Advent Conspiracy: Worship Fully

Scripture Readings

WWTW

Introduction: Conspiracy Theories

I’ll admit: I have a bit of a soft spot for conspiracy theories.

Bigfoot is real and the government is hiding him from us.

We totally faked the moon landing in a Hollywood basement.

JFK was actually an alien from Zanzabar.

I’m not in to them enough to believe any of these things.

I just like to wonder about them.

How could someone come to believe something like this?

What if all that evidence actually points to something?

If Area 51 isn’t real, why aren’t airplanes allowed to fly over it?

I actually think we’re in the middle of a real life conspiracy theory.

Definition:

a belief that some secret but influential organization is responsible for an event or phenomenon.

So in the case of bigfoot, it’s the government.

In the case of the moon landing, it’s the government.

In the case of JFK…hey wait a second...

But I think there’s something going on in our midst that a secret but influential organization is responsible for that we ought to pay attention to.

What is Christmas really all about?

I mean, we as Christians know the right answer on the test, right?

But what if the conspiracy goes deeper than that?

And what if we should answer with our own conspiracies?

Distractions

Observations from the food court.

So for this sermon about conspiracy theories, I went undercover right in the belly of the beast!

I wrote this in two sittings, one at the Monroeville Mall Food Court and one at the South Hills Village Food Court.

Two shopping malls!

Don’t worry, I blended right in.

But I had a few observations as I sat in both of these food courts in the middle of the Christmas shopping season:

For starters, the folks passing out samples have upped their game. Better make sure you have the good stuff to give away!

There were probably 5 to 6 times as many people as there usually are in these food courts when I’m writing sermons.

(Ok, I wasn’t an undercover agent at all, I was just hungry)

And the stores have absolutely upped their game when it comes to fighting for our attention.

I felt like I was personally disappointing every person at a kiosk that I walked past and said no thank you.

The attention economy.

The first thing you need if you want someone to spend money is their attention.

One influential thinker I listened to this week said that actually, we are in the “attention economy.”

Companies have to come up with bigger and better and more dramatic and more amazing ways to get our attention.

While I was sitting at my table at the village, I counted how many ads I could see from my seat.

First of all, I was already in the mall. They had me!

Secondly, I didn’t count store names.

Thirdly, they threatened to kick me out for taking pictures. Tell me again this isn’t a conspiracy!

Just advertisements that were meant to get me to walk in to their store.

I counted 45, and 5 of those were for stores that didn’t exist in the mall yet.

And then, right after I typed that, an ad came on my youtube mix that I was using to drown out the other ads playing over the in house speaker system.

Every one is vying for our attention right now.

Because there’s a conspiracy hiding in the heart of our culture right now.

Could you buy the perfect Christmas?

Surely, it’s in this mall.

Surely somewhere in this mall is the perfect gift that will make sure my kids have that magic Christmas moment.

Surely somewhere in this mall is that piece of jewelry that will make her fall in love with me.

Surely somewhere in this mall is that thing I can buy that will bring us together as a family after all that time apart.

Surely somewhere in this mall is a t-shirt that I can buy that says I’m not interested in consumerism, which is an irony all on it’s own.

And hidden just behind all of that is this idea that you are missing something.

No matter how perfect your life is, you are missing a nicer car.

No matter how perfect your life is, you are missing that special Christmas moment.

No matter how perfect your life is, you could buy your way in to a better life.

A group of business people have come together to convince us that the perfect Christmas is something we can buy.

Are they right?

Zechariah

I wonder how distracted he was?

Verse six tells us that Zechariah and his wife were blameless before God.

That’s impressive!

I don’t know if I could make it through the day blameless before God, let alone have it be enough of a defining characteristic of my life to the point that someone writes about it to introduce me!

They had a perfect life.

Except...

They wanted to have children.

But they were getting older.

There was something missing.

And as our advertisers have caught on, even when we have everything, if something’s missing from our lives, it has a tendency to gnaw at us.

I wonder if Zechariah had picked out names.

I wonder if Elizabeth had planned for a nursery.

I wonder if they were able to focus at work.

Speaking of work...

Zechariah works as a priest in the temple.

He was chosen by Lot to have the honor of going into the Holy of Holies.

Not chosen by lot as in “Hey, congrats! You get to go!”

Chosen by lot as in “Hey, you might die in there, so let’s make this fair.

This would have been a responsibility of fear and trembling.

This would have been a source of anxiety and honor in equal measure.

So I’m betting if I’m Zechariah, I need to set the distraction aside, right?

I need to not carry this splinter in my mind into this holy place.

I need to set this down.

I’ll come back to it later.

But I need to set down the distraction.

He has an experience of the Divine

While he was in this sanctuary of the Lord, he sees and angel.

The first thing any angel has to say when they show up is “Don’t be afraid!”

This is either because at the very least, there is a person standing where once there was no one...

OR because Angels were not the cherubs we see in the Hallmark store (also at the mall…)

They were scary as heaven!

But also, this is a moment where heaven is crashing into earth for Zechariah.

The things of God have come and started to interacting with the things of humanity.

Zechariah has an experience of the divine.

And it’s frightening.

Have you ever had an experience of the Divine?

They are not all angels and terror and fear and trembling.

Sometimes they are sunrises.

Sometimes they are a hug from a friend you haven’t seen in a while.

Sometimes its when Bill hits those low notes on your favorite hymn and you feel the floor shake into your chest.

Sometimes it’s a deep conviction.

Sometimes it’s just reassurance.

Sometimes it’s when your son stops pedaling his bike, sits next to you, and says “I’m just taking a break to appreciate how lovely this looks!”

I hope you’ve come across an experience of the Divine.

"It is not objective proof of God's existence that we want, but the experience of God's presence."- Brennan Manning

I hope you’ve had more than a few.

And I hope you find them in here!

That’s been my hope and prayer as we’ve come to this Advent season:

That familiar carols wouldn’t be musical comfort food, they would be gateways to experiencing God.

That our traditions would facilitate a connection with Jesus, not a nostalgia that we can’t shake loose.

That the atmosphere here wouldn’t be the point. Connecting with the Spirit would be.

In Zechariah’s case, he gets the best news ever.

The angel says “We’ve been listening. That child you want? We’re on it.”

What a beautiful experience of God’s presence.

He can’t talk about it.

Zechariah says “Hey, real quick: My lady and I are pretty old. How’s this possible?”

At this point, Gabriel introduces himself.

I don’t know if those would have been helpful credentials for Zechariah or not...

But says that because Zechariah had a bit of a stumble of faith, he’s not going to be able to talk about it.

In the attention economy, this is backwards.

When we have an experience of the Divine, we want to run right to instagram with it.

When we have an experience of the Divine, I as pastor want to point to it for everyone to see so that more people can be a part of it.

We want to talk about our experience of the Divine, and that’s the one thing that Gabriel takes away from Zechariah.

That would be another distraction.

One of the best moments I’ve ever experienced was at a Switchfoot concert.

I was down in the mosh pit with the teens of my youth group, back when I was a younger man and could survive mosh pits.

As we were all taking in the concert, all the kids in the pit had their phones out to take a picture or video or something.

And at one point, Jon Foreman their lead singer stopped a song, and made a deal with the audience.

He said “I’m going to come out here so that you all can get one solid picture, and then let’s put our phones away.

Because I think these days we’re more interested in documenting the moment than we are in living in the moment.”

Sometimes, I think we’re more interested in what surrounds the moment than in living on our moment.

We’re more interesting in the presents we give each other at Christmas than the people we’re handing them to.

We’re more interested in the distractions around Christmas than we are in the faith community we call home.

We’re more interested in the traditions and nostalgia, which can serve a purpose to be sure, than we are in living in the Divine moment we’re invited into.

We need to worship fully.

There’s a habit I have that I despise in myself.

I call it three name dada.

When I come home from work, but haven’t really left work here,

I’m checking e-mail on my phone, I’m chilling with Tik Tok, or I’m zoned out in some TV.

When I’m that distracted, it usually takes three dadas for the guys to get my attention.

Dada. Dada. DADA!

I’m not fully there.

This series on the Advent Conspiracy is about our own conspiracy, how we can push back on the dominant culture around us.

We’re not going to fake any moon landings or anything like that...

But it turns out that Christians like us have been doing this for a long time, insisting that the moment we experience the Divine is worth laying the distractions down.

It’s worth being fully present to God.

That’s the first point of the Advent Conspiracy.

At all costs, I don’t want to be having a three name dada night with God.

I want to be fully present.

I want to have an experience.

And I want that for you too.

How do we experience the Divine?

Limit distractions

A lot of folks are going to try to get your attention these next four weeks.

Shops.

Ads.

Family obligations.

Extra events.

Financial stress.

Any good motivational speaker will tell you that the best way to limit distractions is to have a central focus.

I want so badly to have an experience of the Divine this Advent.

Maybe I don’t want one quite as scary as Zechariahs...

But I still want one.

I want an experience of the Divine so badly that it puts shopping in its proper context.

I want an experience of the Divine so badly that it makes our worship experiences facilitators to that experience, not the main event.

I want an experience of the Divine so badly that I’m willing to lay aside my own distractions to help others get there.

Again, are you?

Focus.

The authors of the book The Advent Conspiracy that we’re basing this sermon on have it right:

The things we desire are the things we worship.

So today perhaps the biggest question is, what do you desire?

Do you desire that perfect Christmas memory?

Do you desire the accumulation of more, more more?

Do you desire things to be just the way they were when you were a kid?

Or perhaps we desire something bigger:

Do you desire a connection with the God of all that is, who came to us himself.

Do you desire an experience that might literally leave you speechless?

Do you desire a relationship that might at times be scary, but might also remind us that God is always listening to us?

What do you desire this season?

Open up

I think part of why I love this story of Zechariah is that he was right on the edge of giving up.

There’s no way Liz and I could have a kid at our age.

Game over.

Pack it in.

And yet, God invites him to open up to new possibilities.

What kinds of possibilities are you open to right now?

What prayers of your heart are you on the verge of giving up on?

What have you kind of pushed aside as impossible?

I invite you friends, in this advent season, to open up.

God has been surprising us from the beginning.

And I have no doubt that he’s still at it.

There are wonderful surprises ahead.

So let us worship fully, with eyes wide open.

Let’s see what God has in store for us.