The Disclosure of Who We Are

Sunday, December 6, 2020 • Second Sunday of Advent
Reading: Isaiah 40:1-11
Cláudio Carvalhaes

My dearest friends,

I am so glad to be here with you. When the invitation came, my heart was filled with the memories of my time there with you. I brought my family and everybody loved it. So thank you for the invitation and for the privilege to be with you. For today my message will be woven by various kinds of music that our excellent musicians will respond as I speak.

We are living now the time of the Advent. Advent has so many meanings:

Advent is the light coming to the world
Advent is hope breaking fear
Advent is the root breaking the dry land of the desert 
Advent is the coming of changes
Advent is the birth of what we cannot grasp but has to learn how to follow
Advent is the end of times for a new time to appear.

Today we are celebrating together the Advent and I want us to pause and think this time as the Apocalypso, that is, the disclosure of who we are and what we are doing. In this disclosure, we are called to linger a little longer together in the wilderness, during this time of plague, staying with this trouble, learning about ourselves in this time, learning about how to live together in the dry land, sometimes with lack of hope and fully into the exhaustion of our present.

Our text begins from the 8th century, a very difficult time for Jerusalem. People had rebelled against God exploiting their neighbors, not caring for anybody else’s desires but just their own. Jerusalem was destroyed in 587 by Babylon and its population went to exile. From chapter 40 on, we see a new world coming to Judah and a new future. During this time they hear many things and for today I want to call our attention to 3 things only:

First: verse 3: A voice cries out: "In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Second: verse 7: The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the LORD blows upon it; surely the people are grass.

Third: Verse 1: Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God

LET US PAUSE AND LISTEN TO THIS DRUM CALLING

So let us begin:

First: verse 3: A voice cries out: "In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

The people of God were already in the desert. It was their own actions that took them to the wilderness. They couldn’t listen to the voice of God spoken by the prophets. Perhaps they thought that what they already had couldn’t be taken away from them. But now in the desert they couldn’t escape their own destiny, the result of their own ways of living. 

And now they are in the desert. Frustrated, exhausted, feeling bitten up… It is IN the wilderness that they hear that they had to prepare the way for God to come. How? Making straight a highway for God. They had to figure it out now. How could they/we make a way out of no way? They had to look back and see what they did so that they wouldn’t do it anymore. They had to change their ways and try things out until a highway for their God would appear.

Did they lie? If so, they couldn’t do that anymore.
Did they abuse their neighbors and foreigners? Now they know they can’t do that anymore.

Did they take their life from granted? Now they know they have to fight for everything every day. And they have to cherish it every single minute. 

All of it as a way to work on a highway for the coming of their God.

So here we are my friends. The things this country earned came at the expensed of people both from here and elsewhere. We need to change. There will be a need for restitution for those we explored if we are to prepare a highway to our God.  

We need to check the ways of living of our country. We are not paying attention to the poor. In general many people are living large while so many are squeezing their resources just to get by. The way to prepare a highway to our God is to bring equality to all, which means the rich has to lose and their richness be distributed. We simply can’t sustain a world where 10 people have more money than half of the entire global population. 

Locally, we have to share what we have with others so we can all have enough. For what we learn from the Christian faith is that we live not for ourselves but for somebody else. My faith teaches me that unless you don’t have enough I am not living fully my life and we are all heading faster and faster towards the desert where we all will leave. 

And when we think about the ecological crisis my friends, we are already in the wilderness. We have already trespassed the tipping points and crossed every limit of nature. Our future doesn’t look good and we don’t know what is coming our way. And this country along with other rich countries around the world have created this situation. Imagine that United States is only 4% of the population and we use more than 40% of all of the natural resources! Our appetite for things is endless. Where are our limits? So the question of our advent disclosure is: do we have limits?

A voice cries out: you are going to the desert! Be prepared!

LET US PAUSE AND LISTEN TO THIS SONG

Second: verse 7: The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the LORD blows upon it; surely the people are grass.

At first, this text might sound strange or carry no hope. The prophet is reminding us of who we are and where we belong. And that can be the most reassuring thing we could hear. Friends we are grass! We are flowers! Thanks be to God! We are adama, humus, soil, earth! And to the earth we shall return to continue the life God has for us. To be reminded of being grass is to issue a call for us to pause and feel the earth beneath our feet. 

So let us do that. Let us now pay attention to our feet or whatever part of our body that is touching the ground. Let us feel the ground and say: We are together! We are together. 

And as grass we fade and as flowers we wither. Oh how tragic! No my friends no! How glorious! The breath of God is in us right now and that is why we are breathing. WE are breathing the breath of God! Alleluia! 

So let us pause for a second, close our eyes and pay attention to our breathing. Let us breath together. As we breath say to yourself: I am breathing the breath of God. 

Our togetherness is what keeps us alive. And I am telling you friends: Only those who live in communities can survive this world! We must develop the egotism of being in solidarity. Solidarity is what makes a way for the highway for our God! 

And community is our warrantee of continuity in the midst of our impermanence. 

Our togetherness is a way to prepare a way for our God to come! 

LET US PAUSE AND LISTEN TO THIS SONG

Third: Verse 1: Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.

Oh these words my friends, these is what we need right now: words of comfort. I must say I have no words of comfort for those destroying everything, for those keeping their riches. For them I have only words of woe! Woe to those taking away the very little for people to survive.

We are living in unprecedented times. COVID is destroying so many things and there is so much needed for comfort. Many of us feel alone, not being able to touch anyone.

The United Nations predicts 235 million people in the world will be affected by a humanitarian crisis and will need at least US 35 billion to rescue millions of people in the face of covid-19, conflicts and climate change.

We need structures of comfort my friends. Words are just one form of comfort but we need to engage other people in networks of solidarity. 

Create a way to comfort someone suffering right now. Call, offer something, cook, visit by phone, stop at somebody’s door to say hi, feed someone.

But also, I say Comfort the earth who is also suffering. Every night I pray with my son and we for all life who is suffering. The animals suffering, the plants suffering, the trees suffering, the waters suffering, the fish suffering.

In order to make a highway to our God we must comfort ALL those who are suffering. 

To conclude, Let me remind you of the 3 things we have to learn from this Advent Sunday

First, we must learn how to linger in places of suffering and stay with the trouble. So we can learn how to make a way out of no way to those who are coming after us.

Second, we have to gain a deep awareness that we are grass, that we are earth and like every flower we wither and we die. So this community is our community for living and for dying!  

And third, pray for those suffering and offer comfort to every form of life: humans, animals, vegetations, trees, birds, fish, dogs cats, wide life, coral reefs, waters.

Amen!

Let us know participate in Communion and be strengthen by this meal of the people of God with the earth.

(c) Claudio Carvalhaes 2020
All rights reserved.

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