Awakened by Hope
Children's sermon
Illustration
Preaching
Sermon
Worship
For December 3, 2023:
Awakened by Hope
by Chris Keating
Mark 13:24-37
Just when you thought he was out, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was pulled back. In the span of five days, Altman took a trip on the C-Suite revolving door. It was a stunning series of events that began with Altman’s surprise sacking and ended with his second coming and also renewed wider fears of an A.I. doomsday apocalypse.
Perhaps the whole episode was a misunderstanding, a case of internal corporate bickering that went public. Or perhaps it was just competing visions, fueled by piles of cash. As they say in The Godfather, it was just business. Or was it?
Some view artificial intelligence (A.I.) as humanity’s crowning technological achievement, while others fear it will become an unstoppable force capable of destroying the world. Even A.I.’s researchers are sometimes said to face the same sort of dilemma nuclear bomb pioneer Robert Oppenheimer encountered — do the rewards outweigh the risks?
Facing that dilemma was part of the genius behind OpenAI’s original vision. Consisting of both a nonprofit research organization and a for-profit tech giant, OpenAI has emerged as an organization with firm commitments to both the common good and technological success.
But last week’s events have caused some to wonder if the commitment to commercial success is prevailing over altruistic concerns. Altman’s firing provoked a massive internal protest as well as power moves by Microsoft, its primary investor, and paved the way for his return. The once solid firewall between management and the board began wobbling. The upshot was that Altman returned and a majority of the board left.
It was an apocalyptic-sized drama that prompts reflections on the interface of technology and hope. Mysterious communications were mingled with threats of an imminent doomsday, and eventually were coupled with Altman’s heroic second coming. Indeed, it was no time to sleep.
This high-tech intrigue is especially captivating during Advent. In particular, Mark’s apocalyptic narrative brings visions of widespread destruction, institutional collapse, and rumors of war that seem to have been lifted from the daily news. These indicators of a supposed contemporary apocalypse allow fears to fester and hopes to sink. Perhaps it is not surprising that four in ten Americans believe we are living in the end days of history, or that evangelical Christians are convinced that the war between Israel and Hamas is “prophetically significant.”
The New York Times columnist David Brooks suggests that the development of A.I. may be similarly confounding. “The people in A.I. seem to be experiencing radically different brain states all at once,” Brooks wrote the other day. “I’ve found it incredibly hard to write about A.I. because it is literally unknowable whether this technology is leading us to heaven or hell, and so my attitude about it shifts with my mood.”
In this light, Altman’s second coming is a chance for the church to engage Advent’s underlying message of hope. There’s more to apocalyptic visions than the image of Christians holding a vial of an unstable volatile compound designed to destruction. Instead, Jesus’ words offer encouragement for a weary, dispirited world.
It’s Advent once again. We stand to sing “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” even as the culture rocks around the Christmas Tree. A computer-generated playlist tries to cover the clashing gears of the omnipresent Christmas machine. Meanwhile, we’re all tempted to ask ChatGPT to write the family Christmas letter.
In the News
Altman’s time in the C-suite turnstile is more than a plotline for a dystopian novel. It’s a reminder of the commercial investment in A.I., and an indicator of our culture’s yearning for permanence and hope in an unsteady world.
A.I.’s advent into everyday life is breathtaking. From the call you made to your bank last weekend to the Big Mac you ordered for lunch, A.I. is all around us. While it may sound frightening, the truth is the cat is out of the bag. Enhanced technology demands we remain vigilant and alert to both possibilities and perils.
The possibilities are endless and range from processing more than a quintillion computer operations per second to developing vaccines and mitigating cyber-attacks. But things do go wrong. Researchers report that some technologies have sometimes generated “hallucinations” or completely fabricated answers rather than factual conclusions. The risk is that typically human beings trust computer answers as truthful and reliable. In one case, attorneys who relied on ChatGPT to prepare their case discovered the computer had invented legal precedence that did not actually exist.
Oops.
These types of concerns — and worse — were the impetus behind OpenAI’s initial thrust. Increasing the commercial possibilities while mitigating widespread risks was paramount. As both a nonprofit and a commercial entity, the organization hoped to generate corporate-sized profits while also pursuing altruistic goals with the aim of preventing a robot-driven end to history. Many of its original board members have been described as “robo-phobic,” a sign that perhaps the good guys could prevail.
But somewhere down the road, differences arose between Altman’s drive for success and the board’s protective instincts. Some may have seen Altman’s push for aggressively developing A.I. as too much. Concerns had been raised that products like ChatGBT were being advanced without proper vetting. Perhaps some of them had even decided they were finished with his survivalist rants. (Altman once mused that he’s freaked out by the possibility of a “super contagious” lab-created virus released into the world, and worries of an “A.I. that attacks us.”)
Back in 2016, the New Yorker recounted a conversation Altman had at an event sponsored by startup funder Y Combinator. During a late-night campfire session, Altman delved into his survivalist manifesto. “I prep for survival,” he said, “I have guns, gold, potassium iodine, antibiotics, water, gas masks from the Israeli Defense Force, and a big patch of land in Big Sur that I can fly to.”
Good to know. Yet last week’s drama was only partially rooted in the eccentric anxieties of a wealthy tech guru. The deeper threat was the uncertain possibilities inherent in the technology itself. In the end, as one journalist summarized it, “The fallout from Altman’s firing has made it clear that OpenAI’s plan for ensuring the safe development of A.I. was completely unworkable.” It became the ultimate revenge of the nerds, or the plotline of an episode of HBO’s Succession.
Altman’s return secured him as the dominant force in an industry poised to reshape the world. But it also hardened the fears of some that perils are increasing. A.I. regulations across the world are still in their infancy, and many remain convinced that a super-computer will soon exceed human control. The sun has not yet darkened, but there are many who remain convinced the end is near. It’s Advent, and the church must renew its proclamation of hope.
In the Scriptures
Advent begins with Jesus’ depictions of the end. Turning out of the temple, the disciples marvel at the huge stones and ornate carvings like tourists gawking at Christmas decorations along New York City’s Fifth Avenue. Jesus makes sure his disciples, then and now, realize that God is not yet finished with this world.
That message of disruption and destruction is disturbing to those yearning for the calming quaintness of Currier and Ives. We may be tempted, as William Willimon suggests in his book Heaven and Earth, to say to Jesus, “Thanks, but no thanks.” Instead, as Willimon says, “The church plods along as always…brushing off Jesus’ talk of the sky falling and the sun being extinguished, reassuring ourselves.” (Willimon, p. 7.)
But Advent dares us to begin to hope in something greater than the impermanent institutions we have watched (or are watching) collapse. Jesus’ words “from the fig tree learn its lesson” draw us into a world where apocalypse does not sound so far-fetched.
Mark 13 shares important features of Jewish apocalyptic literature, including a dualism between good and evil, and a pervasive despair about culture. Words of warning evoke a pending crisis within the community, forcing interpreters to consider whether the gospel is addressing the contemporary experiences of its readers or offering a prediction of the future. The text is mired in mystery, but embedded with hope.
Bonnie Bowman Thurston (Preaching Mark) quotes Ralph Martin’s hypothesis that there is a peculiar “trifocal lens” approach to interpreting these verses. Martin’s suggestion is that there are perhaps three levels or lenses through which we may view Jesus’ teaching in Mark 13. He spots an immediate context (the early church and its struggles); a midrange view of the Jewish War and destruction of the temple; and a longer, more distant view of the end of the age. (See Preaching Mark, pp.143-144.)
Interpreters also note that the text offers a foreshadowing of Jesus’ passion. As he does throughout the gospel, Mark is pointing us toward the crucifixion. References to the darkening of the sun and the shaking of the powers of heaven are reminders of the crisis of crucifixion. The foreshadowing includes the promise of the glory of resurrection (13:16), and reassurances that God will not abandon the faithful.
In the Sermon
The assurance that God is not finished with creation reverberates throughout Mark 13, providing a strong foundation for the church’s proclamation of hope — even in a world ripe with fears and anxieties. While we may resist an eschatology rooted in fearful anticipation of judgment and rapture, we can acknowledge the ruptures and fault lines in society.
Among those fault lines is the belief that technology alone will save us, or that unbridled capitalism can lift us from our despair. Wearied by the pandemic, and frightened by war, it is tempting to be enticed by A.I.’s gadgets and gimmicks. We also know that technology is often unjustly lodged only in the hands of the rich and has rarely been used to benefit the poor. Here, too, is a lesson we might learn from the fig tree: In a season of inequality, how might A.I. be harnessed to provide a harvest of justice?
We have ceded the right to speak of apocalypse to doomsday preachers and preppers. But few of us have gas masks, gold, and a place in Big Sur. What we do have is a message of hope that motivates us to move beyond fear into the promise of God who does not abandon us.
It is further tempting to believe that unlimited investments in technology can prompt a better and more just world. History tells us it has only deepened economic divides, and increased misery. Not that Christians ought to eschew technology. Rather, Mark 13 reminds us of the greater call to ground our lives in a deeper, more lasting hope. We know that the Sam Altmans of the world will rise and fall, and that their motives are rarely pure. Our hope, however, is firm and lasting, even if the stones of the temple of technology are shaken and moved.
Naming that hope is our challenge this and every Advent. A sermon exploring the ways God descends into our world of anxiety and pain will stir our hearts. Against the grinding gears of the Christmas machine, and above the din of a culture rocking around the Christmas tree, a song of hope appears. How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given.
* * * * *
SECOND THOUGHTS
Loving One Another’s Differences
by Katy Stenta
Isaiah 64:1-9
Isaiah 64:1-9 talks about how we humans can be molded and remolded by our experiences, or ignore everything and just move. It is easier, and perhaps feels safer, to just carry on as if nothing has changed — as if there are not multiple wars in the world, as if climate change is not effecting us, as if the pandemic has not shifted things in real and meaningful ways. However, we humans are like clay, and God is the the claymaker. We are works of God’s hand, susceptible to shaping. We do ourselves disservice to pretend that the we are not contextual beings.
I can see a moment where Israel, the traditional homeland of the Jewish people, seemed like a good idea. You did not want to send all of the displaced prisoners back to the country that tortured them, especially if they did not want to go. You did not want to force them to migrate to a new country; though it would have been generous and hospitable for more countries to open their doors and ease the path for Jewish people to make a home in their land — alas, anti-semitism and all other kinds of isolationism remained strong. Thereby, placing people in a new dream of safe land, may have seemed like an all right idea, especially at a time when displacing the native population did not seem like a big deal. However, it never worked out, and the lessons of peace seem to be hard to find.
There are at least two places to find such peace lessons. One is the Elie Wiesel inspired fellowship that models building peace amid the Israel-Hamas War. “The course employs art, storytelling, humor and religious texts, equipping leaders to express their core beliefs while being open to those with conflicting views. Amid disparate responses to the Israel-Hamas war, it ’s a strategy that current fellows are employing in real time.” These cohorts work to stay differentiated in their identity and to truly understand where one another is coming from.
Another peacemaking effort that I and many pilgrims to Palestine have witnessed is the university and organizations that include students of Israeli, Palestinian, Muslim, Hebrew, Christian, Druze backgrounds. The schools were founded by the Elias Chacour, a former Archbishop of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church of Galilee. He wrote a book that describes his understanding of the relationship between Palestinians and Israelis named Blood Brothers. Being molded for peace is different than being molded for war — it leaves justice more up to God, and reminds us that we are not allowed to dehumanize or attack one another.
Ultimately, God is the one who will shape the world, not us. Perhaps that is what strikes us the hardest in this week’s Isaiah reading. God is the one who is shaping everything, not us. We are but clay, and God is the potter. The most influence we will have will be as peacemakers — being bold enough to not hide from our sins, and to apologize and face each other as beloved human beings. This is what the peacemaking fellowship is about, and also what Abuna (Father) Chacour is getting at in Blood Brothers, acknowledging, respecting, and loving one another’s differences.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Mary Austin:
Isaiah 64:1-9
Repentance
The prophet Isaiah laments how sinful God’s people have become, and calls them back to repentance, asking for God not to be angry with the people. Author Lily Burana says that we have a different idea about repentance. "In our own hearts and minds, repentance is quite different from the frothy beseeching of fire-and-brimstone ministers or a wild-eyed prophet of the streets. It’s not as loud, for one thing. It’s more about heeding the small, still voice than yelling for the heavens. I drew up my own list of things to sacrifice…bread, distracting girl crushes, Twitter. Those were the externals. But an internal vice would be given up as well. I pledged to give up self-centered fear." (From Grace for Amateurs)
Repentance may be visible on the outside but the inside is where the real work happens.
* * *
Mark 13:24-37, Isaiah 64:1-9
The Teacup is Already Broken
As the Advent texts talk about the new world that God is bringing, there’s also the pain of loss. The familiar things we know will end when the world of God’s vision comes to life.
Author adrienne maree brown (who uses lower case letters for her name) offers a helpful idea. She says that a friend came back from a meditation retreat with the phrase “the teacup is already broken.” This reminds us that “the ending or brokenness we fear is inevitable. We will die, everyone we love will die, the organization will end, the nation will come apart, the system will collapse. The teacup will break. The end has already happened in our minds, our imaginations, our predictions; it is implied by the very pattern of our existence, which we understand to be impermanent.”
She adds that this idea adds to our peace. “I find that this idea brings me as much peace as does the idea of healing as a victory…The material world is necessarily temporary, and it is only a matter of how deep we are willing to look, how far into the past and future we are willing to consider, to understand this. If you don’t believe me, look at the ruins of every society that has predated us on this planet. Remember that the matter that makes up our moon and planet is the dust of stars exploding in other galaxies. Remember that we can be partially made of stardust only because stars die.”
God is already on the move!
* * *
Mark 13:24-37
God’s Imagination
Famed writer Isabel Allende says that she never starts her novels with much of a plot in mind, and she likes an ending with some mystery. She says, “I write directly on my computer using no outline, just following my instinct. Once the story has been told on the screen, I print it for the first time and read it. Then I know what the book is about…When I start I am in a total limbo. I don't have any idea where the story is going or what is going to happen or why I am writing it. I only know that — in a way that I can't even understand at the time — I am connected to the story. I have chosen that story because it was important to me in the past or it will be in the future.”
In a similar way, as Advent starts, we’re in limbo, waiting for God to appear again in Jesus.
Allende notes, “With a novel you never know. It’s patient and daily work, like embroidering a tapestry of many colors. You go slowly, you have a pattern in mind. But all of a sudden you turn it and realize that it’s something else.” This happens in our lives, too.
She adds, “Happy endings usually don't work for me. I like open endings. I trust the reader’s imagination.” In Advent, we are trusting in God’s imagination for the world.
* * *
Mark 13:24-37
The End of the World
Pastor and writer Molly Phinney Baskette observes that endings and beginnings are twined together in our lives. In every disaster, communal or individual, there’s also an invitation, just as Mark’s gospel portrays.
She says, "Every one of us gets an invitation to resurrection. It comes in a little ivory envelope, delivered directly to our souls, right after the disaster happens. Sometimes, we miss it. Sometimes, we open it much later. Sometimes, we tear it open with eager hands. You don’t have to be an optimist to accept this invitation. But you do have to be curious about what will happen next, if it will be different from the pain of right now, and if you will be different. Curiosity and longing will take you pretty far in life, no matter how bad things are in the moment.”
She looks at Rebecca Solnit’s book A Paradise Built in Hell, which describes the aftermath of epic disasters, like the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and Hurricane Katrina. Solnit observes a “disaster utopia.” People rise to the occasion and become the best version of themselves, generous and helpful. Solnit says that disaster (and apocalypse, I suspect) “is sometimes a door back into paradise, the paradise at least in which we are who we hope to be, do the work we desire, and are each other’s keepers.”
Advent is full of God’s invitations to resurrection, after this disaster.
* * * * * *
From team member Tom Willadsen:
New, Happy Year
The church year starts today! Get out the confetti and streamers. It’s the first day of Advent. Originally, Advent was a season intended to prepare Christians for Christ’s return. It has evolved to help us get ready in three different ways:
To celebrate the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem — we’ve got that penciled in for December 25;
For individual Christians to welcome Christ into their hearts — cue the Hallmark holiday films; and
The return of Christ, the Second Coming, the Parousia in Greek.
This year Advent is the shortest it can be, because December 25 falls on a Monday.
* * *
Advent math
As a liturgical season, Lent has a much longer history. It was originally a 40 day season of instruction for new Christians, culminating in baptism at the end of the Easter Vigil and welcome to the Lord’s table immediately afterward.
In Christianity, 40 is a number depicting struggle, hardship, and temptation. In rained on Noah and the ark for 40 daisy-daisies; (drove those animals, nearly crazy, crazy) the Hebrews wandered for 40 years; and Jesus was tempted in the wilderness for 40 days immediately following his baptism. Naturally, Lent would be 40 days.
In setting the dates for Advent the church fathers worked backward: Since the Season of Christmas is 12 days, concluding on Epiphany, January 6th with 12 drummers drumming, they needed 28 days for the Advent/Christmas season to match Lent. Since 28 is 4 x 7, it was decided that Advent would start four Sundays before Christmas.
* * *
Isaiah 64:1-9; Mark 13:24-37
Tearing open the heavens
Both the gospel and prophets’ lessons contain dramatic imagery of the Lord bursting into Creation from above. This imagery is rendered in a striking, liturgical way at the front of the sanctuary of the First Presbyterian Church in Wilmar, Minnesota. A Barthian cross is attached to the wall at the back of the chancel with the words “Take up your cross and follow me” on either side of the horizontal bar.
Swiss theologian Karl Barth imagined history as a horizontal line. The Christ event burst into history and changed everything. While time has passed since Christ’s death and resurrection, the asymmetry of Barth’s cross is a reminder that Christ will one day return. It is a jarring, odd image for those of us used to the neat, balanced symmetry of the crosses we typically see.
* * * * * *
From team member Dean Feldmeyer:
Isaiah 64:1-9
In this passage from 2nd Isaiah, the prophet speaks on behalf of the people held captive in Babylon, asking God to act decisively and rescue them. But first he admits that their plight is, in many ways, their own fault and that acts of repentance by the people are called for.
Mea Culpa
In verses 5-7, Isaiah, speaking for all the people, attends to their relationship with God by confessing that much of what has happened is their own fault. “We have all become like one who is unclean and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth.” (In other words, not very righteous.)
In many of the liturgical churches, this is a weekly ritual — a prayer of confession wherein we acknowledge that many, if not most, of our problems are our own fault. They are the results of bad choices, selfish actions, thoughtless words, simple rudeness, intentional meanness and, sometimes, outright cruelty.
The prayer is called the “Confiteor” after the first word of the prayer when it is spoken in Latin: Confiteor Deo omnipotenti, et vobis fratres… In English: “I confess to almighty God and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have greatly sinned, in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done and in what I have failed to do, through my fault, through my own fault, through my own most grievous fault…”
* * *
I’m Sorry — Famous Celebrity Apologies
In 2022, The New York Times followed a story about British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s parties during the Covid pandemic and his apology when he was discovered with a story about famous celebrity apologies.
Boris Johnson – The admission by Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain on Wednesday that, yes, he did attend a Downing Street party in May 2020 while telling pandemic-weary Britons they must isolate — a party he had earlier denied knowing about — has weakened him. Whether the apology will relieve the growing pressure on Mr. Johnson to resign remains unclear.
Theresa May – Mr. Johnson’s predecessor as prime minister and former leader of the dominant Conservative Party, Mrs. May, resigned in 2019 after repeated failures in finalizing Brexit, Britain’s exit from the European Union. She made a well-remembered apology in 2017 for having presided over one of her party’s worst parliamentary election losses.
Justin Trudeau – Mr. Trudeau’s tenure as prime minister of Canada — and his reputation as a hero of tolerance and diversity — was imperiled in 2019 by disclosures that he had masqueraded in black face and brown face. “I know there are Canadians, many, many Canadians, that I have deeply hurt with the choices I made,” Mr. Trudeau said in seeking forgiveness. “I am going to work very hard to demonstrate that as an individual I will continue to stand against intolerance and racism.”
Park Geun-hye – Ms. Park, the former president of South Korea who was engulfed in scandals that paralyzed her government, was impeached in 2016 and later imprisoned. In the weeks leading up to her impeachment for abuse of power, she apologized at least three times, including in a televised address in which she proclaimed: “All of this happening is my fault. It happened because of my neglect.”
Tiger Woods – Mr. Woods, the world’s most famous golfer, admitted in 2009 to having committed unspecified errors of judgment after reports emerged that he had engaged in multiple extramarital affairs. “I have let my family down and I regret those transgressions with all of my heart,” Mr. Woods wrote on his website. “I have not been true to my values and the behavior my family deserves.” His apology and plea for privacy were received positively, including from corporate sponsors.
Mel Gibson – Mr. Gibson, the film star and director, was accused in July 2006 of having made virulently anti-Semitic remarks to an arresting officer who stopped him on suspicion of drunken driving near his home in Malibu, California. Mr. Gibson sought to make amends in a statement issued by his publicist. “I acted like a person completely out of control when I was arrested, and said things that I do not believe to be true and which are despicable. I am deeply ashamed of everything I said, and I apologize to anyone I may have offended.”
* * *
How To Apologize
Healthline.com offers these 8 suggestions on how to apologize sincerely and effectively:
1. Understand why you’re apologizing – To make a good apology, you’ll want to first have a good understanding of where you went wrong. Regret is a key element of effective apologies, but you’ll probably find it difficult to express sincere regret when you don’t know what you regret doing.
Recalling your mistake may not feel all that pleasant, especially when you know you hurt someone. If you already feel guilty or disappointed in yourself, you might even avoid thinking about it entirely. Remember, though: No matter how bad you feel, the other person likely feels worse. Failing to acknowledge their pain does them further injustice.
2. Start with ‘I’m sorry.’ Period. – Apologies that contain qualifiers or justifications typically won’t get the job done. Following “I’m sorry” with “but” or “it’s just that” is never the way to go. When you rationalize your actions, you’re essentially passing the blame to another person. This sends the message that you don’t think you did anything wrong and gives your apology a ring of superficiality.
3. Take responsibility for your actions – Acknowledging your mistake can go a long way toward helping you convey remorse, but don’t stop there. A sincere apology also involves empathy for the person you hurt, and it’s important to acknowledge the pain your actions caused.
Keeping explanations brief and to the point can help you avoid taking them too far and turning them into excuses.
4. Focus on the impact of your actions — not your intent – Sure, you didn’t intend to hurt anyone. Still, at the end of the day, your intent often matters less than the impact of your actions.
5. Take steps to make amends – Effective apologies involve an effort to begin repairing the situation. Sometimes, reparative behavior is pretty clear. Such as: If you borrowed your sister’s car without asking and got it filthy inside and out, your apology might involve paying to have it cleaned and detailed or, if you rushed through a work assignment and gave your supervisor a report containing incorrect information, you might commit to staying late to fix your mistakes.
6. Don’t overdo it – Generally speaking, the apology should fit the mistake. Excessive reparations or behavior that goes above and beyond what they asked of you might help ease your guilt, but it won’t necessarily have any benefits for the person you wronged.
It might even lead them to doubt your sincerity — after all, you didn’t listen to their request.
7. Ask for forgiveness – Requesting forgiveness is an important part of the apology, because it gives the person you wronged some agency in the situation. In other words, asking for forgiveness tells them you don’t assume they’ll automatically forgive you.
The process of forgiveness can take time, and you may need to do some work, like making amends and addressing problematic behaviors, in order to earn it. Keep in mind that forgiveness isn’t guaranteed, no matter how sincere your apology. That said, you’re more likely to earn it by making it clear you’ve truly repented your actions and made a serious effort to change.
8. Know when you shouldn’t apologize – Apologies can heal damage in relationships after mistakes or thoughtless behavior. But apologizing when you did nothing wrong, simply to prevent conflict, can affect your sense of self-worth and ultimately damage you.
* * *
Apology vs. Repentance
I was pressed for time but I knew that, if I watched the clock and didn’t waste time, I could get to the gym, go through my workout, shower, dress and be back to the office in time for our monthly meeting of the Ministerial Association.
So, off I went, dashing to the gym, into the locker room, change into my workout clothes, onto the elliptical machine, over to the weight machine, finished on schedule. Dripping with sweat, I hurry to the locker room, into the shower, turn on the water, and…cold. Ice cold. I wait. Still cold. Time ticking away. Still cold.
I throw my sweats back on and rush to the desk where the following dialogue ensues:
Me: Marsha, there’s no hot water in the men’s shower.
Marsha (The Manager): Oh, yeah. Sorry. Someone shoulda told you when you came in. We’ve called the plumber and he should have it fixed by tomorrow.
Me: Tomorrow?
Marsha: Yeah, that’s the earliest he can get here.
Me: Gee, Marsha, it would have been nice if someone would have told me. I’ve got a meeting in 45, no, 35 minutes and I can’t go like this. Even a note on the door would have been nice.
Marsha: (Sighing, exasperated, slamming down the work she’s doing) Dean! I said I’m sorry!
As I try to wash the sweat off by splashing a little cold water here and there, it occurs to me: That wasn’t an apology. She’s not really sorry. She’s just sorry I’m mad. She thinks that going through the motions of an apology is the moral equivalent of not doing the thing in the first place. We have done her generation a serious disservice: We have not taught them the true meaning of repentance.
* * *
1 Corinthians 1:3-9
Paul introduces his letter to the church in Corinth by reminding them at the end of the passage of probably the most important attribute of the God whom we worship: “God is faithful.”
A Quarter’s Worth of Faithfulness
Fred Craddock, in an address to ministers, on the practical implications of consecration: “To give my life for Christ appears glorious. To pour myself out for others. . . to pay the ultimate price of martyrdom — I'll do it. I'm ready, Lord, to go out in a blaze of glory.
“We think giving our all to the Lord is like taking $l,000 bill and laying it on the table — ‘Here's my life, Lord. I'm giving it all.’ But the reality for most of us is that he sends us to the bank and has us cash in the $l,000 for quarters.
“We go through life putting out 25 cents here and 50 cents there. Listen to the neighbor kid's troubles instead of saying, ‘Get lost.’ Go to a committee meeting. Give a cup of water to a shaky old man in a nursing home. Usually giving our life to Christ isn't glorious. It's done in all those little acts of love, 25 cents at a time. It would be easy to go out in a flash of glory; it's harder to live the Christian life little by little over the long haul.”
* * *
Faithful, Rain Or Shine
A little boy in our community contracted a devastating form of cancer that required several surgeries and months of treatments. His parents’ health insurance would cover only a fraction of the cost so several of us in the community, clergy and laity, all got together with the idea of a benefit concert to help the family.
We contacted local bands, radio stations, news outlets, churches, and service organizations with our story, our plan, and the goal we had set for raising money with the concert. The concert we intended soon became an all day festival.
A local family gave us the free use of a field near the road, the community donated the use of their covered stage, about a dozen bands from rock to bluegrass volunteered to come and play, and two radio personalities agreed to come and be the masters of ceremony. Port-a-potty rentals were donated. Hundreds of dollars in concessions were provided by churches. One of the bands agreed to stay all day and let other bands use their sound equipment.
And then the Saturday finally came.
And so did the rain. It didn’t just rain, it poured down. So hard it fell that at times it was nearly impossible to see the stage. All morning it rained. By the time the rain eased off to just a steady downpour, it was mid-afternoon, any potential audience had left or not showed up at all, the bands had canceled or gone home.
Except for a few. About fifty people were still sitting in their lawn chairs under umbrellas and one country band was still there, ready to play if the opportunity presented itself. When they noticed that the stage had been kept mostly dry due to the roof, they decided to go out and play a couple numbers for the fifty people who stayed.
Two hours later they ended their concert with more than 200 people in the audience and we over achieved our fund-raising goal. All becaue a few audience members and one band were faithful.
* * *
Mark 13:24-37
This passage is often referred to by scholars as “Mark’s Little Apocalyptic” and preachers often skip it, not sure what to do with or say about it. But Mark doesn’t just drop it in our laps without explanation. With the final two words of the passage, he tells us what the point is. He gives us both the indicative and the imperative. “Keep awake!”
The Boy Who Stayed Awake For 11 Days (Long Illustration, but worth it)
From: grunge.com --
In December 1963, two San Diego teenagers named Randy Gardner and Bruce McAllister had been cooking up an idea for their high school science fair project. They settled on seeing how long one of them could stay awake, while the other would record any side effects of the sleeplessness. The pair also had an eye on breaking the world record for staying awake. At the time, it was held by a DJ in Honolulu, who had gone 260 hours without sleep. "[The] first version of it was [to explore] the effect of sleeplessness on paranormal ability," McAllister told the BBC in 2018. "We realized there was no way we could do that and so we decided on the effect of sleep deprivation on cognitive abilities, performance on the basketball court. Whatever we could come up with."
After Gardner lost a coin toss, it was determined that he would be the subject to go without sleep. After two days of being kept awake, some effects began to surface. He had difficulty focusing his eyes and trouble with certain words in tongue-twisters. But the real problem with the study is that McAllister also started falling asleep. "We were idiots, you know young idiots," he said, adding, "and I stayed awake with him to monitor him ... and after three night of sleeplessness myself I woke up tipped against the wall writing notes on the wall itself." The two quickly realized they needed a third person and recruited classmate Joe Marciano.
The amateur study by three high school students began to make the news and caught the attention of US Navy medic Lieutenant Commander John J. Ross and Stanford University sleep researcher William Dement. Sleep science was a nascent field at the time, and it was considered by many to be a dangerous area to study because of the potential damage to sleep study subjects. "I was probably the only person on the planet at the time who had actually done sleep research," Dement told the BBC. "[Randy's parents] were very worried that this might be something that would really be harmful to him. Because the question was still unresolved on whether or not if you go without sleep long enough you will die."
By day three, Ross noticed that Gardner had trouble controlling his emotions and wild mood swings. Hallucinations began after five days. During the day, Gardner played basketball and pinball with his fellow students, which was much easier than trying to stay awake at night. They tested his sense of hearing, smell and taste. The observers noted that his cognitive and sensory abilities were affected. "I mean, it was crazy, where you couldn't remember things, it was almost like an early Alzheimer's thing brought on by lack of sleep," Gardner told NPR in 2017. He ultimately stayed awake for 264.4 hours — 11 entire days — ending on January 8, 1964.
Others have reportedly beaten Gardner's time in the decades that passed, but Guinness World Records stopped certifying these attempts out of fear that record-seekers would damage their health.
* * *
New Parents on Sleep Deprivation
Few people understand the effects of sleep deprivation better than new parents. Here, from fatherly.com are a couple of stories told by the dads themselves:
Darren, 37, Arizona — “When you’re exhausted, your scheduling ability just tanks. Our daughter kept us up all week, and I think I may have logged about 10 hours of total sleep. I woke up one morning thinking it was Friday, got ready for work, and drove to the office. I leave before my wife gets up, so she didn’t even notice. I was like, ‘Awesome! No traffic!’ Then I got there, and the building was locked. I actually had to ask someone what day it was — I was like Marty McFly from Back to the Future.” -- Yeah. It was Saturday. And he missed his cartoons, too.
Matthew, 38, Michigan — “We don’t have a cat, but my wife did when she was little. There’s this stray cat that comes up to our door every once in a while, and he must have been hanging outside late at night. My wife was so tired that she just opened the door and let him in. It must have been a subconscious thing from when she was young, because she used to have to do that all the time. The stray cat came in and slept on the couch all night. I didn’t freak out, I just woke her up, pointed to it, and said, ‘So, who’s your new friend?’ He still comes around, even though we kicked him out.” — If you feed them, they’ll never leave. It’s true of cat’s, too.
John, 36, New York — “This was during a meeting at work. It was one of those garbage ‘all staff’ meetings we have every week, where everyone from the company gathers in a conference room. There are never enough seats, so I always stand. I propped myself up against a wall, the meeting started, and the next thing I know I’m being woken up by my boss’s secretary. I looked at the clock and 45 minutes had gone by! I stayed standing the whole time, and I was worried everyone saw me sleeping. But she said she was pretty sure she was the only one who noticed. Thank God.” — Yeah, right. 45 minutes and they didn’t notice you sleeping? Either they were cutting you a break or they were asleep, too. Musta been a great meeting.
Caleb, 31, Tennessee — “Laundry is constant for new parents. So, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that this one happens to a lot of people. We were always up — my wife and I — and we always seemed to be doing laundry. The washer and dryer both buzzed and I went down to change the loads. They were both empty. For a minute, I thought I was losing my mind. Then I asked her and she facepalmed and said she must’ve forgotten to actually put laundry in.” — No big deal. I’m 72 and I do that all the time. Oh, wait. Maybe it is a big deal.
* * *
Insomnia and Laughture
From Leadership, Fall, 1993, p. 129
Number of times a child laughs each day, on average: 400
Number of times an adult laughs each day, on overage: 15
Number of Americans with stress-related insomnia: 1 in 5
Number on any given day who need more sleep: 45 million
Percentage decrease in average sleep time, since 1900: 20
* * *
How To Stay Awake
“Keep awake!” Yeah, easy for you to say, Jesus. But for some of us, it’s harder than usual. For some, it’s darned near impossible.
But, according to healthnile.com, there are some things that can help:
Shoulder rolls, moving the shoulders around; Neck rolls, moving the neck forward and round and then doing so again in the opposite direction; Leg swings.
* * * * * *
From team member Elena Delhagen:
Waiting is certainly the overarching theme of our faith story as we approach the Advent season. All of the liturgical passages for this week point us to the reality that, as Christians, our wait isn’t over just because Christmas arrives. Instead, we’re waiting still, because we know that Jesus is coming back. Expressed in the words of the prophet and psalmist as a longing for God’s mercy and restoration, in the gospel of Mark as awaiting the coming of the Son of Man, and in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians as the fervent hope for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, these scriptures orient us to something all human beings tend to struggle with: Waiting.
One of my son’s favorite children’s authors is Mo Willems, well-known for his books including loving characters like The Pigeon, Gerald the Elephant, and Piggie. In his 2014 release, Waiting is Not Easy! Piggie approaches Gerald and tells him that she has a surprise for him — but he’ll have to wait for him. She promises it will be worth it, so Gerald gets straight to work with the hard job of waiting. And waiting. And waiting. All day, he waits, at times becoming so impatient that he’s tempted to just give up and walk away. As night falls, Gerald panics, sure he’s missed out on the surprise. Suddenly, the page is filled with a beautiful night sky, dotted with sparkling stars, and Gerald realizes this surprise truly was worth the wait.
Sometimes, we wait for something thinking we know what it’s going to be like. Then it comes, and we realize how little we knew all along.
Such is the case as we wait for Christ’s return. Though mentioned in scripture, we have at times conflicting accounts of what it will be like, reminding us that in the end, it truly will be an unpredictable event.
And so we wait.
* * *
Since October 7, 2023, the world has waited with its breath caught in its throat for a ceasefire in the Hamas-Israel War. We wait, and we wait, and we wait.
A month after the war began, The New York Times printed an achingly beautiful essay by Mosab Abu Toha, a Palestinian poet living in the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza. The title? “The Agony of Waiting For a Ceasefire That Never Comes.” There is one line that stands out in stark contrast to all the rest: “There is no hope here.”
This raises the question of how we wait when there is no hope (whether real or imagined). It’s not a question that has an easy answer, I’m afraid, but it seems like it should be a question we ask ourselves and our congregations this Advent.
* * *
A word that gets thrown around a lot when we’re talking about Christ’s return is “apocalypse.” For a lot of people, it’s a scary word. It conjures up images of last judgements and lakes of fire, of strange scenes found in Revelation about horses named Death and plagues upon plagues. People — even people in the church — have sensationalized the idea of apocalypse. The root of the word comes from the Greek αποκαλυψισ (“apokálypsis”), which means to uncover, reveal, or lay bare. It’s like an unveiling that reveals things as they really are.
The Hebrew counterpart is גֶּלֶה , galah, also defined as an uncovering. In Genesis 35, when Jacob encounters the Lord during his return to Bethel, the encounter is written in Hebrew with a form of the very same verb. Jacob meets God, and the truth is uncovered. It’s not the end of the world, but it is the end of Jacob’s worldview up until that point. He was able to move past his confusion and dismay after God appeared to him, instead focusing on the truth that had been revealed to him, that his time of exile was over.
In truth, the Bible is full of apocalypses. And so are our lives. Whether through trials and suffering or personal joys and triumphs, we are faced at different points in our lives with times of revelations where we understand things that once appeared to be hidden from us.
The United States has been experiencing apocalypses over the last seven to eight years; there have been shifts in who we understand our leaders and our governments to be and what and who they stand for. We’ve weathered apocalypses in our relationships and family as we learn more about the personal politics and beliefs of people we’ve respected and cared about. Some apocalypses are good, however. Best-selling author Sarah Bessey writes about her personal history with chronic illness and her revelation that no matter how good or faithful a Christian she was, she would still experience pain and illness. There’s the apocalypse — learning the truth in a very visceral, tangible, experiential way.
What are the apocalypses you’ve lived through in your own life? In your faith community? In your town? Nation? In the world? What are the truths being uncovered?
* * * * * *
WORSHIP
by George Reed
Call to Worship
One: Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock!
All: You who are enthroned upon the cherubim, shine forth.
One: Stir up your might, and come to save us!
All: Restore us, O God; let your face shine, that we may be saved.
One: But let your hand be upon the one at your right hand.
All: Give us life, and we will call on your name.
OR
One: God comes in the midst of troubles and offers us hope.
All: We welcome the hope God brings to all the world.
One: God offers hope when all around us seems dark.
All: We rejoice in the light God sheds on our path.
One: Through us God offers hope to all the world.
All: We will share God’s hope with all.
Hymns and Songs
Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus
UMH: 196
H82: 66
PH: 1/2
GTG: 82/83
NCH: 122
LBW: 30
ELW: 254
W&P: 153
AMEC: 103
Savior of the Nations, Come
UMH: 214
PH: 14
GTG: 102
LBW: 28
ELW: 263
W&P: 168
Lift up Your Heads, Ye Mighty Gates
UMH: 213
H82: 436
GTG: 93
NCH: 117
CH: 139
LBW: 32
W&P: 176
AMEC: 94
Renew: 59
O Come, O Come, Emmanuel
UMH: 211
H82: 56
PH: 9
GTG: 88
AAHH: 188
NNBH: 82
NCH: 116
CH: 119
LBW: 34
ELW: 257
W&P: 154
AMEC: 102
STLT 225
One Bread, One Body
UMH: 620
GTG: 530
CH: 393
ELW: 496
W&P: 689
Bread of the World
UMH: 624
H82: 301
PH: 502
GTG: 499
NCH: 346
CH: 387
W&P: 693
Hope of the World
UMH: 178
H82: 472
PH: 360
GTG: 734
NCH: 46
CH: 538
LBW: 493
W&P: 404
Soon and Very Soon
UMH: 706
GTG: 384
AAHH: 193
NNBH: 476
ELW: 439
W&P: 523
CCB: 93
Renew: 276
Lo, He Comes with Clouds Descending
UMH: 718
H82: 57/58
PH: 6
GTG: 348
LBW: 27
ELW: 435
AMEC: 99
We Meet You, O Christ
UMH: 257
PH: 311
CH: 183
W&P: 616
Something Beautiful
CCB: 84
May You Run and Not Be Weary
CCB: 99
Music Resources Key
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
GTG: Glory to God, The Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELW: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day/Collect
O God who is ever revealing yourself to your children:
Grant us the wisdom and courage to also see ourselves
so that you may be born in us each day;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, for you are always revealing yourself to us. You come to us in so many surprising and common ways. Come and be born in us this day and every day. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
One: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially our failure to place our hope in God.
All: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We have placed our hope in things that are passing. We have placed our hope in power and might. We have placed our hope in things. We have forgotten the one who created us and made us in the divine image. We have placed our hope in ourselves. Forgive us for our foolishness and self-centeredness. Renew your Spirit within us and make us whole. Amen.
One: God comes to save us and redeem us. Receive God’s gracious love and forgiveness. Allow the renewing Spirit of God to make you whole and to make you a healer in the midst of the world’s hurts.
Prayers of the People
We worship and adore you, O God, for you are our hope in the midst of hopelessness. You are the one who never fails us.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We have placed our hope in things that are passing. We have placed our hope in power and might. We have placed our hope in things. We have forgotten the one who created us and made us in the divine image. We have placed our hope in ourselves. Forgive us for our foolishness and self-centeredness. Renew your Spirit within us and make us whole.
We give you thanks for all the ways you restore our hope when things look hopeless. We thank you for those you send to us to encourage us and restore our faith. We thank you for those who have been faithful in times when the outlook has been bleak. You have blessed us with those who help us remember in the depth of winter that spring will come.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for one another in our times of need. We lift up those who are suffering into the balm of your healing presence. We remember those who suffer hunger, thirst, and deprivation. We hold in our hearts those who are alone and lonely; those who are struggling to find their way; those who suffer in body, mind, or spirit.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
Hear us as we pray for others: (Time for silent or spoken prayer.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ who taught us to pray saying:
Our Father....Amen.
(Or if the Our Father is not used at this point in the service.)
All this we ask in the name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
* * * * * *
CHILDREN'S SERMON
Waiting and Giving Thanks
by Quantisha Mason-Doll
1 Corinthians 1:3-9
We are in the first week of Advent. Advent is a time of preparing and waiting — but not for Christmas gifts. Advent is a time when we wait and prepare for the coming of our Lord.
How often do you give thanks to the Lord? Is it as often as you say “thank you” to your parents? Your siblings? Your teachers? Your friends? How many of you believe you have to receive something physical before saying thank you?
Giving thanks should not only be about showing gratitude for gifts. We can also say thank you for the times when the people we cared about the most showed up and were present with us. Maybe it was the time your friend held your hand when you were scared. Or maybe it was when someone special gave you a hug when you really needed it. These are the moments where “thank you” means the most. As we prepare this Advent season we should continually give thanks to the Lord our God. Time and again, God chooses to be with us. So much so the word becomes flesh in the form of Jesus Christ — the one we wait for. For this reason, we give thanks.
Prayer
Lord, Show us to know your Grace
Lord, Guide us in building Peace
Lord, Help us to know our Gifts
God, be with us as we await our King to come in glory.
Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, December 3, 2023 issue.
Copyright 2023 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
- Awakened by Hope by Chris Keating based on Mark 13:24-37.
- Second Thoughts: Loving One Another’s Differences by Katy Stenta based on Isaiah 64:1-9.
- Sermon illustrations by Mary Austin, Tom Willadsen, Elena Delhagen, Dean Feldmeyer.
- Worship resources by George Reed.
- Children's sermon: Waiting and Giving Thanks by Quantisha Mason-Doll based on 1 Corinthians 1:3-9.
Awakened by Hopeby Chris Keating
Mark 13:24-37
Just when you thought he was out, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was pulled back. In the span of five days, Altman took a trip on the C-Suite revolving door. It was a stunning series of events that began with Altman’s surprise sacking and ended with his second coming and also renewed wider fears of an A.I. doomsday apocalypse.
Perhaps the whole episode was a misunderstanding, a case of internal corporate bickering that went public. Or perhaps it was just competing visions, fueled by piles of cash. As they say in The Godfather, it was just business. Or was it?
Some view artificial intelligence (A.I.) as humanity’s crowning technological achievement, while others fear it will become an unstoppable force capable of destroying the world. Even A.I.’s researchers are sometimes said to face the same sort of dilemma nuclear bomb pioneer Robert Oppenheimer encountered — do the rewards outweigh the risks?
Facing that dilemma was part of the genius behind OpenAI’s original vision. Consisting of both a nonprofit research organization and a for-profit tech giant, OpenAI has emerged as an organization with firm commitments to both the common good and technological success.
But last week’s events have caused some to wonder if the commitment to commercial success is prevailing over altruistic concerns. Altman’s firing provoked a massive internal protest as well as power moves by Microsoft, its primary investor, and paved the way for his return. The once solid firewall between management and the board began wobbling. The upshot was that Altman returned and a majority of the board left.
It was an apocalyptic-sized drama that prompts reflections on the interface of technology and hope. Mysterious communications were mingled with threats of an imminent doomsday, and eventually were coupled with Altman’s heroic second coming. Indeed, it was no time to sleep.
This high-tech intrigue is especially captivating during Advent. In particular, Mark’s apocalyptic narrative brings visions of widespread destruction, institutional collapse, and rumors of war that seem to have been lifted from the daily news. These indicators of a supposed contemporary apocalypse allow fears to fester and hopes to sink. Perhaps it is not surprising that four in ten Americans believe we are living in the end days of history, or that evangelical Christians are convinced that the war between Israel and Hamas is “prophetically significant.”
The New York Times columnist David Brooks suggests that the development of A.I. may be similarly confounding. “The people in A.I. seem to be experiencing radically different brain states all at once,” Brooks wrote the other day. “I’ve found it incredibly hard to write about A.I. because it is literally unknowable whether this technology is leading us to heaven or hell, and so my attitude about it shifts with my mood.”
In this light, Altman’s second coming is a chance for the church to engage Advent’s underlying message of hope. There’s more to apocalyptic visions than the image of Christians holding a vial of an unstable volatile compound designed to destruction. Instead, Jesus’ words offer encouragement for a weary, dispirited world.
It’s Advent once again. We stand to sing “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” even as the culture rocks around the Christmas Tree. A computer-generated playlist tries to cover the clashing gears of the omnipresent Christmas machine. Meanwhile, we’re all tempted to ask ChatGPT to write the family Christmas letter.
In the News
Altman’s time in the C-suite turnstile is more than a plotline for a dystopian novel. It’s a reminder of the commercial investment in A.I., and an indicator of our culture’s yearning for permanence and hope in an unsteady world.
A.I.’s advent into everyday life is breathtaking. From the call you made to your bank last weekend to the Big Mac you ordered for lunch, A.I. is all around us. While it may sound frightening, the truth is the cat is out of the bag. Enhanced technology demands we remain vigilant and alert to both possibilities and perils.
The possibilities are endless and range from processing more than a quintillion computer operations per second to developing vaccines and mitigating cyber-attacks. But things do go wrong. Researchers report that some technologies have sometimes generated “hallucinations” or completely fabricated answers rather than factual conclusions. The risk is that typically human beings trust computer answers as truthful and reliable. In one case, attorneys who relied on ChatGPT to prepare their case discovered the computer had invented legal precedence that did not actually exist.
Oops.
These types of concerns — and worse — were the impetus behind OpenAI’s initial thrust. Increasing the commercial possibilities while mitigating widespread risks was paramount. As both a nonprofit and a commercial entity, the organization hoped to generate corporate-sized profits while also pursuing altruistic goals with the aim of preventing a robot-driven end to history. Many of its original board members have been described as “robo-phobic,” a sign that perhaps the good guys could prevail.
But somewhere down the road, differences arose between Altman’s drive for success and the board’s protective instincts. Some may have seen Altman’s push for aggressively developing A.I. as too much. Concerns had been raised that products like ChatGBT were being advanced without proper vetting. Perhaps some of them had even decided they were finished with his survivalist rants. (Altman once mused that he’s freaked out by the possibility of a “super contagious” lab-created virus released into the world, and worries of an “A.I. that attacks us.”)
Back in 2016, the New Yorker recounted a conversation Altman had at an event sponsored by startup funder Y Combinator. During a late-night campfire session, Altman delved into his survivalist manifesto. “I prep for survival,” he said, “I have guns, gold, potassium iodine, antibiotics, water, gas masks from the Israeli Defense Force, and a big patch of land in Big Sur that I can fly to.”
Good to know. Yet last week’s drama was only partially rooted in the eccentric anxieties of a wealthy tech guru. The deeper threat was the uncertain possibilities inherent in the technology itself. In the end, as one journalist summarized it, “The fallout from Altman’s firing has made it clear that OpenAI’s plan for ensuring the safe development of A.I. was completely unworkable.” It became the ultimate revenge of the nerds, or the plotline of an episode of HBO’s Succession.
Altman’s return secured him as the dominant force in an industry poised to reshape the world. But it also hardened the fears of some that perils are increasing. A.I. regulations across the world are still in their infancy, and many remain convinced that a super-computer will soon exceed human control. The sun has not yet darkened, but there are many who remain convinced the end is near. It’s Advent, and the church must renew its proclamation of hope.
In the Scriptures
Advent begins with Jesus’ depictions of the end. Turning out of the temple, the disciples marvel at the huge stones and ornate carvings like tourists gawking at Christmas decorations along New York City’s Fifth Avenue. Jesus makes sure his disciples, then and now, realize that God is not yet finished with this world.
That message of disruption and destruction is disturbing to those yearning for the calming quaintness of Currier and Ives. We may be tempted, as William Willimon suggests in his book Heaven and Earth, to say to Jesus, “Thanks, but no thanks.” Instead, as Willimon says, “The church plods along as always…brushing off Jesus’ talk of the sky falling and the sun being extinguished, reassuring ourselves.” (Willimon, p. 7.)
But Advent dares us to begin to hope in something greater than the impermanent institutions we have watched (or are watching) collapse. Jesus’ words “from the fig tree learn its lesson” draw us into a world where apocalypse does not sound so far-fetched.
Mark 13 shares important features of Jewish apocalyptic literature, including a dualism between good and evil, and a pervasive despair about culture. Words of warning evoke a pending crisis within the community, forcing interpreters to consider whether the gospel is addressing the contemporary experiences of its readers or offering a prediction of the future. The text is mired in mystery, but embedded with hope.
Bonnie Bowman Thurston (Preaching Mark) quotes Ralph Martin’s hypothesis that there is a peculiar “trifocal lens” approach to interpreting these verses. Martin’s suggestion is that there are perhaps three levels or lenses through which we may view Jesus’ teaching in Mark 13. He spots an immediate context (the early church and its struggles); a midrange view of the Jewish War and destruction of the temple; and a longer, more distant view of the end of the age. (See Preaching Mark, pp.143-144.)
Interpreters also note that the text offers a foreshadowing of Jesus’ passion. As he does throughout the gospel, Mark is pointing us toward the crucifixion. References to the darkening of the sun and the shaking of the powers of heaven are reminders of the crisis of crucifixion. The foreshadowing includes the promise of the glory of resurrection (13:16), and reassurances that God will not abandon the faithful.
In the Sermon
The assurance that God is not finished with creation reverberates throughout Mark 13, providing a strong foundation for the church’s proclamation of hope — even in a world ripe with fears and anxieties. While we may resist an eschatology rooted in fearful anticipation of judgment and rapture, we can acknowledge the ruptures and fault lines in society.
Among those fault lines is the belief that technology alone will save us, or that unbridled capitalism can lift us from our despair. Wearied by the pandemic, and frightened by war, it is tempting to be enticed by A.I.’s gadgets and gimmicks. We also know that technology is often unjustly lodged only in the hands of the rich and has rarely been used to benefit the poor. Here, too, is a lesson we might learn from the fig tree: In a season of inequality, how might A.I. be harnessed to provide a harvest of justice?
We have ceded the right to speak of apocalypse to doomsday preachers and preppers. But few of us have gas masks, gold, and a place in Big Sur. What we do have is a message of hope that motivates us to move beyond fear into the promise of God who does not abandon us.
It is further tempting to believe that unlimited investments in technology can prompt a better and more just world. History tells us it has only deepened economic divides, and increased misery. Not that Christians ought to eschew technology. Rather, Mark 13 reminds us of the greater call to ground our lives in a deeper, more lasting hope. We know that the Sam Altmans of the world will rise and fall, and that their motives are rarely pure. Our hope, however, is firm and lasting, even if the stones of the temple of technology are shaken and moved.
Naming that hope is our challenge this and every Advent. A sermon exploring the ways God descends into our world of anxiety and pain will stir our hearts. Against the grinding gears of the Christmas machine, and above the din of a culture rocking around the Christmas tree, a song of hope appears. How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given.
* * * * *
SECOND THOUGHTSLoving One Another’s Differences
by Katy Stenta
Isaiah 64:1-9
Isaiah 64:1-9 talks about how we humans can be molded and remolded by our experiences, or ignore everything and just move. It is easier, and perhaps feels safer, to just carry on as if nothing has changed — as if there are not multiple wars in the world, as if climate change is not effecting us, as if the pandemic has not shifted things in real and meaningful ways. However, we humans are like clay, and God is the the claymaker. We are works of God’s hand, susceptible to shaping. We do ourselves disservice to pretend that the we are not contextual beings.
I can see a moment where Israel, the traditional homeland of the Jewish people, seemed like a good idea. You did not want to send all of the displaced prisoners back to the country that tortured them, especially if they did not want to go. You did not want to force them to migrate to a new country; though it would have been generous and hospitable for more countries to open their doors and ease the path for Jewish people to make a home in their land — alas, anti-semitism and all other kinds of isolationism remained strong. Thereby, placing people in a new dream of safe land, may have seemed like an all right idea, especially at a time when displacing the native population did not seem like a big deal. However, it never worked out, and the lessons of peace seem to be hard to find.
There are at least two places to find such peace lessons. One is the Elie Wiesel inspired fellowship that models building peace amid the Israel-Hamas War. “The course employs art, storytelling, humor and religious texts, equipping leaders to express their core beliefs while being open to those with conflicting views. Amid disparate responses to the Israel-Hamas war, it ’s a strategy that current fellows are employing in real time.” These cohorts work to stay differentiated in their identity and to truly understand where one another is coming from.
Another peacemaking effort that I and many pilgrims to Palestine have witnessed is the university and organizations that include students of Israeli, Palestinian, Muslim, Hebrew, Christian, Druze backgrounds. The schools were founded by the Elias Chacour, a former Archbishop of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church of Galilee. He wrote a book that describes his understanding of the relationship between Palestinians and Israelis named Blood Brothers. Being molded for peace is different than being molded for war — it leaves justice more up to God, and reminds us that we are not allowed to dehumanize or attack one another.
Ultimately, God is the one who will shape the world, not us. Perhaps that is what strikes us the hardest in this week’s Isaiah reading. God is the one who is shaping everything, not us. We are but clay, and God is the potter. The most influence we will have will be as peacemakers — being bold enough to not hide from our sins, and to apologize and face each other as beloved human beings. This is what the peacemaking fellowship is about, and also what Abuna (Father) Chacour is getting at in Blood Brothers, acknowledging, respecting, and loving one another’s differences.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Mary Austin:Isaiah 64:1-9
Repentance
The prophet Isaiah laments how sinful God’s people have become, and calls them back to repentance, asking for God not to be angry with the people. Author Lily Burana says that we have a different idea about repentance. "In our own hearts and minds, repentance is quite different from the frothy beseeching of fire-and-brimstone ministers or a wild-eyed prophet of the streets. It’s not as loud, for one thing. It’s more about heeding the small, still voice than yelling for the heavens. I drew up my own list of things to sacrifice…bread, distracting girl crushes, Twitter. Those were the externals. But an internal vice would be given up as well. I pledged to give up self-centered fear." (From Grace for Amateurs)
Repentance may be visible on the outside but the inside is where the real work happens.
* * *
Mark 13:24-37, Isaiah 64:1-9
The Teacup is Already Broken
As the Advent texts talk about the new world that God is bringing, there’s also the pain of loss. The familiar things we know will end when the world of God’s vision comes to life.
Author adrienne maree brown (who uses lower case letters for her name) offers a helpful idea. She says that a friend came back from a meditation retreat with the phrase “the teacup is already broken.” This reminds us that “the ending or brokenness we fear is inevitable. We will die, everyone we love will die, the organization will end, the nation will come apart, the system will collapse. The teacup will break. The end has already happened in our minds, our imaginations, our predictions; it is implied by the very pattern of our existence, which we understand to be impermanent.”
She adds that this idea adds to our peace. “I find that this idea brings me as much peace as does the idea of healing as a victory…The material world is necessarily temporary, and it is only a matter of how deep we are willing to look, how far into the past and future we are willing to consider, to understand this. If you don’t believe me, look at the ruins of every society that has predated us on this planet. Remember that the matter that makes up our moon and planet is the dust of stars exploding in other galaxies. Remember that we can be partially made of stardust only because stars die.”
God is already on the move!
* * *
Mark 13:24-37
God’s Imagination
Famed writer Isabel Allende says that she never starts her novels with much of a plot in mind, and she likes an ending with some mystery. She says, “I write directly on my computer using no outline, just following my instinct. Once the story has been told on the screen, I print it for the first time and read it. Then I know what the book is about…When I start I am in a total limbo. I don't have any idea where the story is going or what is going to happen or why I am writing it. I only know that — in a way that I can't even understand at the time — I am connected to the story. I have chosen that story because it was important to me in the past or it will be in the future.”
In a similar way, as Advent starts, we’re in limbo, waiting for God to appear again in Jesus.
Allende notes, “With a novel you never know. It’s patient and daily work, like embroidering a tapestry of many colors. You go slowly, you have a pattern in mind. But all of a sudden you turn it and realize that it’s something else.” This happens in our lives, too.
She adds, “Happy endings usually don't work for me. I like open endings. I trust the reader’s imagination.” In Advent, we are trusting in God’s imagination for the world.
* * *
Mark 13:24-37
The End of the World
Pastor and writer Molly Phinney Baskette observes that endings and beginnings are twined together in our lives. In every disaster, communal or individual, there’s also an invitation, just as Mark’s gospel portrays.
She says, "Every one of us gets an invitation to resurrection. It comes in a little ivory envelope, delivered directly to our souls, right after the disaster happens. Sometimes, we miss it. Sometimes, we open it much later. Sometimes, we tear it open with eager hands. You don’t have to be an optimist to accept this invitation. But you do have to be curious about what will happen next, if it will be different from the pain of right now, and if you will be different. Curiosity and longing will take you pretty far in life, no matter how bad things are in the moment.”
She looks at Rebecca Solnit’s book A Paradise Built in Hell, which describes the aftermath of epic disasters, like the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and Hurricane Katrina. Solnit observes a “disaster utopia.” People rise to the occasion and become the best version of themselves, generous and helpful. Solnit says that disaster (and apocalypse, I suspect) “is sometimes a door back into paradise, the paradise at least in which we are who we hope to be, do the work we desire, and are each other’s keepers.”
Advent is full of God’s invitations to resurrection, after this disaster.
* * * * * *
From team member Tom Willadsen:New, Happy Year
The church year starts today! Get out the confetti and streamers. It’s the first day of Advent. Originally, Advent was a season intended to prepare Christians for Christ’s return. It has evolved to help us get ready in three different ways:
To celebrate the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem — we’ve got that penciled in for December 25;
For individual Christians to welcome Christ into their hearts — cue the Hallmark holiday films; and
The return of Christ, the Second Coming, the Parousia in Greek.
This year Advent is the shortest it can be, because December 25 falls on a Monday.
* * *
Advent math
As a liturgical season, Lent has a much longer history. It was originally a 40 day season of instruction for new Christians, culminating in baptism at the end of the Easter Vigil and welcome to the Lord’s table immediately afterward.
In Christianity, 40 is a number depicting struggle, hardship, and temptation. In rained on Noah and the ark for 40 daisy-daisies; (drove those animals, nearly crazy, crazy) the Hebrews wandered for 40 years; and Jesus was tempted in the wilderness for 40 days immediately following his baptism. Naturally, Lent would be 40 days.
In setting the dates for Advent the church fathers worked backward: Since the Season of Christmas is 12 days, concluding on Epiphany, January 6th with 12 drummers drumming, they needed 28 days for the Advent/Christmas season to match Lent. Since 28 is 4 x 7, it was decided that Advent would start four Sundays before Christmas.
* * *
Isaiah 64:1-9; Mark 13:24-37
Tearing open the heavens
Both the gospel and prophets’ lessons contain dramatic imagery of the Lord bursting into Creation from above. This imagery is rendered in a striking, liturgical way at the front of the sanctuary of the First Presbyterian Church in Wilmar, Minnesota. A Barthian cross is attached to the wall at the back of the chancel with the words “Take up your cross and follow me” on either side of the horizontal bar.
Swiss theologian Karl Barth imagined history as a horizontal line. The Christ event burst into history and changed everything. While time has passed since Christ’s death and resurrection, the asymmetry of Barth’s cross is a reminder that Christ will one day return. It is a jarring, odd image for those of us used to the neat, balanced symmetry of the crosses we typically see.
* * * * * *
From team member Dean Feldmeyer:Isaiah 64:1-9
In this passage from 2nd Isaiah, the prophet speaks on behalf of the people held captive in Babylon, asking God to act decisively and rescue them. But first he admits that their plight is, in many ways, their own fault and that acts of repentance by the people are called for.
Mea Culpa
In verses 5-7, Isaiah, speaking for all the people, attends to their relationship with God by confessing that much of what has happened is their own fault. “We have all become like one who is unclean and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth.” (In other words, not very righteous.)
In many of the liturgical churches, this is a weekly ritual — a prayer of confession wherein we acknowledge that many, if not most, of our problems are our own fault. They are the results of bad choices, selfish actions, thoughtless words, simple rudeness, intentional meanness and, sometimes, outright cruelty.
The prayer is called the “Confiteor” after the first word of the prayer when it is spoken in Latin: Confiteor Deo omnipotenti, et vobis fratres… In English: “I confess to almighty God and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have greatly sinned, in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done and in what I have failed to do, through my fault, through my own fault, through my own most grievous fault…”
* * *
I’m Sorry — Famous Celebrity Apologies
In 2022, The New York Times followed a story about British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s parties during the Covid pandemic and his apology when he was discovered with a story about famous celebrity apologies.
Boris Johnson – The admission by Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain on Wednesday that, yes, he did attend a Downing Street party in May 2020 while telling pandemic-weary Britons they must isolate — a party he had earlier denied knowing about — has weakened him. Whether the apology will relieve the growing pressure on Mr. Johnson to resign remains unclear.
Theresa May – Mr. Johnson’s predecessor as prime minister and former leader of the dominant Conservative Party, Mrs. May, resigned in 2019 after repeated failures in finalizing Brexit, Britain’s exit from the European Union. She made a well-remembered apology in 2017 for having presided over one of her party’s worst parliamentary election losses.
Justin Trudeau – Mr. Trudeau’s tenure as prime minister of Canada — and his reputation as a hero of tolerance and diversity — was imperiled in 2019 by disclosures that he had masqueraded in black face and brown face. “I know there are Canadians, many, many Canadians, that I have deeply hurt with the choices I made,” Mr. Trudeau said in seeking forgiveness. “I am going to work very hard to demonstrate that as an individual I will continue to stand against intolerance and racism.”
Park Geun-hye – Ms. Park, the former president of South Korea who was engulfed in scandals that paralyzed her government, was impeached in 2016 and later imprisoned. In the weeks leading up to her impeachment for abuse of power, she apologized at least three times, including in a televised address in which she proclaimed: “All of this happening is my fault. It happened because of my neglect.”
Tiger Woods – Mr. Woods, the world’s most famous golfer, admitted in 2009 to having committed unspecified errors of judgment after reports emerged that he had engaged in multiple extramarital affairs. “I have let my family down and I regret those transgressions with all of my heart,” Mr. Woods wrote on his website. “I have not been true to my values and the behavior my family deserves.” His apology and plea for privacy were received positively, including from corporate sponsors.
Mel Gibson – Mr. Gibson, the film star and director, was accused in July 2006 of having made virulently anti-Semitic remarks to an arresting officer who stopped him on suspicion of drunken driving near his home in Malibu, California. Mr. Gibson sought to make amends in a statement issued by his publicist. “I acted like a person completely out of control when I was arrested, and said things that I do not believe to be true and which are despicable. I am deeply ashamed of everything I said, and I apologize to anyone I may have offended.”
* * *
How To Apologize
Healthline.com offers these 8 suggestions on how to apologize sincerely and effectively:
1. Understand why you’re apologizing – To make a good apology, you’ll want to first have a good understanding of where you went wrong. Regret is a key element of effective apologies, but you’ll probably find it difficult to express sincere regret when you don’t know what you regret doing.
Recalling your mistake may not feel all that pleasant, especially when you know you hurt someone. If you already feel guilty or disappointed in yourself, you might even avoid thinking about it entirely. Remember, though: No matter how bad you feel, the other person likely feels worse. Failing to acknowledge their pain does them further injustice.
2. Start with ‘I’m sorry.’ Period. – Apologies that contain qualifiers or justifications typically won’t get the job done. Following “I’m sorry” with “but” or “it’s just that” is never the way to go. When you rationalize your actions, you’re essentially passing the blame to another person. This sends the message that you don’t think you did anything wrong and gives your apology a ring of superficiality.
3. Take responsibility for your actions – Acknowledging your mistake can go a long way toward helping you convey remorse, but don’t stop there. A sincere apology also involves empathy for the person you hurt, and it’s important to acknowledge the pain your actions caused.
Keeping explanations brief and to the point can help you avoid taking them too far and turning them into excuses.
4. Focus on the impact of your actions — not your intent – Sure, you didn’t intend to hurt anyone. Still, at the end of the day, your intent often matters less than the impact of your actions.
5. Take steps to make amends – Effective apologies involve an effort to begin repairing the situation. Sometimes, reparative behavior is pretty clear. Such as: If you borrowed your sister’s car without asking and got it filthy inside and out, your apology might involve paying to have it cleaned and detailed or, if you rushed through a work assignment and gave your supervisor a report containing incorrect information, you might commit to staying late to fix your mistakes.
6. Don’t overdo it – Generally speaking, the apology should fit the mistake. Excessive reparations or behavior that goes above and beyond what they asked of you might help ease your guilt, but it won’t necessarily have any benefits for the person you wronged.
It might even lead them to doubt your sincerity — after all, you didn’t listen to their request.
7. Ask for forgiveness – Requesting forgiveness is an important part of the apology, because it gives the person you wronged some agency in the situation. In other words, asking for forgiveness tells them you don’t assume they’ll automatically forgive you.
The process of forgiveness can take time, and you may need to do some work, like making amends and addressing problematic behaviors, in order to earn it. Keep in mind that forgiveness isn’t guaranteed, no matter how sincere your apology. That said, you’re more likely to earn it by making it clear you’ve truly repented your actions and made a serious effort to change.
8. Know when you shouldn’t apologize – Apologies can heal damage in relationships after mistakes or thoughtless behavior. But apologizing when you did nothing wrong, simply to prevent conflict, can affect your sense of self-worth and ultimately damage you.
* * *
Apology vs. Repentance
I was pressed for time but I knew that, if I watched the clock and didn’t waste time, I could get to the gym, go through my workout, shower, dress and be back to the office in time for our monthly meeting of the Ministerial Association.
So, off I went, dashing to the gym, into the locker room, change into my workout clothes, onto the elliptical machine, over to the weight machine, finished on schedule. Dripping with sweat, I hurry to the locker room, into the shower, turn on the water, and…cold. Ice cold. I wait. Still cold. Time ticking away. Still cold.
I throw my sweats back on and rush to the desk where the following dialogue ensues:
Me: Marsha, there’s no hot water in the men’s shower.
Marsha (The Manager): Oh, yeah. Sorry. Someone shoulda told you when you came in. We’ve called the plumber and he should have it fixed by tomorrow.
Me: Tomorrow?
Marsha: Yeah, that’s the earliest he can get here.
Me: Gee, Marsha, it would have been nice if someone would have told me. I’ve got a meeting in 45, no, 35 minutes and I can’t go like this. Even a note on the door would have been nice.
Marsha: (Sighing, exasperated, slamming down the work she’s doing) Dean! I said I’m sorry!
As I try to wash the sweat off by splashing a little cold water here and there, it occurs to me: That wasn’t an apology. She’s not really sorry. She’s just sorry I’m mad. She thinks that going through the motions of an apology is the moral equivalent of not doing the thing in the first place. We have done her generation a serious disservice: We have not taught them the true meaning of repentance.
* * *
1 Corinthians 1:3-9
Paul introduces his letter to the church in Corinth by reminding them at the end of the passage of probably the most important attribute of the God whom we worship: “God is faithful.”
A Quarter’s Worth of Faithfulness
Fred Craddock, in an address to ministers, on the practical implications of consecration: “To give my life for Christ appears glorious. To pour myself out for others. . . to pay the ultimate price of martyrdom — I'll do it. I'm ready, Lord, to go out in a blaze of glory.
“We think giving our all to the Lord is like taking $l,000 bill and laying it on the table — ‘Here's my life, Lord. I'm giving it all.’ But the reality for most of us is that he sends us to the bank and has us cash in the $l,000 for quarters.
“We go through life putting out 25 cents here and 50 cents there. Listen to the neighbor kid's troubles instead of saying, ‘Get lost.’ Go to a committee meeting. Give a cup of water to a shaky old man in a nursing home. Usually giving our life to Christ isn't glorious. It's done in all those little acts of love, 25 cents at a time. It would be easy to go out in a flash of glory; it's harder to live the Christian life little by little over the long haul.”
* * *
Faithful, Rain Or Shine
A little boy in our community contracted a devastating form of cancer that required several surgeries and months of treatments. His parents’ health insurance would cover only a fraction of the cost so several of us in the community, clergy and laity, all got together with the idea of a benefit concert to help the family.
We contacted local bands, radio stations, news outlets, churches, and service organizations with our story, our plan, and the goal we had set for raising money with the concert. The concert we intended soon became an all day festival.
A local family gave us the free use of a field near the road, the community donated the use of their covered stage, about a dozen bands from rock to bluegrass volunteered to come and play, and two radio personalities agreed to come and be the masters of ceremony. Port-a-potty rentals were donated. Hundreds of dollars in concessions were provided by churches. One of the bands agreed to stay all day and let other bands use their sound equipment.
And then the Saturday finally came.
And so did the rain. It didn’t just rain, it poured down. So hard it fell that at times it was nearly impossible to see the stage. All morning it rained. By the time the rain eased off to just a steady downpour, it was mid-afternoon, any potential audience had left or not showed up at all, the bands had canceled or gone home.
Except for a few. About fifty people were still sitting in their lawn chairs under umbrellas and one country band was still there, ready to play if the opportunity presented itself. When they noticed that the stage had been kept mostly dry due to the roof, they decided to go out and play a couple numbers for the fifty people who stayed.
Two hours later they ended their concert with more than 200 people in the audience and we over achieved our fund-raising goal. All becaue a few audience members and one band were faithful.
* * *
Mark 13:24-37
This passage is often referred to by scholars as “Mark’s Little Apocalyptic” and preachers often skip it, not sure what to do with or say about it. But Mark doesn’t just drop it in our laps without explanation. With the final two words of the passage, he tells us what the point is. He gives us both the indicative and the imperative. “Keep awake!”
The Boy Who Stayed Awake For 11 Days (Long Illustration, but worth it)
From: grunge.com --
In December 1963, two San Diego teenagers named Randy Gardner and Bruce McAllister had been cooking up an idea for their high school science fair project. They settled on seeing how long one of them could stay awake, while the other would record any side effects of the sleeplessness. The pair also had an eye on breaking the world record for staying awake. At the time, it was held by a DJ in Honolulu, who had gone 260 hours without sleep. "[The] first version of it was [to explore] the effect of sleeplessness on paranormal ability," McAllister told the BBC in 2018. "We realized there was no way we could do that and so we decided on the effect of sleep deprivation on cognitive abilities, performance on the basketball court. Whatever we could come up with."
After Gardner lost a coin toss, it was determined that he would be the subject to go without sleep. After two days of being kept awake, some effects began to surface. He had difficulty focusing his eyes and trouble with certain words in tongue-twisters. But the real problem with the study is that McAllister also started falling asleep. "We were idiots, you know young idiots," he said, adding, "and I stayed awake with him to monitor him ... and after three night of sleeplessness myself I woke up tipped against the wall writing notes on the wall itself." The two quickly realized they needed a third person and recruited classmate Joe Marciano.
The amateur study by three high school students began to make the news and caught the attention of US Navy medic Lieutenant Commander John J. Ross and Stanford University sleep researcher William Dement. Sleep science was a nascent field at the time, and it was considered by many to be a dangerous area to study because of the potential damage to sleep study subjects. "I was probably the only person on the planet at the time who had actually done sleep research," Dement told the BBC. "[Randy's parents] were very worried that this might be something that would really be harmful to him. Because the question was still unresolved on whether or not if you go without sleep long enough you will die."
By day three, Ross noticed that Gardner had trouble controlling his emotions and wild mood swings. Hallucinations began after five days. During the day, Gardner played basketball and pinball with his fellow students, which was much easier than trying to stay awake at night. They tested his sense of hearing, smell and taste. The observers noted that his cognitive and sensory abilities were affected. "I mean, it was crazy, where you couldn't remember things, it was almost like an early Alzheimer's thing brought on by lack of sleep," Gardner told NPR in 2017. He ultimately stayed awake for 264.4 hours — 11 entire days — ending on January 8, 1964.
Others have reportedly beaten Gardner's time in the decades that passed, but Guinness World Records stopped certifying these attempts out of fear that record-seekers would damage their health.
* * *
New Parents on Sleep Deprivation
Few people understand the effects of sleep deprivation better than new parents. Here, from fatherly.com are a couple of stories told by the dads themselves:
Darren, 37, Arizona — “When you’re exhausted, your scheduling ability just tanks. Our daughter kept us up all week, and I think I may have logged about 10 hours of total sleep. I woke up one morning thinking it was Friday, got ready for work, and drove to the office. I leave before my wife gets up, so she didn’t even notice. I was like, ‘Awesome! No traffic!’ Then I got there, and the building was locked. I actually had to ask someone what day it was — I was like Marty McFly from Back to the Future.” -- Yeah. It was Saturday. And he missed his cartoons, too.
Matthew, 38, Michigan — “We don’t have a cat, but my wife did when she was little. There’s this stray cat that comes up to our door every once in a while, and he must have been hanging outside late at night. My wife was so tired that she just opened the door and let him in. It must have been a subconscious thing from when she was young, because she used to have to do that all the time. The stray cat came in and slept on the couch all night. I didn’t freak out, I just woke her up, pointed to it, and said, ‘So, who’s your new friend?’ He still comes around, even though we kicked him out.” — If you feed them, they’ll never leave. It’s true of cat’s, too.
John, 36, New York — “This was during a meeting at work. It was one of those garbage ‘all staff’ meetings we have every week, where everyone from the company gathers in a conference room. There are never enough seats, so I always stand. I propped myself up against a wall, the meeting started, and the next thing I know I’m being woken up by my boss’s secretary. I looked at the clock and 45 minutes had gone by! I stayed standing the whole time, and I was worried everyone saw me sleeping. But she said she was pretty sure she was the only one who noticed. Thank God.” — Yeah, right. 45 minutes and they didn’t notice you sleeping? Either they were cutting you a break or they were asleep, too. Musta been a great meeting.
Caleb, 31, Tennessee — “Laundry is constant for new parents. So, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that this one happens to a lot of people. We were always up — my wife and I — and we always seemed to be doing laundry. The washer and dryer both buzzed and I went down to change the loads. They were both empty. For a minute, I thought I was losing my mind. Then I asked her and she facepalmed and said she must’ve forgotten to actually put laundry in.” — No big deal. I’m 72 and I do that all the time. Oh, wait. Maybe it is a big deal.
* * *
Insomnia and Laughture
From Leadership, Fall, 1993, p. 129
Number of times a child laughs each day, on average: 400
Number of times an adult laughs each day, on overage: 15
Number of Americans with stress-related insomnia: 1 in 5
Number on any given day who need more sleep: 45 million
Percentage decrease in average sleep time, since 1900: 20
* * *
How To Stay Awake
“Keep awake!” Yeah, easy for you to say, Jesus. But for some of us, it’s harder than usual. For some, it’s darned near impossible.
But, according to healthnile.com, there are some things that can help:
- First, talk to your doctor. You may be sleep deprived due to a physical condition, like sleep apnea, for which there are treatments.
- Move around. If you find yourself drifting off, get up and move around. Splash some cold water on your face, doing something physical but not exhausting can help wake you up.
- Eat a snack. Something light. The act of chewing can actually keep you awake. But be careful. Eating too much can make you even sleepier. Sugarless chewing or bubble gum might be the answer.
- Talk. Talking to a friend or family member can help you stay awake. Or singing along with the radio or something you’ve recorded.
- Get a good night’s sleep the night before. Your inability to stay awake may meaning nothing more than that you are tired.
- Practice simple stretching exercises.
Shoulder rolls, moving the shoulders around; Neck rolls, moving the neck forward and round and then doing so again in the opposite direction; Leg swings.
* * * * * *
From team member Elena Delhagen:Waiting is certainly the overarching theme of our faith story as we approach the Advent season. All of the liturgical passages for this week point us to the reality that, as Christians, our wait isn’t over just because Christmas arrives. Instead, we’re waiting still, because we know that Jesus is coming back. Expressed in the words of the prophet and psalmist as a longing for God’s mercy and restoration, in the gospel of Mark as awaiting the coming of the Son of Man, and in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians as the fervent hope for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, these scriptures orient us to something all human beings tend to struggle with: Waiting.
One of my son’s favorite children’s authors is Mo Willems, well-known for his books including loving characters like The Pigeon, Gerald the Elephant, and Piggie. In his 2014 release, Waiting is Not Easy! Piggie approaches Gerald and tells him that she has a surprise for him — but he’ll have to wait for him. She promises it will be worth it, so Gerald gets straight to work with the hard job of waiting. And waiting. And waiting. All day, he waits, at times becoming so impatient that he’s tempted to just give up and walk away. As night falls, Gerald panics, sure he’s missed out on the surprise. Suddenly, the page is filled with a beautiful night sky, dotted with sparkling stars, and Gerald realizes this surprise truly was worth the wait.
Sometimes, we wait for something thinking we know what it’s going to be like. Then it comes, and we realize how little we knew all along.
Such is the case as we wait for Christ’s return. Though mentioned in scripture, we have at times conflicting accounts of what it will be like, reminding us that in the end, it truly will be an unpredictable event.
And so we wait.
* * *
Since October 7, 2023, the world has waited with its breath caught in its throat for a ceasefire in the Hamas-Israel War. We wait, and we wait, and we wait.
A month after the war began, The New York Times printed an achingly beautiful essay by Mosab Abu Toha, a Palestinian poet living in the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza. The title? “The Agony of Waiting For a Ceasefire That Never Comes.” There is one line that stands out in stark contrast to all the rest: “There is no hope here.”
This raises the question of how we wait when there is no hope (whether real or imagined). It’s not a question that has an easy answer, I’m afraid, but it seems like it should be a question we ask ourselves and our congregations this Advent.
* * *
A word that gets thrown around a lot when we’re talking about Christ’s return is “apocalypse.” For a lot of people, it’s a scary word. It conjures up images of last judgements and lakes of fire, of strange scenes found in Revelation about horses named Death and plagues upon plagues. People — even people in the church — have sensationalized the idea of apocalypse. The root of the word comes from the Greek αποκαλυψισ (“apokálypsis”), which means to uncover, reveal, or lay bare. It’s like an unveiling that reveals things as they really are.
The Hebrew counterpart is גֶּלֶה , galah, also defined as an uncovering. In Genesis 35, when Jacob encounters the Lord during his return to Bethel, the encounter is written in Hebrew with a form of the very same verb. Jacob meets God, and the truth is uncovered. It’s not the end of the world, but it is the end of Jacob’s worldview up until that point. He was able to move past his confusion and dismay after God appeared to him, instead focusing on the truth that had been revealed to him, that his time of exile was over.
In truth, the Bible is full of apocalypses. And so are our lives. Whether through trials and suffering or personal joys and triumphs, we are faced at different points in our lives with times of revelations where we understand things that once appeared to be hidden from us.
The United States has been experiencing apocalypses over the last seven to eight years; there have been shifts in who we understand our leaders and our governments to be and what and who they stand for. We’ve weathered apocalypses in our relationships and family as we learn more about the personal politics and beliefs of people we’ve respected and cared about. Some apocalypses are good, however. Best-selling author Sarah Bessey writes about her personal history with chronic illness and her revelation that no matter how good or faithful a Christian she was, she would still experience pain and illness. There’s the apocalypse — learning the truth in a very visceral, tangible, experiential way.
What are the apocalypses you’ve lived through in your own life? In your faith community? In your town? Nation? In the world? What are the truths being uncovered?
* * * * * *
WORSHIPby George Reed
Call to Worship
One: Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock!
All: You who are enthroned upon the cherubim, shine forth.
One: Stir up your might, and come to save us!
All: Restore us, O God; let your face shine, that we may be saved.
One: But let your hand be upon the one at your right hand.
All: Give us life, and we will call on your name.
OR
One: God comes in the midst of troubles and offers us hope.
All: We welcome the hope God brings to all the world.
One: God offers hope when all around us seems dark.
All: We rejoice in the light God sheds on our path.
One: Through us God offers hope to all the world.
All: We will share God’s hope with all.
Hymns and Songs
Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus
UMH: 196
H82: 66
PH: 1/2
GTG: 82/83
NCH: 122
LBW: 30
ELW: 254
W&P: 153
AMEC: 103
Savior of the Nations, Come
UMH: 214
PH: 14
GTG: 102
LBW: 28
ELW: 263
W&P: 168
Lift up Your Heads, Ye Mighty Gates
UMH: 213
H82: 436
GTG: 93
NCH: 117
CH: 139
LBW: 32
W&P: 176
AMEC: 94
Renew: 59
O Come, O Come, Emmanuel
UMH: 211
H82: 56
PH: 9
GTG: 88
AAHH: 188
NNBH: 82
NCH: 116
CH: 119
LBW: 34
ELW: 257
W&P: 154
AMEC: 102
STLT 225
One Bread, One Body
UMH: 620
GTG: 530
CH: 393
ELW: 496
W&P: 689
Bread of the World
UMH: 624
H82: 301
PH: 502
GTG: 499
NCH: 346
CH: 387
W&P: 693
Hope of the World
UMH: 178
H82: 472
PH: 360
GTG: 734
NCH: 46
CH: 538
LBW: 493
W&P: 404
Soon and Very Soon
UMH: 706
GTG: 384
AAHH: 193
NNBH: 476
ELW: 439
W&P: 523
CCB: 93
Renew: 276
Lo, He Comes with Clouds Descending
UMH: 718
H82: 57/58
PH: 6
GTG: 348
LBW: 27
ELW: 435
AMEC: 99
We Meet You, O Christ
UMH: 257
PH: 311
CH: 183
W&P: 616
Something Beautiful
CCB: 84
May You Run and Not Be Weary
CCB: 99
Music Resources Key
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
GTG: Glory to God, The Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELW: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day/Collect
O God who is ever revealing yourself to your children:
Grant us the wisdom and courage to also see ourselves
so that you may be born in us each day;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, for you are always revealing yourself to us. You come to us in so many surprising and common ways. Come and be born in us this day and every day. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
One: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially our failure to place our hope in God.
All: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We have placed our hope in things that are passing. We have placed our hope in power and might. We have placed our hope in things. We have forgotten the one who created us and made us in the divine image. We have placed our hope in ourselves. Forgive us for our foolishness and self-centeredness. Renew your Spirit within us and make us whole. Amen.
One: God comes to save us and redeem us. Receive God’s gracious love and forgiveness. Allow the renewing Spirit of God to make you whole and to make you a healer in the midst of the world’s hurts.
Prayers of the People
We worship and adore you, O God, for you are our hope in the midst of hopelessness. You are the one who never fails us.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We have placed our hope in things that are passing. We have placed our hope in power and might. We have placed our hope in things. We have forgotten the one who created us and made us in the divine image. We have placed our hope in ourselves. Forgive us for our foolishness and self-centeredness. Renew your Spirit within us and make us whole.
We give you thanks for all the ways you restore our hope when things look hopeless. We thank you for those you send to us to encourage us and restore our faith. We thank you for those who have been faithful in times when the outlook has been bleak. You have blessed us with those who help us remember in the depth of winter that spring will come.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for one another in our times of need. We lift up those who are suffering into the balm of your healing presence. We remember those who suffer hunger, thirst, and deprivation. We hold in our hearts those who are alone and lonely; those who are struggling to find their way; those who suffer in body, mind, or spirit.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
Hear us as we pray for others: (Time for silent or spoken prayer.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ who taught us to pray saying:
Our Father....Amen.
(Or if the Our Father is not used at this point in the service.)
All this we ask in the name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
* * * * * *
CHILDREN'S SERMONWaiting and Giving Thanks
by Quantisha Mason-Doll
1 Corinthians 1:3-9
We are in the first week of Advent. Advent is a time of preparing and waiting — but not for Christmas gifts. Advent is a time when we wait and prepare for the coming of our Lord.
How often do you give thanks to the Lord? Is it as often as you say “thank you” to your parents? Your siblings? Your teachers? Your friends? How many of you believe you have to receive something physical before saying thank you?
Giving thanks should not only be about showing gratitude for gifts. We can also say thank you for the times when the people we cared about the most showed up and were present with us. Maybe it was the time your friend held your hand when you were scared. Or maybe it was when someone special gave you a hug when you really needed it. These are the moments where “thank you” means the most. As we prepare this Advent season we should continually give thanks to the Lord our God. Time and again, God chooses to be with us. So much so the word becomes flesh in the form of Jesus Christ — the one we wait for. For this reason, we give thanks.
Prayer
Lord, Show us to know your Grace
Lord, Guide us in building Peace
Lord, Help us to know our Gifts
God, be with us as we await our King to come in glory.
Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, December 3, 2023 issue.
Copyright 2023 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
