Readings for the Third Sunday of Advent (Year A) – Gaudete Sunday & Stir-Up Sunday
This sermon was preached at Christ Episcopal Church in Eureka CA on December 11, 2022.
Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us; and let your bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
This Third Sunday of Advent is known as Gaudete Sunday, based on the Introit, which are the words that the priest would say at the beginning of this Sunday’s mass as he approached the altar: Gaudete in Domino semper: iterum dico, Gaudete, which translates to “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I say, Rejoice!” which is a verse from Philippians 4, which is sometimes read on this Sunday, but not this year. However, what we do read every year on this Sunday is the Collect which begins with the words “Stir up,” words that are shared with the old Collect for the Last Sunday of Advent, which has been called “Stir up Sunday.”[1] Although “Stir up Sunday” derives its name from the Collect prayer, it’s also become associated with the beloved tradition of making and stirring up Christmas pudding during the final days of Advent. According to the English tradition, family members would take turns stirring the pudding and during one’s turn, they would make a wish which would then be fulfilled during the twelve days of Christmas. When I shared this with Ashley, she reminded me of her own family tradition of making rice pudding around the holidays, a process that involves several hours of stirring. So yesterday, we decided to make her family’s rice pudding, which I brought today and which you can taste at coffee hour, and which has been stirred for several hours by Ashley and me.
At Centering Prayer earlier this week, we talked about the act and process of stirring (including stirring together oil paints) and how the metaphor of stirring relates to contemplative prayer and to walking the prayer labyrinth. When we stir something up, we bring the periphery into the center and the center to the periphery, we bring the bottom to the top and the top to the bottom. This is similar to walking the Chartres Cathedral prayer labyrinth, which brings you to the outermost edge of the circle right before it leads you into the center. The person walking the labyrinth is getting stirred up, in more ways than one. And this dynamic reflects the same movement that Jesus describes in his parables and teachings on the coming Reign of God. Jesus brings the periphery into the center and the center to the periphery. Remember Jesus placed the little children, whom the disciples wanted to keep on the margins, right at the center of the circle and said, “The kingdom of God belongs to these.” Jesus consistently confronts and challenges the people who are in power while honoring and uplifting the powerless. We see this dynamic described beautifully in Mary’s Magnificat, when she says, “He has cast down the mighty from their thrones and has lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things [like rice pudding], and the rich he has sent away empty” (Luke 1:52 – 53). Or in the words of the Canticle of the Turning (which might also be called the Canticle of the Stirring), “From the halls of power to the fortress tower, not a stone will be left on stone. Let the kings beware for your justice tears every tyrant from his throne. The hungry poor shall weep no more, for the food they can never earn; there are tables spread; every mouth be fed, for the world is about to turn.” What is God stirring up in your heart and soul this year as we celebrate Stir Up Sunday? What power are you being called to relinquish? Who are the people on the margins of your life that need to become more central?
When John the Baptist asks Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” Jesus answers by describing the stirring of the Spirit, which is the same stirring described by the prophet Isaiah in the chapter we heard this morning about the coming Reign of God: “The eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy” (Isaiah 35:5 – 6). Jesus says, “Go tell John what you hear and see.” The proof is in the pudding, so to speak.
Those who are on the margins are being brought to the center. The blind, the deaf, the lame, and the mute are being healed and honored and uplifted as the Spirit stirs up a revolution. And that’s what John the Baptist and so many others were expecting the Messiah to bring: a radical revolution that would overthrow the powers that be, including King Herod who had imprisoned John. So, John was wondering, “How much longer am I going to be waiting here behind bars? When are you going to launch the revolution that will set me free?” John the Baptist knew the prophecy of Isaiah which Jesus was quoting; and he also knew the part of the prophecy that Jesus decided to omit. If you look at the reading from Isaiah 35, notice the verse that appears right before the description of the eyes of the blind being opened. The prophet says, “Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense” (Isaiah 35:4). When Jesus quotes from Isaiah, he has a tendency to leave out the references to divine vengeance and violence. In Luke 4, he quotes from Isaiah 61 in the synagogue when he says, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor, recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Isaiah 61:1-2), but he leaves out the next line of Isaiah which describes the day of God’s vengeance. By intentionally omitting that part of Isaiah, he confuses and offends and scandalizes his listeners who then, in Luke, try to kill him. That’s why he says in our Gospel today, “Blessed are those who are not offended by what I’m saying, or by what I’m not saying.” He’s trying to communicate what the coming (the Adventus) of God’s Reign looks like. It looks like the Spirit stirring up a revolution where those on the bottom are brought to the top, where the last shall be first and the first shall be last, but this revolution does not come about through violence or vengeance or by grasping at power. This revolution comes through divine vulnerability, by the self-emptying (the kenosis) described by Paul in Philippians 2 when he says, “Jesus did not consider equality with God as something to be grasped but rather he emptied himself; and made himself vulnerable to the point of death—even death on a cross” (Phil 2:7-8). That’s how we align ourselves with the stirring of the Spirit. Whenever we find ourselves in any positions of power, the invitation is to share it with those who are on the margins, not to grasp and cling to the power at other people’s expense, as so many tyrants are wont to do. The Spirit is stirring up a revolution, but not a violent one.
Jesus says, “Among those born of women there is no one greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he” (Matt 11:11). John the Baptist embodies the best of all the prophets; however, John is still convinced that the revolutionary Reign of God will be brought about through divine violence and vengeance, but he is mistaken. And Jesus makes this mistake very clear in the verse that our Gospel unfortunately omits. Look at Matthew 11:12. Jesus says, “From the days of John the Baptist until now [which means from the days of all the prophets that John embodies until now] the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force.” This verse is omitted because people generally don’t know how to interpret it. Jesus is saying that John the Baptist and the prophets were all right about the revolutionary Reign of God that the Spirit was stirring up within Christ’s ministry. However, they were mistaken when it came to how that revolution was going to manifest itself, not through divine violence and vengeance, but through divine vulnerability and self-giving love.
So again, what is God stirring up within your heart and soul this Advent as we celebrate Stir Up Sunday? What power are you being called to relinquish or share? Who are the people on the margins of your life that need to become more central? In what ways can we let go of our desire for vengeance in order to more fully embody the divine vulnerability that changes the world, the self-emptying and self-giving love of God that makes the lame leap like deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy? Gaudete!
[1] “Stir Up Sunday” fell on the Last Sunday of Advent and was derived from the Collect prayer in the 1549 Prayer Book which read “Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”
DANIEL DeFOREST LONDON 