Expected Home
Zephaniah 3: 14-20
Luke 3: 8-16
A Meditation by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart
 

You are waiting.... watching.... at the window... longing, aching, for your loved one... to make it home.  Staring into the dark night, watching the roads, hoping at every light and sound and movement, waiting for your loved one to come home.

The unexpected turn of Advent is that it is God who waits.  We are God’s loved ones.  

We are expected home.

Rejoice!

We think of Advent as our season of anticipation, as our time of waiting and longing.  But the deeper more wondrous and abiding truth ... is that Advent really is the story of God’s longing, God’s waiting for us.

Emmanuel... God with us ... is the fulfillment of God’s longing to be with us.

What is our experience of moving through Advent not as the ones expecting ... but as the ones expected? God calls to us, waits for us, expects us home. Rejoice!

In James Weldon Johnson’s wonderful retelling of the Story of Creation, before the creation of woman and man, God laments, “I’m lonely!”  From the beginning, God is all about community!

Someone asked me this week – why all the prophets in Advent? Why Malachi, Zechariah, Zephaniah, Isaiah and John the Baptist? Where are the angels?  

It’s hard not to reach for Christmas early.  We, who are not into delayed gratification, rush to fulfillment and can miss the beauty and power of God’s expectant love.  It’s not so much that we are putting something off, rather it’s that we need to claim it all.

The prophet Zephaniah lived in the 7th Century BCE, in a time so hard it is hard for our ears to hear his voice.  In the verses preceding those we heard a few moments ago, Zephaniah rails against the wickedness of Jerusalem. “It has listened to no voice; it has accepted no correction.  It has not trusted in the Lord.”  But then Zephaniah prophecies restoration and hope.  The prophet’s joy is God’s delight in right relationship restored ... “Do not fear ... The Lord your God is in your midst ... God will renew you with love ... God will change shame into praise.” Zephaniah prophecies restoration in community. Prophets see God where others don’t.

Our worship this morning is filled with the songs of the musical Godspell.  The parables, message, life, passion, and first community of Jesus are played out playfully in song and action.

Godspell opens in the city.  Individuals sing out the different songs of their lives, their work, their struggles, their stories just as we gathered here this morning – when suddenly there is a holy interruption -- the sound of the shofar, -- and a voice of one crying in the wilderness prepare ye the way of the Lord....and community is formed.  

In Godspell, from John the Baptist’s cry, to confessions and lamentations, to blessing the Lord, and giving thanks for all good gifts, and asking for help on the journey, an imperfect community of joy comes to know Jesus by followng Jesus, by immersing themselves in the whole story.  

In Godspell, images of clowns, foolish improvisation and the freedom of Gospel shape community. There is disarming theological and cultural critique ... dance ...  and a whole lot of rejoicing!

Godspell first opened off-Broadway in 1971 – nearly 30 years ago! When composer and lyricist Stephen Schwartz (who also wrote the musicals Wicked, Working, Prince of Egypt) was interviewed by a Journal of Theater and Performance in 2005, he said that Godspell is not a show about religion. Rather, he said, it is about the “formation of community.”  Which, of course, is God’s work in the world.  We are called, expected, welcomed into the community ... the kindom ... of God’s love...  

Like the crowds, the solidiers, the tax collectors who heard John’s cry, we are challenged not to rest on our roots, not to blame our circumstance, but to bear fruit.  We hear John’s call and ask,

What then shall we do?

Sally Nasman emailed to me a quote from writer E.B. White (who wrote Charlottes Web among many other wonderful things).  E.B. White said, “I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world ... This makes it hard to plan the day."  His words express perfectly a day by day dilemma: improve or enjoy ... save or savor?

Godspell and the Gospel, invite us, call us, expect us, challenge us to do both with joy. Because Jesus is Lord (and we are not) we are free to save and savor.

Holy interruptions from unexpected places call us to join a colorful community of joy.  Do not fear! Do not fear that God is not with us!  Do not be afraid to follow!   God is waiting.   Come home.  You are expected.

Rejoice.