Advent 1 2015

1 Advent 2015

At the beginning of this month, as some of you may recall, Christianity in America came under yet another grievous attack. Coffee juggernaut and cultural beverage icon Starbuck’s fired the first shot of this year’s War on Christmas by introducing plain red cups for the season.

Advocates and watchdogs for the Christian faith, thankfully, spoke out against this outrage pointing out that such cups not only watered down the message of faith inherent in Christmas, but simply ignored it. 

Since the events of early November, a number of Evangelicals (seeking no attention for themselves, I’m sure) have made statements in media and written articles about this attack. Their fear, and all of our fears could very well be realized in our own day, that without the winsome designs of snowpeople, frolicking reindeer, and Santa Claus—the faith that is central to this season may continue to see its decline. How can we hope to share the stories of our faith with others, or even our children if the images so essential to this season and our faith are missing from Starbucks’ cups?  And given the lack of response from the general public, it would seem that the Christian faith may simply have to suffer this persecution in silence.

Of course, there would be some people who might consider this sort of thing with Starbucks’ to be signs of the “End Times.”  Nevermind that throughout the centuries Christendom has experienced any number of real dangers—persecution by Rome, regular hordes of invading barbarians, the Spanish Inquisition (which no one ever expects…).

But make no mistake, so long as there are companies who offer seasonal décor for their products—there will doubtless be some outcry from a particular segment of Christendom claiming an affront. Usually it’s the same segment in these cases.

Kidding aside, however, what I do think this incident with Starbucks’—or even a couple of years ago when everybody was getting yelled at for saying “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”—what I think all of this does highlight is how (maybe not difficult), but how weird it is to live out one’s faith intentionally. What I mean by this is that whether it’s perceived affront to our faith, or even the industry of religious products that are supposed to make our faith more fulsome and focused—the way of being faithful is not self-evident, and it takes work, especially for those of us who want to live out this faith in a real way.

I’ve just started to re-read a book called Benedict’s Dhamra: Buddhists Reflect on the Rule of St. Benedict. As many of you know The Rule of St. Benedict is a sixth century monastic rule of life. And though there have been reforms within the Benedictine tradition, The Rule itself remains a constant in a number of monastic communities.

Anyway, in this book, four different Buddhist practitioners from different Buddhist traditions have written essay reflections of different parts of Benedict’s Rule. Interestingly enough, they all talk about how familiar The Rule sounds to them, even from their religious context. This familiarity they say is the difficulty of balancing religious life and practice with the demands of daily life and work.

As the books states “Monastic life is structured to implement renunciation (2).” One writer, Joseph Goldstein, points out that “the Buddha said, ‘The monastic’s way is easy.’ The layperson’s way is hard. In American culture, renunciation isn’t reinforced at all. It’s not considered a virtue (2).”    

In other words, monastic lifestyle is structured to carve out space and time to focus on the life of faith. It is shaped by certain expectations and commitments which are shared and embodied by other monks—and together this community works toward spiritual growth as they conform their lives to the Rule of life.

What’s interesting is that the Latin and Greek roots of the “Rule” (in the case of The Rule of St. Benedict) translates as “trellis.” So, ideally rather than the rule of life being applied to one’s life, instead we allow our lives to grow upon a rule of life (a “trellis”) so that it can be supported for healthy growth.

But we might wonder, for those of us who are not monks, how this either fits our experience and expression of faith—or even how something like this might be possible for people who live outside of a monastic context. After all, as one of the other writers (Judith Simmer-Brown) points out “The claustrophobia of domestic life and a job and parenthood and being married and…the demands of every aspect of…life—are really a kind of monastic discipline (2-3).”

  

Simply put, our daily lives have their rhythm and shape. Whether we live or work with other people, family members, spouses, children—or even in a close-knit neighborhood, school or even work—all of us are part of some kind of community. And whether we’re aware of it or not, we’re shaped by the people within these circles of life. So, for us, as people of faith, we find ourselves needing a pretty strong sense of discipline if we’re interested in a vital, and growing life of faith. What’s more we have to do it without any sort of “rule of life” to guide or shape us.

But then again, while we may not have a Rule, per se—we do have a kind of “trellis.” We do have a kind of structure in our lives that allow us to grow our spiritual lives, if we’re willing to apply our lives to it. We have a few things, in fact…

Probably the most concise guide we have for faith is the Baptismal Covenant. Here we have outlined the promises made in baptism which both affirm the claims of our Christian faith, but also call out the responsibilities that come with being a Christian. So, if we’re ever looking for what it is that we’re called to do or be as Christians—the Baptismal Covenant is a great reminder.

Secondly, I think we cannot forget how important a faith community is in shaping and forming  our own individual faith. Ideally our faith community is a place where we’re reminded of our identity as followers of Jesus—but we’re also reminded of those things in the world which need our attention and prayer.

We’re also called to action in church, whether it is to respond to matters throughout the world, or even respond to situations represented by the people of the congregation, we call one another to be accountable to the demands of a vital and living faith.

Finally, our tradition offers a number of other supports for us to grow our spiritual lives. We have a Prayer Book which contains not only all of the forms for our worship together—but it also has Prayer Offices which can be used up to four times a day, and include scripture readings for each day. We have liturgical worship which gives shape to the way we come together to worship God—and at the same time highlights certain aspects of our faith through ceremonials like baptism and Eucharist. We even measure our calendar with liturgical seasons, each one resonating with the natural cycles of seasons and life—but also focusing on particular aspects of our relationship to God through Jesus Christ.

The point is, I think, that while the work of cultivating and growing our spiritual lives may be difficult, even seemingly impossible for those of us who live in the world—we ought to be encouraged that we’re not left without a guide, or even a rule of life. In fact, as Episcopalians, we have a wealth of resources available to us to help us to grow in our faith. After all, Jesus warns against us being “distracted by the worries of this life,” something that is done best when we are focused, rooted, and centered in our faith.

  

What’s more, faith in America is already a pretty convoluted subject. There are always complexities that arise from different religions, ethnicities, and even varieties within ethnic and religious groups living within one country. And rather than finding combined strength from the core values of these various faith traditions—instead we find nominalism (where people don’t really care about their faith), or radicalism (where faith is twisted into something wicked and evil).

What this confirms for me is that there is no room for religion or faith that is empty. We simply cannot exist—in fact we’re just taking up room—if people of faith are not committed to grow and share the good that comes from their faith. And as people who bear the message of the transformative power of God’s love and mercy, we have no excuse for simply playing at our faith…otherwise, things like “Seasons Greetings,” or coffee cups without snowmen become matters of religious persecution, meanwhile a world starving for the transformational love of God is left neglected on our watch. This is unacceptable, and is exactly what an unbelieving world finds so unbelievable.

Today we begin the season of Advent. This is a time of preparation, and anticipating the return of Jesus. For the Church, this marks the beginning of a new liturgical cycle—a new year. May this time of preparation be for us a time of cultivating our faith, and doing our part to change the world.