First Sunday in Advent
Year A, RCL
December 2, 2007
All Saints’, Bentonville
Gospel:
Jesus said to the disciples, "But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour."
Epistle:
You know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; 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.
Happy New Year! If you are new to a liturgical tradition, this greeting may come as something of a surprise. As you know, for most of the secular world, the New Year begins on January 1st. For the church, however, the calendar year begins today on the First Sunday in Advent, in the days leading up to Christmas. “Keep awake” we were told in the Gospel reading, “for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming”. Well, we know what day we are going to celebrate the first coming of our Lord – it will be upon us soon – December 25th. But the admonition to “Keep awake” is still the best advice we can receive during this Advent Season.
We also heard in Paul’s letter to the Romans, “You know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep.” There is a trend in watches, now that few of us actually need them, because we have the time on our cell phones, toward minimalism. There are watches that are equipped with hands, but no numbers, so you just have to remember where the numbers are. There is a German watch called The Uno, with only the hour hand, requiring you to sort of guess what time it is. Ticking away, isn’t that an odd phrase now? In an era in which clocks no longer tick, our digital watches allow time to just slip by, we can move from the past, through the present, and into the future without even noticing that the precious gift of our lives is being squandered. My favorite watch, however, is the “Now” watch. it has no hands, no digital readout, only the following inscription on the face, “Now.”
Now…now is the moment for us to wake up from our slumber and be watchful.
Something important is stirring among us. It has been noted that within Christianity a major change has occurred about every 500 years. In the first century we have the birth of Christ and the apostle Paul’s spread of our faith. Around the year 500 the birth of monasticism took place, enabling Christianity to spread throughout Europe, and take on a depth of meaning and resilience that allowed it to survive the Dark Ages. Around the year 1000, there was the great schism between the Eastern and Western church. Around the year 1500, Martin Luther’s actions in defiance of the Pope brought about the Protestant Reformation. And here we are 500 years later – and something is stirring. Something is happening within the larger church that we need to pay attention to. It is a time to be watchful concerning great events, but we really can’t predict what form these changes might take. And there is probably little we can do about them. What we can do, however is wake up to our current existence.
We can learn to be present to the moment, and present to one another.
What if the buzz about the people of All Saints’ was, “You know, those people are fully present. When I speak with members of All Saints’, it is as if I am the only person in their lives.” When I think of the people that have made an impression on me, the ones who stand out are the ones who are awake. Those who are fully present even in a world of distractions. We don’t know at what point someone, some Christ, will walk into our lives and change them, if we are ready to receive.
The time of Advent is a time of waiting and expectation. A time to keep your eyes open for the coming of the Son of Man, now… today.
Just over 30 years ago, in the course of a single day, I had three seemingly commonplace, but rather extraordinary encounters. Our extended travels across Mexico had taken a friend and me to the Sonoran city of Chihuahua. We had camped out in the desert the night before beneath stars so bright that it hurt our eyes to look at them. I was cooking our simple dinner on a small kerosene stove and, accidentally, spilled the stove and the food and burned my fingers very badly. I foolishly wrapped my hands in bandages and spent a fitful night, waiting for morning, on the desert floor. The next day we made our way into the town of Chihuahua and located La Cruz Roja – the Red Cross. The memory of that pain filled morning has thankfully faded, but I retain an image of the compassionate face of the young nurse who attended me. Seeing that my self-applied bandages were firmly adhered to my weeping and now dried wounds, she quietly gasped at the prospect of removing them. With the greatest care, and taking more time than a waiting room full of sick patients seemed to allow, she slowly, gently loosened each crusted piece of gauze from the burned flesh beneath it. The pain was bearable only because I could see in this young woman’s face that she shared it, felt it, and was with me through each agonizing moment.
A few hours later I was sitting on a bench in la plaza, the town square – nursing my wounds and feeling rather sorry for myself. My friend and I were approached by two vivacious teenage girls who wished to practice their English. We agreed and in no time were engaged in a delightful conversation. They spoke in their best English and we spoke in our best Spanish. And we laughed at each others mistakes – particularly when I asked if their city, Chihuahua, was named after the small dog. After a while they left and then returned, having asked their mother if they could bring the two American boys they had found on the square, home for lunch. We eagerly agreed, having visions of a home cooked Mexican meal – as a couple of Texans raised on Tex-Mex knew the cuisine – frijoles, enchiladas, tacos, homemade tortillas. We were starving at the prospect. An hour later we were gathered round their dining table, sharing their hospitality. Their father, home for lunch from his work as a pharmacist, was kind and inquisitive. Their mother smiled easily, laughed often and filled the room with her graciousness. But the food – to our complete dismay – consisted of ham, potatoes, rolls, and a lettuce and tomato salad. She had prepared for her guests the food that she imagined two American boys away from home would want. She missed with the menu, we were hoping for more exotic fare, but the entire family was present to us in the way that Christ asks us to be present to all we meet. They were ready for our arrival - at an unexpected hour.
Later in the afternoon of that same day, seeking diversion as young men do, we stumbled upon a makeshift museum just off the square. The museum exhibited one item and one personality. The artifact was the bullet-riddled black sedan, in which the famed Mexican revolutionary, Poncho Villa, met his violent death. The personality, the museum’s curator, docent, and attendant was, or so she claimed to be, his widow. Her hair was white and her flawless complexion nearly as bright. She was a handsome woman, who stood as erect as her 90 year old bones would allow. Head held high, haughty, you might call her. She told the story of the American invasion of her country and her husband’s courageous fight to liberate the Mexican paisanos. The facts of Pacho Villa’s revolution seemed a little sketchy, but her admiration for her long dead husband, and the pride she felt at being a part of a great struggle, was conveyed within her quiet but strong voice and her aristocratic bearing. Her story held us spellbound, not so much because of its content, but because of its teller. She lived the tale, and was as present to us as, that afternoon in Chihuahua, as she must have been to the Villistas as they rode their commandeered trains across the empty Sonoran desert sixty years earlier.
Travel has a way of waking us up. It raises our sense of expectation. We wait for an encounter with something new, something different. When we travel we are anticipating the unexpected. As a result we are prepared for meaningful encounters. We more readily awaken to an encounter with a new face of Christ when we are traveling. That same kind of receptivity to new encounters with the Divine can happen when we regard our journey through life as a pilgrimage.
Possible encounters with Christ abound, if we awaken to them. The coming of the Kingdom, and our encounter with the Son of Man, doesn’t have to be accompanied by the cataclysmic events of an imagined endtime.
St. Paul’s admonition: “Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light” is our challenge this Advent season to regard the days before Christmas as a pilgrimage, a journey filled with hope and expectation, and a journey in which the fulfillment of that hope is found in the face of every Christ who crosses our path.