Sermon: "Come, let us walk in the light of the Lord"

Isaiah 2:1-5; Matthew 24:36-44

2^nd December 2007. First Sunday of Advent, Durham Cathedral Holy Eucharist

Today is Advent Sunday and it is appropriate that we began the new church year with the litany, with sustained prayer to God using as much of the cathedral space as possible. But we do not only begin one new year today, we actually begin a six year cycle. Some of you will know that the readings at our services are set by the lectionary, which we share more or less in common with churches of many denominations around the world which read the same scriptures week by week. The Sunday lectionary works on a three year cycle with the gospel reading normally coming successively from Matthew, Mark with a bit of John, and Luke. If you can remember back as far as last week, we have been reading from Luke in the past year so today we begin the three year cycle again at Year A with Matthew.

There are also two other readings set in the lectionary, one from the Old Testament and one from the New. We have decided to alternate the Old and New Testaments in future so this year we will be hearing the Old Testament reading with Matthew’s gospel, then next year the New Testament with Mark, then the Old with Luke, the New with Matthew and so on. So by the Festival of Christ the King in 2013 we will have heard each gospel reading twice and each Old and New Testament reading once. And if any of you want a systematic approach to reading the bible, then as a new year resolution you could consider buying a copy of the lectionary from the shop and using it every day to guide your bible reading.

Why read the Old Testament? I’ve been reading a book of Advent sermons by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a young German Lutheran pastor who was killed by the Nazis in the last weeks of the Second World War because of his opposition to Hitler. He was imprisoned for some time and wrote to a friend on the Second Sunday in Advent 1943 about his reading in prison,

Those are strong words but they are good for us as we embark afresh on our observance of the story of the birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. They remind us that we keep our Advent hope of his coming among us in the context of the whole revelation of God’s ways with the world. And so today we turn to the prophet Isaiah, whose words also appear in the prophecies of Micah so were clearly significant for the people at a time when they were facing God’s judgement on their way of life as well as the threat of military invasion.

What is the message to the people in this situation? There is a promise for the future that the mountain of the Lord’s house, the temple mount, will be established as the highest of the mountains. It is not a literal prophecy because that mountain is not the highest in physical terms, but in the nation’s consciousness it was the highest in terms of significance. And that significance is borne out because nations and peoples will stream to it to seek God there. And God will act to judge between the warring nations and will bring peace to the world so that military weapons to destroy the earth become tools for the cultivation of the earth.

And the gospel holds us to account for the way we wait. There is no judgement implied in Jesus’ description of people getting on with ordinary life – eating and drinking, marrying and carrying on with daily work. We have to keep going with those things or life as we know it will grind to a halt, but we also heed the warning to be ready for whatever will happen when God acts. Jesus’ image of the flood coming suddenly is more vivid for us than for any previous generation because we have seen the pictures of the tsunami striking. Jesus’ saying that if the owner of the house had known when the thief would come he would have been prepared for it is a timeless one but it can be put another way to say that if we had known a tsunami would strike we would have had warning systems and different settlement and tree-planting policies in place.

It is easy to say that after the event but it takes effort and a completely new approach to so many aspects of life not only for people in the flood area but for the way the world cares for vulnerable communities. It reminds us that effort is needed to live in anticipation of a sudden event: we have to put ourselves out in order to be prepared. And that lies behind Isaiah’s insistence that there is hard work involved in living in anticipation of the coming of God to bring healing and justice to the world. “O house of Jacob, come let us walk in the light of the Lord.” O people of God, if we believe the Advent hope of God coming among us to save us both in the incarnation and in the second coming of Christ, come let us walk in the light of the Lord.

It takes determined effort to wait with readiness. Isaiah can help us here with his imperative invitation, “Come let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” We live as people of Advent hope in the midst of and fully engaged with the world’s ordinary life, but also faithful in coming to worship with others, in learning God’s ways and in walking in his paths. Durham could be transformed if we do this faithfully – in this congregation we have people who are involved in hundreds of different parts of society from schools to nursing homes, from the University to the home of a housebound neighbour, from shops to streets. And as a Cathedral we are involved in many aspects of Durham from its civic life to its prisons, from the restaurant where people relax to Sunderland Schools where the choristers lead the singing outreach programme. O people of God in Durham, come let us walk in the light of the Lord. And let us invite others to walk with us. Let that be our Advent resolution, and Durham will be changed.

We have prayed, “Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness and to put on the armour of light now in this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ comes to us in great humility.” Casting away is no casual action, it is vigorously intentional, the sort of instinctive action when we have picked up something horrible by mistake and want to get rid of it quickly – a slug in the garden perhaps. So this Advent we have asked God to make us rapid and intentional in throwing the works of darkness as far away from us as we can manage. In 1933 Bonhoeffer’s 90 year old grandmother marched through a cordon of Nazi stormtroopers to shop at a Jewish store in defiance of the Nazi boycott of all Jewish establishments that day: we are never too old to cast off the works of darkness.

But we don’t just cast off, we have also asked for grace to put on the armour of light now, in this life which Jesus has shared with us. That is what the incarnation is all about, God in Christ sharing our life. So this Collect, the prayer we prayed together this Advent Sunday, is about action and Isaiah gives us our marching orders for the next year, indeed the next six years: “Come, let us walk in the light of the Lord.” Amen.