Then Jesus told them a parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near.” [Luke’s Gospel 21.29-31]

I have told the story many times of how our daughters learnt that the arrival of Advent is heralded by the jacarandas in blossom across their community. All their lives our daughters have known that jacarandas are the signs of hope for the harvest, and for the coming of Christ.

Advent, this season of in-between, this “now-and-not-yet”, this time of waiting. This discomfiting hiatus, where we tell the astonishing journey of Mary, Joseph and the coming of Jesus, while watching and waiting for his return. We are caught in this improbable moment, watching “wars and rumours of wars” and their echoes for millennia, while hoping, despite all this brokenness, that Christ will return and bring wholeness where it is beyond our imagining.

These words of Jesus, carried to us by Luke’s community, are not first heard in a pristine worship space, but by those embedded under the boots of empire. These words of hope are neither naïve nor wishful, but engaged with the promise which all Christ’s disciples hold – that the risen, crucified One will return to reconcile and renew the whole creation.

At this moment, our waiting and our expectation cannot be the acts of spectators, but of participants. We engage in the hope of our assertion, to act in justice and mercy, to reconcile with our neighbours and our enemies, as indications of what God’s completion of all things will mean.

We watch because we hope. We hope because of what we already discovered for ourselves in Jesus Christ; forgiveness is real, mercy transforms us, death is not the final word. The resurrection we proclaim is the context for all our actions, all our hope.

Each of us may well stumble in our waiting, so we turn to those on each side of us, in order that we remember and find courage from each other, because we know the days are difficult.

As with every generation, the reality of this promise can appear entirely out of our reach and beyond our imagining, which is why we turn again to the birth of Jesus. This story, that God would act in such an implausible manner, in such a place, holds all the hope for us – God has broken into the world as an infant, completely at God’s own risk. This act confirms in us the hope we need for the world in which we live.

This promise inherent in Christ’s return is to set us free. Christ is returning to the creation; we raise our heads to witness the glory of God.

Lift your faces to receive Christ’s blessing! 

God of all creation,
in this Advent season,
we wait.

We wait, once more,
for the promise of your Son, Jesus Christ.

We wait, and pray,
for the completion of all that you have made,
when all will be restored, made whole.

We wait, each day,
for the justice you have declared,
for the hope you have embodied,
for the healing you offer
for the life you promise.

Gather us today,
we pray,
across all your Church,
that we might declare
the reason for our waiting:
Jesus Christ,
Emmanuel, God with Us.

– S.R. Hansford 2019

Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” Pilate asked him, “What is truth?” [John’s Gospel 18.37-38]

This week new laws are being introduced to Federal Parliament about the misuse, abuse and proper use of social media for younger people.

This legislation arises from any number of causes, many of which you will have discovered for yourself, or know their harm within your own family, or amongst your friends and those for whom they care. Bullying, abuse and misrepresentation have always been present in the world around us, but suddenly they have become more constant, more present and, seemingly, more pernicious than ever before.

At its reasoned best, arising from real concern, this is an attempt by my generation to offer safe haven to our children and grandchildren. We will see, after the all the political compromise, whether a camel emerges, and whether it has any remaining breath.

I doubt that today’s media and social media influencers and manipulators are worse characters than the propagandists of generations past; the fabrications of politicians in our parliaments are, perhaps, simply less subtle than those who tarnished nations two decades, two centuries, or two millennia ago.

Our deep suspicion, even fear, of artificial intelligence has a rational justification; things are frequently not as they appear. That image, that quote, that video are simply not real. Black might now appear as white.

In a social climate where people believe that fewer and fewer things are able to be “proved”, when suspicion and disbelief are easily ignited, what shall we offer?

If I could just convince you, with further proofs, or a better argument, or a clever turn of phrase. I might be tempted to ridicule your thinking, or point out the weaknesses in your argument, or simply make you feel a fool. Then you’ll change your mind.

In his exchange with Pilate, as he faces his own punishment and death, Jesus talks about truth. He has been mispresented, trolled, and lies about him have been going viral. He is moments away from the cross.

Jesus declares his purpose, to testify to the truth. The word he uses is where our word for “martyr” originates; Jesus bears witness with his own body. His clearest declaration, which has lasted two thousand years, is on the cross – a broken body for a broken world.   

Our task is not to win every argument and ridicule those who can’t agree. We are called to bear witness with our lives, so that the truth of what we say is realised because it is amplified – and verified – by how we live.

Mercy remains a meme until we offer it; compassion and forgiveness and hope are only words until our lives make them tangible. And when we offer bread to the hungry, we may just receive their permission to speak of when our hunger was met by Jesus.

What is truth? It is found in Jesus Christ, crucified and risen.

To address the issue of a truth greatly reduced requires us to be poets that speak against a prose world. The terms of that phrase are readily misunderstood. By prose I refer to a world that is organized in settled formulae, so that even pastoral prayers and love letters sound like memos. By poetry, I do not mean rhyme, rhythm, or meter, but language that moves like Bob Gibson’s fast ball, that jumps at the right moment, that breaks open old worlds with surprise, abrasion, and pace.

Poetic speech is the only proclamation, I submit, that is worthy of the name preaching. Such preaching is not moral instruction or problem solving or doctrinal clarification. It is not good advice, nor is it romantic caressing, nor is it a soothing good humor.

It is, rather, the ready, steady, surprising proposal that the real world in which God invites us to live is not the one made available by the rulers of this age. The preacher has an awesome opportunity to offer an evangelical world: an existence shaped by the news of the gospel. This offer requires special care for words, because the baptized community awaits speech in order to be a faithful people. What a way to think about a poetic occasion that moves powerfully to expose the prose reductions around us as false!

from Poetry in a Prose-Flattened World, by Walter Brueggemann
https://www.preaching.com/articles/poetry-in-a-prose-flattened-world/

As Jesus came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!” Then Jesus asked him, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down. [Mark’s Gospel 13.1-2]

It is in our current parlance to speak of Builders, Boomers, Gens X & Y & Z. The generations which have shaped our community and culture, and the generations which now attempt to locate themselves within both of those.

I belonged to a youth group in the cusp of the 70s and 80s, as we tried to unshackle the strictures of our parents’ and grandparents’ generations and to shape our own sense of place and faith. We were both successful and not; however, one consequence for me is the sense that whatever we have built is ephemeral. It cannot last, and it should not.

I try to grasp the hope of those who midwifed the life of the Uniting Church, who imagined a church grafted together from three plants, and hoping for more in the generations ahead. When I read the Basis of Union, our founding statement, I don’t discern a desire for establishment of property and permanence, but a conversation enthusiastic about pilgrimage, a movement that “does not have a continuing city but seeks one to come”.

Notwithstanding the prophetic hope of our parents and grandparents as they led these faith traditions into Union, and the confronting gospel words of Jesus, so much of our time and effort has been centred on the establishment and maintenance of a city which we want to last, but which simply can not.

As the structures shift and change, and sometimes crumble, how are we able to face the community in which we live – and for which Christ died?

At the moment, I particularly treasure the fourth paragraph of the Basis,

The Uniting Church acknowledges that the Church is able to live and endure through the changes of history only because its Lord comes, addresses, and deals with people in and through the news of his completed work. Christ who is present when he is preached among people is the Word of God who acquits the guilty, who gives life to the dead and who brings into being what otherwise could not exist.

The story of God in Jesus is sufficient for the days in which we live. We speak in the mercy of God to the place in which we find ourselves, not hankering for the days which have passed.

The buildings will fall, as they must, but the city which is founded in Jesus will not only last, but has hospitality for all. How does our witness, our worship and our service reflect Jesus’ vast and wonderful invitation, and that profound hope?

May God bless us for this pilgrimage!

Jesus sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums.A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny.Then he called his disciples and said to them, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury.For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.” [Mark’s Gospel 12.41-44]

You can see them out of the corner or your eye. Those things, those people, we usually ignore or miss altogether. Every now and then, they catch our attention, but if we are stubborn enough, we can manage our awareness, so they don’t impinge.

It’s that person, that awkward conversation, that whisper in our heart of … something.

If we are foolish enough to read the gospels with intention, to read and listen and attend, they keep appearing. They usually remain nameless, but occasionally, like Bartimaeus, they get a guernsey. One climbs a tree, she pushes through the crowd, or he cries out, or they are lowered into our lap by those who love them and will risk everything. They cross our path, asking something of us.

On occasion, they catch our eye because they ask nothing. They embarrass, or shame, or astonish us. She anoints Jesus in adoration and blessing. He returns and gives thanks to one who is marked as enemy by culture and tradition.

She puts her last two coins into the offering.

There will be no money for grain, to make flour, then bread. She will not eat tonight. She puts all she has in the treasury bowl, when she should be free, encouraged, to make a withdrawal instead.

She catches Jesus’ eye, and we want to hear his words as a blessing. What if her giving is not submissive, or compliant, but an act of defiance, a radical act to challenge a system which demands her last two cents? What if she is prophetic, not defeated, amplifying Jesus’ indignance with her own action?

This is where Jesus leads us, if we are willing to follow. We discover the mercy and wisdom of people who live their lives in the shadow of our community, and yet the light of God’s Spirit.

If we follow Jesus, and pay attention, we will discern that these people frequently consigned to the corner of our eye are not objects of pity, but people of wonder and character and honour. And strength.

When you read her story, and imagine yourself paying attention to her giving, what will you do next?