The Cathedral Church of the Nativity
IV Advent
The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa
December 18th, 2011

Have you noticed? Have you noticed that we just don’t wait so well? I suppose it makes sense when we think of the conditioning we have bought into, the conditioning to expect things so immediately. You know, 1G, 2G, 3G, 4G, 4 G that connection so much quicker. Marketing genious has taught us carefully to find value in immediacy, the silver club gets us immediate check in at the hotel of our choice, the green mile club assures us our rental car will be waiting for us and we Not waiting for our rental car, Miracle of all Miracle’s Even the Government will eliminate your waiting time to process your passport, if your willing to pay the price! Indeed it seems we have been conditioned to expect NOT to Wait.

This struck home the other night when I attended my daughter’s orchestra concert. I confess, my internal voice questioned, I wonder how long this will be? The ego-centric me should have been delighted when it seemed clear those who put the program together were concerned about the attention span of the audience. The program was short. No time for an intermission, hard working middle schoolers cleared the stage between acts as we were “entertained” with background piano designed to distract us and try to keep our attention as the stage was furiously cleared…….as if we wouldn’t wait, and equally important, as if what was being presented wasn’t worth waiting for. I mean after all, ALL of us were there to capture the moment of our offspring offering their best!

We are not good at waiting, as a matter a fact, we’ve become so good at not waiting, we tend to expect to move from one thing to the next with such immediacy it is as if we have bought into the belief that we must do so for fear that we might just miss something if we don’t get there quicker. This I submit to you in God’s economy is as they say bass ackwards!

Advent is a time that’s calls us to wait. It is a time to wait expectantly and expectantly wait. In a culture that conditions us to not only expect immediacy but has convinced us its worth paying NOT to wait, hear clearly this spiritual message of waiting expectantly and expectantly waiting is in direct conflict with our culture. Once again, the Gospel is countercultural.

It is this Gospel that leads us to explore what it is we can expect to find if we are patient enough to find it? It seems what we can expect is the unexpected.

We consider Mary in today’s gospel. This young woman--most likely a teenager at the time of the Annunciation--Mary, living out in small town Nazareth, betrothed (engaged) to Joseph the carpenter; is totally taken by surprise, as God’s messenger Gabriel speaks directly to her one day. The messenger shocks her nearly to death by telling her that she is God’s favoured one; she is going to give birth to the Messiah; she is going to name him Jesus (in Hebrew, Joshua or Jeshua, meaning “God will save”)! Surely, if we were to talk with Mary today, and ask her whether this was part of her plan; whether she was EXPECTING such a visitor, with such a message, OR that this message was what she was waiting for all of her young life, my guess is she would be hard pressed to answer Yes.

It seems for sure when it comes to Godly things; one of the things we can expect is the unexpected! Maybe even the unwanted advances of God on our lives. At first blush in this story one would perhaps want to tell Mary, perhaps you shouldn’t have waited around Mary.

If Mary had not waited around, and if we do not wait so we just might miss it. We just might miss God’s opportunity in our lives. The opportunity even to be shocked by God; the opportunity to learn that we ourselves, each of us, are favoured ones of God, that we too have something Godly begging to be born into the world; that we ourselves are called to take part in God’s plan of salvation.


God calls the strangest people; speaks the most surprising messages to them; and asks them to do the most unexpected things. At first, we, like Mary, tend to respond by being perplexed; by becoming overwhelmed or afraid. We, like Mary, may also be sceptical: “How can this be, since I’m a virgin?” Or we, again perhaps like Mary, may wish God would not choose us for such an unplanned, surprising future. After all, we are “creatures of habit,” some of us schedule our lives to the nth degree, We gotta get to the next thing, and some of us may not feel the unplanned or suprising is something worth our waiting. In a world that extols the virtues of planned, ordered living; of living for the immediate, where we seem to have lost the “art of waiting”, moving from one thing to the next for fear that we might be missing something; the message of today’s gospel says to us that which is not to be missed IS Worth waiting for AND we should NOT be afraid of God’s unexpected, surprising plans for our lives.

DO NOT BE Afraid are the words of the interruptor, God’s very Angel. God’s future for our lives can be unexpected and even surprising.

In a world where we have much cause to be afraid; where human life seems all too cheap and even at times disposable. God’s word speaks to us, “Do not be afraid.” As we look at our own personal lives or the lives of loved ones; we may respond with fear for the future and ask questions like: “Am I going to get sick? Am I going to recover from my illness? Am I ready to face and accept the worst? God answers: “Do not be afraid.” Or maybe we fear our future as a congregation: what are God’s future for this Cathedral? Will we live and grow, prosper and flourish / will we wither and die? God answers us: “Do not be afraid.”
So I ask you, when it comes to your relationship with the God who made you…….What do you expectantly Wait For And What are you Waiting for Expectantly? What is it that you feel is worth waiting for?

Third Sunday of Advent 2011

The Ven. Richard I. Cluett

I want to tell you about my first time. I was four years old when my parents took me on my first real family vacation. We went to a hotel on the beach on Cape Cod. It was gorgeous, beautiful, sand, water, fancy. The best thing that happened was that my dad gave me a silver dollar to use on anything I wanted. It wasn’t for saving. It was for using. After a couple of days he suggested that maybe I would want to use it at the ice cream stand down the beach the next day – on anything I wanted. Anything!

So my dad and I went the next day. We walked down the beach to the stand. And we walked and walked and walked. And then I slipped on the deep stand and fell. Actually I sprawled, flat out, hands flailing and my silver dollar flew – away. And I did not know where and I couldn’t find it. I was destroyed. I was desolate. Dad picked me up and dusted me off and dried me up and said, “Let’s go get our ice cream. You can have anything in the stand.” And we did – but it wasn’t the same.

That was my first time. The first time I knew loss, disappointment, a dream unfulfilled, a hope denied. It was the first time. Only the first one. There have been others.

And how about you? Just when was it that you began to realize that not all your hopes and desires and expectations and dreams were going to be met?

The lessons today point to the future, but they point to the fu­ture for a people who had learned not to expect what they hoped for to come true. The history of this people, their own personal history meant that they would be disappointed.

The reading from Isaiah today comes from the time when Israel had returned from exile in Babylon. Cyrus had released them to return to the promised land and promised time that had been prophesied when they were a cap­tive people. They had returned to the promised land. They had returned to the Holy City. They had gone to rebuild the temple, their towns, their homes, their lives. But it was still all dust. The Land was dust. The city was dust. The temple was a rubble heap of dust. The prophecy was dust. The promise had turned to dust.

Into their lives comes the voice of the prophet Isaiah reminding them of God’s promise. Telling them that God’s salvation is available to them, even now. God’s salvation is meant to transform the world here and now, not just later at the end. The Israelites were, we are, invited to participate in this salvation, redeeming work of the world now. If salvation is not another place and time but the reality of this world as it should be, then Isaiah asks us to think about how we might participate in ushering in what is meant by God to be the real world, now.

Centuries later along comes John. John, who says he is but a voice crying in the wilderness, testifying to the redeeming of the world that is to come, pointing to what God is doing in the world to make things right. Yes, it was a desert wilderness; but also a human and political wilderness, too.

"O come, O come, Emmanuel!" It wasn’t then a hymn, nor is it just a hymn now. It was a prayer. It was a plea. It was a hope. It was an ex­pectation that God would deliver Israel, one more time out of all her trouble. Foreign domination would end. There would be peace and harmo­ny, and the kingdom of God would be the kingdom of this earth. The Lion would lie down with lamb.

John pointed to the future. To the Messiah. To the One who would bring God's kingdom into being.  And no one listened. Well, almost no one. Very few listened... at least in a way that led them to believe one more time in the promises of God. In the fu­ture. In the kingdom. In the Messiah.

Today so many of our people are returning from the exile of wars in foreign lands to their families, towns and and churches as those first exiles must have returned to a homeland and a temple in ruins. The home they had expected often turns out to be a place filled with disappointment, disillusionment, and division.

Too many people are living today with loss; loss of a loved one, loss of work, loss of homes; loss of pride; loss of one’s very self by disease or trauma. Alongside the backdrop of war, injustice, poverty, and greed, the word of the prophet still haunts a nation that has grown rich in things but poor in soul.

Yet Isaiah reminds us again today that the God who can build up ancient ruins is also the God who can redeem the ruin of a prodigal life; the God who shall raise up the former devastations is also the God who means to make whole a broken heart; the God who shall repair the ruined cities and the Temple is also the God who can repair even the nation that has forgotten its way in the world. 

Each of today's readings tells of God’s prophetic promise and the need to hold fast to faith during times of dark­ness and anticipation. Advent begins in the dark. For some of us it feels like that’s all there is. There was a flash of light we call Jesus. But now it is pretty dark again, and the future for so many looks as dark as now.

In this late Advent time, when we are getting ready to cele­brate the Incarnation, we are reminded that God did send the Messiah, that God did redeem the world, that God is faithful.

The spirit of the Lord GOD was upon him,

because the LORD had anointed him;

he came to bring good news to the oppressed,

to bind up the brokenhearted,

to proclaim liberty to the captives,

and release to the prisoners;

to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor,

and the day of vengeance of our God;

to comfort all who mourn…

As we walk through the last days of Advent, we remember not just that Jesus came but that he came and will come again for this – to bring all of us, to bring each of us, into a time of the Lord’s favor. Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us – again.