My brothers and sisters in Christ, let us pray. Eternal God of our bodies, minds, hearts and spirits, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of all of our hearts always be acceptable in Your sight.  Our strength and our redeemer, Amen.

It seems like the Bible is constantly trying to tell us things, doesn’t it?  Oh, please say YES, we can’t be all that tired from our Thanksgiving turkeys that I can’t get an AMEN to this?  Can I get an AMEN, that the Bible is trying to give us a window through which we can view our own lives from the things Jesus and the disciples did and said?  AMEN? (pause) Okay. Thank you.

Now that we’re AWAKE…that’s the point of this passage in the Gospel isn’t it, that we should always be alert for what’s important in our lives as we live in God’s realm.  And being awake is another way to say that we are prepared and ready to do what needs to be done.

But it’s hard to always be on-guard isn’t it?  We heard about this a few weeks ago in the parable of the talents and the ones who worked hard to do God’s good will in the world and those who were a little lazy and just didn’t do much of anything with what they’re given.  And we heard about this in the story of the bridesmaids who weren’t all that prepared with not enough oil in their lamps, right?   It seems God is always telling us to be prepared and that we will need to work at it a thousand amazing ways, because that’s just what needs to be done.

But that’s not how our hearts are wired is it?  We want what we want, when we want it, in precisely the way we expect it, and then, maybe only then, will we happily and joyfully pitch in and do what we’re told.

It’s okay.  It’s unavoidable, because that’s human nature.  I remember when I was a young man and I was just starting into the workforce.  I worked at a tractor trailer facility in rural Washington State in the sales office, and I showed up on my first day wearing a suit and ready to go.  Well, in the West, if you want to fit in with the people of the land, you don’t wear suits.  And that first day I didn’t bring anything with me because I just assumed the boss and I would go out for lunch and introduce me around and it would be a pretty easy day.  But the boss wasn’t in.  And it was 8 am and I was out in an industrial park miles from town and by about 10 am I was getting a little thirsty and asked where the water cooler was.  The other office folks looked at me like I had 3 heads.  No soda machine either.  So I went into the bathroom because I noticed there was a Dixie cup dispenser in there and maybe I could get a drink of water from the sink.  I walked in and one of the mechanics had his lips squarely around that faucet drinking a goodly amount of water, and as he came up he pointed to the Dixie cup holder and said, “haven’t had cups in months”.

So my throat was gettin’ kind of dry and I asked what folks drank there before lunch break.  A couple produced thermoses, and one of the ladies pointed to the coffee machine, one of those steel flask Bunn machines they made for offices.

Now, I didn’t drink coffee.  But that’s all there was.  So I went over there and poured myself some into a mug that was there and decided I’d put some powdered creamer into it, which promptly turned into giant lumps because the coffee was ice cold.

And I took a sip, and all eyes were on me.  It was terrible, strong, with lumpy bits of what I’d just added and through it all I just smiled.  Eyebrows raised, some pursed lips, and they went back to what they were doin’.

It was later explained to me that the coffee was made at 6:30 am by the office manager, and anything after that was self-serve, you made your own pot if you wanted more than that.  But that explanation didn’t come for another couple of weeks.

So I learned that coffee is not an inherently tasty beverage.  The first 100 cups are terrible until your taste buds adjust to that beautiful burnt bean taste, and there was nowhere in that small town to buy a thermos so I choked down that coffee whether it was weak or strong, cold or hot, with cream or not.  And I started getting coffee on the way in to work to learn how not only how to drink it but how it should taste…

I learned a lot those first few weeks.  And not just about trucks and trailers.  But I learned how to listen, learn from, and engage others who lived different than me, and how they liked things, and how I liked things, and the sometimes yawning gap between those two states of being.

I also learned that the world doesn’t hand us how we would like things to be. But sometimes that’s all there is.  That doesn’t mean we are helpless or powerless.  But it rubs against our preferences for sure about how we like stuff or against our opinions of how we might live differently, for worse or better.

God’s Kingdom and building it up puts us into a world where we are sometimes strangers in places we thought were familiar.  We thought we could always have coffee just the way we want it, do the things we want to do the way we’re used to, because if nothing ever changed we could get it right.  And that pleases God for sure, right?

But that doesn’t account for the others who are also with us on the journey, making coffee at 6:30 as THEY like it, too.  Or the other people who make more coffee later in the morning in a different flavor.  Or the ones who turn off the coffee machine so it doesn’t taste burnt but they don’t turn it on so the coffee goes cold.  All are doing the right things from their perspective, but none are entirely satisfied because there’s others around who are always messing with the system.

God doesn’t weigh in on that except to say, all are welcome to build the Kingdom.  And we have to love all that come to do it.  And not to keep score of who has it right, because Jesus isn’t keeping a checklist of when we thought we should be working or not for God’s will in the world.  Jesus just wants to know if we have loved all that tried to help, and that we didn’t try and get our own way all the time, because that’s not God’s way.

I’ll leave you with these final thoughts.

Yes, keep awake for opportunities to serve.  But don’t worry if God’s watching or not, because God is with us now and always.  Maybe the point is for us to keep our spirit alive so we can be there to see the fullness of the world and the people in it who are also helping us along the way.  In the most strange and frustrating ways possible sometimes.  We don’t always get our way, and it’s then that we are able to see those “God moments” in our lives.

So sometimes a cold, strong cup of coffee that’s a little lumpy might just be the wake-up call to a whole new way of living.  One that’s worth waiting for, preparing for, and might just arrive in ways we cannot possibly expect.   On this first Sunday of Advent, the Sunday of Peace, let’s keep awake for the opportunities to think less of how we want the world to be ordered and serve in the world as it is given this year, because the people of the world need God and the Peace of Christ more than ever.

Thanks be to God,  Amen.