Psalm
25: 1–9; Jeremiah 33: 14–16; Luke 21: 25–36
This
is the homily given at St. John’s Church, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania by Fr. Gene
Tucker on Sunday, December 2, 2018.
“CLEAN US
UP, DEAR LORD!”
Nothing
cleans a house like company!
Remember
that familiar saying? It’s quite true, of course. When company’s coming, we
dust, we get into the corners and hidden places where those dust bunnies like
to congregate. We scrub, we polish, we vacuum, fearing that the glance of our
company will fall on some area or another that’s been neglected. After all, who
wants to put their messy side forward when company’s coming? No one.
Well,
the truth is, company’s coming…..at Christmas as we expect and we will welcome the
babe born in Bethlehem, and at the end of time (in God’s good time, in God’s
good way, and in God’s manner), we will stand before Him who will sit as
judge….our Collect for this First Sunday of Advent affirms both of these truths,
for they are the two great themes of Advent.
So,
if company’s coming, we’d better be about the business of some house cleaning.
As
we set ourselves to the business of getting ready for these two encounters with
the Lord, perhaps this prayer might be on our lips: “Clean
us up, dear Lord, and deliver us from our messy ways!”
(What
follows is in the form of a litany.)
Lord,
come and sweep away from us our tendency to let our mouth utter things that are
hurtful, or which diminish others, things we wish we could take them back,
swallow them and make them disappear forever.
“Clean
us up, dear Lord, and deliver us from our messy ways!”
Bring
the vacuum cleaner of righteousness and suck up into it all the actions that we
wish we could simply blot out of our memories.
“Clean us up, dear Lord,
and deliver us from our messy ways!”
For the things we’ve
failed to do, even though we knew we had the means to do.
“Clean us up, dear Lord,
and deliver us from our messy ways!”
Take away our tendency to
be hoarders, claiming for ourselves alone the blessings you, Lord, have given
us, for we often fail to care for the poor, the needy and those in any kind of
trouble.
“Clean us up, dear Lord,
and deliver us from our messy ways!”
Bring your dust cloth, O
Lord, and take away the signs of our neglect of attendance at worship and study
of God’s Holy Word.
“Clean us up, dear Lord,
and deliver us from our messy ways!”
Place in the table of our
hearts the freshness of a desire to proclaim Christ’s image to the world.
“Clean us up, dear Lord,
and deliver us from our messy ways!”
So that, in that final and
awful day when the Lord shall sit as judge of the living and the dead, and in
the days which lie in between in which our Lord comes to judge our words, our
actions, and our desire to seek His face, may we stand before the throne of
judgment and be able to say: “Thank you, Lord, for cleaning us up. Thank you
for your mercy and graciousness. Thank you for your holiness and righteousness.
Thank for being willing to do the cleaning that we, ourselves, are unable to
do.”
