As some of you know, I really enjoy bringing poetry into conversations about Scripture. I heard a great one the other day in one of my seminary classes that seems so perfect for this first day of the Advent season and the beginning of a new church year.

 

The person who recited it didn’t provide a title or author, so I called it ‘While I Sit’ by author unknown.

 

While I Sit

While I sit and drink my beer,

The kingdom of God draws ever near.

 

What do you think? Great poem? Not so much? Before we laugh off this silly limerick (actually written by Martin Luther), I wonder if we shouldn’t be too quick to judge about what is good poetry and what isn’t. Afterall, part of what poetry does is to help us see and explore deeper truths. Seems to me there are indeed deeper, theological truths being declared in this tiny verse.

 

On one hand, could this be a declaration of faith?

Sound like the author knows with confidence that God is doing God’s thing. We’re not in control of God’s salvation of us or of the world. We are saved by grace in and through our faith and trust in God. So, when we hear potentially scary passages like this in the gospel, we can be clear and assured about our relationship with God and with all of creation. We do not need to fear either being swept away or left behind. A nice bonus for us Lutherans is that Luther loved his beer. So, we’re good on all fronts here.

 

On the other hand, the author seems to be waiting for Jesus to come and fix everything. They may think the pain of this world has nothing to do with them. The poet may be thinking, “God’s got it all covered, so I’ll just kick up my heels and enjoy my beverage.”

 

Do you hear how both interpretations might be here?

 

Today is the first day of Advent and the first day of our church year. Our church year starts with a time of waiting, a time of anticipation of the light of the world to come in the form of a baby. A vulnerable King who changes the world by inverting how we understand power, showing us how humility, love, and non-violence actually does change the world for the better. A King who tells us time and again to take care of the poor and embrace the rejected and abandoned.

 

This isn’t a King who says he’s going to do it all for us. Certainly with us, perhaps through us, but not without us. So the poet who may be thinking he’s not needed is not right about this one.

 

My prayer for us in advent is that we are waking up and watching for God’s miracles in our lives, for us personally but also for the world. My prayer for us is that we are all filled with faith, hope, and love and we discover our abundance is enough to share. People often wonder about what they are actually supposed to do in response to the world. We wonder about how God is calling us to respond. While that answer is different for each of us, I am pretty sure about one thing. I’m pretty sure it’s not to maximize our quality time with beer or leisure. Now, don’t get me wrong. I believe in the necessity and sanctity of rest. I also believe in the value of quality time spent sharing a beer or glass of wine or other beverages of choice. Clearly that is so, because we’re going to Warm Springs Winery today. However, this is perhaps not what Jesus was asking of us when he says to stay awake. Or in Paul’s letter to the Romans, when he says it is time to wake from sleep.

 

In the Isaiah text, we are given a wonderful image of a time when all wars will be done.

 

 

He declares that we won’t even bother learning how to do war anymore and we will transform our arsenals into ways of a caring for each other. It’s a beautiful passage of hope for what is possible in the midst of a world where that vision seems impossible.

 

In the Isaiah passage, God is the primary actor, lifting the mountain of the Lord’s house. However, people participate in response.

 

They are travel, worship, instruct, and they beat their weapons into plowshares and pruning hooks. This work isn’t done for us. I also didn’t notice any beer drinking. I mean, I hope at the end of the day of hard work of beating weapons into plowshares, they shared a pint. But mostly I bet they had stuff to do. Their hands were busy participating in the Lord’s work of creating God’s kingdom.

 

In this time of advent, this time of waiting for the birth of Christ, we are being asked to stay awake to new life, to God’s action in our lives as the primary actor. Like the people in Isaiah’s vision, we too are asked to participate in making that new life reality.

 

Unlike our poet who’s got his feet up, waiting for everything to be done for him or her, we are called to participate in the unfolding hope and reality of the kingdom of God now. Have you noticed, when it comes to God, time is a funny thing? We celebrate the resurrection every Sunday. It’s not just one time a year. We celebrate and wait for the coming of God incarnate with us in our physicality every year. It didn’t just happen one time 2,000 years ago. This is what we profess as Christians who believe in the resurrected Christ. Christ came, Christ is coming now, and Christ will come again. And through it all, we are called to participate in the reality of the Kingdom of God that is closer than our own breath.

 

How do we know what that means? How do we know what our participation looks like? We practice listening and responding, listening and responding, again and again.

 

Rabbi Johnathan Sacks writes on this question, “There is no life without a task; no person without a talent; no place without a fragment of God’s light waiting to be discovered and redeemed; no situation without its possibility of sanctification; no moment without its call. It may take a lifetime to learn how to find these things, but once we learn, we realize in retrospect that all it ever took was the ability to listen. When God calls, he does not do so by way of universal imperatives. Instead, he whispers our name – and the greatest reply of Abraham, is simply hineni: ‘Here I am’, ready to heed your call, to mend a fragment of your all-too-broken world.”

 

Perhaps Luther said it best and most succinctly. “If I knew that tomorrow was the end of the world, I would plant an apple tree today.”

 

Our participation matters in the world and in the lives of others, regardless of what we think about ourselves. It’s an incredible invitation, to be asked to participate in God’s Kingdom of well-being for all. So, what do we do when we hear that tiny whisper of our name? That tugging at the heart that says ‘Come this way’? That says, ‘Help out here’? Or ‘Try again’?

 

What can we do? We can listen, we can hear, and respond as we are able. But before you jump in, you’ll have to ask someone trustworthy to ‘Hold my beer’, because you’re going to be busy doing the Lord’s work.

 

 

AMEN