December 7, 2003
You'd Better Watch Out
Riley E. Jensen

Sometimes I wonder if names can be a predictor of character or even future endeavor.  I want to begin on this second Sunday of Advent with a quote from one of Linda’s professors at Princeton.  I only knew him slightly since we would occasionally invite him to teach adult education classes at my former church in New Jersey.  But when you hear the name Diogenes Allen, how could he be anything other than someone who earned his living with his mind!

Dr. Allen, known as Dick to his friends (for obvious reasons), once delivered a lecture in which he talked about the Christian temptation to look back all the time -- back to tradition, back in repentance for sins committed, back in guilt for acts of omission.  As a corrective he liked to emphasize what he believed to be the Christian imperative to look forward, because he says, “The only way forward is forward.”  When you are an academic, you can say things like that and it will sound profound.

If Lent is the season of reflection and repentance, then Diogenes Allen gives voice to the Advent theme of anticipation, of looking ahead to what is yet to be.  And maybe that will be easier for us to do this year than it has been in years past.  It has been a tough year for a lot of us.  We have experienced the loss of loved ones; others have lost jobs or suffered the anxieties of an uncertain economy.  We have been a nation at war and are finding that the peace is much more difficult to achieve than uniting against a common threat.

The traditional Advent theme is certainly one of anticipation while the traditional Advent texts draw us toward the vision of the Second Coming of Christ which Linda started talking about last week.  Sometimes it is called the Day of the Lord or the Judgment Day.  It will be a day of light if not of sweetness.  The Bible teaches that we will all, one-by-one, appear before that judgment seat to give account for lives lived.

If Christmas is the celebration of the first coming of our Lord evoking warm feelings and nostalgic images, Advent reminds us that this one who has come will come again, and that coming again is shrouded in different kinds of images.  Here apprehension creeps into the Christian faith with thoughts of judgment when our Lord shall return as a Judge and not as an infant.

Now that is not something that any of us particularly look forward to, and it is certainly not an image that we like to mingle with the mistletoe and holly with their accents of love gift-wrapped in a manger.  You see, in reminding us that Jesus is coming again, Advent tells us that it is not too late to change.  This is our chance not to wallow in old sins and old despairs.  Now is the time to wake up and take control of my life.

It is about this time of year that the message of our faith gets mixed up with the message of our culture.  Resolutions to amend our lives and do better usually come after Christmas as we approach the New Year.  We are used to thinking of Advent as being more like the warm-up act for a concert; it’s time for the hype and the glitter as we count down to the main event.

But I want to suggest that it is better for us to think of this as our new year -- that time when we look at ourselves openly and honestly preparing ourselves to receive that gift of love in Christ.  Now if this is all too theological for you or maybe all too familiar, and you are saying to yourself, “Come on, Riley, don’t remind us of that struggle which is with us every day, but lift us above it so that we can at least escape into the distractions of the season.”

If that is where you are, then I want to honor that by offering a bit of an escape from Jesus and the Second Coming into the more familiar seasonal image of Santa Claus.  There was a time when this was my favorite Christmas song and perhaps yours:

You’d better watch out,

You’d better not cry,

Better not pout,

I’m telling you why:

Santa Claus is comin’ to town.

He’s making a list,

And checking it twice,

Gonna find out

Who’s naughty and nice:

Santa Claus is comin’ to town.

He sees you when you’re sleepin’,

He knows when you’re awake,

He knows if you’ve been bad or good,

So be good, for goodness sake.

Oh!  You’d better watch out,

You’d better not cry,

Better not pout,

I’m telling you why:

Santa Claus is comin’ to town.

(Haven Gillespie, 1934)

Do you get it!  The kids get it!  Do you?  This is actually a pretty heavy-duty Advent sentiment.  If the cultural police find out just how Christian this song is, they will banish it along with the manger on the village green and the Ten Commandments in the court house.

The first thing about this little ditty that we have been singing since childhood (and which touches off warm feelings every year when we start hearing it blaring through department store speakers -- some time about the middle of October) is that it is a warning, a very big warning, “You’d better watch out!”  Be on your toes and start paying attention because something is about to happen.

And don’t get caught up in your fears and anxieties in the face of this big uncertain event that is about to happen.  That, of course, means no pouting or crying.  What is this big event that is creating such a stir.  Well, dummy!  It’s all about Santa Claus!  Don’t you know!  Santa Claus is coming to town.  We have all heard about him and we have seen evidence of his work all over the place.  But in spite of all of that, this bearded fellow from the North Pole (whose reindeer can fly faster than the speed of light) still remains shrouded in a lot of mystery.

All we really know is that we had better watch out and we had better get ready, and we do this by being on our best behavior because he’s “gonna find out who’s naughty and nice”.  Don’t think you can fake it and fool Santa like you do your parents because he has special powers.  He’s got his eye on you even when you’re sleeping, and he knows if you’ve been good or bad.

What’s the message?  Shape up!  Make sure that your life is in order.  If not, you’d better watch out or you will find a lump of coal in your stocking.  Now, my friends (who worry about the secularization of the season) substitute Jesus Christ for Santa Claus and you will pretty well have the Advent message down pat.  No matter how you slice it, there is work to be done if we are going to be ready for this one who is to come.

Even though “You’d better watch out!” sounds a bit forbidding, it is only meant to be the kind of wake-up call that we all need every once in a while.  You see, the beauty of this season is that every year the wake-up call is sounded again for us.  The truth is that many of us have to have that alarm go off more than once in the morning before we are roused to attention.

It is not an easy world out there and it is easy for us to get mired down in discouragement, failure, or frustration.  And it is easy for us to believe that our past is going to be a predictor of the future.  The wake-up call of Advent is a reminder that we can’t walk out of our spiritual wilderness alone. 

One of the ways in which we try to recognize that around here is through our Light in Darkness service.  We have been doing that for several years now during Advent as a way of reminding ourselves that the feelings of this time are often in conflict.  While it is certainly a time of great celebration over the wonderful gift of love in Christ, there are those among us who don’t feel that love and who find that the advertisements of the season are not consistent with their experience of reality.

This is where St. Paul enters the picture.  Paul is often thought to be the Theodore Roosevelt of the New Testament, a kind of can-do, go-to figure, but in our lesson this morning he reveals his own sense of discouragement.  Did you pick it up?  For some this may have sounded more like a pep talk than a confession, “Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart.” 

To some that can sound a bit like the coach in the locker room raging the troops on “when the going gets tough, the tough get going”.  But let me tell you that when someone talks about not losing heart, they are more likely scared to death or greatly discouraged.  Paul is not in the place he wants to be here.  He is not his positive can-do self.  Remember, when people say it’s not about the money, it’s usually about the money.  Paul’s work with the Corinthians had been frustrating, discouraging business.  They had done nothing but criticize him.  They had criticized him for his insensitivity and his insincerity, for his pretentiousness, even for what he looked like.

It’s tough to work with people you feel don’t like you.  It takes its toll.  But in the face of it, Paul reminds himself that his ministry is dependant upon “the mercy of God”.  And so he says in effect, “As critical as you have been of me and however worthy of that criticism I may be, I have been drafted as a servant of Christ, and given a ministry, a job to do.  It may not seem to be going well, but it is not I who makes this work.  It is rather Christ who works in me.”

My friends, we have this ministry by the mercy of God; therefore, do not lose heart.  Lift up those downcast eyes and watch out.  You’d better watch out because Jesus Christ is coming to town, and he wants to come into each of our lives.  And when he does he will help us to put some things in order, to clear away the debris of sin and selfishness.  This kind of judgment entails the kind of self-examination that we have wanted to do but just haven’t gotten around to.  Therefore, we are indeed watching out so that we can welcome the Christ into our hearts and lives.

We come now to the Communion Table being reminded that we do not lose heart because we are dependant upon the mercy of God, which is always there. 

Amen.