1 Advent 2013
As
you may have guessed by the spiffy blue vestments, today is the first Sunday of
the Season of Advent. Advent as many of you know is the season of preparation,
and each Sunday we light a candle on the Advent wreath to remind us of how many
shopping days we have left until Christmas. So, by the time we get to the pink
“rose” candle, you know that you’ll have to pay extra for shipping on your
internet purchases…
It is a little sad, really. And I
think we laugh because even though it feels so wrong, we know it really is how
things are… After all, our consumerism is fueled by a combination of
thoughtfulness and obligation—all of which is a strange custom of wanting to
give gifts in honor of the gift that our world is given in Jesus Christ. So, while
the ends and means are at sixes and sevens; our basic intentions are good. It’s
just too bad that instead of these intentions drawing us closer to God, as this
season intends—we find ourselves adding more stress and anxiety to lives which
already are about as stable as nervous little dogs…and that’s on a good day.
So, we may ask ourselves at the
start of this season, how we might experience Advent as truly a time of
preparation. I’m not talking about reciting mantras about “the reason for the
season,” or scolding people for writing Christmas with an “X,” or even
demanding that people wish one another a “Merry Christmas,” rather than “Happy
Holidays.” I’m talking about actually using the Season of Advent to prepare a
place in our hearts for the Second Advent of Christ, as we celebrate the First
Advent of his birth.
Now, this can actually be a
difficult thing to do—especially when our faith is already so over
merchandised. I mean this is one of the worst seasons for schmaltzy religious
kitsch. And there’re already enough Rosaries with football beads and pudgy
little angel babies in stores without adding the seasonal stuff to the clutter.
With all of the distraction only
adding to the seasonal chaos, then, we may wonder if it’s possible at all to
find any grounding in our faith during the holiday season.
Honestly, speaking as a clergy
person, I sometimes wonder if it’s possible to get the message out anymore
during Advent…
After all, understanding the significance
of the birth of Jesus to our lives is something that can’t fully be reckoned
until it has been integrated into our lives—and let’s be honest, our culture is
anything but “integrated.” I mean, how many of you can raise your hand to show
that you have at least one, free, unplanned day this week. No meetings,
activities, shopping…I’d like to see your hand. Not many…
Well, I think, the more we realize
how committed our time already is, the more we have to consider that maybe we
don’t even know where to begin to try to be integrated with everything else,
let alone integrate the meaning of the Incarnation of God.
As I was trying to pick up on a
sort of theme to present for this Advent, I was reminded (strangely) of
something about St. Anthony of the Desert. For those of you who aren’t up on
all of the saints from the late 3rd/early 4th Centuries,
Anthony was one of the Desert Fathers—this group of people who left their homes
to live as hermits in the desert, and did their best to live spiritually
disciplined lives. There were even Desert Mothers, although very few of their
teachings were recorded—but, Anthony, was probably the most famous of these
hermits.
Anyway, Anthony lived in a cave in
Egypt called Mt. Colzim, and even today there is a monastery at the foot of the
mountain. But, as for Anthony’s cave, it’s little more than a series of
indentations in the stone. So, Anthony was regularly exposed to all the
elements in the desert: extreme heat in the day, and extreme cold at night.
Apparently, the only place in the whole “cave” that was any real shelter was
the place where Anthony would pray—and this also happened to be the only safe
place when the winds would pick up, and blow through the valley. And according
to some writings, Anthony would regularly have to hide in this cave, because
the winds would pick up to such a force that (if he didn’t have something to
hold onto), he would be blown out into the desert—and probably die from the
fall. So, when the winds picked up, the safest place for him to be was in his
place of prayer.
Now as far as integrated people go,
we may not all agree that Anthony is a great example. However, not only did he
plan his place of prayer to be his sanctuary, he also had the good sense to
more fully immerse himself in his love of God at a time when religion was more
about political expediency than devotion…of course, for Anthony it led him to a
life of being a hermit.
However, if your life is anything
like mine, becoming a hermit, no matter how much faith you have, just may not
be in the cards. After all, monastic life is a calling and a vocation—but then
so are many of the things that we are called to be in our own lives.
As I’ve said a number of times we
have holy vocations to our families, spouses, partners, children. Many of us
believe our respective careers are our vocations—and, of course, the central
vocation that we have is our faith. And it’s from this central vocation of
faith in Jesus Christ that we live more fully into all of the others.
The trouble is, that with all that
comes along with our various vocations, often times, we neglect our vocation of
faith. So, it’s up to us (hermits or not) to find our place of sanctuary when
the winds of life pick up. At the same time, we’re also people of the
Advent—people who live a life of wakefulness and preparation for the return of
Christ. We’re to be people who live as if we expect the Kingdom of God to turn
up in every time and every place.
Unfortunately, because we are not
able to leave everything and find a nice cave somewhere, our biggest challenge
is learning to integrate all of this into our already fragmented lives. But
before we all freak out and think this is impossible, or one more thing that we
can’t possibly add to our lives—I would offer this: living a spiritually
integrated life begins by asking for it, and practicing it.
So, the trick to much of this is
learning that we need integration of faith, and then the work is praying for it
and living into it as best we can, every day. Luckily, we have a number of
resources to help us with the prayer part, as well. We have Prayer Books; we
have a number of small, season devotionals that can be easily carried—and who
knows how many apps there probably are for smartphones. The point is, we have
to begin by knowing we need it, and then asking for it.
My point is this, the Advent, or
coming of Christ in his birth was a kind of end to our world. It was the end of
a world where God was transcendent only, and was too holy to be in any way
immanent (present). In Jesus, we find
the fulfilment of what the Temple in Jerusalem only foreshadowed—God with us.
And as people who await his Second Advent, (that of his return), we prepare for
that Final End—but at the same time, we live on the threshold of a world that
is passing away, and a new one which is emerging as God’s Kingdom becomes
manifest. And this is a powerful thing—that the Kingdom of God is at hand (yes)
and is both already and not yet. But instead of focusing in on this mysterious,
and wonderful promise—we get distracted. I don’t believe this to be through any
fault of our own, but it’s just so easy to fall into the patterns of chaos and
business as usual.
But just as our Gospel Reading
says, no one—not even Harold Camping knows the day or the season. No one knows
when we’ll see the fulfilment of God’s promise—but we’re to live, all the same,
with intention—building one another up in faith. We’re called to ‘wake up’ and
put on Christ—laying aside works of darkness, and turning our focus on the hope
of a world where we will beat our swords into plowshares and spears into
pruning hooks.
So, in the midst of one more
holiday season, it seems our challenge is doubly difficult. Not only do we
need, in the midst of the chaos and consumerism to hold on to some genuine
sense of our faith—but we are also challenged to find more depth of faith, as
well.
However, the grace of the Advent
Season is that we’re invited to prepare a place for Christ in our hearts—to
find a place of sanctuary not only for the Christ Child, but even he who is
promised to come again. A sanctuary that will always be there (giving us
something to hold onto) even when the winds pick up. So, may this Advent be a
beginning for our work of integrating our faith more deeply into the fabric of
our lives. And may we all find a prayerful place where Christ becomes ever more
real, and manifest in our hearts and in our lives.
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