Advent in the Sudan
Preacher: The Rev. Heidi Haverkamp
Preached on: November 28th, 2010
Audio:
No recordingScripture Text:
Romans 13:11-14
Sermon:
Today is the first Sunday of Advent, the days leading us up to Christmas, the days when we are waiting for the birth of Jesus to come. It is a time we are supposed to spend trying to WAKE UP!
December is here, and without even trying we’re waking up and seeing that something different is happening: lights on houses (especially if you’re waking up when it’s still dark outside!), special music, decorations, shopping for gifts… But there’s a kind of waking up that we might need to try a little harder at: to wake up and see that Jesus is coming.
Paul says we must wake up, that we must put on the armor of light and put on the Lord Jesus Christ. At first when I read that I imagined putting on something like a biker jacket with Jesus’ face splashed across it. But as I thought about it more, I wondered if it might be more like putting on a special pair of glasses. That putting on Christ is like seeing the world in a powerful way: that we can see light in dark places, that we can see hope in things that seem hopeless, that we can see that God’s Love is powerful and real even if we look in the most love-forsaken places.
This morning, we are going to begin to pray in worship for the people of Sudan, a country in central Africa. Both our Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori, and the Convention of our diocese (a democratic body of clergy and laity) have asked us to pray for Sudan during Advent and into January. Sudan will be holding elections in January that will decide whether the country will split in two or remain unified. Either way, there will probably be war. There’s oil involved, and politics, power dynamics, and religious differences. The Episcopal Diocese of Chicago is actually a companion diocese to one of the dioceses of Sudan: The Diocese of Renk, which lies in a very vulnerable place, just between the Muslim north and the Christian south. Our bishop, Jeff Lee and a media team traveled there last January because their bishop, Joseph Garang Atem, asked if our diocese would help him to create a movie about Christians in Renk.
I want to show you the trailer to the movie the media team has made. It’s about Christians living in a very different place and under the very direct threat of war and violence, and yet Christians who are very much like we are. I hope it will help you, as it has me, think about ways to be awake in your own context as a Christian this Advent, and I hope it will help us all to better hold our brothers and sisters in Sudan in our prayers.
(to watch the trailer, click on this link: Renk: Faith, Praise, Portraits, Partnership)
Amen.
