It is here again — the Christmas season. Turkey soup, cold gravy, and half a pumpkin pie still in the refrigerator and are reminders for me that Thanksgiving has come and gone. The warmth of having college daughter Christie home with all her energy in the house and to touch base by phone or in person with other loved ones last week made me feel grateful again and again. The words of thanks for all the good things in life rolled from our hearts as we greeted each other in reunion or when we prayed or meditated in a quiet moment alone. A hike on Ring Mountain with the young family next door, new to the neighborhood, and so full of fun and laughter made me thankful again. Dottie Nordstrand played the piano at the Voyager-Carmel Shelter as a chorus of residents and congregation members led by Liz Arnold and Kyle Quick sang the season's favorites. Ellen Smoke and other team members kept the meal hot in the kitchen, all the magnificent food you donated, and so many smiling faces shared holiday memories and gratitude.

Now, however, Thanksgiving is over. Secularly, the four weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas are known as the Christmas season or the holiday season or the buying season. There is a sense of excitement in the air during these cool, crisp days and nights. Mall parking lots are crowded. Muzak plays White Christmas and Santa Claus Is Coming to Town. Kids sing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and we drive ourselves crazy trying to provide the perfect Christmas for our loved ones with visions of Norman Rockwell dancing in our heads like nightmares.

Then, just when you would love to be singing something soft and peaceful such as Silent Night or The First Noel, you come into church to find that we aren't celebrating Christmas at all; that for the church community the Christmas season is the three weeks after Christmas and you have to wait until Christmas Eve to sing those great carols in worship. I watch you roll your eyes as Doug, Martha, and I insist on calling these four weeks by the liturgical name of Advent and we include hymns that are unfamiliar; songs about waiting and watching, about signs of hope and signs of promise, about angels telling of the coming of the Messiah, the Savior. It is a pregnant time, an anticipatory time. The young girl Mary, great with child, is a perfect symbol of Advent as the Christ comes into being during the season. It's a time of preparation and of reflection. We remember that Jesus was born into this world 2000 years ago. He brought the message of his ministry that upset the status quo, one that didn't make sense to most people then and hardly makes sense to us today — that God loves all people, female and male, strong and weak, poor and rich, old and young, Republican and Democrat, Palestinian and Israeli, Iraqi, Afghani, South American, Middle American, or North American. During Advent, we anticipate what the world would be like if we all were to let Jesus and his embodiment of God's love for all people be born in our own hearts today and every day.

So, we live our lives in two seasons simultaneously: the plastic, Jingle-Bell Rock, anxiety-producing version that we swear we won't pass on to our children and the church Advent version that may seem too quiet and serious to keep the children's attention and barely gets more than an hour each week of our own attention. Meanwhile, there are issues in our world that seem much more important to us this month, issues that we can't get out of our minds. How will we endure or fight back against the escalating threat of terrorism? What will be the status of the economy and the job market in the year 2003? What will the Iraqis report on December 8, about their weapon capacity and how will the United States and partner nations respond? And where is God in our world, God who the Apostle Paul described as faithful in his letter to the Corinthians? What does it mean for God to be faithful when many people of the world are living in fear of their future this Advent season?

Our Biblical ancestors asked similar questions. They wrestled with the idea of God and the meaning of God in the circumstances of their lives. They compared God to the gods of the neighboring nations and were dissatisfied when they were not saved or rewarded, but instead were threatened in battles over territory or trade routes. They questioned God's role in natural disasters, turned away from God and then turned back seeking the covenant relationship God offered yet struggling with their willingness to be faithful to God and to trust that God would be faithful to them. The Jesse Tree at Advent inspired by the Prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah gives us the chance to think about how our Biblical foremothers and forefathers experienced their relationship with God and God's faithfulness in their lives. Most importantly, it encourages us to consider what their faith says to our own relationship and understanding of God and the meaning of the coming of the Christ.

Last week the church school children in grades pre-school through fifth grade studied the early stories and prepared the symbols for the first Advent Sunday Jesse Tree ornaments. They included the earth and the apple, the ark and the traveling tent, the ram and the coat. In each of these stories God was there and active but not working alone. God brought order out of chaos but expected humanity, men and women, to till and cultivate the land and to build an ark to care for the animals allowing pairs of them to survive the flood. Symbolized by a tent and trusting in God, Abram and Sarai left the city of Ur, which is in current day Iraq, and traveled across the Fertile Crescent to Canaan with the unbelievable promise that they would parent an entire civilization in their old, old age and they did! Although his brothers rejected Joseph in his coat of many colors and left him to die, instead, with God's help he made his way to the house of the Egyptian pharaoh. Years later Joseph was able to save his family at it time of draught and starvation. Our Biblical ancestors understood God as faithful and caring, and God expected, called for a covenantal relationship, a partnership, in return.

The Apostle Paul, a Jewish leader before becoming a follower of Jesus, knew from his childhood the scriptural stories of God's faithfulness. His letters to the Corinthians were some of the earliest documents to be written and preserved after the death of Jesus. Paul wrote to a house community there that he sought to nurture and grow. Not unlike San Francisco, Corinth was a city near the sea busy with trade and made up of people from many different nations and backgrounds. As it would have been unusual here until recently, it was unique at the time that the Corinthian followers were a cross-section of people coming together for worship and study. Some felt exceedingly proud of their gifts of speech and knowledge and other felt intimidated in their presence. Paul, however, encouraged them all, even needling the more haughty ones by affirming their talents and reminding them that none lack in any spiritual gift. In their "koinonia," in their fellowship community, Paul reminded them that God is faithful and has called them to be partners with Jesus Christ in God's community.

It is in that community, in that fellowship, that we are called today to know God's faithful presence with us, to be confident of our relationship with God, to be strengthened by Jesus Christ at his table and to live and work in partnership with him. On this, the first Sunday of Advent, let us join with sisters and brothers from the past and the present around his table in koinonia, in intimate mutuality with one another in Christ. You are invited to share in the meal. Come, as we together in community wait and prepare for the birth of the Christ child.