| ""Abandon hope, all ye who enter here!"-these words climax the inscription on the portal of hell imagined by the 14th-century Italian poet Dante (Inferno, canto III, l. 9)." In the Divine Comedy, Dante journeys through Hell and Purgatory, escorted by the ancient Roman poet Virgil, and then ascends upwardthrough the regions of Heaven, escorted by his deceased loved one, Beatrice, to whom his poem is a memorial. The allegorical theme of the Divine Comedy is the gradual revelation of God to the spiritual pilgrim, to the one whose journey begins, with despair, in the realm of darkness but then moves, in hope, toward the realm of light. The poem begins with these words: "Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself in a dark wood, where the right way was lost." And some 14,000 lines later, having moved progressively from hell toward a light at first dim then ever fuller, Dante's journey ends amidst the radiant glory of a beatific vision of the Supreme and Eternal Light that is God. It's at the point where Dante's journey with Virgil is just getting under way that he encounters those words on the gate of Hell: "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here!" And it's those same words that certain minions of hell have been seeking to paint both on the portals of our city and on the portals of our new liturgical season, Advent-"Abandon hope! Yield to despair!" The influential 20th-century theologian Paul Tillich argued that the temptation of our age is to abandon hope and yield to a despair brought on by our anxiety that life, at its root, is meaningless. One sign that many in our civilization do indeed hold life at its root to be meaningless is what Douglas John Hall calls our "technicized rationalism." By that he means that we allow scientific technique to operate in a way unanswerable to moral values. For example, a laboratory has now claimed to be able to clone human embryos, apparently because doing so is possible and doing so is potentially lucrative, whether or not doing so is morally good. Another sign that many in our civilization hold life at its root to be meaningless is what Dr. Hall calls our "unlimited exploitation of the natural order." By that he means that we in the West seek to sustain a lifestyle of consumption that could not be maintained were all the world's citizens given equal access to Earth's natural resources. A recent study at the University of British Columbia used the best and most objective data available and has concluded that "in order to bring everyone on the planet to the same general level of consumption and well-being as the average Canadian [Canadian, mind you, not American!], we would need [the resources of four or five more Earths-right now!" You see, we in the West have been living off of the world's credit card, driving our SUV's with the pedal to the metal, full speed ahead, to hell with the consequences! Dr. Thomas Long of Candler School of Theology in Atlanta has said: "Sometime in the future-perhaps in our lifetime, perhaps in the lifetime of our grandchildren …-the cheerful, thoughtless, upwardly mobile and finally greedy American [economic] experiment will hit the wall" -hitting it perhaps just as unexpectedly and unpredictably as one great symbol of our economy has already done-namely, Enron. But enough already of these gloomy visions of Hell on Earth! For it is our task as Christians not to yield to despair but, like Dante, to overcome it, not to abandon hope but to hold fast to it. Today is the First Sunday of Advent, a season when we, like Dante, are to start a spiritual journey upward, a pilgrimage in the company of wise guides from the old to the new, from the past to the not-yet, from the dark woods of this bad-old world to the enveloping light of the goodness and compassion of God. Yes, Advent is a time for pilgrimage, a season for us, like Dante, to be on the move from the darkness of despair toward the light of hope, from the grim realities of this day toward the light of the One who's able to transform the world into a place of justice and peace. Advent is a time for us to journey toward the glorious God whose light will beam from the face of a newborn babe. So let's begin today to move beyond despair toward the light, the light symbolized for us by our First Advent Candle! Let's move on toward recovering the Christian vision of Heaven on Earth, the Christian vision that life's meaning is to be found in establishing here on earth God's just and loving will! Long, long ago, in the 4th century, almost 1,000 years before even Dante, a man named Augustine had been thinking hard about giving up the ways of his wild youth and becoming a faithful Christian. One day he overheard a child in the house next to his garden playing a game and saying, "Take, read. Take, read." "A good idea," Augustine thought. Now it so happened that the literature closest to his hand was a copy of the New Testament lying on the garden table. When Augustine took it up, he found it open to this morning's lesson, from Romans 13. Paul's words there so moved Augustine that right then he resolved to lay aside the works of darkness and clothe himself in the light of the Lord Jesus Christ. He went on, of course, to become one of the greatest thinkers and leaders in the history of Christianity. Augustine's life, it seems, was a precursor for the theme narrated in Dante's Divine Comedy-the theme of spiritual pilgrimage, of a person's journey from despair in the realm of darkness to hope in the realm of light. And Augustine's experience of conversion strikes me as quite similar to the experience Dante narrates at the very conclusion of his spiritual journey from Hell through Purgatory and then upward through Paradise. Dante tells us of encountering there in the highest Heaven the fullness of the Eternal Light whose depth encloses all that is, binding everything together by love in one simple Light (Paradiso, canto XXXIII, ll. 67ff). And, says Dante, in that light where everything Good is collected, a person is changed, such that he or she will never again consent to turn from that light to any other sight. This Advent may we, too, come to the light and be changed, so that God may shine through us and make us incandescent-like Augustine and Dante, bright and visible witnesses to God in a grim and anxious world. Now for us here at the Rutgers Church this is not only the First Sunday in Advent but also Stewardship Sunday. Today, one of the ways available to us to express our hope and to move toward the light of God is to make our pledge of support for the work of Christ through the Rutgers Presbyterian Church. This is a time when we are able to make a hope-filled response of gratitude and thanksgiving to God for being the light of our life, the source of our hope and joy, the ground of our being. This is a time when we can acknowledge in a light-filled way that all that we are and all that we have comes from God. Over the last several years, we at the Rutgers Church have experienced a remarkable increase in generosity and hope-filled giving. As a direct result of our increasing generosity, Rutgers has not only been able to maintain the light we've already been shining into the darkness of our world, but Rutgers has also been able to kindle new light-more light! Let me remind you of some of the recently developed or expanded programs our generosity has already made possible: 1. office space for the ministry and outreach of Presbyterian Welcome, working for the full inclusion of gays and lesbians in the Presbyterian churches of our region; 2. a leadership challenge grant of $35,000 to the national effort to overturn the ban on the ordination of gays and lesbians, a grant that has stimulated generous responses by other Presbyterian churches throughout the nation; 3. a magnificent Sunday School program, offering classes for ages 3 through adult, and now a new musical component; 4. a spiritual support group for men living with HIV/AIDS, enhanced through the leadership of a professional counselor, Douglas Rowan; 5. an augmented Thursday Night Meal Program for Seniors, offering movies that provide a full night out for some of our least well-off neighbors; 6. Candlelight Vesper Services during Advent and Lent; 7. dynamic new Body And Spirit programs for toddlers, school-aged children, and adults, under the direction of Diane Nicole; 8. scholarship assistance for the college students of our parish. And this year we want to expand all our programming and light-sharing even farther. But to do that, we need your help and hope and contributions. So now, let's observe a brief period for thought and reflection. Let's use this time to experience anew our soul's longing for the light of God, to consider afresh what this church, its sacraments, and its ministries mean to our life and to our community. Let's use this time to clothe ourselves in the light of our Lord Jesus Christ by choosing to give in hope and joy, by choosing to share justice and kindness with others in hope and joy, by choosing to keep bright in our city and in our neighborhood, and indeed in our nation the light of witness and action that comes from this church. I invite you to use these moments to consider your present income, whatever it may be, and then to pledge a percentage of that amount to the work of Christ for the year 2002 through the Rutgers Presbyterian Church. Perhaps 2% or 3% of your income, or even 5%, or a full biblical tithe, 10%. Reflect on what you have been giving this year. Then, consider how much the light and warmth of this community of faith mean to you in a dark and desperate time like this. I invite you to act even more boldly than you did this year to share the light of Christ with others by increasing your pledge for 2002. At the end of our time for reflection, I will offer a prayer. And after that, as the choir sings a hope-filled offertory anthem, let us come forward to the communion table to place in the plates provided there our pledge cards of light-making for the year 2002 as well as our regular offerings for this morning. Let us now spend some moments in silence. [Period for thinking and for filling in pledge cards.] Let us pray: Amen |
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