December 4, 2016 + The Second Sunday of Advent
Holy Eucharist Rite II at 10:30 a.m. sung by the Youth and Adult Choirs, sermon by the Rev’d Hope Eakins.
Worship at Home:
Click here for the Service Bulletin; scroll to read full sermon text.
Full Service Audio:
Sermon-only Audio:
Service Music:
Voluntary Two settings of Es ist ein ‘Ros Johannes Brahms (1833-1897), Emma Lou Diemer (b. 1927)
Processional Hymn 56 (st. 1, 2, 6, 7, 8) O come, O come, Emmanuel Veni, veni Emmanuel
The origins of “O come, O come, Emmanuel” date to medieval times. In the 800s, a series of Latin hymns were sung, called the “O” Antiphons. Over time, these were restructured, and the first draft of the beloved hymn we know came from Anglican priest John Mason Neale, in 1851. Born to a family of clergy, Neale wanted to become a parish minister, but his poor health prevented this. He instead became the director of Sackville College, a home for elderly men. This proved to be a good match, as Neale was compassionate with a great heart for the needy. A traditionalist, he was outspoken against the change that other hymn writers like Isaac Watts stood for, but today we find Neale and Watts side-by-side in our hymnals. We owe Neale our gratitude for this great hymn, as well as “Good King Wenceslas,” “Good Christian Men, Rejoice,” and “All Glory, Laud, and Honor.”
Kyrie Eleison from Litany of the Saints adapt. Richard Proulx (1937-2010)
Sequence Hymn 597 O day of peace that dimly shines Jerusalem
Offertory Anthem Jesus Christ the apple tree Elizabeth Poston (1905-1987)
Words from Divine Hymns of Spiritual Songs, compiled Joshua Smith, 1784
The tree of life my soul hath seen
Laden with fruit and always green
The tree of life my soul hath seen
Laden with fruit and always green
The trees of nature fruitless be
Compared with Christ the apple tree
His beauty doth all things excel
By faith I know but ne’er can tell
His beauty doth all things excel
By faith I know but ne’er can tell
The glory which I now can see
In Jesus Christ the apple tree.
For happiness I long have sought
And pleasure dearly I have bought
For happiness I long have sought
And pleasure dearly I have bought
I missed of all but now I see
‘Tis found in Christ the apple tree.
I’m weary with my former toil
Here I will sit and rest a while
I’m weary with my former toil
Here I will sit and rest a while
Under the shadow I will be
Of Jesus Christ the apple tree.
This fruit does make my soul to thrive
It keeps my dying faith alive
This fruit does make my soul to thrive
It keeps my dying faith alive
Which makes my soul in haste to be
With Jesus Christ the apple tree.
Sanctus from Missa Emmanuel Richard Proulx
Fraction Anthem Agnus Dei from Missa Emmanuel Richard Proulx
Communion Anthem Lo, how a rose e’er blooming Michael Praetorius (1571-1621), Hugo Distler (1908-1942)
Words: Hymn 81
Closing Hymn 616 Hail to the Lord’s anointed Es flog kleins Waldvögelein
Voluntary Fantasy on Veni, veni Emmanuel Wilbur Held (1914-2015)
Cantor: Daaé Ransom
Full Sermon Text:
“The wolf shall lie down with the lamb,” says the prophet Isaiah, “and the leopard with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together.” But this is not reasonable, we say. We know that if you put a lamb in a wolf’s lair, all we have done is to provide lunch for the wolf. A little child cannot lead wild animals without being in grave danger and probably soon dead. And since we are all reasonable people, we interpret Isaiah’s words as unreasonable, as poetry, as a dream outside of reality.
But the very reason we come to church is to hear the dreams of God, not just to sing wonderful hymns and see our friends. The very reason we come to church is to hear prophets like Isaiah tell us that things don’t have to be the way they have always been, that God’s dream for us is bigger and better that a dog-eat-dog world. We come here to see things from God’s point of view, a peculiar way of seeing that is anything but reasonable.
If we believe that this world is designed for nothing more than the survival of the fittest, then the vision of lions and lambs lying down together is only a foolish imagination. And yet Isaiah’s words have a certain ring to them; Edward Hicks painted over sixty versions of the Peaceable Kingdom of pacified wolves and child leaders. So maybe Isaiah is pointing us to something important, to a bigger and better and holier reality than the one we’ve got.
There shall be an abundance of peace, says the Psalmist, and the mountains shall bring prosperity to the people. St. Paul tells us that Christ has come to confirm these promises of peace on earth, good will to all. At the center of Christian belief is the conviction that there is an omnipotent God with whom all things are possible, who really can make wolves lie down with lambs. And the way we live and the way we will die depend on whether or not we believe this.
If we don’t believe that there can be peace on earth, if we continue to trust in the power of our guns and bombs more than we trust in the power of God, we will always be at war. If we don’t believe that God can build the bridges that are too hard for us to build, we will continue our family feuds and vendettas against our neighbors and hostilities toward our boss. If we don’t believe Jesus promise that sins can be forgiven we will keep our secrets and harbor shame. If we don’t repent because we fear God’s harsh judgment, we will live with despair and anxiety and never feel the “God of hope filling us with all joy and peace in believing.”
If we don’t believe in God’s possibilities we will be stuck with our own convictions and live like the two brothers who once owned Manganaro’s grocery store in New York City. Let me tell you the story. Their shop had been around for a hundred years or so until Sal and Jimmy dell’Orto had an argument and split the business in two. Although they worked right next door to each other, they never again spoke to each other nor did their children speak to each other because the feud extended through three generations. At issue in their battle was which shop had the right to take phone orders for Hero-Boy sandwiches. Jimmy said “to have a reconciliation, one of the parties has to say ‘I’m sorry,’ and I won’t. I don’t feel the need to apologize to him for anything and I don’t think he is going to apologize to me.” After years of court battles and petty retaliations, both shops closed. Over a hundred years of family business died with him because a wolf couldn’t lie down with a lamb, because one dell’Orto couldn’t lie down with another.
But in Isaiah’s words, when “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea,” then hope and justice and peace can flourish. I have seen it happen. I have seen a husband hurt a wife in a way that left her demeaned and embarrassed and so angry that she could barely stop shouting. She wanted him to grovel and he was so afraid to admit his wrongdoings he couldn’t speak. He wanted her to forgive him, and she was afraid that forgiveness would diminish the issue so that he would feel free to do it again. Realistically, there was no hope. But they were people of faith, these folks. They remembered their wedding vows and prayed that God would rescue them. And they waited in their shame and anger until the Spirit of the Lord, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, came upon them, and they began the long task of rebuilding trust and making love – and now, at least one wolf and lamb are lying down together.
I have known it to happen. I have seen a man who embezzled from his business and got away with it. He thought he was clever and he was. He also had no self-respect because he knew he was a sinner. He wasn’t caught by the law, but he was caught by his guilt. It took quite a while for him to figure out what he needed to do. He started by making his confession to a priest and then realized that he had to give the money back and admit his wrongdoing. And he did. His partners didn’t condemn him and they commended his honesty and let him keep his job, and he now knows that “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy like the wideness of the sea.”
You have seen it happen in this world too. In our country, slavery and civil war threatened to divide us and oppress us all, but we found a way to live as one people committed to liberty and justice for all. In Germany, the Berlin Wall finally fell after thirty years of division and separation.
God sent Jesus to show us that dreams like these can be more than dreams, that we need not give up and live in tired resignation, that we are not limited to what WE can imagine because God’s dream for us is more than we can ask or imagine. John the Baptist shouted it in the wilderness, proclaiming that if we turn and say we are sorry and admit that we are wrong, we will see the Kingdom of heaven staring us in the face. Paul wrote it to the Romans, that we CAN live together in harmony, that walls can tumble down, that Gentiles and Jews and Christians and Muslims and Afghans and Americans can live together in love.
When I was ordained many years ago on a cold day in December, the Bishop gave me a charge. He said, “Live up to your name, Hope, and be an Advent priest so that Christmas may come to pass in unlikely lives and unlikely seasons and unlikely places.”
If we open our hearts to God’s love and dream big, it just may be so.