Advent 1A 2019

Romans 13:11-14

Matthew 24:36-44

The Rev. Dr. Kathy Kelly

 

Well, the seasonal rush is on. It seems that every year our culture gets into a flurry during the 4th quarter.  This starts sometime between when the first Halloween decorations go up, which is apparently now as early as July, and it doesn’t calm down until along about January 2nd when the holidays are officially over.  No wonder we then collapse and get the blahs during January and February.

Amid all the increased activity during this chaotic season, I have seen more images of chaos on social media.  Last week I watched old footage of a brief video of a weather girl trying to report a hurricane from within the active hurricane itself.  You can barely see her with all the rain and high winds and debris flying all around her and her rain coat flapping and she’s screaming into the microphone at the top of her voice to tell us that the weather is really bad out here! Why do they do that?

Then, suddenly a stop sign still attached to its pole comes flying by and smacks up against her and knocks her down.  I assume she was not hurt by this.  She jumped right back up and didn’t seem injured.  But I had to laugh at the irony.  Is this a signnnn?  Or maybe we should already know to seek shelter during stormy weather!

Today is the first Sunday of Advent. It is a sort of New Year’s Day since it is the first Sunday of the year in our liturgical calendar. This is also the beginning of Year A, so it’s also the beginning of the three year cycle in our lectionary. So with this theme of new beginnings, we are supposed to be talking about hope for the future rather than any sort of holding back of the seasonal rush.

According to many self help bloggers, this is the usual time when we are expected to start experiencing the holiday blues. Like the expectation to decorate early, eat too much and spend too much, our culture has us worried about money and weary from the fear mongering of our times.  It is very easy to catch the blues rather than the Spirit.

To make matters worse, the readings for the first Sunday of Advent are always a bit gloomy.  Of course, as in most story telling, you have to set the scene and remember that the people of the first century church were living in tough times. A bit tougher even than times are now.

When Kate was three, we drove from our them home in South Georgia to Bristol for holiday visits with family. That’s about an eight hour drive with all the extra stops you have to take and, as you know, you have a lot of extra stuff to pack when you’re traveling with young children.

On one particular trip, I spent most of the previous day packing so that we could leave early. So, early the morning of the trip I still had the task of packing the car and this took nearly an hour with Kate toddling around at my feet.

When we finally got her in the carseat in the middle of the back seat, the Jack Russell Terrier in the front seat and all our stuff settled in for the long drive I started the engine and put the car in reverse. As I began to back up out of the driveway, Kate said from the back seat, “Are we there yet?!”

I had to stop and laugh before I could go on. And, as it turns out, my little girl had just told her first joke! She was teasing me with the old adage that kids will drive you crazy with such travel questions.

An hour or so into the trip, though she fell asleep. But I had to stay awake to drive and I had learned why to never stop for a break when the child is sleeping. If you wake her up too early she’ll then need attention that will take even more time from the long trip, and make it seem even a longer time until we are there.

Today’s Gospel lesson is about being prepared, staying awake and ready. Like all Advent lessons, this is about preparing for the coming of the Lord. It is not, as we have come to think, about getting ready for our Christmas feast. It is about learning to live at all times in a sort of readiness for the act of God coming into the world, then and now.

It is a time for the renewal of our relationship with the God who comes into the world, now, at this moment, at each and every moment.

Advent is about hope.

I recently watched the movie Passengers in which Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt are passengers on a futuristic space ship which is traveling 120 years to a new colony planet and all the passengers have been put into a medical state of hibernation in which you don’t age while asleep. I know, a bit much for extended disbelief, but if you can stay with that set up the two stars wake up 90 years too early partly because of a collision with an asteroid that causes problems with the fully automatic vessel. So, they are stuck in real time while the rest of the ship, crew included are still in hibernation mode. They cannot wake the crew and not going crazy seems to be their goal until fixing the ship becomes possible. It’s a good movie as sci-fi movies go.

It really fits with today’s Gospel though. Fantasy and sci-fi films come from our imagining of what the future might hold. We can’t help ourselves from pondering such things. We tend, in fact to live too much in the future. (That is, when we’re not living too much in the past.)

But Jesus says to not worry about trying to figure out the when and where of the future. Jesus instead says that we are to stay awake - now. Watch out fo what we learned from the great flood. Watch out for thieves in the night. Watch out for kidnappings!

It is an oft used misinterpretation of Biblical images like these, however, to use such lists of examples of why to be prepared as a means of fear mongering. Passages like this passage from Matthew (according to one scholar) have become “associated with the “Left Behind” series which takes these texts to refer to “the rapture,” when believers are airlifted out of the world while the rest of humankind suffers tribulation. And there’s lots of movies about that out too. Ron Allen https://goo.gl/Ox0U3g

In reminiscing about the traditions in her own home, of Advent calendars and Advent wreaths with specially colored candles, Diana Butler-Bass reminded me in one of her blogs that Advent calendars are a token of an ancient religious practice to mark sacred time. She says that this is one of the few aspects of the upcoming holiday season that remains nearly untouched by secularization or consumerism. So, for Christians, Advent is a time of waiting, listening and preparing - again - for the birth of Jesus. It is not a time for preparing for the celebration of presents and turkey dinners and decorating and baking and all that fuss.

In the Episcopal Church we practice the belief that the Holy Spirit is now. God incarnate is now.

The Holy Spirit is active in our lives at this and every moment. When we celebrate the Eucharist, we tell the story, we remember the past and the future - His death, His resurrection and His expected coming again. And at the moment when the priest breaks the bread we are filled with the experience of the remembrance that Christ died for us. At that moment, we simultaneously experience crucifixion and resurrection. The Holy Spirit is now. The Holy Spirit, the coming of God into the world, because of these acts of God in history, is happening right now.

And Diana Butler-Bass, seminary professor and well published theologian knows that.

But in her blog about all this she spoke of her own tendency for holiday depression.  She made lists too. She listed all the recent national problems that left her feeling personally down, as well as many of her friends and those she meets on social media. She listed all the things to be sad about these days. She focused on politics, hate crimes, division and violence and said, that she is, right now “just sad: blue,” she said, “really blue.”

So, she has decided to practice Advent with all blue candles in her Advent wreath instead of purple and pink.  She said that while shopping for the candles and greenery for her home Advent wreath, she picked up the usual customary colors. The purples, she reminds us symbolize penitence and the pink and white symbolize joy. But because she is personally not feeling very joyful she found herself drawn to some blue candles and bought four of those instead. Because blue is the color of sadness. Diana is having a blue Advent.

Our culture pressures us join the chaotic rush at this time of the year and holiday depression is on the rise because of this. The busy-ness of life increases and we seem to be celebrating chaos and despair instead of peace, love and joy.

But Diana is on to something. You see, in the medieval church the color for Advent was blue.  You may have seen this in other churches in recent years who are making the switch to blue from purple. For the church in the 10th century - and this was mostly a tradition in England and we and the Lutherans have carried it forward ever since - the color blue was the color for hope. So the color blue was the color for Advent.

Advent is not about penance, like Lent. It is of a different spiritual hue: It is a time of waiting, of expectation, of hope in the darkness. The blue candles symbolize the color of the sky right before dawn, that time when the deepest dark is just infused with hints of light. Advent is about hope.

Blue holds the promise that the sun will rise, and that even after the bleakest, coldest, longest night, the light will break forth, as the new day arrives.

Blue may be the color of sadness, but blue is also the color of hope.

Many faiths and religious traditions have sacred days or times of waiting, of anticipation, of the expectation of enlightenment — that light breaks through the night. Diwali, Hanukkah, Winter Solstice. Those sorts of holy days are celebrated when darkness surrounds, when all seems lost. When we hurt and think we have been abandoned, when all promises seem broken. That is when we light candles against the night, trusting and believing that a greater light will arise. When a single flame becomes a conflagration of compassion and justice. And hope.

For Christians, Advent is not a time of opening up little windows with chocolates as we await the really big booty of presents under the tree on Christmas morning. That is not what we are waiting for. We are waiting for light, for God to renew and heal the world, a promise that we understand to have been mysteriously embodied in a baby born in a manger.

Advent recognizes a profound spiritual truth — that we need not fear the dark. Instead, wait there. Under that blue cope of heaven, alert for the signs of dawn. Watch. For you cannot rush the night. But you can light some candles. Sing some songs. Recite poetry. Say prayers. Diana Butler Bass

So, my friends, this is my hope for you this year as you face yet another season of challenges. We may face adversities and big changes in the months and years to come but the Holy Spirit is now. The Incarnation is now. God’s coming into the world is always now.

So lay your blue candles at the altar and keep watch, keep awake, stay hopeful for God has already come into the world and nothing can separate us from that fact, that love, that peace and that joy.

Amen.

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