Lord.

10. Throughout the books of Kings, and of Judges, as well as in the books of the prophets, the reader finds story after story of ancient Israel’s centuries’ long struggle to establish justice and order in the land, the struggle to establish a responsible order of government so that the people of the land could live in security and peace in a close relationship with God, as Sylvia mentions in her sermon last week. Bible stories show the people of the land hoping to avoid subjection to the chaos of civil war, invasion from foreign armies, and terror.

11. The Gospel passage for today from Luke has its own presentation of chaos in another form. The passage recounts what will happen at the end of time, at final judgment. But again, final days when the Son of Man comes upon the earth in power and great glory are to be preceded by “distress of nations in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint,” the passage tells us, “from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world.” Once again, those roaring waves in the sea that the reader first sees at the opening moments of creation, return again to threaten to destroy the people.

12. In a passage a few verses on beyond today’s lectionary selection, Luke takes pains to make sure the reader knows that all this talk about the fear and foreboding are not just an abstraction about the future but are meant to be read as up close and personal by his readers. Luke writes, “Take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly, like a snare. .... But watch at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”

a. In other words, pilgrims, we are in deep trouble unless we watch very carefully every day for the coming of the Lord into our lives.

13. “Dissipation, drunkenness and the cares of this life..........” Oh, it does not have to be drunkenness from alcohol, or dissipation from sinful living. Chaos can rule in a person’s heart from all kinds of causes. Which is why going back to look at how the Bible treats chaos from time to time is a healthy thing to do. Look again at how Genesis handles chaos.

a. Genesis begins, verse 1, with “in the Beginning, God created.” It starts with creation, not with chaos. The image of chaos is framed right away by God’s actions.

b. After naming the presence of the void, the darkness upon the face of the deep, Genesis starts in at verse 3 with, the phrase, “And God said, let there be light.” In other words, the situation of the void is not allowed by God to last, but is immediately met by God beginning the process of creation, by God speaking and bringing light and the other elements of creation into being, the sky, and the earth, and the oceans, and the living creatures, and so on.

c. The first chapter says that earth was without form and void at the first moment of creation, but the first moment of creation includes God actually creating. There is no time when God is not in the process of creating the world, the light, the creatures, and so on. So the process of God creating always predominates over the void, the chaos. Creation always transforms the void.

d. That means that you and I today are never in a place or a space where God has not created, created lovingly, and created in a way that God says is good, indeed very good, as it says in verse 25.

e. I find that whole image to be very, very comforting.

14. Now let me tell you a little secret. There is a special way that you and I can get close with God in the process of creating, the process of transforming the chaos. There is a special way that you can actually experience that God is creating all around you.

15. That special way is called prayer. Prayer is what you let happen when you step back from engaging your mind in the activities of the everyday world.

16. When you most find yourself sinking into chaos in your own life, with prayer you can let yourself feel in touch with God in the process of creation all around you, the process of God bringing what is new out of the chaos.

17. By coming together this morning on the first Sunday of Advent, the first Sunday of the new church year, we come together for prayer. By moving prayerfully through Advent to prepare for Christmas, you can give yourself space in your heart for God’s coming into creation in a new way in Jesus Christ.

18. When I feel myself beginning to sink emotionally into chaos, I can always remind myself that God is right at that moment in the process of creating a new tomorrow for the world.

19. December is not only Advent time, but is often a very complex month for Americans emotionally, because of the coming of the Christmas holidays, the coming of the new year. So many things happen around this time of year. On top of it all can be the commercialization the weeks between Thanksgiving and the New Year’s day. This season can stir up lots of emotional chaos in a person’s life.

a. Personally, I love the excitement and anticipation of this time of year. I enjoyed very much a Thanksgiving visit last week to family and old friends. I look forward to my brother, Robert, coming to visit us here in Dubois for the first time over Christmas.

20. But if you are someone who does not enjoy this time of year, or if you are someone who wants to go more deeply into the life in the Gospel, let me point out that our church, like many denominations and churches, provides a guide for prayer for those times when you are not sure what or how to pray.

21. Turn with me now to page 136 of the book of common prayer. This page has the Daily Devotions for Individuals and Families. Daily devotions provides a form to follow in offering prayers throughout every day, to help you come back in touch with the one great Creator who is always at work bringing creation and new life out of any form of chaos arising around a person.

a. As Paul writes in the Thessalonians passage: “Night and day we pray most earnestly...and that we may restore whatever is lacking in your faith.” Prayer night and day, that is what I am asking.

22. Now, let me say that this is not some form of Episcopalian trick meant to lead those of you who are Methodists, or Presbyterians, or Lutherans, or Baptists, or whatever, into just becoming Episcopalians. Perish the thought. Yes, I am asking you to look at these prayers in the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, but, trust me, every denomination, and every major religion that you can think of, provides believers with a similar guide for daily prayer. And in fact this format for daily prayers throughout the day was not invented by this or any other of the modern denominations. These prayers and the form of them are derived from Christian practices that go back 1500 years to at least the time of St. Benedict, the founder of western European monasticism.

23. Now as the Rector of this parish, I cannot order you to do anything. Perish the thought. But may I share some guidance about prayer. And my guidance would be that every member of this parish try every day during Advent to pray these daily offices as found on page 136, and that you join me for Bible study on Wednesday at noon during Lent in the community room.

24. Ok, I can already see some hands going up. What if I do not have a prayer book at home? First, I am willing to order a prayer book for any one who would like to have one. Second, I have made xerox copies of these few pages, and put them in the back of the church for you to take with you.

25. The feeling of sinking deep into chaos can sometimes be very hard to take. Genesis and Luke, and the other lessons for today, show us a God who has always created new life and new things, even out of chaos, and even from the very beginning.

26. And, as our lessons today teach, God creates a blessed ending to it all as well.

27. In Jesus’ name, Amen.