Sermon on December 13, 2020: Advent 3
Lights in the Tunnel
A sermon for Gaudete Sunday, by the Rev. Dcn. Matthew Simpson
Good Morning! So while this my first Sunday preaching at St. Paul’s in this new placement, I realized the last time I preached here as a guest was last Gaudete Sunday on Mother Mary and on Rejoicing. Gaudete Sunday means Rejoice in Latin, and it is why we wear pink vestments and light the pink candle in the Advent Wreath today. Today in our Scripture reading we do read the Magnificat again, but Alas, I thought it would be in poor taste to preach the same sermon again this year.
And indeed, what a year it has been. I have to admit, I did wrestle with the theme of this Sunday, the theme of joy a lot: not only is joy apart of our liturgy in the color of pink, but our Scriptures too echo rejoicing. The Prophet Isaiah, The Apostle Paul, Mother Mary all echo the same words and faith: Rejoice! Rejoice in the Lord! So the question for us is: in these times how can we rejoice in the Lord authentically and faithfully? Where can the Good News be found on this Rejoice Sunday?
So let’s be honest about our situation, and name some elephants in the room, or in this empty nave: we are dealing with a global pandemic, we have severe, systemic and bitter political division and distrust in this country; we are wrestling with issues of racial reconciliation and honoring the Rule of Law; we have a cracking healthcare system, and we have a tsunami of homelessness and mental health issues coming our way in the near future while the Stock Markets are on the rise: meaning point blankly the chasm between the “haves” and “have nots” will only grow wider. And gosh darn it, on top of that now we can’t meet for worship in Church. Rejoice Indeed!
For me personally, this year has been particularly difficult. My paid vocation is that of a night-shift bed side nurse in a local hospital. I volunteered to work on a Covid floor during the first wave, and my home floor has now been converted to a Covid unit for this wave. I work on a Cardiac Step Down Unit, so as a Covid RN, I worked with patients between the stages of needing oxygen supplementation and cardiac monitoring to needing to be intubated and sent to the unit, or their death. While the outside world, and political screams talk about numbers, recovery rates, and individual rights: the reality for us in the trenches has been quite different. Before Covid, I had only lost two patients; within 2 weeks of working on the Covid unit in the Spring, I lost 10. And these deaths were not easy ones. I can still see terror in the eyes of my patients who were gasping for oxygen that, despite our best efforts, would not perfuse in their lungs. Most of these patients died not seeing their loved ones; as I recall families deliberately not coming into say goodbye because they were too scared. Despite this many patients did not die alone; nurses were with them during their last breaths holding their hands. Doctors, hospital chaplains, clergy, families were not in the rooms as patients died: nurses and nurse aids were. The Covid admissions were typically longer, so we got to know the patients better than our typical admissions…we were the only ones to touch them physically in their last days, and actually they were the few people we physically touched as well, as working on a Covid unit isolates you from the rest of the world. We were the last ones to touch them as we prepared and bagged their bodies; nurses are always the last ones to touch and prepare the bodies before sending them to the morgue. I remember my patient’s names, and I still have nightmares from my experience at that time.
This summer and this 2nd wave are driving us the breaking point. This summer, after dealing with the backlog of sick patients who did not or could not get to doctors during the first wave, we now are dealing with the 2nd wave. While the good news is that because we understand this virus better we are seeing that our treatments are more effective, the bad news is that the hospitals were already pretty full and staff were burnt out before the 2nd wave even started. At the hospital I work at, our critical units are full, the ER has patients in the hallways, and over Thanksgiving weekend I worked 6-shifts in a row to help with the critical shortage of nurses who are out sick and testing positive at alarming rates; it is for this reason I could not be with you the first Sunday in Advent. Also, alarming is the uptick in ER admissions that our mental health related. People are coming in with alcohol and drug overdoses, mental health crisis, and suicide ideation…people of all different ages, but the most heart-wrenching is the high number of youth, and kids as young as 7 being admitted. Again, we send them home as there are no beds. From the perspective of a healthcare worker on the front lines, it does feel as though it is all crumbling.
So…it is in this context that I have been asked to preach on joy. Indeed, it is in this time we are being called to joy and rejoicing this Advent 3, which can seem like a cruel joke. In this congregation there is certainly grief, angst and sorrow we are dealing with. In this nation we are reeling with grief, with over 291,000 deaths of Americans from this virus alone, we have angst regarding our political reality, just yesterday there were shootings and stabbings a political protests around the country; many in our communities are dealing with financial and housing insecurity, and I have noticed even in everyday meetings there is a general malaise and exhaustion. How could we possibly rejoice? Can joy be found in ashes?
As we look to the Holy Scriptures appointed for today, I reminded that the rejoicing we see in the lectionary today did not spring from good times. Isaiah 61 is a part of what is referred to as the third part of Isaiah which had its final redaction and compilation during the Babylonian Exile. Typically, times of exile are not put in the category of “the Good Times.” And yet we read from that Scripture:
the Lord has anointed me;
he has sent me 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,
to provide for those who mourn in Zion—
to give them a garland instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.
This was written by a people in dark times for a people in dark times; it should be noted this is the Scripture Jesus used to commence his ministry…the joy of this people did not come from the immediate circumstance, but from the eyes of faith that saw God, Salvation and Joy with them in their suffering and in exile.
St. Paul, the Apostle is writing to the Church in Thessaloniki, which much like us, were in a state of grief and bewilderment. They had persecution on top of that….again not good times. And if we read the whole letter to the Church, St. Paul, is not being an oblivious and insensitive jerk, but an empathic pastor in declaring to them authentically that they are to “rejoice, and give thanks always.” And then we know Mother Mary…her life was one of scandal, one that had grief and loss…how do you get over the loss of a child? And yet the Song she is remembered for is a song of Rejoicing and of Justice. In our Scriptures time and time again the People of God are faced with the worst of circumstances, and yet in those times declare, “Rejoice, God is with us; our salvation has come.”
The world around us looks forward to joyous times, and equates times of comfort as times of salvation. And, we have all heard in The Church too, that we can’t wait until we get to the other side of pandemic, as if the other side of this we will finally find God again and salvation and joy again. But our Scriptures say something quite different. God and salvation and rejoicing are not found on the other side of suffering; they are found here and now; God is on a Covid Unit, God is with us regardless of how many people are in the nave; God is with us regardless who is President.
We are looking for the light at the end of this tunnel of suffering, but Church, in the name of Jesus Christ, I call on us to be the light in the tunnel here and now; the world needs it.
As a People of God, as The Children of the Resurrection, we have been created and formed specifically for times like these. And in the Light of The Resurrection of Jesus Christ, times like these that seem disorienting, are in fact times for reorienting. The Passion and Resurrection recalibrates us to see suffering through a different lens; we don’t worship a fair-weather God: we are anchored in the faith that Christ is with us in the suffering, God suffers with us, and that that Suffering does not have the final say. Resurrection does not deny or diminish death, pain or grief...it does proclaim that these do not have the final say. It is in these times we can come to understand more fully that brokenness, despair, the effects of mental illness, virus, political division, these do not have the final word; The Ferocious Love of God does. And that does actually bear rejoicing…there is something the world, regardless of what state it is in, there is something it cannot take away from us: The Abiding and Loving Presence of the Living God.
And to bear this Light in the World does not have to be intimidating. The Grand Mercies of the Kingdom of God are never news in our world. The phone calls to check in on people; the heartfelt notes; the words of kindness; the silent prayers for the suffering, the sick and the lonely…prayers and mercy towards our enemies and those who really annoy us; the feeding of the hungry; the caring for the homeless; having compassion on the addicted; caring for an elderly parent; being a loving and supportive parent; sitting in ashes with others in grief.…all these are lights in this tunnel, and when you do these things: God shines through you. And in all these things, I need to remind myself to let go in the faith and knowledge that God is with us, here and now seeing us through. So on this Guadete Sunday, let us light up that Pink Candle, let us give thanks, let us rejoice, remembering to whom we belong, remembering our Lord’s Passion and Resurrection, remembering the promise that nothing can or ever will get in the way of God’s Ferocious Love for us.
“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” Amen.