RCL Advent 2C
8 December 2024
Church of the Epiphany
Surrey BC
For several years I served as the Faculty Library Liaison at Vancouver School of Theology. It was during a time when our Library was going through several transitions, so it was thought that having a regular connection with the Faculty of the School would be a good thing for the Library Staff.
Almost every day I would stop by the Library to check in with the Staff. One of their shared activities was to complete the crossword puzzle in an American magazine. This was no ordinary crossword. Solving one clue only provided you with a few letters to solve a literary quotation. So the four of us would work together or individually on the puzzle for days. I’m happy to say that most of the time we solved the puzzle before the next one appeared.
In addition to the crossword, someone would bring in a jigsaw puzzle. Spread out on a table were all the pieces with the box top perched nearby to guide us. We’d find all the pieces that made up the outer edges. We’d try to figure out what pieces went where. Sometimes someone would be able to connect three or four pieces together to form a little ‘island’ just waiting to be connected to another part of the puzzle.
Working on the crossword and the jigsaw puzzle was special in a number of ways. First, it was something we all did together. Second, no one was a ‘star’. With each crossword or puzzle one of us would turn out to be the person who could decipher the clues or discern how the pieces fit together better than the rest. Third, it was an activity that gave us peace as we were navigating some difficult times in the Library and the School.
All of today’s readings were written to communities that were in the midst of one turmoil or another. Baruch was writing to a community being persecuted for following the Law of Moses. Paul was writing to a community under scrutiny by both civil and religious authorities. Luke was writing to a community who needed to know that the message of John the Baptist was a message of renewal and hopeful expectation. All the scriptures today were written for us, Christians living in a society where our role is changing, where our congregations have different understandings of the good news of God in Christ, where society questions whether religious faith is a blessing or not.
In challenging times people can choose differing ways of coping. Some people act as if nothing has changed and simply go on doing what they’ve been doing for years. Other people turn inward and hope that there will be some unexpected change in the climate around them. Some communities acknowledge the challenges they face and discern how best to navigate them. They remember who they are and what they are called to do and how they can do this in changing circumstances.
In the Jewish tradition there is a concept called tikkun olam. Tikkun olam means ‘repairing the world’. A person participates in tikkun olam by prayer, by study, by worship and by their commitment to justice, steadfast love and humility. I believe that Christians who share a faith heritage with Jews are also called to tikkun olam.
What I love about this belief that we are called to be co-workers with God in repairing the world is what I experienced with the Library Staff so many years ago. We have a world before us that we know needs repairing. We see clues that might lead us to fixing one thing or another; we see pieces that might fit together to link at least a few people or communities if not all. But it is a task that we need to do together. No single person, no single community, can do this work alone. We need allies and co-workers who share our commitment to restore the world to the beauty God intended.
It is a task that requires the cooperation and coordination of all of the gifts of time, of talent and of treasure that God has bestowed upon human beings. There are some clues better seen by one person or community than by another. There are some links that one person or community can better create than another.
It is a task that brings peace even if only to one small portion of the world in which we live, even if only for a brief span of time. Maimonides, one of the great teachers of Judaism, wrote that if one person was able to repair the world for one hour, it was as if they had repaired the whole world entirely and caused God’s glory to rest upon us. [1] God is not calling us to complete the work of repair and of restoration; God is calling us to participate in it as best as we can with the resources we have.
On this second Sunday of Advent I invite to join me in pondering how we, both as individuals and as a community, can share in God’s work of restoring the world to the beauty God intends. While we cannot escape thinking about the whole world, we need to focus on how we participate locally – here in Guildford, here in Surrey, here in the Lower Mainland.
One thing that I learned so many years ago with the Library Staff is how the work of one person can create a cascade effect that results in the completion of a crossword or a puzzle. Because one person has deciphered one crossword clue, it becomes the means to complete a whole section. Because one person has managed to put together a few ‘islands’ of jigsaw pieces, suddenly the whole puzzle can be completed in a few minutes. And peace, even if only for a moment, comes down upon us. From that moment of peace comes a renewed hope in the future, in the completion of God’s work of repairing ‘this fragile earth, our island home’, this precious expression of God’s love for us and for all creation.
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