Romans 13: 11-14
Good morning to all this Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend, as we've
finally had our first real taste of the winter. And especially after that football game on
Thursday night. Ice melter in a tub on the front porch and
snow shovel retrieved from the garage, and here we go. A long winter ahead, though perhaps still
something to look forward to in the direction of the Stanley Cup, and with
tickets on sale this week for the home opener against the Chicago Cubs on
Monday, March 31.
And with all that,
radio and t.v. and newspaper filled with Christmas shopping ads, and it is time
once again to say “Happy New Year!”
Still a few weeks until we hear Guy Lombardo playing Auld Lang Syne at
that When Harry Met Sally holiday
party, but this is the Sunday morning, now, today, when the Church Calendar
resets. Back again at the
beginning. Echoes of T.S. Eliot—from
the fifth section of his poem “Little Gidding,” in the Four Quartets. Some of my favorite 20th century
poetry. “We shall not cease from
exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we
started and know the place for the first time.”
Advent Sunday, the beginning of the journey, the old familiar road, from every corner of
our world and of our lives to run on in these weeks through the Bethlehem
Hills, in the dark night, with the choirs of angels singing to the shepherds,
and on then from there week after week.
All the way to Jerusalem and the Cross.
Good Friday, April 18. Through
all the snows of winter. It will be here
before we know it.
There’s a Facebook Group called “the Advent Conspiracy.” I’m not always totally in synch with their
postings, but the basic idea is to be a reminder that for Christians these
Advent weeks are more than just a season for shopping and holiday parties and
excitement about festive gatherings. Not
that we don’t do those things. I hope
you’re all planning to drop in at our Open House next Sunday afternoon! But subversive. Countercultural. Their catchphrase is, "Slow down. Quiet. It's Advent."
In and with it all, a time for bigger
thoughts, deeper thoughts, longer thoughts.
As we hear when our families light the candles on the Advent Wreath each
week, as Joan and Maeve and Ian did for us this morning. There are various themes associated with each
Advent Candle. Prophets and Shepherds,
Mary and the Angels, and so on. But when
you drill down into the history of the season you find that the four weeks were
associated in the classical preaching tradition with the Four Last Things:
Death and Judgment, Heaven and Hell.
Serious business, and I guess not always perfectly aligned with visions of
sugarplums and holiday cheer or being the life of the party. Slow down. Quiet.
For the last five hundred years Anglicans and Episcopalians have prayed
this Collect for Advent Sunday, composed back in the middle of the 16th
century by Archbishop Cranmer. To my
mind, and I've said this before, the highest and most beautiful literary prayer of
our tradition, perhaps of any Christian tradition, weaving these Biblical
phrases into a tapestry. Almighty God,
give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armor of
light. What we might call the
foundation of all New Year Resolutions.
As to follow the old hymn, “Take my life and let it be consecrated,
Lord, to thee.” Repentance. Renewal. Transformation. Standing at the foot of the Cross. Joining our hearts and minds to know and to
receive this gift: his victory over death and the grave. That in the last day, when he shall come
again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise
to the life immortal.
I’m only preaching two Sundays of Advent this year. Next week my and our good friend, the Very
Rev. John Park will be our preacher. He
has just this past summer retired from the mission field and his ministry as
Dean of the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd, in Lima, Peru, and he and Susan
settling in now with life here in Pittsburgh, where Susan is continuing mission
work as a stateside coordinator of short term mission trips. The Sunday after that, December 15, we’ll
have that great moment of this season and the Children’s Pageant of
Christmas. But this morning and again on
the Fourth and last Sunday of Advent I want to pause over two readings from Paul’s
Letter to the Romans. Because Advent is
at its heart a season about lifestyle.
About how we live as Christian people "in the meantime." In a season of waiting. This long season between the night in
Bethlehem and the bright morning of his return in his glorious majesty, as
the collect says. How we live in the
meantime. Allowing his gift to become
incarnate in our lives. Allowing our
lives to be signs in the world of the goodness of new life in him.
This morning, Romans chapter 13, verses 13 and 14, just after the line
in verse 12 that Archbishop Cranmer uses in the Collect, “works of darkness,
armor of light.” Paul goes on, “Let us
live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in
debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and
make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.”
And so to talk about an “Advent Conspiracy.” This whole section of Romans beginning at
the start of Chapter 12 with Paul, “I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the
mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and
acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” And then, “Do not be conformed to this world,
but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the
will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
At the beginning of Chapter 49 of the Rule for Monasteries St. Benedict says that "the life of the monk ought to have about it the character of a Lenten observance." There is something true in that I think for all of us as Christian people, not just monks. But to see this morning something true about that in terms of Advent. Not just four weeks as we roll into winter and shop for the holidays, but as a reminder of what life is really all about. How we all should live, 24/7/365, all the time.
This isn't about imposing on ourselves, or judging others by, some
metric of puritanical austerity. It’s
not about calling the morality police. But
it is about sobering up. You should
pardon the expression. Waking up.
A hard thing to do in a culture
of distraction and denial. About
unplugging from the anesthesia. If you
recall the film a few years ago, “The Matrix,” a sense of this there. As though if we just consumed more things we
would be satisfied. Living in this
unreal daydream of a narcotic existence.
More money will solve my problems.
The next shiny toy. The next new
relationship. If my side wins the next election. Always just needing a little bit more. Pretending that we can live as if there will
be no tomorrow. No accounting, no bottom
line. To get “Adventy” about it: no
death and judgment. No heaven and
hell.
Instead. Opening our eyes and ears and our minds and
our hearts. Our whole selves. Not pouring more fuel onto the fire. We know when we’re doing that. Bonfire of the vanities. Whether it makes a big splash in the wide
world or is something that only we know in the secret of our heart. But waiting for him. Awake.
Trusting in him. Living in a
wholesome present moment. Awake. In a spirit of peace and generosity, honesty,
restraint, and forgiveness. Quietly, and
in moderation. Awake.
Advent Sunday. The door
opens. The road extends before us again all
the way from Bethlehem to Jerusalem. A
fresh start. A new beginning. Here it is this morning: the stable, the creche. If we've ever thought that what we wanted and
needed was a chance to start again. “We
shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to
arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” Again, Advent blessings, and with
encouragement for us all in the New Year ahead.
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