I recently had the privilege again to preach at St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church in Lubbock, TX. If you’d like to watch that sermon, you can access it here: https://www.youtube.com/live/pyH9Z8Hm0jg?si=usH6m8iDm-0EQXEN (I start preaching around the 34:00 mark)
If you would rather read a text version of my sermon, then just keep reading —
1 Advent (Year A)
November 30, 2025
St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church, Lubbock, Texas
Readings: Isaiah 2:1-5; Psalm 122; Romans 13:11-14; Matthew 24:36-44
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
Good morning, “I am Dann” / well, technically I’m Daniel, but only if you ask the IRS – you see, I’m named for the prophet in the Bible (well, actually, I’m named for my grandfather, but the biblical prophet started the whole mess). One of that prophet’s claims to fame was the interpretation of dreams. Interestingly, my brother’s name is Joe (or Joseph), who was also well known for the interpretation of dreams. I don’t know – maybe, my parents were going for something there…anyway…
Do you ever remember your dreams?
My wife Leann sure does. Several times a week, she will regale me with all the various dreams she had the previous night. I’ve fallen into the habit – after hearing a few of her dreams in a row – I’ve fallen into the habit of replying with “Your two dreams are really one dream…”
While I’m mostly joking there, I think that we have something similar going on in our Scripture passages today. We may not have two dreams that are one dream, but we might have one vision seen through two different lenses.
Today is the first Sunday of Advent – the Sunday of Hope – and I think that the visions that confront us in Matthew and Isaiah are actually both visions of hope, but there is a crucial difference between the two.
In Matthew, we see a vision of the Day of the Lord – but it is not a comforting or reassuring picture.
There is a sense of foreboding. No one knows the day or the hour. People will be going about life as blissfully unaware as we always have.
And, then danger will come. Judgment.
Two will be in a field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and the other left. This is a picture of conquest that Jesus’ original audience would have known all too well.
The ultimate uncertainty of war sweeping through. The enemy takes one, but leaves the other. One is captured at a simple, daily task like baking bread. But, another somehow is left behind unseen by those enemy forces. We might be the “lucky” one that is left behind, but we are still left with the devastation of war, of judgment.
Let me take an aside here for just a second…
[Aside: One of the things that I find so curious about the “Left Behind” rapture craze among Evangelical Christians is the way they misinterpret this passage. You don’t want to be the one taken; you want to be the one left behind. The enemy armies sweep through meting out devastation. Those who are “taken” aren’t flying up in the air. They are captured, never to be seen again.]
Anyway…
Matthew ends with the admonition to be alert – the future brings judgment unexpectedly – that doesn’t really look like hope, does it?
But, if we flip over to Isaiah 2:1-5, we get a vision – on this first Sunday of Advent, the Sunday of Hope [the themes are: Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love] – we get a vision that looks like Hope. In Isaiah, we have a prophecy of the Day of the Lord as this triumphant march up the mountain to God’s house.
All the people will come – from every land – we’ll get over our struggles, fights, wars, disagreements, and misunderstandings. On this Day, we’ll be unified, we’ll be ONE. We’ll all become what we were always meant to be, and “they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”
It’s a beautiful hope.
We see the same vision – the Day of the Lord – through two different lenses. What makes the difference? How do we move from fear and foreboding to hope and unity?
Is hope waiting for pie in the sky by-and-by or is it waiting for the other shoe to drop?
Or, maybe, something different is going on here. Maybe, both of these visions, like dreams, hold meaning in their symbols, not about the future, but about how we live right now.
To figure out this puzzle, we’re going to need to pull our concept of hope back to the present, away from the far-flung future. If we are going to “do” anything, then we have to do it here in the present, in the now.
To do that, Jesus gives us the first step as a clue. The first step is what NOT to do. We do not do what they were doing in the times of Noah: just living life the way we’ve always done it – “eating and drinking, marrying, and giving in marriage” – you know: Tiwadi. I have to thank Deacon Debbie Womack over at St. Stephen’s for this acronym – the mightiest of acronyms for any church business meeting – “Tiwadi” = “That’s the way we’ve always done it.”
If we treat the visions of hope here like we treat most dreams, then we might pause for a moment to think “that’s weird” – “what the heck did I eat last night” – then we go on our merry way; eating and drinking and changing nothing.
How do we flip over to Isaiah – to the type of hope that beats swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks?
How do we change from a definition of “vision” that is synonymous with “dream” to a definition for “vision” that is synonymous for “goal” or “strategy”?
I think that Paul might provide us the key here.
Paul gives a nuance here to hope – a sense of urgency – you see hope is future-focused response (and it can be easy to dismiss in the present – especially if we interpret that hope as being far-off in the future)
What happens to hope when we draw it back to the present – to see hope as something “just around the corner” – is that urgency bubbles up.
If,
Jesus is coming back “some day” to set everything right [Aww, isn’t that special]
But,
Jesus is coming back “tomorrow” to set everything right [Uh-oh, I need to do something!]
Then, as we move back to the present, we start asking questions like “What do I do?”
At this point, I want to admit to all of you that I have a beef with the people who chose the Lectionary passages for today. Particularly, where to stop and start those passages.
You see, if we back up just a bit in the Letter to the Romans, then we see that Paul tells us what it is like to have hope in the present. Let me read v. 8-10 of Romans 13:
8 Owe no one anything, except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; you shall not murder; you shall not steal; you shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.
So, you see, Love our neighbors. It’s that simple, and…that comprehensive…that radical…that RISKY.
I’m not talking about a warm, fuzzy feeling here.
To love our neighbors means remembering the Ten Commandments. And, I’m talking about the Paradoxical Ten Commandments here. Ever heard of them? They were first written in a little book called Anyway by Kent M. Keith. These paradoxical commandments help us to see the riskiness and courage it takes to love our neighbor, of LIVING OUT our hope:
One: If you commit to something 100%, you might just get kicked in the teeth. Commit to something 100% anyway.
Two: People who really need your help may not appreciate it. Help people anyway.
Three: What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway.
Four: People say they favor underdogs but then only follow top dogs. Fight for underdogs anyway.
Five: The biggest ideas can be shot down by the people with the smallest minds. Think big anyway.
Six: Honesty makes you vulnerable. Be honest anyway.
Seven: The good you do today may be completely forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.
Eight: If you are generous, people may try to take advantage. Be generous anyway.
Nine: If you do good, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Do good anyway.
[and]
Ten: People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered. Love them anyway.
Loving our neighbors is difficult, risky, and it will go against “common sense” a lot.
When we are looking to love our neighbor, that type of hope changes our perspective from the future to the present.
And, we notice something very important when we bring hope into the present.
Let’s look at Isaiah 2 again. Zero in on v.4
Do you see it? Look at the pronouns.
“HE” shall judge – that matches right up with Matthew 24 – when the Man comes around, to borrow from Johnny Cash
But…keep going
“THEY” shall beat their swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks. “THEY” not “HE”
Hope is realizing that loving our neighbors – like laying down swords and spears – doesn’t require a future date. We can do it now.
That’s hope – That’s Advent –right here, right now.
The Son of Man is arriving. Advent is dawning.
Love your neighbor.
Amen.
Well done Dream Weaver Dann! Especially love the Paradoxical 10. So much to ponder and reclaim this Advent.