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St. Paul’s had a fantastic time at the Christmas parade in Salisbury on November 26th…
The First Sunday of Advent Scripture:
Notes from Fr. Cathie Caimano’s sermon:
‘You know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep.’
Today, on the first Sunday of Advent, I am going to let Paul preach our sermon.. Christ has died, Christ is risen. Christ will come again. Advent is that last part! (so is Christmas!)
This little tiny snippet of chapter 13, in which he is already encouraging the members of the church in Rome - a mere 50 years after Jesus rose from the dead and ascended into heaven - to remember who they really are..
Romans 13 is fairly well known. Paul urges Christians to submit to government authority - because their authority has been instituted by God.
Why? Because we live in a different world altogether. One in which Jesus promised us to return and reign, we live our lives as if this were true.
What we read today is tucked at the end of the chapter. Let’s look at these 5 lines. What did they mean to Paul. What do they mean to us?
‘You know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep’.
We are all a part of Gods story. but the power comes from God (it’s not an endorsement of human power - especially if that power is contradictory to God’s kingdom. Authority ITSELF comes from God.
See the world as it really is. Submit to governmental authority because this world is passing away. Don’t take this world too seriously. If we see ourselves as citizens of God’s kingdom, then everything runs on different rules - and we are free to live this way.
‘For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near.’
It may not look like it, but we’re getting there. Closer to Christ coming again.
This is what Jesus is alluding to in the Gospel - Eschatology - the end times.
People are always making predictions about when it will be (despite Jesus saying ‘no one knows’...) and making predictions about who will be left behind.
But just like the first line - ‘submit to authority’ - it’s not really about us. . It’s about realizing the kind of world, the kind of story, we really live in.
And even in Paul’s time, people were tired of waiting. It’s been a long time. Paul is encouraging them - we’re getting closer.
Of course, it’s been another couple of thousand years since then!
It’s easy to forget altogether. At least the Romans were only a generation removed. Now we can feel pretty tired of waiting. Or foolish to still believe.
But there are signs.
‘Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.’
It’s too easy to look out into a world of darkness and believe that darkness is all powerful.
That death is the end.
But there are signs of God’s kingdom if we look for them - and Advent is the time to look. The time to keep watch.
It’s easy to think that the small moments of beauty - of peace, of joy, of light. A little bit of kindness. That these are exceptions to a dark world.
But to us - these are signs of God’s kingdom breaking through. These are our affirmations that the darkness will NOT overcome the light. Because don’t you think that if it could, it would?
Christians are waiting until that day when there is nothing BUT light, but until then, we wrap ourselves in whatever we find, because know that this is our proof that God’s kingdom is breaking through, that we live in the dawning of the reign of God.
And it changes how we live our lives.
‘Let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy’
What Paul means: bodily desires are bound by the limits of the body. They are bound by death.
‘Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow you will die’. - God’s ways are inscrutable, so why bother? We’re all going to die, so live it up.
‘’Who cares what anyone thinks?’ ‘I don’t have to answer to anyone else’.
But as Christians, we do. We have to answer to God.
NOT in the ‘or else you will be punished’ sense.
But in the sense of answer to our salvation. God loves me and saves me. God is in the midst of redeeming the world.
If this is true - and we believe it is - we’re going to see life in a different way.
We’re going to live with gratitude, with joy. we’re going to love our neighbors as ourselves.
‘Live honorably’. If we live in a different world, if life with God is eternal, then we are free to live as if only love matters. Because that is the truth.
‘Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.’
An eschatological orientation isn’t only about a future expectation but also a recalibration of our present.”
This is not so much moralistic (don’t do these things because they’re bad) as it is unnecessary.
Turning it upside down - NOT ‘if there are no rules we will all just devolve into our worst behavior’, but ‘we live in light and joy and we don’t WANT to do anything that harms our neighbors or ourselves.’
In the middle of Romans 13 (between authority and wake up) ‘Owe no one anything, except to love each other.’
This is our call, and it is our response. This is the hope we live in. And it’s what the whole world is waiting for. There are signs of it everywhere - but especially in Advent, we’re called to notice them. To see.
Wake up to this.
Don’t forget to join us at Trexo for your spiritual workout. Hearts up!
