Recalculating 2.0: Navigating the New Normal

I'll post the link up to the video of today's sermon when it's up but here's a snippet:

Because the truth on this First Sunday of Advent is that the world we’re called to navigate is not an Advent world – and I’m not just talking about the Christmas carols at the mall or the Christmas Blend at Starbucks we've been drinking for a month already. It is not a world waiting in eager anticipation for the curtain to rise – it is waiting in anxiety for the next shoe to drop.

There’s the helpless anger of people who “want their country back” and the hopeless hunger of people who wonder where their next meal is coming from. The saber rattling is escalating in Korea while the combat continues in Afghanistan and the AIDS pandemic continues in Africa as health workers combat cholera in Haiti. Hunger and homelessness are on the rise and violence against women and the bullying of LGBT youth are rampant.

And the church – the Body of Christ on earth that is supposed to be helping people make sense of all this – make a difference in the middle of all this – navigate through all this – well … it seems to have unplugged its GPS altogether and just keeps driving around the same old block: from “Keep gay couples from getting married” Street to “No women bishops” Avenue to “The Bible said it, I believe it, that settles it” Boulevard to “Protect Christmas by emailing everybody you know and telling them not to let anybody wish them “Happy Holidays” Road.

And then there’s shock and dismay when yet another poll shows more and more people find the church irrelevant.

Happy New Year, Church! Time to get our act together and be the hope God is calling us to be to a world in desperate need for it!