Advent I - Wake Up!

It is four weeks before Christmas and that means we are starting a new Christian year. At least that is true for those of us who follow a lectionary calendar. The season of Advent, composed of the four Sundays prior to Christmas day, is the beginning of a new year. On Sunday mornings we will be reading primarily from the Gospel of Mark this year. When we read the Daily Office, we will now be in Year 1. So how did the new year start?

As I prepared to preach my first sermon of the new year, this is what I saw in the news. "Jdimytai Damour, 34 was crushed to death early Friday morning by a stampede of Wal-Mart shoppers" I was outraged! "This was a senseless and despicable act by thoughtless and evil people," I thought. But as I reflected on it and began to put my thoughts together, I was even more surprised that we noticed. In this great country, we trample people every day in our quest for inexpensive electronics, clothing, household goods, and food. We don't notice them and we don't know their names.

A few years ago I visited a farm-worker camp in North Carolina. These young men were all here legally, having been brought over on some guest-worker program. But to get here, they had to pay a middle-man. The farmer also paid the middle-man for the workers. But the workers, mostly from Mexico, were poor and they did not have the up-front cash to pay the transporter. So they had to stay in this camp until they had earned enough money to repay that "loan". Since they were kept on private property, it was actually illegal for us to go and visit them. I hoped I wouldn't be arrested and quailed at bit at the risk I was taking just to make a simple Christian visit.

The people who pick our crops, who allow us to have so many different foods on our table are not paid enough to live in one place. They do not generally own homes. Their children are often moved about and don't do well in school. They are trampled under the feet of the rest of us who want the cheapest food possible, even if it is costly in the catagories of sin and greed.

So often we ignore these "corporate" sins. These are the sins we participate in just by doing the normal things our society says to do. Cheap goods are Good! If you want to help the economy go out and Buy Something! We turn a blind eye to the system underneath the cheap goods, and the fully stocked shelves.

Even our churches turn a blind eye. We hear so often about personal sins; the things that we do and can control. The Ten Commandments tell us not to steal or lie. They tell us to honor our parents and we say, "We can do that!" But then, do we? Do we honor our parents when so many older folks are sick and alone? Do we give a true witness when we say we care about others and then ignore the farm workers? Don't we steal when we don't pay the people who did the work? Corporate sin. Sin of the whole body of Christ and the whole body of the nation.

When Jesus came to walk among us, in that first coming, he was not deceived by us. He could see the state of our sin. Those we acknowledge, and those we are asleep to. He saw or corporate systems. He came anyway. He came and offered God's love and forgiveness. While sinners we are greatly loved. While still sinners, we are forgiven.

But Jesus asks us to go forth and sin no more! We cannot address our sins until we first wake up to them. Jesus offeres us a full life a life of joy and of meaning. To have that life, we must wake up and face the truth about ourselves and our world. We must see the sin before we can ask for forgiveness and work to correct it.

In this season of preparation, as we decorate our homes for the celebration of Christmas, let us also prepare our hearts and even the world for the second coming of the Lord. Let us wake up to the plight of those who make our lives possible and work to make this a just and loving world. Let us share the Good News of Christ with those around us and give them the gift of forgiveness and life. Let us wake up to our own sinfulness and turn away from it. Let us take up our cross and follow him!

As we offere our prayers to God this week, do not forget Jdimytai Damour and his family. Do not forget also the thousands of people who labored to get food to your table and gifts under your tree. Do not forget, that there is cost and risk in this life and make sure that you are awake enough to count those costs and weigh those risks.

May the Lord bless you this day and always. Amen.