[Propertalk] 2 Advent b

[robertpmorrison at charter.net]

I don't think I posted this already. I'm still tweaking ....


THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY       	      THE SECOND SUNDAY 
OF ADVENT – B
ISAIAH 40:1-11	 	           		          	               		4th DECEMBER, 
2011
2 PETER 3:8-15a						                   PSALM 85:1-2, 8-13
MARK 1:1-8						

	I don’t know what the most pressing danger is here in Albany. On the 
coast, people have been told for several years now to be prepared for 
one sort of disaster or another. The most dangerous situation would be a 
tsunami, especially if it were triggered by an earthquake just off shore 
– which is, in fact, almost overdue now. That’s why folk at the various 
emergency agencies write notices, give talks, and do whatever else they 
can to make sure that everyone in town is prepared for the worst 
possible scenario. After all, Lincoln City, for instance, would likely 
be cut into four or more sections, with Highway 101 out, along with 
various bridges over rivers.

	Communication, then, would be very difficult, because most of the 
utility lines are either overhead or quite close to the surface of the 
road. The fact that there are cell phone towers inland a bit wouldn’t 
make any difference, because there wouldn’t be any electricity to power 
them.

	So it’s not going to be easy when the tsunami hits – and we all say 
“when”, because it’s just a matter of time. That’s why people are 
encouraged to carry a lot of bottled water in their cars, and have a 
second stash near the front door of their homes; plus energy bars, 
several changes of clothes, blankets, flashlights, hand-crank-powered 
radios, and so on.

	Of course, no one can compel anyone to have all these things ready and 
to hand. But when disaster strikes, the obvious question arises. Do we 
take care of the neighbour who has consistently ignored the warnings and 
advice? Or do we shrug our shoulders and say, “He or she should have 
known. I don’t have enough for both of us.”

	In the meantime, I’m driving around with a bit more than a case of 
bottled water and a box of energy bars in the trunk of my car – and both 
the bars and the water aren’t getting any fresher. So that’s another 
problem. Not only do I need to stock up on supplies, I need to check 
them frequently to see how they’re holding up. Even if I have them, 
would they serve the purpose intended by the time I actually need them? 
Maybe I should eat the food I have right now, and replace the box right 
away, so that I have something functional, something which will protect 
and nourish me when the time actually comes. In a pinch, though, I’ll 
eat what I have, regardless of its age!

	Of course, if I’m here in Albany when it hits, I may be rattled around. 
Possibly stuff will fall off shelves from the size of the quake off the 
coast, but there may be slightly less pressure to stock up here.

	Or is there? That’s another problem – if I don’t check, if I don’t look 
around and ask folk down at the Fire House, or Police Station, or City 
Hall, if I don’t take the initiative, maybe no one else will and I might 
regret it. If I don’t ask, and pay attention, I may end up being the 
next door neighbor who’s unprepared and both a nuisance and a problem. I 
COULD even die – and I don’t think that’s being melodramatic!

	Almost a month ago I came across an article with a headline that really 
grabbed my attention. It read: “The Worst Commercial in the World”. I’ve 
got a pretty good idea which are some of my most favourite commercials – 
most of them from Superbowl performances. The Budweiser Clydesdales are 
right up there, closely followed by the Geico insurance ones. I think 
one of my favourites has Abraham Lincoln debating how to be honest when 
Mary asks about the effect her dress has on her body shape.

	These are funny. But the “Worst” commercial …?

	Here’s a transcript:
	“Let’s talk about Stuff.
	The Stuff that lives on your hard drive, your devices and on the web.
	It’s who you are stuff, where you’ve been and where you’re going stuff.
	The stuff that connects you to the people you love.
	But sometimes bad stuff can happen to your Stuff.
	Your Stuff can get lost. Even stolen.
	The thing is, stuff happens.
	Which is why you need Norton.
	Because what are you without your Stuff?
	Better yet, without your Stuff…who are you?”

	The Norton computer software company commercial, wrote the author of 
the article, “says explicitly what most advertisements only imply.
	You are the things you own.
	Your identity is the stuff you have.
	Your worth is what you own”.1

	According to Norton, the most serious, the most deadly thing that can 
happen to you is losing the information on your computer’s hard drive.

	Well, I know that THAT’S a royal pain. I’ve been there! But it’s NOT 
the worst that can happen. Granted, saving your files and programmes 
makes a lot of sense, especially if you find the information essential 
to what you do every day. I was in my bank the other day when a power 
surge hit and their computers went down. Try as I might, I couldn’t 
convince my friend that I had a million dollars in my account! But she 
couldn’t tell me, right then, anyway, what my balance actually was. 
That’s when preparation counts.

	More serious than bank accounts, however, and vital statistical 
information, more serious than anything else is what we do about 
preparation of our spiritual life.

	Tim King, who wrote about the Norton commercial, went on “This all 
makes sense from a marketing perspective. You don’t want your customer 
to be able to tell where the brand ends and they begin.

	“Yet from a Christian perspective we understand that ultimately our 
identity is found in Christ, not in the things of the world. We first 
and foremost are defined as children of God and not by the stuff we have 
(or don't have) or things we consume.

	“Unlike some Christians in this country, I’m really not worried about 
where the Ten Commandments are or are not displayed in public or in 
private. My prayer life has never been affected nor my faith shaken by 
whether there is public prayer at football games.

	“What concerns me,” Tim King wrote, “is that the explicit message of 
the Norton ad is being swallowed by today’s churches. We have 
politicians who pass resolutions in Congress to ‘reaffirm’ our nation’s 
motto as ‘In God We Trust,’ when the real challenge we face is to 
persuade more Christians to live like they actually trust in God.”

	Not that life is easy. You don’t need me to tell you that life isn’t 
smooth. All sorts of things happen. Some people seem to be born mean, 
others are simply quick studies. Some people, through no fault of their 
own, seem to have all sorts of trouble surround them. Then there are 
those few brave souls who openly admit that they’re actually aging!

	Back twenty-five hundred years ago the people of Judah languished in 
Babylon, unsure whether or not they’d survive that experience, or what 
would happen to them. They doubted that they’d ever be in really 
comfortable surroundings again. The same might be said for the people of 
Galilee six hundred years later. This time it was the Romans who were 
holding the people in thrall.

	We have our own occupying forces today. We have our own depressors. We 
get locked in to different situations, with people or with 
circumstances, and we wonder what’s going to happen. We want to think 
that everything will work out – preferably quickly – the correct medical 
diagnosis and appropriate treatment; the prudent and trusted advice of a 
financial adviser. But, as another theologian put it, “We live in an age 
of unreasonable expectations. Ours is a world where promises are cheaply 
made and easily broken — where hyperbole is the lingua franca. 
Advertisers (just like the ones who put together the material about 
Norton – advertisers) tell us that a different shampoo will make us more 
attractive to the opposite sex. Alcohol will lubricate our 
relationships. Purchasing the right car will be a gateway to adventure. 
These pitchmen promise us far more than enhanced lives. They are 
peddling ultimate fulfillment.

	“‘The problem with advertising isn’t that it creates artificial 
longings and needs, but that it exploits our very real and human 
desires,’ media critic Jean Kilbourne observes. ‘We are not stupid: We 
know that buying a certain brand of toilet tissue … won’t bring us one 
inch closer to that goal. But we are surrounded by advertising that 
yokes our needs with products and promises us that things will deliver 
what in fact they never can.’” 2

	Exactly the same point as the writer about Norton! So how do we face up 
to the confusion in our own lives? How do we talk to our neighbours and 
friends about what’s making them so uncomfortable? “Comfort, O comfort 
my people,” said God to the prophet, who was living with the Hebrews in 
exile. Talk to them right where they are. They probably don’t need to be 
reminded what happened in the market yesterday. What they need to hear 
is not only that we need to be realistic – but we need to be faith-ful 
also. The real trick is to be able to combine these two. We know that 
God loves us. We’ve known that for a long time. But there ARE times when 
Advent seems NOT like a four-week season leading to Christmas, but a 
four-month, even a four year, extraordinarily difficult time in which 
the encouraging signs are so few and far between that we often begin to 
wonder whether our hope is misguided or our dreams will ever be 
fulfilled. So we’re tempted to turn to some occupying force – a Norton 
or a brand of toilet tissue, perhaps – and figure that one or other of 
them will get us out of the hole in which we find ourselves.

	Advent CAN be such a confusing time in our lives. It can seem SO long 
that often we may be tempted to take the short-cuts … singing Christmas 
carols in November or the beginning of December, for instance – as if 
that will somehow paper over the troubles. If we do this, literally or 
figuratively, however, we produce what John Koessler brilliantly 
described as “a toxic brew of narcissistic spirituality at once 
pragmatic and insipidly positive. This is Christianity without scars, 
and with all the sharp edges of our experience smoothed over. Nostalgia 
and a cheap sentimentalism replace (eighteenth- century New England 
theologian) Jonathan Edwards's religious affections, clouding over the 
hard facts of what it means to” look for and wait for Jesus, before we 
can begin once again to follow Him.

	We don’t – we can’t – make extravagant claims to others that if they 
come to St. Alban’s their troubles will disappear. What people WILL 
find, however, is that we are a people of hope – hope that Advent 
waiting, Advent discipline, Advent practice WILL strengthen us, and DOES 
lead, eventually, to Christmas morn in our lives. The fact that 
Christmas morn DOES come; the fact that the prophet’s words are just as 
valid for our lives this morning twenty six hundred and some years after 
the Hebrew people heard them; that is something which can carry us 
through our own time of waiting and reflection.

	Our liturgies, as you’ve probably noticed already, are slightly 
different during Advent. We don’t sing “Glory to God in the highest” – 
that will come as we echo the shepherds. Instead, we trust that the 
desert of our lives will blossom, that there WILL be signs of love 
shining through the people who we know and meet; and we sing, 
repeatedly, “O come, O come, Emmanuel.” Strangely, this will carry us 
through the Advents of our lives now, just as it has in the past. And 
this is NOT an unreasonable expectation. It is living into the promise 
of God’s Word.

	In the meantime, we DO have preparation to do!

NOTES:

1 	“The Worst Commercial in the World” by Tim King 11-16-2011 	6:09am 
http://go.sojo.net/site/R?i=qMa8fTjwh67qgTG05JEMNQ

2	“Disappointed with Intimacy” - We set ourselves up for confusion about 
God if we forget that the best is yet to come by John Koessler | posted 
11/16/2011 09:23AM Christianity Today. 
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/november/disappointedintimacy.html

Robert P Morrison
Interim Vicar
The Episcopal Church of St Alban
PO Box 1556
Albany OR  97321   541-921-1076 (cell)