Evergreen Wreath And Faded Leaf
Sermon
LIGHT IN THE LAND OF SHADOWS
Sermons For Advent, Christmas And Epiphany, Cycle B
The occasion was a joyous one as the young bride and groom settled into their seats at the head table at the Country Club. Like most wedding rehearsal dinners, the environment was heightened by candles, flowers, special music, expensive clothes, and family and friends who had not seen each other in years. Most likely many would not embrace one another again until the next family wedding or a funeral shivered its way to the forefront. All the proper symbols of hope were present in the room: the greenery, the gifts, the invocation from the preacher, the wedding photograph (touched up as only a professional earning top dollar can effect), and the round of toasts.
As the toasts continued, from the humorous to the meaningful to the absurd, the clanging of utensils on glasses ceased when the mother of the bride rose. She was a graceful woman. She exuded charm, beauty, and class. For forty years she had hung together with her husband through a number of his debilitating illnesses and financial reversals. The road she had traveled had been a rough one. But determined pride, the intervention of Alcoholics Anonymous, sheer will-power, and belief in God had helped her persevere and maintain that marriage. With a glint in her eye and a smile on her lips, she addressed her daughter and future son-in-law. Her toast was as simple as it was profound: "Honey, I hope you and your husband will be as happy as your father and I thought we would be forty years ago."
That paradox, the apparent contradiction between hope and despair, expectation and reality, provides a fitting backdrop for this season we call Advent. All the proper symbols are here for the season of hope: the candles, the flowers, the special music, the gathering of the family of God, the exhortation of the preacher, and the expectation of gifts still to come. For four weeks we will focus on the incredible hope that is Advent: God coming to save God's people. For four weeks we will relive that anxious expectation like a young bride or groom: Israel waiting, Mary waiting, John the Baptizer waiting. Yet the paradox is still there. Contrary to our usual manner of celebration, Advent begins on a note of despair, not hope. All the human schemes for self-improvement, eternal bliss, and ethical responsibility by the people of God have taken us to the realization that we cannot save ourselves.
The first lectionary lesson rushes us into the paradox. Advent with its wreath of evergreen, symbol of life, of growth, of hope, is rushed back 2500 years to Isaiah and his recognition that "we all do fade as a leaf." That's the paradox of Advent -- the evergreen wreath of hope amid the reality that we indeed do all fade like a leaf. The trust in God that is voiced is apparently counterbalanced by a deep sense of desperation, symbolized by a faded leaf so vulnerable it can be blown away into oblivion.
At the personal level we vacillate between the evergreen wreath and the faded leaf. The famed agnostic Robert G. Ingersoll spoke these somber words at the graveside of his brother:
...every life, no matter if its every hour is rich with love and every moment jeweled with a joy, will at its close, become a tragedy as sad and deep and dark as can be woven of the warp and woof of mystery and death.1
Physically our lives do march toward the faded leaf instead of the evergreen wreath. The human body has its seasons commensurate with spring, summer, autumn, and winter. The advancing years take their toll. The eyes dim, the hearing wanes, the hair grays, and the muscles lose their tone. The body becomes as fading as the leaf which will one day fall from the tree. As the ability to concentrate is lessened and the latter days become less comfortable, perhaps many a senior citizen is tempted to toast the next generation with the words: "We hope you will be as happy as we thought we would be forty years ago." And, as long as we view the physical life as moving inexorably toward a grand anticlimax, it matters little whether the leaf falls from the tree in a violent storm or gently floats down from an old forsaken limb.
The faded leaf of despair confronts the evergreen Advent wreath in our social order as well. Twenty centuries after the Christ was born and taught his followers that salvation lay in feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and visiting the sick, we have the technical capacity to free humankind from the scourge of hunger. No child need go to bed hungry, and no human being's future and capabilities need be stunted by malnutrition. Yet where is the evergreen wreath of Advent hope for the 500 million to one billion people seriously malnourished in our world? Do we thrust our well-filled glass in their direction and with a furrow on our brow exclaim: "We hope you will be as happy as our agricultural analysts thought you would be forty years ago"?
Finally, notice how the evergreen wreath and the faded leaf come together in our religious heritage.
Look at the poor Israelites. They were always finding God and just as quickly losing God. Isaiah's sixty-fourth chapter is an intercessory prayer, asking the question, "Where in the world is God?" Some exiles have returned home to discover their temple in ruins, their property destroyed, and their people a bunch of half-breeds without any faith. The prophet prays, "God, you have hid your face from us." Then he vehemently petitions, "Rend the heavens and come down. Let the mountains quake at your presence. Throw your weight around. Belly up to the bar. Make yourself clearly known. Give us another Exodus. Part the sea again. Break your unbearable silence." In other words, "Make us as happy as we thought we would be forty years ago when we prayed for this exile to end."
Likewise, the New Testament provides ample evidence that people sometimes find God but then lose God again. The lame man at the pool of Bethesda wistfully puts his faith in gimmicks and gadgets. Mary Magdalene thinks she has lost God when she cannot find the body of Jesus. Peter denies his Lord and sits down beside the road in despair, having lost the very thing he has prized most -- his close relationship with God. And Judas obviously has God at his elbow for years but loses him, even unknowingly betrays him.
It happens to most of us. We go through periods in life when God appears close at hand, but we also experience periods when God seems very far away in the heavens and so cut off from the earth.
It is at this point of paradox and darkness that Advent becomes an ever-present need in our lives. Just as ancient Israel under Isaiah's guidance hoped that the Exodus-Sinai events in her memory would be reenacted so life could begin again as it began in the days of Moses, so do we focus on the evergreen wreath hoping that our collective memories of the coming of Christ to the world so long ago will be reenacted in our midst so life can begin again for us.
The faded leaf is but one side of the paradox of Advent. To refuse to embrace the dying of the physical, the social, and even the religious, is to ignore the real ministry of the darkness and its rest. Indeed, all our faded leaves of existence and personal darknesses remind us that all the schemes, expectations, and goals we have set -- for ourselves, our world, and our religious organizations -- have yet to be redeemed. There's more that needs to come. We, too, join the longing of Isaiah, Mary, and John for God to break into our isolation. We place our wreath of hope alongside the darkness of our faded leaves. Perhaps the paradox of Advent becomes ultimately our one great hope. It is an irrational, apocalyptic hope, which informs our waiting. As Frederick Buechner posits, "The darkness hungers still for the great light that has gone out, the crazy dream of holiness coming down out of heaven like a bride (or groom) adorned for us."2
For people like us -- ever thoughtful, ever reasonable, and ever realistic -- the evergreen wreath of Advent, the special music, the candles, the flowers, and the best efforts of the preacher are necessary. Our wedding rehearsal is necessary as we sit in the darkness and hunger for the bride or the groom of life to come to us. All our hopes twisted together make enough hope to live by, hope enough to see beyond the faded leaf and give us the courage to wait for more.
And this waiting is not easy. The Hebrew word for "waiting" has affinity with a word that means "to entrench." The idea of waiting for God is that of digging ourselves in to God. It means going through a period of our lives trying to adjust ourselves to the truth of God which we know. Waiting requires strength. It is an expression of confidence in the one who, despite the faded leaves of human response, will do something new and surprising and startling, just as has been done before.
The evergreen wreath and the faded leaf stand for the paradox of God's involvement with humankind. From the ranks of the poor, the faded, and the disinherited have come God's liberators.
The similarities between our condition and those of the days in which Isaiah's words were spoken are obvious. We still cry for God to rend the heavens and come down. In the period of darkness, Isaiah's people were brought to the point of knowing that they did not know and understanding that they did not understand. The mystery of faded leaves being transformed into evergreen wreaths is symbolic of the power of God transforming darkness into light in human lives. This transformation spans the whole sweep of biblical history. Abraham, the unbeliever, becomes the obedient servant of God. Jacob, who cheats his father out of something that wasn't his, becomes the loving father of Israel. Moses the angry murderer becomes Moses the patient father of a nation. Peter -- the cursing, redneck, abrasive fisherman -- becomes the tolerant leader of the church.
Perhaps the biggest transformation recorded in the Bible took place in the life of one named Saul. He made a very big move. He changed from a person of hate into a person of love. It was a big change. He got a second chance and he got it in the middle of his life.
A second chance, early or later in life, is not cheap. Saul wandered around stumbling, blind. People had to lead him around. Saul was used to being in control, calling the shots. He had all the credentials, all the degrees, all the certainties and securities. Suddenly he was detached from all that. He became helpless, needy, and small. He became a faded leaf that could have been blown off the tree of responsibility at any minute. All he could do was wait and hope. Contrary to some popular misconceptions, this one called Saul did not immediately begin his ministry and have his name changed to Paul. He was silent from the Scriptures for at least two years. Those two years must have been quite painful as the "faded leaf" of existence was juxtaposed with his newly-found eternal Savior. He felt the bitter disappointment of his family as they saw the young scholar espouse a controversial cause. He experienced the disillusionment of his fellow Jews when he turned his back on a brilliant rabbinical career. He knew the high cost of renouncing his family, childhood faith, and secure position. Certainly Paul, as appraised by those who were on the other side, appeared to be a personal, societal, and religious faded leaf, ready to be blown from the tree of life. All Paul could do was wait and hope in the eternal. But this hope gave him the vision to see beyond the faded leaf and wait for more.
We begin our journey this year with the evergreen wreath and words from Isaiah about a faded leaf. We wait for more. So be it.
____________
1. Robert G. Ingersoll as quoted by Edgar DeWitt Jones in Blundering Into Paradise (New York: Harper, 1932), p. 53.
2. Frederick Buechner, The Hungering Dark.
As the toasts continued, from the humorous to the meaningful to the absurd, the clanging of utensils on glasses ceased when the mother of the bride rose. She was a graceful woman. She exuded charm, beauty, and class. For forty years she had hung together with her husband through a number of his debilitating illnesses and financial reversals. The road she had traveled had been a rough one. But determined pride, the intervention of Alcoholics Anonymous, sheer will-power, and belief in God had helped her persevere and maintain that marriage. With a glint in her eye and a smile on her lips, she addressed her daughter and future son-in-law. Her toast was as simple as it was profound: "Honey, I hope you and your husband will be as happy as your father and I thought we would be forty years ago."
That paradox, the apparent contradiction between hope and despair, expectation and reality, provides a fitting backdrop for this season we call Advent. All the proper symbols are here for the season of hope: the candles, the flowers, the special music, the gathering of the family of God, the exhortation of the preacher, and the expectation of gifts still to come. For four weeks we will focus on the incredible hope that is Advent: God coming to save God's people. For four weeks we will relive that anxious expectation like a young bride or groom: Israel waiting, Mary waiting, John the Baptizer waiting. Yet the paradox is still there. Contrary to our usual manner of celebration, Advent begins on a note of despair, not hope. All the human schemes for self-improvement, eternal bliss, and ethical responsibility by the people of God have taken us to the realization that we cannot save ourselves.
The first lectionary lesson rushes us into the paradox. Advent with its wreath of evergreen, symbol of life, of growth, of hope, is rushed back 2500 years to Isaiah and his recognition that "we all do fade as a leaf." That's the paradox of Advent -- the evergreen wreath of hope amid the reality that we indeed do all fade like a leaf. The trust in God that is voiced is apparently counterbalanced by a deep sense of desperation, symbolized by a faded leaf so vulnerable it can be blown away into oblivion.
At the personal level we vacillate between the evergreen wreath and the faded leaf. The famed agnostic Robert G. Ingersoll spoke these somber words at the graveside of his brother:
...every life, no matter if its every hour is rich with love and every moment jeweled with a joy, will at its close, become a tragedy as sad and deep and dark as can be woven of the warp and woof of mystery and death.1
Physically our lives do march toward the faded leaf instead of the evergreen wreath. The human body has its seasons commensurate with spring, summer, autumn, and winter. The advancing years take their toll. The eyes dim, the hearing wanes, the hair grays, and the muscles lose their tone. The body becomes as fading as the leaf which will one day fall from the tree. As the ability to concentrate is lessened and the latter days become less comfortable, perhaps many a senior citizen is tempted to toast the next generation with the words: "We hope you will be as happy as we thought we would be forty years ago." And, as long as we view the physical life as moving inexorably toward a grand anticlimax, it matters little whether the leaf falls from the tree in a violent storm or gently floats down from an old forsaken limb.
The faded leaf of despair confronts the evergreen Advent wreath in our social order as well. Twenty centuries after the Christ was born and taught his followers that salvation lay in feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and visiting the sick, we have the technical capacity to free humankind from the scourge of hunger. No child need go to bed hungry, and no human being's future and capabilities need be stunted by malnutrition. Yet where is the evergreen wreath of Advent hope for the 500 million to one billion people seriously malnourished in our world? Do we thrust our well-filled glass in their direction and with a furrow on our brow exclaim: "We hope you will be as happy as our agricultural analysts thought you would be forty years ago"?
Finally, notice how the evergreen wreath and the faded leaf come together in our religious heritage.
Look at the poor Israelites. They were always finding God and just as quickly losing God. Isaiah's sixty-fourth chapter is an intercessory prayer, asking the question, "Where in the world is God?" Some exiles have returned home to discover their temple in ruins, their property destroyed, and their people a bunch of half-breeds without any faith. The prophet prays, "God, you have hid your face from us." Then he vehemently petitions, "Rend the heavens and come down. Let the mountains quake at your presence. Throw your weight around. Belly up to the bar. Make yourself clearly known. Give us another Exodus. Part the sea again. Break your unbearable silence." In other words, "Make us as happy as we thought we would be forty years ago when we prayed for this exile to end."
Likewise, the New Testament provides ample evidence that people sometimes find God but then lose God again. The lame man at the pool of Bethesda wistfully puts his faith in gimmicks and gadgets. Mary Magdalene thinks she has lost God when she cannot find the body of Jesus. Peter denies his Lord and sits down beside the road in despair, having lost the very thing he has prized most -- his close relationship with God. And Judas obviously has God at his elbow for years but loses him, even unknowingly betrays him.
It happens to most of us. We go through periods in life when God appears close at hand, but we also experience periods when God seems very far away in the heavens and so cut off from the earth.
It is at this point of paradox and darkness that Advent becomes an ever-present need in our lives. Just as ancient Israel under Isaiah's guidance hoped that the Exodus-Sinai events in her memory would be reenacted so life could begin again as it began in the days of Moses, so do we focus on the evergreen wreath hoping that our collective memories of the coming of Christ to the world so long ago will be reenacted in our midst so life can begin again for us.
The faded leaf is but one side of the paradox of Advent. To refuse to embrace the dying of the physical, the social, and even the religious, is to ignore the real ministry of the darkness and its rest. Indeed, all our faded leaves of existence and personal darknesses remind us that all the schemes, expectations, and goals we have set -- for ourselves, our world, and our religious organizations -- have yet to be redeemed. There's more that needs to come. We, too, join the longing of Isaiah, Mary, and John for God to break into our isolation. We place our wreath of hope alongside the darkness of our faded leaves. Perhaps the paradox of Advent becomes ultimately our one great hope. It is an irrational, apocalyptic hope, which informs our waiting. As Frederick Buechner posits, "The darkness hungers still for the great light that has gone out, the crazy dream of holiness coming down out of heaven like a bride (or groom) adorned for us."2
For people like us -- ever thoughtful, ever reasonable, and ever realistic -- the evergreen wreath of Advent, the special music, the candles, the flowers, and the best efforts of the preacher are necessary. Our wedding rehearsal is necessary as we sit in the darkness and hunger for the bride or the groom of life to come to us. All our hopes twisted together make enough hope to live by, hope enough to see beyond the faded leaf and give us the courage to wait for more.
And this waiting is not easy. The Hebrew word for "waiting" has affinity with a word that means "to entrench." The idea of waiting for God is that of digging ourselves in to God. It means going through a period of our lives trying to adjust ourselves to the truth of God which we know. Waiting requires strength. It is an expression of confidence in the one who, despite the faded leaves of human response, will do something new and surprising and startling, just as has been done before.
The evergreen wreath and the faded leaf stand for the paradox of God's involvement with humankind. From the ranks of the poor, the faded, and the disinherited have come God's liberators.
The similarities between our condition and those of the days in which Isaiah's words were spoken are obvious. We still cry for God to rend the heavens and come down. In the period of darkness, Isaiah's people were brought to the point of knowing that they did not know and understanding that they did not understand. The mystery of faded leaves being transformed into evergreen wreaths is symbolic of the power of God transforming darkness into light in human lives. This transformation spans the whole sweep of biblical history. Abraham, the unbeliever, becomes the obedient servant of God. Jacob, who cheats his father out of something that wasn't his, becomes the loving father of Israel. Moses the angry murderer becomes Moses the patient father of a nation. Peter -- the cursing, redneck, abrasive fisherman -- becomes the tolerant leader of the church.
Perhaps the biggest transformation recorded in the Bible took place in the life of one named Saul. He made a very big move. He changed from a person of hate into a person of love. It was a big change. He got a second chance and he got it in the middle of his life.
A second chance, early or later in life, is not cheap. Saul wandered around stumbling, blind. People had to lead him around. Saul was used to being in control, calling the shots. He had all the credentials, all the degrees, all the certainties and securities. Suddenly he was detached from all that. He became helpless, needy, and small. He became a faded leaf that could have been blown off the tree of responsibility at any minute. All he could do was wait and hope. Contrary to some popular misconceptions, this one called Saul did not immediately begin his ministry and have his name changed to Paul. He was silent from the Scriptures for at least two years. Those two years must have been quite painful as the "faded leaf" of existence was juxtaposed with his newly-found eternal Savior. He felt the bitter disappointment of his family as they saw the young scholar espouse a controversial cause. He experienced the disillusionment of his fellow Jews when he turned his back on a brilliant rabbinical career. He knew the high cost of renouncing his family, childhood faith, and secure position. Certainly Paul, as appraised by those who were on the other side, appeared to be a personal, societal, and religious faded leaf, ready to be blown from the tree of life. All Paul could do was wait and hope in the eternal. But this hope gave him the vision to see beyond the faded leaf and wait for more.
We begin our journey this year with the evergreen wreath and words from Isaiah about a faded leaf. We wait for more. So be it.
____________
1. Robert G. Ingersoll as quoted by Edgar DeWitt Jones in Blundering Into Paradise (New York: Harper, 1932), p. 53.
2. Frederick Buechner, The Hungering Dark.
