Tinsel: Waiting
Attend to the Means of Grace
Luke 21:25-36
Rev. Tim Callow
Preached Sun. Dec. 1st, 2024
What a strange scripture to open the holiday season. While Mariah Carey is singing “All I Want for Christmas is You,” the Hallmark Channel is nothing but Christmas Rom-Coms, Macauley Culkin is taking care of the wet bandits, and Ralphie is hoping for a Red Ryder Carbine Action 200-shot Range Model air rifle Jesus is telling us about the shaking heavens and the earth passing away. Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town while Jesus warns us about dissipation and drunkenness. The world tells us to buy, Jesus tells us to wait.
But we shouldn’t be so surprised. Jesus is not above provocation, and he’s not above shocking us. When a woman told Jesus, “blessed be the woman who bore you!” Jesus’ response wasn’t, “oh thank you, she’s a wonderful woman. Immaculate, even.” He said, “blessed are those who hear my words and keep them.” When he was called “good teacher,” he replied, “why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.” When a pharisee told him he knew he was from God, he didn’t congratulate him on his powers of perception and wisdom, but told him instead “no one can see the Kingdom of God unless they are born again.”
Jesus does often provoke and shock. But he’s not shocking us just to shock us. He doesn’t mean to provoke us for the sake of provocation. But he means to teach us. And sometimes in order to open our minds we need to be shocked, if we want to see more clearly we need to be provoked. If we carry along our merry way we might miss what we need to see.
If there is any season of the secular calendar that can weigh us down with dissipation and drunkenness it’s Christmas. Not just literally, in drinking and partying, but also figuratively. We can get so caught up in the wreaths and tinsel, the cookies and carols, George Bailey and Ebenezer Scrooge that Jesus himself can feel tacked on. We’re more ready to talk about the Christmas Spirit than we are about the birth of the Christ. A vague joy than the one who gives us joy. Peace on earth than the prince of peace.
Jesus calls us to be on guard, to be alert at all times, that we would see the signs of the times with eyes wide open. That we would be aware of the workings of God, the movements of his Spirit. If we are focused on worldly things, like presents and parties, and letters and Nakatomi Plaza, we will not give due attention to the things of God. The monks of the middle ages had a saying, “I fear Christ passing me by.” Which is why they lived their life in attentiveness toward God in all his guises.
So how are we to wait? How are we to enjoy this season? I am reminded of an early controversy in the Methodist movement. There were those who believed nothing you did mattered before God gave you the grace of justification. That is to say, anything you did was sinful in some way before God gave you the assurance that he regards you as his own. So, these quietists said, the best thing to do is nothing. You should wait patiently for the gift of God’s grace. Just have faith it will come.
John Wesley did not like that answer. For one, he didn’t think it made practical sense. People will not wait for very long. Secondly, he didn’t think it made good theological sense of how God actually works in the Church. He believed waiting needed to be coupled with attending to the means of God’s grace. That is to say, we wait not by doing nothing, but in prayer, in fasting, in reading scripture, in receiving communion, in the corporate life of the Church. We don’t sit around and do nothing, because God has given us all these means by which he works. If we were to cut ourselves off from them, we are cutting ourselves off from God.
And so it remains for us today. If we are to wait without dissipation or drunkenness, if we are to remain alert, if we are to see the work of God, then we should avail ourselves of the means of his grace. Attend ourselves to the gifts he has given us. Let us make this a Holy Advent. In the midst of the hustle and bustle let’s seek out ways to renew our prayer life. Let’s pick up a daily practice of reading scripture. Let’s cut through the clutter of the season to focus our mind on what really matters. He is coming. So let us be ready.