Rev. Paul Tellstrom

Irvine United Congregational Church                                               

Advent 1C “Mixed Signals”                                                 

December 3, 2006

Jeremiah 33:14-16

Gospel Reading—Luke 21:25-36                                                         word count: 1,720

We rely on signs.  We don’t think about them that much, but we use them every day.  Signs warn us about bumps in the road, they tell us how fast we can drive, and where to find what we are looking for.

Without signs, we’d be confused, unsure of where we were and how to do what we set out to accomplish.  We would be lost.

But what happens when signs give a mixed message or simply make no sense?  Author and lecturer Doug Lansky, wrote a book called, “Signspotting,” a collection of photos that he and his friends took of signs that appeared during their travels.  The book shows some signs that are unintentionally funny because they were composed by people for whom English was not their first language, such as a sign on a clinic in China that has the name of the institution in Chinese, but then translates it into English as “Painful Treatment Center—Welcome.”

The most mysterious signs are the ambiguous ones.  Here are several examples:

• From Los Angeles: Caution: Blind Drivers Backing Out.

• From San Diego: Cruise Ships / Use Airport Exit.

• From Austin, Texas, a sign on a balcony: Caution / Please be aware that the balcony is not on

   ground level.

Some of the best, however, are those that send a mixed message, such as these:

• From Kanab, Utah: Six Mile Village / 3 miles.

• From Los Angeles: Antique Tables Made Daily!

• From Vermont: Slow / Church Services

• From Marienville, Pennsylvania: The Ronald McDonald Funeral Home (I can only picture

            twenty clowns getting out of a small hearse.)

• From Twain Harte, California: Fishing for Children Only / Limit 3

• From Maui, Hawaii: Bottomless Pit / 65 feet deep

• From Mitchell, South Dakota: Safe Haven Small Animal Hospital / Hunters Welcome! 

• From Racine, Wisconsin: Happy Easter! / We Rent Handguns.

Perhaps one reason we enjoy the contradictory signs is because contradiction seems to be a characteristic of the more important signs in our lives, too.

            And that brings us to a troubling gospel reading this morning.  Jesus is speaking to his disciples about the signs that they can look for that will precede the return of the Son of Man to earth.  It is a mystical speech of cosmic changes, signs in the sun, moon and stars, as well as distress among the nations and deep foreboding in the hearts of individuals.

            We hear groups around us assigning meanings to signs, and we rightfully become uneasy.

Maybe they see unmistakable signs, but I’m not having that kind certainty when I look at the world.  It seems to me that we’ve got all kinds of changes caused by our own human effect upon the earth; the tsunami in 2004, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, the strange weather patterns that are happening all around us, and the mounting tensions, war and genocide among the nations today.  Many of us get filled with foreboding after listening to the news.

But (and here’s the problem) in one form or another, these sorts of things have been going on for centuries, so what do those signs mean, if anything, other than that life isn’t easy, and we ourselves make it more difficult?  Is Jesus about to come back or is what we are witnessing just the way things are in a world where that which is good and that that which is not battle it out?

Most of our senior members here can remember as a kid hearing a grown person commenting on the world by saying “We are living in the end time!”  Every young person here has heard the same.  I read, “The Late Great Planet Earth” by Hal Lindsey when I was a teenager, and it scared me.  But the world is still going on.  So the troubles back then weren’t signs of the end after all. 

What’s more, even this gospel text itself is contradictory.  Jesus’ talk about signs is part of a conversation with his followers.  It began when some of them commented on the stones used in the building of the temple and Jesus responded by saying that the day would come when not one stone would be left standing.  He was predicting the demolition of the temple when Jerusalem would be destroyed by Rome a few decades later.  But the gospel is written as if it is the present, and Luke is there following Jesus with a quill, taking notes.  In fact, the gospel was written after the destruction of the temple when these facts were well-known.  So the prescience in Jesus’ speech may have been dubbed in afterwards.

Finally, as if to cement the confusion, Jesus says to his hearers, “Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place.”  In other words, the end-time would come within the lives of Jesus’ generation.  So, if the end time did not come when it was supposed to have, why do we still insist on reading ambiguous signs about a non-event?

Here we are beginning the season of Advent.  The word “advent” means “coming” or “arrival” and symbolizes both the era before Jesus came, when people were waiting for a promised Messiah, and today, when so many people are more focused on a second-coming and an end-time, rather than on living lives that are less concerned about what happens to us, and more dedicated to the fates of others.  And, really, doesn’t the more selfless approach improve one’s own soul more than living as if you were saved and others weren’t? 

What’s more, this is complicated by our trouble in knowing what our scriptures’ words about the second coming even mean. The first Christians apparently took them quite literally, and many expected Christ to return within their generation.

But 2,000 years later, it’s hard for many to know quite what to make of Second-Coming talk. You can only stand gazing eagerly at the sky for so long with nothing happening before you start to feel ridiculous.  And, if your theology makes you look to the end-time instead of to the pain and need that is all around you that you can actually help to alleviate, yours is a dangerous theology centered on a thoughtless deity.

On World AIDS Sunday, I’m glad to read in the paper that so many churches are coming together to talk about what they can do about AIDS in Africa.  But, they are over twenty years late.  And they are late because of their response to AIDS in America in the 1980’s.  They are late because of their narrow inward focus on their own salvation and their punitive outward gaze at those whom they felt in a position to judge.  Having judged, they constricted their hearts, now all-too incapable of responding to the great commandment to love God and love their neighbors as themselves. 

They have misread the signs.  They have misread them, and we must give them, and ourselves, a sense of the grace at work in our lives at this time that we might come together in greater numbers to be the healing hands of Christ at work in the world.

We have all misread signs.  We can watch reports of great trouble in the news and look at the difficulties in our own lives and view them as signs that despair is warranted.  There are facts that even in the broad sunlight are hard enough to take, but couple them with a midnight mood, when all our defenses are down, and they can lead us to lose hope.

And, it would be a shame to do that because despair can cause us to miss the most important thing Jesus said in this whole passage.  He was talking to those who were following him, and he said, “Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

And so eventually, if you are a person of faith, you might conclude that perhaps the notion of a “second coming” is not meant to be understood factually as much as it is a promise of a final coming together of cosmic, God-filled goodness—that which we express in hope, peace, joy and love during this season.

And so, today we lit the candle of “hope,” as doom and gloom always precede redemption.

And if that’s the case, then the world’s tribulations and our personal trials can be understood as reasons for us to remain faithful, hopeful and optimistic in the long view.

And the long view is what is called for.  Harry Emerson Fosdick tells of having a conversation with the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr.  Niebuhr was so convinced of the universal tendency for humans to abuse power that he was pessimistic about the possibility of society every becoming just or moral.  Still, he held hope in God and believed that individual acts could be conducted on a higher moral level than that of the society in which the individual lived.

Fosdick, however, had more confidence in humankind’s ability to progress, and thus, he urged Niebuhr to be more optimistic.

Niebuhr responded, “If you will be pessimistic with me decade by decade, I will be optimistic with you aeon by aeon.”

That’s a hard position to take when we are in the midst of conflict, troubles and threats, for it calls for us to see the good news behind the bad news.  But of course, Good News is the message of this season.  As Niebuhr put it elsewhere: “Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith.  Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love.”

Thus, if we believe Jesus, then we should not view Advent as merely a preparation season for Christmas. It is a time to remind ourselves not to misread the calamitous signs in our world as reasons to despair.  Rather they are signals to stand up and raise our heads in hope for what is to come, because it is our liberation that must draw near.

Sermon Resources:

Fosdick, Harry Emerson. A Faith for Tough Times. New York: Harper, 1952, 72.

Lansky, Doug (compiler). Signspotting: Absurd & Amusing Signs from Around the World. Oakland, Calif.: Lonely Planet, 2005.

Niebuhr, Reinhold. The Irony of American History. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1952, chapter 3.

Mixed Signals, Homileticsonline, December 3, 2006