The Great Disconnect

In a New World we shall sing;

Not, as we once believed,

A wispy home far away,

But here, on this firm rock.

I heard about a pastor who, many years ago, interviewed members of his congregation.  He asked each participant, "What do you think God is doing on Sunday?"  He then asked the same question regarding the remaining days of the week.  As the interviews unfolded, the pastor began to notice a trend.  Many members of the congregation were able to communicate what they believed God was up to on Sunday (meeting with the church gathered in worship) and sometimes on Wednesday (meeting with those gathered for Wednesday night prayer meeting), but were hard-pressed to describe what God might be doing on the remaining days of the week.

That story is a rather rough example of what I call "The Great Disconnect."  I'm not just thinking here of people who don't take their religion very seriously, the so called "church hypocrites."  I'm speaking of many of us for whom faith is a passionate concern.  Many seem to find it difficult to connect spirituality with the earthy endeavors of every day.  The 'great disconnect' can sing passionately and enthusiastically on Sunday, and then have no sense at all of how faith is connected to the rest of life.  I don't say this condescendingly or judgmentally.  It is too often my own experience.  How does paying the bills, emptying the trash, changing diapers, fixing the leaky faucet, etc. connect with a sacred adventure?

It is precisely because of this great disconnect that the theme of worship during the season of Advent is, I believe, particularly important.  Our worship during Advent is organized around the theme of hope for this world.  As you read the Advent Scripture readings, I trust that you'll listen to how earthy they are.  The hope that we embrace during Advent is hope for this world.  In the passage we'll be looking at this coming Sunday, Isaiah describes that day when "the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea."  How exactly, we might ask, does the water cover the sea?  The water is the sea.  Exactly.  The knowledge of the Lord will cover the earth like that.

Remember that this is a vision of hope for this earth.   If the end of all things is a renewed heaven and a renewed earth, then we don't have two different realities--an earthy reality and a heavenly one.  We rather have this hope that one day the knowledge of God will so overlap and penetrate the earth that God's will shall be done on earth as it is in heaven.  Today, each day, Sunday through Saturday, we pray and labor toward that end.