November 27, 2005
(First Sunday of Advent)
New Year’s Resolutions
by The Rev. Canon Linda Yeager, Canon
Deacon
• 1 Corinthians 1:1-9
• Psalm 80 or 80:1-7
• Mark 13:(24-32)33-37
(From The Lectionary Page)
It seems like we spend a lot of the time making “I can’t believe it’s already . . .” statements. I can’t believe it’s already time for school to start again. I can’t believe it’s already November. I can’t believe it’s already time for Thanksgiving. About the only event that we are not surprised is already here is vacation time. That seems to be slower arriving than other experiences. And I am one of the worst, so here goes. I can’t believe we are here already—the first Sunday in Advent. I am always filled with a special sense of anticipation on this day, for several reasons. It marks a beginning of sorts, a first day of the new year, so to speak. Unlike the first day of the secular year, however, I suspect that fewer of us have hangovers or are yet overwhelmed with after-Christmas bills. Like the secular new year, however, it is a good time to make a few resolutions. More about that later. Another reason for the feeling of added energy is that we finally get to change liturgical colors. These colors visually remind us of the mood or feeling of the season. I am fond of green, but by the time Advent arrives, I delight in the blue of our stoles and altar vestments. In the “old days” royal purple (symbolizing the sovereignty of Christ) was the liturgical color. Blue is now seen more frequently. As the color of the sky, blue symbolizes Christ who in one ancient Advent song is called the "Dayspring" or source of day. As the color honoring Mary, blue also reminds us that during Advent the church waits with Mary for the birth of Jesus. Blue also serves to distinguish Advent from Lent. Penitence is the primary emotion of Lent, while waiting, expectancy serves as the focus for Advent.
I am glad for Advent, too, because it is a rather short season—four weeks to be exact—and we can plan something spiritual for this span of time that seems complete. For example, for the next three Wednesday evenings, we will offer a light supper and a selection of classes here at the Cathedral. There is something quite wonderful about spending an evening in December focusing on our faith and finishing the evening with the beautiful words of the Compline service. Even if one isn’t able to be here on Wednesdays, time spent with quiet prayer and scripture can add a sense of peace to this season of hustle and bustle, of secular as well as spiritual expectations.
Advent, the word itself, means awaiting the coming, and this year also denotes the moving away from the gospel of Matthew and moving into the new church year—Year B this year—and a concentration on the gospel of Mark—the shortest and perhaps earliest written of the gospels. As I read the passage from Mark that has been assigned for today, however, I find that there is very little of the expectancy of the birth of the Holy Child, but rather, the expectancy of the return of Christ. While looking forward to Christ’s birth is certainly important, our lectionary makes it quite clear that looking forward to Christ’s return provides a focus for this season. The Holy Babe, so tender and mild, is nowhere to be found in today’s harshly cautionary readings. Rather, we are forced to confront that theme which remains so noticeably absent from much of our religious thinking: the final judgment.
In all three years of the lectionary cycle of scripture readings, the gospel for the First Sunday in Advent refers to the end of time. In English, the word apocalypse, meaning disclosure or revelation, now commonly refers to this time. This year, we are called to give thought to Mark’s demand for disciples to remain vigilant for the return of the Son of Man to “gather his elect.” Throughout, the key word is watch.
One of our daughters lives in Florida. She moved there several years ago and has enjoyed the weather immensely—most of the time. She is the child who, when she was little, scurried into our bed at the first clap of thunder. She, who cowered at a good Midwestern thunderstorm, is now living on the ocean and being frequently warned of impending doom. Organized, if nothing else, she decided early on that she would not meet the tropical storms without thorough preparation. She set out to put together her “hurricane kit.” She read all the articles she could find, listened to the advice in the media, then gathered together flashlights, extra batteries, a radio, water, matches, candles, canned goods and a can opener, other non perishables, bug spray, blankets and on and on, plus a map so she could track the course of the storm. I assume, of course, that she has a Bible in that kit, as well as her Forward Day by Day. People where she worked, accustomed to the threat of hurricanes, laughed at her preparations. But then along came the warnings about Wilma. As the storm approached, I was surprised at our daughter’s calm voice on the other end of the phone line. Some of those in her office who had teased her about her preparations began asking her just what it was that she had put in her kit. A couple of them even asked if they could come and stay with her if the threat intensified. She was ready. She was ready because she took the situation seriously; she became informed and watchful, and she gathered whatever she could that would help her.
Our gospel passage today calls for us to be prepared in much the same way. In Jesus’ time, most believed that God would return in a short time. Jesus was aware that his ministry signaled a new intervention of God into the affairs of the world, and he believed that others should be able to perceive it also. So, in today’s gospel reading, he compares the signs of the time to a fig tree when it puts forth spring growth. As people can predict the change of the season by the budding of the fig tree, so should they note God’s actions. Matthew and Luke also use the illustration of the fig tree and the advice to watch, to take heed, to be alert to God’s return. The climax of the passage is the call for ceaseless vigilance. No one, not the angels, not even the son of God himself, knows the day or the hour when this world shall end. The time is known to God alone.
So we are called to put together our preparedness kit, to be ready. We ought to study and have our map at hand. The scriptures are our companion in this effort as are prayer and meditation and love for our fellow travelers. When we ready ourselves with scripture, prayer and outreach, when our lives are examples of Christian preparedness, others will notice. Some will make fun of us, as our daughter’s co-workers did, but they will notice. And when the time is right, they will want to be prepared, too. And they will know that we have already given thought to this, and they may then turn to us. I’m not suggesting that we go around warning people of God’s coming judgment, but I am saying that when we have the peace that comes from being prepared, others will notice.
In the last section of the gospel passage, Jesus relates a short parable: “Keep awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.”
We live in the shadow of eternity. This shadow affects all that we do, and it is into this shadow that we pray. The theologian Suzanne Guthrie addresses this with her own sense of the source of prayer when she says, “Prayer arises out of the awareness of mortality, rather than the promise of eternal life. Praying begins not so much as a response to a secret, inner spiritual call, but rather to the worldly threat of change, personal cataclysm, or impending death. The soul recoils into a state of prayer. Prayer begins not so much in piety as in panic.” She goes on to comment, “Perhaps every prayer in its essence is a cry uttered at the end of the world. Perhaps the end of the world bears every prayer ever murmured,” and she concludes, “I want to learn to pray so that my last moment might be prayer and not a hollow gasp.”[1]
Day by day we live; whether we live in the moment or by avoiding the moment is up to us. The goal is to so live that it does not matter when God comes. This thought gives us the great task of making every day fit for God to see and being at any moment ready to meet God face to face. All life, as all prayer, becomes a preparation to meet our God.
Advent is an expectant season indeed. Yes, we are waiting for the birth of the Holy Babe. But the scriptures remind us that we are also waiting for the coming of God. And we need to be ready, every day. Advent is a special time of preparation; it is a gift to us to prepare—with God’s grace—to watch, to await, to be ready.
So here come my thoughts on New Year’s resolutions. As we begin this new church year, this is the best day of our lives to begin to get ready. This very day we can start putting our preparedness kit together by resolving to study scripture every day, to set aside time for prayer every day, to gather together as God’s holy people on Sundays, and to reach out every day to our brothers and sisters in need. If we do, when we come to the end of the day, we will have lived it as if it were our only day, which, in fact, every day is. Advent is an opportunity for each of us to ponder just how we can best prepare for the coming of God. What does it look like to you, to me, to be ready? How specifically can you, how can I resolve to be ready? And what will these resolutions provide for us? I’d like to quote Suzanne Guthrie once more: “ . . . when the skies open for the last time and the Son of Man comes on clouds from the horizon, I want to look with longing, not fear, toward the horizon.”[2] This is the season of preparation; let’s get on with it.
[1] Guthrie, Suzanne. Grace’s Window: Entering the Seasons of Prayer. Cowley, 1996. pp. 4-5
[2] Ibid.
Hope and Longing
by The Rev. Canon Susan Sommer
My best friend Shawn has all of her Christmas shopping done now. It’s hard for me to be civil to her under those circumstances, but I give her the benefit of the doubt. Especially since the bulk of her shopping this weekend was for someone identified only by the initial M. Each year, Shawn’s church receives the names & wish lists of children from one of the Episcopal Charities serving at-risk families in the Chicago area. Many of these children have been abused or neglected. Some are orphans. Parishioners at Shawn’s church are invited to take a name and buy one or two of the gifts. Each year, one or two tags are left behind, usually because the items wished for are too expensive. And that’s when Shawn steps in with her rector’s discretionary fund. This year, she told me, she was buying for a 14-year-old girl known simply as M. In order of preference she wanted an all-terrain bike or a necklace made of real gold, or a White Sox jacket would be good.
Whoever M is, her story cannot be a happy one. So where did she learn to wish extravagantly like this? Had she perhaps been told that the people in the suburbs who would receive her list were as naive as they were wealthy? Did she get how expensive the items were? Was it with street-wise cynicism that she asked for what she did, sure in the knowledge that it would never come her way, just as probably nothing much good has ever come her way? Or, on the other hand, did she simply figure, “What the heck? They asked me what I want. Here it is.”
I share my musings about this anonymous young woman because it occurs to me that in her list of longed-for gifts, she revealed something very important about the season of Advent. Advent is, after all, a season of hope and a season of longing. We hear it in our reading from Isaiah this evening. The people of Israel have returned from Exile. Their city was in ruins, their temple was destroyed. They should have been utterly without hope, and yet the prophet proclaims, "Yet, O Lord, you are our Father." Or consider the hope and longing in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. Here, Paul gives thanks to God for the grace that God has given to the Church, even as they were embroiled in all manner of controversy and error. We hear that hope and longing, even amid the apocalyptic language in our Gospel today, where Jesus promises his disciples that the Day of the Lord is at hand and will be absolutely unmistakable, even if God alone knows only when it might happen.
Where did Isaiah learn to hope so extravagantly? The people had been exiled for two generations by the Babylonians, and that experience had shaken them to their very foundations. Was God even listening? As for Paul, well, when he wasn't imprisoned at the hands of the Roman authorities, he spent most of his time straightening out the messes that the churches he'd founded had gotten into. Doesn't exactly sound like the basis for the hope and the longing that nonetheless shines through in the opening words of his letter.
And what of us, who hear these accounts year after year in Advent? Do we have yet within us the capacity for extravagant hopefulness ourselves? Or with far less provocation than “M” probably experienced in her young life, have we learned instead to edit our dreams, and scale back our hopes? Are our prayers cautious and our expectations less than great? It wouldn’t be too surprising if that were the case. There is much in a world to engender not a sense of hope but of bleak cynicism. We’ve learned too many lessons the hard way, in the words of that old 60's tune, “you won’t get there, a-wishin’ and a-hopin’.”
And yet hope is the byword of our Christian existence. It is a decision for reality which we make, consciously or unconsciously, every day of our lives. And more so than perhaps in most other seasons, Advent invites us into a place of extravagant, perhaps even unreasonable, hopefulness. If ever there was a time to take God’s invitation at face value, it is now. You ask me what I want, God? Here it is -- let me write it in bold letters on bright red paper: You, whose name is hallowed -- I want your Kingdom to come. I want your will to be done on earth as in heaven. I want to be nourished by you so that I can grow and be the person you created me to be. I want you to forgive my sins because that’s the only way I can ever do this forgiveness thing with other people. And when the darkness closes in around me and I find myself choking in a place of fearful emptiness, I want you to save me and deliver me into the brightness of your presence again. I wouldn’t ask this of you, God, except that all reality -- the Kingdom, the power, and the glory -- flows from you and is of you. And on that, my God, I pin my hope.
For Christians to hope extravagantly is to put our heart’s desire out there in full view. It is to stand ready to receive the grace of God, without managing the time frame or the process by which it comes to us. Make no mistake -- Advent is hard work for those of us who like to hedge our bets and keep our vulnerability well protected.
Good thing we’ve got role models like “M” to teach us how God would have us be.