In his forthcoming (2017) introductory book on preaching, Dr. Richard Eslinger begins with the importance of context to the preaching task. At the opening of the very first chapter, titled (appropriately), “Context,” Eslinger writes:

For those called to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ, context is everything. To be certain, there are broad convictions about Christian faith that are proclaimed in a sermon now and then though even such convictional truths are birthed within particular contexts and embedded in particular biblical stories. Most of our preaching, unavoidably, will need to be uttered in the particular context in which we speak and serve. This assertion is not unique for a biblical people, though it may seem like folly to certain “celebrity” preachers and other known and revered church hierarchs who rotate around local churches preaching the same sermon again and again as if context meant nothing at all (other than a few opening remarks bragging on the location and reputation, perhaps, of the host pastor). However, such generic proclamations run against the grain of Scripture itself and are in tension with the striking particularity of those who proclaim God’s Word to God’s people.

One famously debated example of the particularity of proclaiming the Gospel is Paul’s own witness to his ministry in writing to the church in Corinth. “To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews … To those outside the law I became as one outside the law…” (1 Cor. 9:20-21a). What is being affirmed by the Apostle is not a casual disregard for the truth of the Gospel. After all, Paul insists that he is under Christ’s law” (1 Cor. 9:22b). Rather, as a faithful Christian missionary he aims for the good of others and not for his own fame or distinctive “life style.”

— Introduction to Preaching © 2016 Richard Eslinger. All rights reserved

Context has played a huge role in the writing of preaching notes since I began this work almost four years ago. Even though I could no longer consider the context of a local church to which I was appointed as I read the Scriptures, I could consider the context of my relationship to all of those who read my notes in preparation to preach in their own particular place of ministry. My context was to write for preachers. And I could consider the context of the wider world, because I could publish quickly and therefore work only four to six weeks ahead, which allowed me to write about current events. But now I am writing almost six months before you will read these words.

And so as I write, I am painfully aware that several months from now, by the time you are likely reading these words for the first time, the United States will have elected a new president, the bishops in the United Methodist Church may have announced some decisions about how we will live into our future as a denomination, people I know and love may have died, and unfortunately, catastrophic events that I do not yet know about, including personal crises, natural disasters, and terrorist attacks, may have occurred.

As I read again this passage about the thief coming in the night for the First Sunday in Advent in the Year of our Lord, 2016, I awakened this morning to news of yet another devastating terrorist attack, this time at the airport in Istanbul, Turkey. The news is reporting that forty-one people have been killed and at least two hundred and thirty-nine injured. Also in the headlines: Pat Summit, the beloved longtime coach of the Lady Vols Basketball Team at the University of Tennessee, has succumbed to the ravages of early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. And a woman in Texas shot and killed her two daughters, and then she was shot and killed herself by police because she failed to drop her handgun when ordered.

So much violence. So sudden. All if it so unexpected and shocking.

What is going on in the news today as you read these words from the Gospel of Matthew and these notes on that text?
What is sudden, unexpected, and shocking that you are dealing with?
What is happening in the wider world around you, as well as the specific community in which you live, the congregation in which you serve, and the family and circle of friends of which you are a part?

The world is a terrifying place. We like to imagine that it is not. We like to think that at least our private homes are safe places and that we can protect ourselves and our families from thieves breaking in. But then we read the news story about a mother who called a family meeting in the safety of a family home, and she pulled out a handgun and shot her daughters multiple times at close range. Acts of violence and betrayal like this call into question whether private homes are ever places of safety. Of course, I make this comment as a person who is privileged to feel safe in my home and my neighborhood. I realize that many who are reading my words read them from a place where home has never been a haven of security and peace.

We like to believe airports are safe places. But when major international airports become targets for suicide bombers, even with all the additional security measures that are now in place at many airports around the globe, we begin to wonder if it isn’t better just to stay home. Of course, I write as a person of privilege, a Caucasian American citizen who has the freedom to travel wherever I want to go, and who can choose not to travel to places where my safety might be threatened because of my gender or my religious or cultural or racial heritage.

We like to think we can protect ourselves from early death through healthy living: keeping our weight down, exercising regularly, eating the right foods, and getting annual physical checkups. But then cancer or Alzheimer’s Disease or a stroke or heart attack, or an accident, breaks into our world. And suddenly we are forced to confront the fact that we don’t have much control even over the preservation of our own bodies. No matter how healthy we try to be, the fact is we are all, every single one of us, going to die. And none of us knows the day or the hour when our time to cross over the Jordan will come. And again, I must own that I write from the perspective of one who has enough income to pay for healthful food, and who lives in a place where I have access to good doctors and a plentiful food supply, clean water, health insurance, and even a prescription drug plan.

Advent: Beginning with the End in Mind
by Taylor Burton-Edwards
Advent marks the beginning of the church year with a period of extended reflection on the end of all things.

Or, with perhaps a bit more nuance, an extended reflection on the fulfillment of all things through Jesus Christ.

Often, when we think of fulfillment of things, we may imagine a process of gradual or not so gradual progress over time, with things moving ever nearer to their ideal state. In other words, we may think about the fulfillment of all things in a way that is similar to the way we may think about our own sanctification and Christian perfection, as we strive to grow in holiness of heart and life with the goal of becoming perfect in love at some point in this life.
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So when I read these words from Jesus on the First Sunday of the new Christian Year, the First Sunday in Advent, where he implores his disciples to:

“Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”

I can’t help but feel that I’m being put on notice. And I am struck that this ominous warning comes every year at the beginning of the season of preparation for Christmas. It seems out of place. And yet, there it is; and each year, we as pastors can either ignore it and preach on something else, or we can deal with it.

At this point there are a number of directions you could go with the sermon, depending on your particular context. The idea here is to move from reading Jesus’ words as literal to approaching them as metaphorical.

One possibility would be to stage something “unexpected” that literally interrupts your sermon. (This should not be something alarming or frightening, given the fact that many people are on edge when gathered in public spaces, and there may be people in the congregation who are armed.) It could be something humorous, like an individual standing up and breaking into a silly song, or allowing a dog to run into the church, or a balloon floating up from behind the altar, or your cell phone ringing and you taking the call, or whatever creative idea you can come up with that would help you to make this move.
Another possibility would be to talk about how ministry happens in the interruptions, and give an example.
You might also talk about how a “thief breaking in” could be understood as something that has happened to your congregation, in terms of an issue or reality that has left your “household” broken so that something you treasured has been taken away. One example would be something like starting a second, very different worship service, which essentially has over the years become a completely separate congregation, so that the body that gathers under your roof is now broken into two or three separately functioning parts, and in this way, the church that used to be no longer exists. A thief has broken in and taken it away.
Or you might approach this from a wider perspective and notice how the household of the world has to be broken into, ravaged, turned upside down in order to change it and make it more equitable for folks who have been dominated by the household of the world.

When Jesus said these words, he was not talking about a literal house and a literal thief. He was talking about the end of the world and the coming back of the Son of Man to judge the quick and the dead.

Maybe it would help to consider the context of Jesus’ words. The circumstances to which he spoke was that of his disciples having gotten carried away admiring the Temple in Jerusalem, and Jesus having replied to them, “You see all these? You are not going to believe this, but someday there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not have been thrown down.” Naturally, the disciples wanted to know WHEN all this was going to happen. And Jesus filled their minds with images of death and destruction, but ended up saying, “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.”

When will our own little temples — our buildings, our houses, our possessions we hold so dear, our health, our bodies, our very lives — come tumbling down? We don’t know, any more than we know when this whole shebang — earth and sky, moon and stars, space and time — shall cease.

Jesus points out how vulnerable and helpless we are, how temporary are our possessions, including the possession of our very lives. We can never know for sure in what part of the night the thief will come. We don’t know when. We can never know.

What can we do to cope, to endure, to hope and go on? How are we to prepare to receive Christ born into the world this year, and celebrate both the joy and the terror that his coming again arouses in us?

We can prepare only by fully admitting to the frailty of our human condition. We can prepare only by confessing our sinful desire to control the world ourselves and ask our creator for absolution. We can prepare only by casting ourselves on the mercy of God and giving thanks for what we have been given.

Give thanks that we have been spared for a little more time on this earth.
Give thanks that God has given us time and space to set our hearts in order during this season of holy preparation for whatever is to come.
Give thanks that our Lord Jesus Christ helps us to see that all of life, the world we live in, and each treasure it contains, is a pure gift from God, who first gave us Jesus, long ago in the little town of Bethlehem.
Give thanks that by grace our Lord teaches us always, again and again, to continually give our lives back over to him.

Advent: Beginning with the End in Mind

by Taylor Burton-Edwards

Advent marks the beginning of the church year with a period of extended reflection on the end of all things.

Or, with perhaps a bit more nuance, an extended reflection on the fulfillment of all things through Jesus Christ.

Often, when we think of fulfillment of things, we may imagine a process of gradual or not so gradual progress over time, with things moving ever nearer to their ideal state. In other words, we may think about the fulfillment of all things in a way that is similar to the way we may think about our own sanctification and Christian perfection, as we strive to grow in holiness of heart and life with the goal of becoming perfect in love at some point in this life.

That is certainly a biblical and Wesleyan model of our personal sanctification in this world. But it does not reflect either a biblical or Wesleyan model of what is needed for the wider world, even the universe itself, to reach the full renewal God intends.

That process of full renewal, or new creation, as imagined by the Scriptures, requires a clean break, or, one might say, a reboot of all things. While some people and some systems in the world are being made better, and this is a great sign and foretaste of God’s renewing grace, the overarching and underlying reality in the biblical imagination is that this world can never be fully redeemed as is. It is too far gone, too corrupt, and the damage from that corruption is too irreparable.

God has to start anew. God will do so. And God has already begun the process of starting anew through the first coming (advent) of Jesus Christ and through the ongoing, renewing work of the Holy Spirit in, through, and beyond those who are baptized into the Triune God and seek to live as Christ’s body in this world.

Advent is the season that is not so much about how we “get ready for the babe in the manger,” but rather how we get ready for the end of this world as we know it which that babe’s birth has begun and continues to reveal.

That’s why we have readings every Advent full of dire warnings and calls to repent. And that’s why, when we do finally get to stories related to the birth of Jesus on the fourth Sunday of Advent, even those stories point beyond his birth to the wider implications (and threats!) his birth poses for the order of the world as it was, in many ways still is, but will certainly not be in the age to come.