November 29, 2015
Happy Thanksgiving, and welcome to the Advent Season; the beginning of the time of expectation for the birth of Jesus. It is a blessing to be here together today, and to notice the start of this season of our calendar. I have the benefit of being asked to share this Sunday, so I have to be here today, however, on other years I’ve realized that I’ve accidentally missed the beginning of Advent. Many people travel on this weekend and there is so much attention to “The Holidays” that if we’re not careful, we mindlessly slump into the Christmas season with a food baby from too much turkey, pie, and mashed potatoes and roll right into the consumerism of Christmas. However, the readings for today reveal a very different and unique purpose for this season.
Ann Barnett spoke last week about the end times, and keeping hope and life through the darkness. We’ve just contemplated the “end of the time, or the world” and then go right to the beginning again with the expectation of new life. We observe the same liturgical calendar every year, repeating the same key seasons and events. Advent: the expectation of birth and new life, Epiphany: the revelation of the gift of life among us, Lent: solidarity in suffering, Holy Week: actual suffering, Easter: Life triumphs with resurrection, Pentecost: Life in us/alongside us. I’m struck by how applicable this is to our normal lives. We experience these phases in our own lives in a smaller sense, too. It often does not feel like a smooth or natural flow from one phase to the next, and sometimes multiple phases happen at once. A new job, a child graduating from school, a new relationship, the passing of a loved one, a difficult boss, uncertainty about the next step, the birth of a child, financial stress, a new mission, etc. At times there are no warning signs, of each season, but we do experience them all in our own ways. In Advent we’re warned to notice the expectation, the signs of what is to come. We’re reminded that how we perceive the future influences how we live in the present.
The Old Testament scripture tells of the coming of Jesus, “Watch for this: The time is coming [God’s Decree] when I will keep the promise I made to the families of Israel and Judah. When that time comes, I will make a fresh and true shoot sprout from the David-Tree.” (Jeremiah 33”14-15, The Message) Jeremiah talks about a shoot sprouting, the little plant coming up, fulfilling the promise, bringing safety and justice. In the gospel message Jesus warns of the end times (again), of the sky and the Earth wearing out, and the Son of Man being welcomed again, the second coming of Christ. He tells us that the signs will be like leaves showing on a tree, signaling that summer is coming. And he says when this happens, “…you know God’s kingdom is about here.” (Luke 21:31b, The Message) He also warns to take this seriously and says that this is for the present generation, as well as future generations.
Sky and earth will wear out; my words won’t wear out. But be on your guard. Don’t let the sharp edge of your expectation get dulled by parties and drinking and shopping. Otherwise, that Day is going to take you by complete surprise, spring on you suddenly like a trap, for it’s going to come on everyone, everywhere, at once. So, whatever you do, don’t go to sleep at the switch. Pray constantly that you will have the strength and wits to make it through everything that’s coming and end up on your feet before the Son of Man.” (Luke 21:33-36, The Message)
“God’s kingdom is about here… Don’t let the sharp edge of your expectation get dulled by parties and drinking and shopping.” (Luke 21:31b, 34) The intention of this season is to practice contemplation and simplicity so that we can notice the signs of hope and be ready for them when they arrive. How hard to do from today through December 25th! We must be aware of this though, because if not our senses will be dulled.
I’m grateful to see these signs of hope already in our community, neighborhoods, institutions, and friends. In the epistle reading Paul gives thanks for the community of followers in Thessalonica, and the solidarity that they have together. He describes not being able to give enough thanksgiving for the joy they feel in knowing their community. He asks for God to “clear the road” to them, that they may be connected easily to each other. That love will splash around on them and everyone around them. What a beautiful image. I notice particularly Paul’s identification of the feeling of joy from their community. We talk about Joy in this season and rightly so. However, where do we think it comes from, or how do we get it, or give it?
I think that joy is the evidence or sign of life. And this is what we hope for, expect, and await in this season. But what will actually come or happen on Christmas Day? Jesus will not be physically born, that has already happened. But rather, we simply notice and become more aware of the life that is being renewed in us, and around us. “God’s kingdom is about here.” Where do we see it?
I share time in the L’Arche community at Ontario House, several blocks from here. I know that this place is a sign of this new life. Some of you here have known L’Arche for a very long time, and others learned much more about it a few weeks ago when James and Francine from the Arlington communities shared beautifully about their experiences there. For those who don’t have an introduction to it, it is communities with and for adults with and without intellectual disabilities, sharing life together. Earlier this week Michael Schaff and I went on an errand and while walking I asked him what he thought about the season of Advent. He said, “It’s a time to pray.” And then he grinned and rubbed his hands together and said, “And we get to light the candles.” How clear, we pray, and we light the candles in expectation of the arrival of Christ. Thank you Michael for such a beautiful description of this time.
When learning about L’Arche people tend to realize at a certain point that the L’Arche homes that exist don’t meet the need for providing homes and belonging for all people with intellectual disabilities, really only a small portion. And to that we respond that L’Arche is only supposed to be a “sign of hope, a light in the darkness” not the answer for everyone. Sometimes, I think people are disappointed with this answer, because it doesn’t fully solve the problem (and sometimes I am, too). But it does offer an example and witness that we need to see.
Sometimes in this neighborhood I feel overwhelmed by an abundance of these examples of signs of the kingdom of God. Faithful presence is lived out in so many organizations and communities in radical ways across class, intellectual ability, age, race, physical health, mental health, and on. And we see which signs invite us to participate, paying mind to the process of the journey, to the road. In this season we are called to the practice of awaiting and noticing these signs of life around us, so that we’re better able to respond to them when we see them in our normal lives. This is how we cultivate a “sharp edge to our expectation.” The attention to the birth and arrival of baby Jesus, and the pregnancy of Mary, is a way for us to connect to the birth of new life in the world today, or coming soon. But of course, this is not easy! And sometimes we block our own vision. It is important to be together in this pursuit of contemplation and action because this is quite counter to the common culture (especially at Christmastime) and God is realized in our communion with one another. In Community & Growth, Jean Vanier, shares about a member of the L’Arche community realizing this:
The other day, Colleen, who has been living in community for more than twenty-five years, told me: “I have always wanted to be transparent in community life. I have wanted more than anything to avoid being an obstacle to God’s love for the others. Now I am beginning to discover that I am an obstacle and I always shall be. But isn’t the recognition that I am an obstacle, sharing that with my brothers and sisters and asking their forgiveness, what community life is all about?” – Jean Vanier, Community & Growth, pp. 18
We are each obstacles to our own hopes for life together. But we cannot enter into life together without ourselves, and the recognition that we’re obstacles helps to soften the barrier and free us. I know that there is much forgiveness and hope in the 8th Day community. “…God’s kingdom is about here.” (Luke 21:31b, The Message) Whether or not we experience (or even believe in) the second coming of Christ, this message is still relevant for our time. As Jesus reminds us, “Don’t brush this off: I’m not just saying this for some future generation, but for this one, too – these things will happen. Sky and Earth will wear out; my words won’t wear out.” (Luke 21: 32-33, The Message) Jean Vanier also articulates this renewed hope present here and now:
A new hope is indeed being born today. Some people are dreaming of Christian civilization as it used to be; they dream of chivalry; they sense that the power of egoism, hatred and violence is reaching everywhere. Others want to harness these forces of violence to break up the old world of private property and “bourgeois” wealth. And finally, some see in the cracks of our civilization the seeds of a new world. Individualism and technology have gone too far; the illusion of a better world based on economics and technique is evaporating. Across these cracks, some human hearts are being reborn and discovering that there is hope within, and not outside, them – a hope that they can today love and create community because they believe in Jesus Christ. A renaissance is coming. Soon there will be a multitude of communities founded on adoration and presence to the poor, linked to each other and to the great communities of the church, which are themselves being renewed and have already been journeying for years and sometimes centuries. A new church is indeed being born.
In our time, when there is so much infidelity, when there are so many broken marriages, so many disturbed relationships, so many children who are angry with their parents, so many people who have not been faithful to their vows, more and more communities need to be born as signs of fidelity. Communities of students or friends who come together for a time can be signs of hope. But the communities whose members live a covenant with God, among themselves and above all with the poor who surround them, or live with them, are more important still. They are becoming signs of the fidelity of God.
The Hebrew word hesed expresses two things: fidelity and tenderness. In our civilization we can be tender but unfaithful, and faithful without tenderness. The love of God is both tenderness and fidelity. Our world is waiting for communities of tenderness and fidelity. They are coming. – Jean Vanier, Community & Growth, pp. 48
I’m encouraged by the legacy of the Church of the Saviour, and know that many of the communities we have today are the fruit of the work of tenderness and fidelity, or faithful presence. I must give credit for the phrase faithful presence to James Davison Hunter from the book, To Change The World, which Fred Taylor, Betsy Baker, David Hilfiker, and some of my housemates and friends fumbled through in a book group a couple of years ago. Hunter calls Christians to a life of faithful presence to their communities, institutions, relationships, churches, neighborhoods, families, etc as the only real authentic way to living out their faith, with the hope of possibly changing the world for the better.
“The practice of faithful presence, then, generates relationships and institutions that are fundamentally covenantal in character, the ends of which are the fostering of meaning, purpose, truth, beauty, belonging, and fairness – not just for Christians but for everyone. –James Davison Hunter, To Change The World, pp. 263
This is not really the glorious, adventurous answer that I (and my peers), as an idealistic and hopeful twenty-something, was expecting to find. However, the more time I spend with the L’Arche community, 8th Day, in this neighborhood, with my family and dear ones, the more I see that this is true. The kingdom is waiting to arrive, right here. Will we notice when it comes and join in? Today I am full of thanks, on the look-out for joy, hopeful for silence, and wanting to be together in this season. May the hope of Jesus’ birth and new life be alive in each of us.
Amen.