Sermon delivered on the 3rd Sunday before Advent, November 11, 2012, at St. Augustine’s Anglican Church, Columbus, OH.

Lectionary texts: Ruth 3.1-5, 4.13-17; Psalm 127.1-6; Hebrews 9.24-28; Mark 12.38-44.

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

In the wake of Tuesday’s election and the selection of the new Archbishop of Canterbury on Friday, I have heard and read a lot of naysaying and doom and gloom. It is a natural human tendency to do this, I think, and that is why our lessons today are so timely (a coincidence?). Each in its own way speaks of God’s sovereignty and providence in human affairs and so this morning I want us to look at these texts to see what we can learn from them and so take hope.

In our OT lesson, we are given a classic reminder of what God can do when people are faithful to his word and act accordingly. First, some background. Here we have Naomi, an Israelite who has lost her husband and two sons, and thereby her only means of support. By any measure, Naomi would be considered to be materially destitute. We also have her widowed daughter-in-law Ruth, a foreign woman who has steadfastly refused to abandon Naomi. It is a poignantly desolate and desperate picture the writer paints for us. Both women have been dealt a terrible hand and surely they were tempted to ask where God was in all of it and give up all hope! But they don’t do that. They both remain faithful and trust that God will somehow deliver them from their desolation if they remain faithful and persevere.

And now in today’s story, Naomi devises a breathtakingly bold plan for Ruth. In evocative language that is deliberately vague so that we are left to wonder if there are sexual connotations involved, Naomi tells Ruth to prepare herself in a way that will effectively be seen as a marriage proposal by the righteous Boaz, a relative of Naomi’s. Scandalous indeed! In ancient Israel, women simply did not propose marriage to men! Moreover, there is no guarantee that the plan will work. Boaz might wake up and in the fog of sleepiness and darkness mistake Ruth for a prostitute. Or Boaz might be mortally offended by Ruth’s aggressiveness and send her away so that she is consigned to a destiny of hopelessness as a forsaken widow and foreigner.

Nowhere is God mentioned in the first part of our story. But the writer wants us to see that God is there, working in and through the faith of Naomi and Ruth and the righteousness of his servant Boaz to accomplish his will, both for Ruth and Naomi and also for his people Israel. We are seeing how God brought together the great-grandparents of King David, through whose line God would eventually bring forth his Messiah, Jesus. The story is even more remarkable considering that it takes place in the dark age of Israel when rebellion and anarchy ruled because there was no king and “everyone did as they saw fit” (Judges 21.25). In such a chaotic environment, surely there would have been every reason for people to wonder if God had not abandoned them and left them to their own devices.

And we dare not let our 20-20 hindsight rob us of the remarkable courage and faith that Naomi and Ruth display here. As we have seen, it all could have gone terribly wrong. Like us in our present situations, these women did not know that there would be a happy ending. But they trusted in God and God delivered them through the righteousness of his faithful servant. As the psalmist reminds us in today’s lesson, unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain. You cannot have this kind of trust without having a real knowledge of the heart and mind of God. And if we do not understand that God often can and usually does work through his faithful people, we will miss God’s Presence in our midst, especially in the chaotic times of our lives.

But living faithful lives is no guarantee of a happy outcome like Ruth and Naomi enjoyed. If nothing else, the Bible paints a frank and realistic picture of the human condition. In God’s wise providence (which itself requires great faith on our part), God sometimes allows human evil and sin to temporarily thwart his good purposes. We see this illustrated in today’s gospel lesson. Jesus has just finished condemning the pride and greed of some of the teachers of the law for practicing injustice and oppressing society’s weakest and most helpless. And then as if to show an example of this to his disciples, he points out to them a poor widow who gives all that she has to support a corrupt Temple system that has utterly failed to be God’s light and image bearer to God’s own people, let alone to the other people living in God’s good but broken world.

There is no happy ending to this story as far as we know. The widow goes away, utterly bereft of any material wealth and with no prospects of help, at least from the Temple system, which seeks its own enrichment at the expense of everything and everyone else. And we can very much relate to this because we live in a world where the bad guys seem to win as much if not more so than the good guys. But Jesus is warning us not be be participants in this kind of evil, either directly or indirectly, because God will judge this kind of behavior severely (and the people who consistently behave in these ways). Make no mistake. God will not be mocked.

But Mark also seems to be reminding us that even in the face of this injustice, God has seen the woman’s heart and has blessed her faithfulness. This poor widow is not forgotten by God and we are to be encouraged by that. But we will have a hard time finding encouragement if we do not look for God’s faithful image- and light-bearers to step up and help this woman (and all like her) in her poverty and to fight the injustice that oppresses her. It is not enough for us to wring our hands and bewail the wickedness of the world or the lousy hand we have been dealt. We are called to action in the power of the Spirit and it is through our faithful actions that God works to dismantle the corruption and injustice we see characterized in this story and our world! Only then will we really have the opportunity to see that God is faithful to his promises.

But how do we know our actions will make any difference? Because as the writer of our epistle lesson reminds us, in the death of Jesus, God has overcome human sin and the evil it produces (cf. Colossians 1.19-23; 2.15). And when Jesus appears again, this time it will not be to die again for us but to bring about our salvation in full. In other words, God is fully in charge and engaged actively in the affairs of his world, and history is going somewhere. We know this because we believe Jesus will come again to usher in his kingdom in full and so consummate his victory won for us on the cross. A God who becomes human to suffer and die for us so that he could vanquish evil and offer us forgiveness so that we can be the human beings he created us to be is not a distant or uncaring God who is only marginally involved in his world. No, as the first Christians would proclaim, “Jesus is Lord!” (which means Caesar is not).

And so we are saved, not to be taken out of the world but to be Jesus’ light and salt for the world as his healed and redeemed people working in the power of the Spirit. Like Boaz in our OT lesson, Jesus calls us to bring his healing love to the world in the context of our everyday lives and to say no to the evil that besets us so that through us he can build on the foundation of his death and resurrection to bring about his kingdom on earth as in heaven. This  is not particularly sexy and it certainly isn’t spectacular. In fact, it’s quite the opposite because often this will involve personal sacrifice and suffering on our part. As Christians we are not called to look for pillars of fire and cloud to see God’s glory in his world, but rather to a crucified Messiah, who in apparent weakness has brought about the means for God to redeem his broken and hurting world and people (cf. 1 Corinthians 1.18-25). To be certain this takes great faith on our part. And it also takes great patience and perseverance. But we are promised the help of the Spirit and each other to help us in our weakness. And if we fail to look for God’s Presence and sovereignty manifested in human agency, we will surely miss a huge part of how God chooses to bring about his will on earth as in heaven.

In a few minutes we are going to baptize Daniel into Christ and his body, the Church. We’ve all known people who have been baptized and then proceed to act as if their baptism never happened and that they do not really belong to Christ. We can understand this because our faith has been buffeted by the changes and chances of life and I suspect most of us have wavered in our faith, if not fallen from it on occasion, at least temporarily. We are perplexed by this because we believe that God is all-powerful and so we often sit back as if to enjoy the ride and wonder why God doesn’t just zap all the evil for us. But as our OT lesson reminds us, that’s not how God typically works among his creatures and creation. As we have seen, God in his wise providence has chosen to work through wise human beings who bear his image. This means we are to walk with Daniel as he begins to live out his new life in Christ. It means we need to be there for him when “it” hits the fan for him, to weep with him and to rejoice with him when God’s blessings are graciously poured out on him. He needs to know that he can count on us and we on him. And through it all, we can have confidence that God is with us, working through us to use our puny and sometimes half-hearted or mistaken efforts to bring about his good will for not only Daniel and us, but also for those others whom God providentially brings into our lives.

The same holds true for the fate of our country and the Anglican Communion. We are not to give up or lose hope because God can and does work through some of the most unlikely folks to bring about his will for his people. Again, this does not guarantee a happy ending, at least from our limited perspective. But like Ruth and Naomi, we must continue to live faithful lives with hope and confidence because we know God is true to his promises and we trust God’s good will for us and God’s world. We remember that Jesus is Lord who works through his faithful people (and even some unfaithful ones), and that means God has not abandoned us. So if you are feeling discouraged about the state of affairs in this world, take heart and hope. Let God use others to strengthen you by reminding you of this truth. May God use each of us to strengthen one another whenever the opportunity arises and especially when we see each other express a real need for hope. As we do, we will realize that because Jesus is Lord and sin and evil are not, we really do have Good News to embrace, now and for all eternity.

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.