Homily for Advent 1, Year A
St. Mark’s Episcopal Church
November 30, 2025
Lectionary Texts:
An opening prayer from J. Philip Newell:
I watch this day
For the light that the darkness has not overcome.
I watch for the fire that was in the beginning
and that burns still in the brilliance of the rising sun.
I watch for the glow of life that gleams in the growing earth
and glistens in sea and sky.
I watch for your light, O God,
in the eyes of every living creature
and in the ever-living flame of my own soul.
If the grace of seeing were mine this day
I would glimpse you in all that lives.
Grant me the grace of seeing this day.
Grant me the grace of seeing.
There are some times and places in this life where I get so caught up in the frenetic pace of life that if I am not careful, I can completely forget that I might experience the grace of encountering our Holy and Living God. A few weeks ago, that place was the Fredericksburg Amtrak station.
I had just spent three days at our diocesan annual convention where…as Mickie, Karen, Ryn and Benjamin can attest…I did NOT do a lot of sitting! I was heading from convention to spend a few days in New York City with the seminary students that I teach, who were gathered for their quarterly in-person learning opportunity. The plan was simple: finish convention, have a colleague drop me off at the train station, find a quiet corner to sit for a few minutes until my train arrived. It was a great plan until the latter two parts. My colleague did kindly drop me off at the station after convention; but I quickly learned that there is no “station” at this particular station: it is simply a drop off point with stairs to the platform and tracks. And soon after I arrived, my phone gave a “ping” to tell me that my train was running about an hour late.
So there I was, wandering aimlessly below the platform tracks with my roller bag and backpack, dressed too nicely to just sit down on the ground and too tired to go looking for a coffee shop.
It wasn’t too long before a prophet of the railway wilderness found me. He was also walking to and fro among the handful of us aimlessly waiting. His story was also about the battle between good and evil, the coming of the Lord that was near. This prophet might have been a modern vision of John the Baptist: he was gaunt, wearing worn out blue jeans and a ballcap that showed the military insignia that let us know his former life. He was preaching to all who would listen. He offered me a message, after unsuccessfully seeking if I had a cigarette. “You never know when you’ll be called up…wait for it!” was his message to me. That’s how I know he was a prophet!
My app “pinged” at that point and gave me two pieces of good news: my train was now only 20 minutes away, and I had been upgraded to business class and assigned a seat.
As I climbed the platform to board my train, I was thinking about sitting down and tuning out. I found my newly assigned seat, which was next to an older woman traveling by herself. I was immediately greeted by her kind and welcoming smile and a warm “hello,” something that does not always happen when someone takes up the empty seat beside you.
“It feels good to finally sit down,” I said, making light conversation. “I’ve been working on my feet a lot these past few days.”
“Ah” she said, “so now you are able to go home and rest!”
I shrugged. “Not quite yet” I said, “I’m headed to New York, for some other work.” I suddenly realized that my vagueness made me sound decidedly like a traveling salesperson.
“My dear!” she said, in what I was realizing to be a beautifully accented voice, “but it’s a Saturday!”
I smiled in response to her absolutely genuine kindness and concern for me, a total stranger. I felt my heart soften and I shifted to look at her, feeling an urge to share more authentically.
“I’m a clergy person who also teaches at a seminary, so I get rest, but not always on the weekends. I’m traveling between a church meeting and a seminary gathering right now.”
“Delightful!” she exclaimed, “My new seat-mate is a woman who is also a clergy person…and can I ask, what denomination?”
“I’m an Episcopal priest” I said, never knowing quite how that will land, but in this case, I watched her eyes light up and her smile grow wider.
“Well, I am Lutheran so I think we have many things in common!” she offered up.
And she was absolutely correct.
As we passed through scenic stretches and by other train stations en route, I heard all about the new ELCA presiding bishop Yehiel Curry (she coached me on the pronunciation) and invited me to listen to his inspiring installation sermon, telling me I would find in him a delightfully similar personality to our former Episcopal presiding bishop Michael Curry. I learned about her active participation in her progressive parish in North Carolina, about her ministry engagement in outreach and hospitality, about the ways that as she grew older in years she had grown even deeper in faith and recognition of the Reign of Christ in our midst. We shared with each other stories about moments of profound recognition of Christ’s presence in serving those marginalized by this world, in sharing hospitality with strangers, in the acts of being Christ’s hands and feet in the world and in doing so, recognizing we were encountering Christ himself.
There was a timelessness about our conversational sharing, and each story one of us would tell seemed to inspire the other. I want to visit her church, and she wants to visit St. Mark’s! And rather miraculously as we spoke, I was no longer thinking about my hurting feet and no longer craving my usual introvert cocooning. I found myself filled and refreshed in body and spirit.
The whole conversation was delightful, but some of our final thoughts and exchanges with each other are lingering with me profoundly this Advent.
I realized pretty far into our conversation that I hadn’t actually given her my name. I apologized for the oversight as I dug in my purse for a business card and said, “I just realized that I forgot to share that my name is Sarah.”
“Oh Sarah,” she said, “of course that would be your name. That was supposed to be my name!” She went on to tell me in more hushed tones about her early life. She had been born in Nazi Germany under Hitler’s rule to Christian sympathizers active in the underground, who were part of the escape route for Jewish people oppressed under the Nazi regime. Her parents helped many people escape while she was too young to fully understand that risk. They changed her name to “May” for her own safety, something that did not sound Jewish. Her family fled to the United States as asylum-seekers after their identity was compromised by neighbors.
“I had the privilege of survival,” May said, “and I’ve had more opportunities in this life than many. So, I may be an old woman but I have made myself a promise.” She looked at me with deep conviction and said: “I was born under a dictator, and I will not die under one.”
May was traveling by train, meeting up with friends to engage in direct action, ministering to protestors and providing free medical and legal services to immigrants and children detained under ICE. Her conviction of spirit framed her whole life now: it was her vocation, her call.
I asked if I could pray with her and give her a blessing as she was preparing to depart. She had tears in her eyes and said, “I know you were sent to sit by me; I was praying for God’s blessing all the way here.” So we both got up and stood there in the middle aisle of an Amtrak business car and invoked God’s blessing on her ministry, striving to bring the vision of God’s realm as we read in the prophet Isiah to this earth, as it is in heaven. Both of us were weeping with joy, knowing that the serendipity of our encounter on that train was no coincidence, no accident but the clear intervention of the Holy Spirit. Even via an Amtrak app.
There are times like these…unexpected, ordinary and yet so profound…when it is clear to me that God is speaking, acting and working among all of God’s people, through prophets in train stations and saints across the lifespan.
It isn’t just a nice thing we say when we promise to seek and serve Christ in all people and to love our neighbors as ourselves. When we live into those baptismal promises, truly, we open ourselves to the possibility that we will be led to the places we need to be, even if we know nothing about it. When we follow the call to put on the whole armor of light, we cannot go anywhere or encounter anyone without being reminded that we are living in the presence of God who is, God who loves, God who joined with us in our humanity so that we, too, can participate in God’s realm on earth, as it is in heaven.
Indeed, salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers.
Friends, we don’t know the hour or the time when we will be called up to serve. We don’t know where and with whom we will come to know Christ’s presence with us; and we can’t even imagine all the times, all the places, all the ways we will be invited to participate in the living out of God’s realm on this earth, as it is in heaven. Today’s Gospel is not a threat, it is a promise! So often, we read this Gospel with shaky fear; we’ve been made to think that we must stand and tremble in fear that God might find us. But I’m here to tell you this is Good News: God finds us! The presence of Christ is being made known in the places and spaces where God needs to be, at the moments needed. I experienced Christ’s presence through my encounter with May, sitting alone on a train and praying for a blessing and in turn, blessing me with true refreshment of body and spirit. It fills me with awe imagining how the presence of Christ was made known through May as she lived into her call of defiant compassion with other immigrants and children of immigrants, asylum seekers just as she was once who were experiencing oppression at the hands of the rulers of this world. God was with her, filling her with the light of love and grace which no doubt overflowed to everyone she encountered.
This is the Good News of Advent, friends. Jesus Christ, who was and who is and who is to come is creating our new world as we walk together in the light of the Lord. We watch, and wait and are reminded that we will be called up when we are ready.
I watch this day
For the light that the darkness has not overcome.
I watch for the fire that was in the beginning
and that burns still in the brilliance of the rising sun.
I watch for the glow of life that gleams in the growing earth
and glistens in sea and sky.
I watch for your light, O God,
in the eyes of every living creature
and in the ever-living flame of my own soul.
If the grace of seeing were mine this day
I would glimpse you in all that lives.
Grant me the grace of seeing this day.
Grant me the grace of seeing.
Trees in Zuccotti Park, New York City [where I raised my prayer of thanks for this encounter!]
small points of light 