But there’s one expression on the high ropes course that I don’t like to hear, and that phrase is: “Look out!” Now, when you hear those two words, “Look-out!” What’s the first thing you think? Ya, Uh-oh, something’s falling. So what do we do? (look up, move out of the way, react). Right, when we are looking-out, we react. Our senses are all heightened, and we respond to what is happening around us. Look out!
That’s what Jesus is saying in the Gospel passage today – Look out! Watch! Pay Attention. I like the way the New Revised Standard Version renders it – Stay Awake!
Today is the first Sunday of Advent. Adventus is Latin and it means “coming,” so Advent is the season we remember and celebrate the coming of Jesus. We remember that God, who so loved the world, came as a child, a helpless infant, to live as we do. To experience our temptations and desires, and eventually to die our death. It is a time of preparation as we prepare to receive the Christ-child. But it is also a season of practice. (Practice makes perfect in love). We practice what it means to be living in the world today, trusting in the hope of Jesus’ promised return. Advent is a time when we remember that we are still waiting for Christ’s coming, his second coming.
And throughout the ages, people have tried to predict when that time would be. Most recently we have heard from Harold Camping, of Family Radio fame, that the end of the world would be on May 21, 2011, and when this did not come to pass, he admitted he must have made a calculation error and that it would in fact be on October 21. But a little over a month ago, this day came and went with little sign of Jesus’ second coming. You see, throughout the last two-thousand years, there have been those who have claimed that the end is near, and that the wars and natural disasters around us are sure signs that Jesus must be at the gate. But this is a mischaracterization about when Jesus returns. God’s intent is not to destroy creation, but to redeem it, to re-create it.

I think that’s what Jesus was getting at with his fig tree illustration here. Who remembers what happened the last time the fig tree made an appearance in Jesus’ teachings? That’s right! When it didn’t produce fruit, and Jesus cursed it, and it withered and died. THIS time, however, Jesus talks about new shoots and leaves appearing as a sign of summer, and likening it to when Jesus returns. He’s not talking about destruction, he’s talking about a return to the fullness of life! Jn 3:16-17 For God so loved the world that he sent his only son, so that whoever believes, might not perish, but have everlasting life. Indeed, God did not send the son to condemn the earth, but to save it.
for what is seen? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. Ay, now there’s the rub, isn’t it? We aren’t very patient people.
We can’t even wait for Black Friday anymore to go out and make all those purchases of stuff for people who already have more stuff than they know what to do with. Stores opened on Thursday evening this year, trying to entice people to spend more money on more people who already have more than they need, all while brothers and sisters in Africa, in Haiti, in our own backyard of Spirit Lake, struggle with issues of poverty. Basic needs of clean water, nutritious food, adequate shelter, go unmet, while we continue to coddle ourselves with our overspending on those who already have too much.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m a tech head. I love gadgets and gizmos. I have a Macbook. I have an iPod. I want a handheld GPS (to replace the one I lost years ago) and a laser range finder for my archery hobby. And if I let myself think about it too long, eventually I can convince myself I really need these things. But then I remember that iPod.
When I was in seminary, finances were tight. I was serving a three point charge. Two kids, one income, and tuition to boot. I had really wanted an iPod, but couldn’t justify the expense. A childhood friend of mine posted on Facebook that he had upgraded to an iPhone and wanted to sell his first generation iPod for $100. I jumped on it. I was so excited to have this new tool. I could use it for listening to my music collection. I would download a couple Bible apps so that I could have Scripture with me anywhere I went. I would have a pocket wifi device to watch movies on. And for the first few weeks I played with that thing incessantly. I don’t know when it happened, but it was only a few months after purchasing this gizmo I just NEEDED, that I realized I didn’t know where it was. I hadn’t used it in weeks, nor had I even thought of it. This electronic device that I just couldn’t live without, was MIA, and I hadn’t even noticed.
That’s how insidious this material-driven consumerism is. In this day and age, we are bombarded by more advertising than ever before. Buy this car and you’ll have sex appeal with all the ladies. Buy this blanket/bathrobe thingy and you’ll never be uncomfortable again. Buy this new and improved smart phone to help you schedule and get back all that time you’ve lost on Facebook…
This consumerism lulls us into a complacency, of being completely unaware of what is going on around us. The more we focus on buying stuff to fill our hearts, the emptier our lives become. To paraphrase David Weber, “This past Thursday we stopped for a short period of time to give thanks, and then we rose, early Friday morning, and left the house praying, “but it’s not enough…”
Friends, “Look out!” We are being lulled to sleep by our incessant drive to buy STUFF.
Advent is a reminder that the Good News of Jesus Christ is the Kingdom has come, on earth like it is in heaven. The Kingdom of God arrived with the birth, life, ministry, crucifixion, and Resurrection of a Savior. The Good News is that God knew that despite our best efforts, we could never accomplish the feat of defeating sin on our own, and so God came, and took on flesh, embraced our material nature, fully human and fully divine, so that we might have life, abudant life. The Kingdom is here, and now, but not yet in its fullness. The Kingdom is not in some heaven light years away. It is here, but it is not yet complete, as marked by the starvation and strife still in our midst.
But therein lies the answer to our Advent struggle. If we are to stay awake, if we are to “Look out!” then we are to be living like we are in and of the Kingdom. If we are to have a heightened awareness of what is going on around us, then we will be seeing those places of darkness in which we, by the grace of God, can shine a little bit of light. Advent, and subsequently Christmas are a time to celebrate God’s unending love for all the earth, a time to celebrate the Kingdom come, and a time when we can partner with God, by all that we say and do, pointing to a more hope-filled reality of God’s overwhelming love for all people.
I admit, I am too easily seduced by my guilt and quest for justice to bang the anti-consumerism drum. I’ve even been tempted to forgo the Christmas celebration altogether, but Advent, the season of “coming” reminds me that we are not called to point, as Judas did, to all the better ways the money could have been used rather than being “wasted” on extravagant generosity and celebration. We are called to point to Christ, and with him, the Hope, the Peace, the Joy, and the Love that he brings for all the world.
I ask you to consider an alternative way of celebrating that hope this year. Rather than buying stuff, like iPods, for people who will soon discard and forget them, consider giving gifts that point to the reality of the Kingdom here and now. Purchase fair-trade items like coffee or chocolate, where the third-world farmers get paid a living wage to support their families, rather than the slave wages that the major coffee and chocolate producers pay.
Consider giving a gift to a church organization that is building water wells in Africa, or feeding starving children in Haiti, or empowering job creation on the reservation.
Perhaps you have a loved one who has been transformed through the camping program at Storm Mountain, or Lake Poinsett, or Wesley Acres. You could give a gift in their name to make sure those ministries continue for generations to come, impacting more lives, making more disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.
My friends, this season of Advent, let us remember that our hope is not in some material possessions that we store up in barns, that rot and rust, but our hope is in that which we wait for, that which is unseen. Let our hope be reflected in our living. Let us not be lulled to sleep by consumerism, but let us stay awake, as we point others to the coming of Jesus, this day, and all the days of our lives. Amen.