“What Are We Waiting For?”

A Sermon for Advent
by the Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger
North Shore Unitarian Universalists
Sunday, December 4, 2011

This morning we mark the season of Advent along with our sisters and brothers in the Christian community all over the world. This Advent service is part of our on-going holiday celebration, which begins with this service, and continues next Sunday with the Intergenerational Holidays of Lights service. After that, North Shore will enjoy a beautiful service of special Holiday Music. Just as a reminder, there will be NO service at North Shore on December 25, Christmas Day, when everyone is encouraged to enjoy their sacred time with their loved ones.

The folk at First Church want to invite you all to a special Winter Solstice Candlelight Labyrinth Walk in our Sanctuary on the night of December 21st at 6:30 pm. It’s a beautiful service, and a wonderful way to mark the longest night of the year and the turn of the seasons.

The UU holiday celebrations will continue into the new year as the congregations of the Greater New Orleans UU cluster come together with the President, Moderator, and Board of Trustees of the UUA to hold our annual Jazz Funeral for the Old Year on January 22. That service will begin at 11 am.

The word “advent” comes from the same root word as “adventure,” and means the anticipated arrival of an important something or someone. On the Christian liturgical calendar, the 4 weeks of Advent are said to represent 4,000 years of the faithful waiting for the Messiah. Orthodox Christians are still waiting, this time for what they believe will be the second advent, or second coming, of Christ at the end of all time.

As Unitarian Universalists, inheritors of a long and proud liberal religious tradition, Advent is still a time of anticipation for something important that’s coming, but we do not believe that our job is simply to wait. We religious liberals do not just wait, we also work for the changes that will bring about the new world we anticipate and hope for.

This sense of humanity being co-responsible with God for bringing about of the world of justice and peace and harmony is also a very Jewish idea. The concept that God needs us to help heal the broken world -- tikkun olam in Hebrew -- is characteristic of Hassidic Judaism and has become a hallmark in progressive Jewish circles as well.

In the early years of the 20th century, the proponents of the Social Gospel, some of them Unitarian and Universalist, brought that same idea to liberal Christianity, insisting that the Kingdom of Heaven that Jesus spoke of required the work of human beings in order to be completed. It was not enough, these reformers insisted, to be pious and to attend church and to read the Bible. Religion could not be separate from the way people lived their lives in the world -- instead, actions must be taken to bring Biblical ideas of equity and mercy to bear on current-day social issues. During this turbulent period of history, the NAACP was founded (with Unitarian minister John Haynes Holmes as one of the original co-founders), social service organizations were developed, and religious folk of many different Christian denominations got involved in advocating for racial justice, improving facilities and treatment for the mentally ill, prison reform, and changes in immigration law.

Although the Social Gospel movement lost energy and steam after the 2 world wars, when it became difficult to sustain a movement based on the idea of the improveability of humanity, the basic foundational concept of human beings in partnership with the Divine to bring about the Realm of God, the world of justice and peace, has never been lost. The idea that we human beings have a duty to help build the Peaceable Kingdom by the way we live our lives and how we behave and treat one another is still one of the most important aspects of religious liberalism. We do not believe that we are passive recipients of God’s favor, or that we are helpless pawns of an indifferent fate -- we believe that what we do can make a positive difference in the world. Not only that, but we believe that we have a moral and ethical responsibility to do so.

I do not know if this story is true, that it actually happened. But it feels true, and it should have happened. In the way that we can learn even from fictional stories, I offer this one to you: A story is told of a rural town in England that was badly damaged during the Second World War, and which began its heart-breaking and weary work of restoration when the war finally ended. In the old town square had stood a large statue of Jesus with his hands outstretched in an attitude of invitation. On the pedestal were carved the words, “Come unto me.” One night, during a night-time bombing raid, the statue had been reduced to rubble.
With the aid of master artists and sculptors, the statue was eventually reassembled -- all except for the hands, for no usable fragments could be found. It was thought that the artists could be asked to fashion new hands for the statue. But when word got out of the proposal, a public protest went up, and the people of the town insisted that the statue be left without hands.
Today, in the public square of that English town, stands a restored statue of Jesus, arms open wide, but without hands. On the base are carved the words, “He has no hands but ours!”

No hands but ours. We are the hands of God, Divine instruments for doing what must be done in the world. God has no hands but ours, and there is so much work still to do.

Advent may be a time of waiting, but what are we waiting for? Unitarian Universalists, whether theist or not, do not believe in the theological concept of an outside savior; we are not hoping and waiting for a Messiah; we do not have the luxury of thinking that a deus ex machina will arrive at the climatic moment and save the day. The time is now, and there are no hands but ours. AMEN – ASHE – SHALOM – SALAAM – NAMASTE – BLESSED BE!