1 Corinthians 1:3-9

            Black Friday seemed a little more black than usual this year.  The frenzy to scoop up bargains in preparation for the coming of Christmas was taken to a new level.  A Wal-Mart employee died after being trampled to death on Friday in Long Island as a crowd of day after Thanksgiving shoppers burst through the doors and stampeded their way to 50 inch Plasma Screen TVs for $798, Bissell Compact Upright Vacuum cleaners for $28, and a Samsung 10.2 megapixel digital camera fro $69.  I don’t know about you, but I just can’t get over this.  The absence of humanity and the clear disregard for the well being and life of another human being all for what, a good deal, is astounding.   Others, including a pregnant woman, were injured in the fray.  Other employees and rescue workers risked personal safety and were jostled as they tried to revive the man.  Shoppers were very upset at the news not that someone had been killed, but that as a result the store was being closed.  This is to say nothing of the fatal shooting at the Toys R Us in Palm Desert California, which authorities said was not related to the shopping frenzy but none the less happened and undoubtedly the many, many other less severe but none the less real offensive and rude acts as people valued things over other people.  Merry Christmas.  What is wrong with us?  How do things like this happen at all, much less as a way of preparing to celebrate the arrival of the King of kings, the Prince of Peace? 

            While the news of such incidents has made for sensational headlines and perfect strangers have been able to strike up conversations over the absurdity of the whole thing I doubt very much this will change anything.  Things like this have happened before and they will undoubtedly happen again.  No fewer stores will participate in the practice of offering “door busters”.  No fewer people will line up outside of the doors to get those deals.  No fewer people out to spread some big bargain Christmas cheer will step on the backs of others, literally and figuratively, in order to do it.  It pains me to say these things.  I wish it were not so, but I am afraid I know it is.  Worse yet I am afraid that under some set of circumstances I might not be smugly criticizing those people but may in fact be one of those people.  I would like to think I would never be a part of such behavior, but I know that it is within my very nature, and the nature of us all to sin, to do that which we know we ought not, to do that which we know gets in the way of our relationship with God. 

            Therefore this Christmas season, as we hang our heads in shame for what those people at the Wal-Mart in Long Island did; what we happily think we could, never do, but are not as far removed from such behavior as we would like to think…let us praise God that we have received the gift we all desperately need this Christmas season the gift of God’s grace and we didn’t have to kill anyone to get it.  Oh wait a minute, maybe we did.  In another time, in another place, a mob of people condemned an innocent man to die, shouting crucify, crucify, and we were no more a part of that mob than we were the one in New York, but we believe that it was for us that this Jesus died.  The gift of grace that Paul talks about in the passage we read a few moments ago from 1^st Corinthians comes to us at a great price, the death of Jesus the Christ, our Lord.  God has given us this grace because we so desperately need it. 

            Reading Paul’s words here we might have a sense that he was writing to some fine upstanding folks, the kind of people who would never be swayed by mob mentality or for that matter stray even the slightest from the straight and narrow path of righteousness.  He talks about how they are not lacking in any spiritual gift and how they have been enriched by God and so on and so forth.  I think then it might be surprising and helpful to point out that the church in Corinth had major problems.  They had violated every boundary guideline in the Book of Order. It’s a congregation that’s bickering about leadership, that’s taking sides, abusing the sacraments, turning a blind eye to immorality, asserting that some spiritual gifts are more important than others, taking each other to secular courts and is divided over theological disputes. Does any of that sound familiar?

              In light of this we can view Paul’s words a couple different ways.  On the one hand Paul is employing a well known parenting technique of offering praise and affirmation just before the but… “You are a wonderful child of God, but there are a few things you need to work on.”  On the other hand there is more to it than that.  The fact that Paul is here laying the groundwork for his argument does not negate the truth of what he says here.  While the church in Corinth and the church today, and you and me individually have some major problems we are covered by God’s grace.  This gift of grace does not only cover little deficiencies, but covers major departures from following God’s will and purpose for our lives.  It covers things like bickering and it covers things like the day after Thanksgiving madness. 

            That is the trouble with people, we are all sinners, as Paul says elsewhere; we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  That is the thing about churches too, they are filled with sinners; a fact that is pointed out every time you start attending a new church.  You don’t have to spend too much time in a new church before you start to notice things like the person who appears so reverent in worship is the biggest gossip in the fellowship hall.  The deeper you dig the more you discover this church is filled with complainers, people who yell at their kids or at other people, people who cheat on their taxes, people who are addicted to fill in the blank, and people who fall short of God’s glory in all sorts of spectacular ways despite their well meaning best efforts to the contrary.  When you make this discovery you may feel like going someplace else where the folks behave a lot better, but the reality is you won’t find it, because the reality is the church is filled with sinners but at the same time the church is filled with saints.  Not that there is an even mix of both, but all are sinners and at the same time saints.  The good news of today’s passage is that we have all been redeemed by the grace of Christ.  That is the gift we need most this Advent.

David McCasland tells the following story about his helping a distressed motorist.  The car’s hood was up, and the woman flagged down McCasland to help. “I can’t get it started,” she said, “but if you jiggle the wire on the battery, I think it will work.” McCasland grabbed the positive battery cable and it came off in his hand. The cable was definitely too loose. “The terminal needs to be tightened up,” he told her. “I can fix it if you have some tools.” “My husband says to just jiggle the wire,” she replied. “It always works. Why don’t you just try that?” McCasland paused for a moment, sarcastically wondering to himself why her husband didn’t ride around town with her so he would be available when the wire needed jiggling. Finally he said, “Madam, if I jiggle the wire, you’re going to need someone else to do it every time you shut the engine off. If you’ll give me two minutes and a wrench, we can solve the problem and you can forget about it.” Reluctantly, she fumbled under the front seat and then extended a crescent wrench through the window of the old car. As he tightened the battery terminal, it occurred to McCasland how many times he had tried, in his own life, to get a “quick fix” from God. “I have this problem, Lord, and if you’ll just jiggle the wire, things will be OK. I’m in a hurry, so let’s just get me going again the quickest way possible.”

Fact is we all have problems that need fixing and God doesn’t want to just “jiggle wires,” God chose instead to deal with our real problem and fix it. The long term solution to our pervasive problem of sin is in God sending a Messiah, God in the flesh to dwell among us and to take away the sins of the world.  God fixed our relationship with God by paying the penalty for our sins so that we might be redeemed and be made right with God even though we are sinners still.

Willa Cather’s Christmas story “The Burglar’s Christmas” portrays a young man, the proverbial prodigal son, who had moved to Chicago away from his family out East. Without food for many days, without friends, and with suicidal thoughts, he decides on Christmas Eve to steal some food from a house. He had never stolen before but thinks that he is owed some food at least on Christmas Eve. But when he breaks into the home he finds that he has burglarized the house of his parents–who unbeknownst to him also moved to Chicago. His mother catches him and he confesses all to her and to his father.  He prepares to leave, but they say, “Stay. We’ll make things right.”  He looks up at her questioningly, “I wonder if you know how much you pardon?”  “O, my poor boy, much or little, what does it matter? Have you wandered so far and paid such a bitter price for knowledge and not yet learned that love has nothing to do with pardon or forgiveness, that it only loves, and loves and loves?”      

The reality we celebrate this first Sunday of advent is that by Christ coming into the world God has pardoned much, that God has loved, and loved, and loved us and loves us still.  Through Christ’s birth, life, death, and resurrection we have been given the gift of grace, not just a little, but a lot; enough to bridge the chasm between us and God no matter how narrow or wide.  As we continue on our way through Advent and prepare to celebrate Christ’s coming even as we await his return may we not cease to give thanks for the gift of the grace of God that has been given us in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Amen.